The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-11-30
Was nlled with echoes Of delight.

or that lost land OF reeoy streaHa1
Along whose brim
Forever swim
Pans lilies. laughing up at him.
And stlll the inspired singer held rapt
sway.
1T is WONDERFUL I whispered. under
breath.
OF course it isr' answered my friend.
But listen; there is more:i
But yesterday
o blooms of May
And summer roses-Where-away2
o stars above;
And lips of love,
And all the honeyed sweets thereof
20 lad and lass,
And orchard-pass,
And briared-lane, and daisied grass!
o CLEAN and gloom,
And woodland bloom.
And breezy breaths of all perfumel-
mo more for me
Or mine shall be
Thy raptures-save In memory
No moreno more
Fill through the Door
OF Glory CLEAN the days of yore."
This was the evident conclusion of the
remarkable utterance. and the professor
was impetuously fluttering his hands
about the subjects Notwithstanding eyes,
strolSing his temples, and swapping his
fingers in his face
We'll" said Sweeney, as he stood sud-
| denly awakened, and grinning in an idi-
otto way, how did the old thing work p
And it was in the consequent hilarity and
loud and long applause perhaps that the
professor was relevd from the explana-
! Of
non Of the idealistic workings of purely
practically hrain-or, as my impious
friend scoffed the incongruity later, In a
particularly whitening allusion, as the
''blank-blanked fallaey, don't you know,
OF staying the hunger of bowling mob
by feeding EN- on Spring poetryl"
The tumult of the audience did not cease
even with the retirement of Sweeney, and
cries of 'Hedrickl Hedrlckp' only SUBJ
sided with the professors high-keyed an
nouncement that the subject was even
/ then endeavoring to make himself heard,
but could not until utter quiet was re-
stored, adding the further appeal that
the young man had already been a long
time under the mesmeric spell, and ought
not to be so detained for an unnecessary
period. "See,' he concluded, with an as
surfing wave of the hand toward the SUBJ
Ject, see; he Is about 10 address you.
Now quiet!-utter quiet, If you pleaser'
Great heavensi" exclaimed my friend,
stihingly; just look at the boyl Get onto
that position for a poetl Even Sweeney
has fled from the sight of him!
And truly, too, it was a grotesque pose
the young man had assumed; not wholly
ridiculous either, since the dwarfed posi-
ton ne had settled into seemed more a
genuine physical condition than an affect
ed one. The head, back-tilted, and sunk
between the shoulders, looked abnormally
large, while the features of the face APP
peared peculiarly ehild-like-especially
the eyes-wakeful and wide apart and
very bright, yet very mild and very art
less; and the drawn and cramped outline
of the legs and feet, and of the arms and
hands, all combined to most strikingIy
convey to the panied senses the fragile
frame and pixey figure of some pitiAbly
AFFLICTED child, unconscious altogether OF
the pathos of its own deformity
Nov, mark the kuss Horatiov' gasped
my friend
At first the speakers voice came very
low, and somewhat piping, too, ana
brakeman eerie sort of voice IL was of
brittle and erratic timber and undulant
infection. Yet it was beautiful 1t had
the ring of childhood in it, though the
ring was not pure golden and at times
fell echoless. The spirit of its utterance
was always clear and pure and crisp and
CHEEKY as the twitter of a bird. and yet
forever ran an undercadence through 1t
like low-pleading prayer Half garru-
lousy, and like shallow brook might
brawl across a shelvy bottom, the rhyth-
mic little changeling thus began
I'm thist a little crippled boy, an never
goin' to grow
An git great big man at alli-'cause
Aunty told me so.
When l was thist baby onc't failed
out of the bed
An got The Curv'turt of the Spine,-'at's
what the doctor said.
1 never had no mother nen-fer my pa
ruined away
An dassn't come back here no more
cause he was drunk one day
An stobbed a man in thish-ere town. an
couldn't pay his finel
An men my ma she died-an' l got Curry
ture of the Spine!'"
A few offerings from the younger In the
audience marked the opening stanza
while a certain restlessness, and a chang
ing to more attentive positions seemed the
general tendency. The old professor In
the meantime, had sunk into one of the
empty chairs. The speaker went on with
more gaiety:
Pm nine years old An you can't guess
how much weigh, I bet!-
Last birthday 1 weighed thirty-three!-
I'm awful little fer my size-Tm purt'
nigh hitler an
Some babies islam neighbors all calls
me The Little Mani
An Doc one time he laughed an said: I
spect, first thing you know,
You'll have little spilSe-tail coat an
travel with a show.
An men / laughed-till looked round an
Aunty was a-cryin-
Sometimes she acts like that, cause I got
'Curv'ture of the Spihe!"
Just in front of me a great broad
shouldered countryman, with a rainy
smell in his cumbrous overcoat. cleared
his throat vehemently looked startled at
the sound and again settled forward, his
weedy chin resting on the knuckles of his
hands as they tightly clutched the seat
before him. And 1t was being taken into
a childish confidence as the quaint speech
continued
Il set-while Aunty's washin-on my lit
tie long-leg stool,
An watch the little boys an girls 'a-slxiu-
pin by to school;
An 1 peck on the winder, an boiler out
an say:
Who wants to fight The Little Man at
dares you all today?'
An men the boys climb on the fence, an
little girls peeks through,
An they all says: Cause you're SO big
you think we're feared O. your
An men they yell an shake their fist at
me, like l shake mine
They're thist in fun. you know, cause 1
got 'Curvture of the Spiner"
WELL" whispered my friend, with
rather odd irrelevance, l thought. sof
course YOU see through the scheme of t,,a