The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1903-10-18
STORY OF MARIA The DANCER
ENDING WITH A SOB FROM UN-
DER THE BED.
Tired Toes That Wandered After Hand
Organ brought Her Home Dreadins the
Wrath to Come-l4ay Hid while Mother
Wept and Father Aroused the Police.

| Wept and Father Aroused the Police.
| Maria is the ten-year- daughter Of
| Paola Lorenti, an Italian barber at SO East
Fourth street, and is the second in brood
OF seven. On Friday evening she was left
to help her oldest sister, Cecilia, in looking
after the smaller fry while the barber and
his spouse went visiting in Mulberry street.
| The younger Lorentis had been tucked
away for the night sister Cecilia was nap
/ ping in the sole Lorenti rocker and Maria
was trying to amuse herself alone, when
there rose from the street the notes Of
giddy waltz reeled off by a hand organ.
| Now. If there are two things that Maria
is fond, of they are music and dancing.
For while she listened, her feet instinc-
| lively keeping time; then she looked at her
sleeping brothers and sisters, and thought
that it would be no harm to slip down to
the street and have just one little dance.
She tiptoed out of the room and, once
in the street. joined the little group of girls
that were already gliding and pirouetting
through the fnazes OF one Of those mys-
child-dances that are not taught in any
seems instinctvely to know what particular
twirl or kick comes next
The coppers ceased falling in the organ
grinders hat, and he moved along a half
block. SO did his little train of dancers,
| and Maria with them. And in his next,
and his next, and his next move, Maria
| followed. Flushed, her eyes sparkling,
+, carried far away from her tenement sur
roundings by the swing and rhythm of the
music. she forgot her charges at home,
overlooked the fact that she no longer knew
| the faces of the children she was dancing
with nor the name over the corner saloon
, or over the grocery opposite
"Hey, youse, yer playin' after hours,
| Cut tout or I'll run ye in" came from big
blue-coated minion of the law
The organ grinder knew that fiat. He
choked Of "Hiawatha= and beat hasty
ret reat down a side street.
Then Maria came back to earth. The
lights were being turned out in the I'M
familiar store windows, and even grown-up
people were going to bed
She was afraid to ask the policeman on
| the corner the way home. She had heard
| too many stories about the awful things
| the police do to children who run away.
So she wandered around until she found
| a newsboy who seemed small enough to
be sympathetic with truant. He guided
| her over to the Bowery and pointed out
| the way home.
| III was only u IillS away, DuI IL WAS u
| long mile. All the time she wanted to
| cry but then that would let the policemen
| know,
| When she got home new fear beset
her. Her parents had, beyond doubt, re-
| turned and were now waiting to mete out
punishment. For while she crouched
| in the doorway, then her fear OF the de-
serted street overcame all other fears, and
| she Crept upstairs.
As she opened the door of their rooms,
she heard her father and mother entering
| the street door. She did not have time
to undress and slip into bed beside her
| sisters and brothers, so she crept under her
| parents bed.
When Mother Lorenti made her usual
| evening count Of young lorenti noses she
missed Maria's. She awoke the six sleepers
and hurredly questioned them. None of
them knew that Maria was not sleeping
] beside them. Then Father Lorenti ran
| around to the Fifth street station house and,
when he came back, he reported 10 his
weeping wife and children, that nothing
could be learned OF their missing Maria.
| All the while the missing Maria was
| growing more and more afraid to come
| out from under the bed. One by one the
other children cried themselves to sleep
| Then the father, having six remaining little
| Iorentis to feed, went, to bed so as to be fit
| for the coming days work.
| Only the mother in the rocker and Maria
| under the bed remained awake. Both We're
| CRYING; the one in the rocker over the ter
| rble fate that she knew had befallen her
| child and the one under the bed over the
| terrible spanking that she knew was about
| to befall her.
/ About 3 o'clock in the morning a great
| big sob rose in Marias throat, sob that
| was altogether too big to be- choked as its
predecessors had been. The mother in
| the chair heard it, recognized it, flew to it..
| Maria was hauled forth from her hiding
| place. Once more the whole family was
awakened In the JOY Of the reunion the
s,ankinp was somehow overlooked