The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1905-11-28
TINY LITTLE BOY AND
..AN:ANCIEuT IN 'MARluER
HOW THEY BECAME COWORK-
ERS IN MISERY.
A Mastery Piece of Conrningled
Pathos and Hulnor by Col. James
T. Bacon.

writes as follows in the News and
Courier:
1t is lovely little blonde boy, not
quite three years of age. He has
wax-doll hair, earnest blue eyes and
an absolutely iaultless complexion.
His little figure is manly and beauti-
ful, and his little legs and arms are
chubby and strong. He looks like
the angels. And, what is more, as
things go in these days, he is the i'm
age of Buster Brown. Many millions
OF people who never heard Of the cher
ubim and serapi1im, know and love
Buster Brown Yes, at this period it
pays better to look like Buster Brown
than like est Mitchael and all angels" !"
The little boy has lived his brief three
years entirely with four grown-up and
fairly-cultivated people-a grandmoth-
er who is elderly, and a grand uncle,
born in the very remotest depths of
antiquity. Consequently the little
boy. although he is very playful and
frolicsome, speaks beautiful English,
and pronounces like DR.. Sam John
son, the great photographer. His
mother, very blond young woman,
slender and fragile at best, is lying
low with burning, cruel, consuming
fever. The family are poor and can
not afford to hire a trained nurse IN
crimped cap and a smile at So a
dav. And besides trained nurse in
crimped cap and smile is generally
verv cruel to the patient, and extreme
" ferocious to her kin-people, who
have to do. the real work. And then,
too, the trained nurse in the crlmped
cap and the smile always expects some
man in the family to marry her. OF
the TWO men in this family neither, is
at liberty to achieve the hymeneal
sacrifice. and the young physician IN
charge, although he is asfhandsome as
Apollo, has a young and lovely wife,
and is very virtuous. So the family,
being very poor, and fearing accom-
panying circumstances, do not seek to
compass a trained nurse, but the ell
derly grandmother, whom the little
bow calls "Gran,'' and the ancient mar
iner uncle whom he calls ''Jiddy," sys-
tematically divide the labors of the
dire fever warfare "Gran" establishes
herself in one wing of the old house to
watch and work and wake and weep,
as onlv a mother can and will, over the
apparently dying daughter. The an
cient mariner is TO take the little boy,
"Tanes," into the other wing, broad
hall between, to mind him and to do
for him in all lines, and to conduct the
housekeeping with the fragmentary
and spasmodic help of 'Aunt Klzzy,"
an elderly colored\cook, who gets the
breakfast and the dinner, and mllks
the cow. At three O'Clock P. m, Aunt
Kizzy shakes the dust of the premises
off her scaly feet.
The Warming of the Noisome Odds
and Ends.
1t is s o'clock in the evening, and
>the ancient mariner, closely attended
by the little boy, makes coffee with
cold water upon "a oneburner. kero-
sene stove. A one-burner kerosene
stove is an infinite blessing from God.
He then ransacks miscellaneous side
boards and closets and places upon the
hearth. to warm. miscellaneous and
horrible fragments Of cold biscuits,
beef. macaroni, eggplant fritters, yam
potatoes, etc. Then the young man,
who keeps the outside business run
ming, and buys 20 pounds OF drugs
and medicines and hundred pounds
of ice each day, comes in and says that
the fragments look filthy. God
knows they do. And the coffee woull
make pig in pen recoil with horror.
And the little boy runs merrily across
to the sick wing, and cries out: Gran.
tea is ready Tea" Poor "Gran
comes hastily, with hair apart and
gathering the little boy to her lap,
gulps down her cup OF swill in three
.1> ,,1 cows. t.T1,o,ol- Cod ir * at