The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-30
< OUR DAILY SHORT STORY -:-


 t'ink. He's got a house O his own or de East Side. dat's wot he's got" Then he looked down at his own legs thin and crooked, but still intact Say 1 if I'd a crutch, stead O one O dem sticks--gee. wot heaps O papes I could i, sell Or if I ges' had an arm gone The next time he entered my shop perceived at once that something had | happened. He aust have read a ques- tion In my eyes, for he spoke right out his voice little shaky: "Dey's gone an dispersessed mud der" It was what I had long expected to hear. Rent?'
 1 He nodded. Dere's a pape on the wall. I kent read it, but de dope wot lives acrost de hall sez we got ter git out de day arter t'morrer. An we afn't got no udder place ter go." | He was leaning against the doorpost a picture of sullen hopelessness. 1 'I might pay the rent" I suggested l Would youse?" he flared up. Then he sank back into his former black mood.
 An who's goin' ter pay't back?' l 'You--sometime.'
 Me" Mug reached out his tongue "Yous'e white, Burns, but youse ain'i no sucker. I kin pay nuthin' back, an you knows it. ain't lost no leg nor arm as some has. I ain't got no show at all"
 T don't care so much whether you pay me back or not" told him. Mug stood with downcast eyes swinging one arm slowly back and forth.
 "Dere mig:.t be anudder way" he whispered, mysteriously. and was gone LateNthat evening--it was about ten o'clock, and the market place spread itself in front of me like some desert waste--I had placed a chair on the step in front of the shop and was smoking my pipe in solitary peace. 1 A railroad track passes along the street between the open place and the market. A favorite pastime of the boys In the nelgborhood is to steal a ride on the cars. If the trainmen try | to drive them off they are led a merry chase over the car roofs, and at last. when the enemy draws too near, the boys scamble to the ground like troop | of monkeys.
 It was switching time. The snorting fheard came from the engine.
 Then suddenly there rose a cry so shriu and agonized that-I am not ex- Actly a nervous man, but it pierced me | like a shot. In a second 1t was over. The cry was cut off, stiffled in some way, almost as soon as uttered-and yet the night air seemed to be tremb | ling with the echo of it for some min utes afterward.
 The train came to an abrupt stand still. its every brake screeching as if in pain.
 An ambulance rattled by, drew up for brief moment near the train. and was off again in the direction from | which 1t had come.
 sat there gazing hopelessIy into the | dusk and then I fell to mapping. l suppose. for 1t seemed but a minute later, although hours must have passed. when a voice close to my ear made me sit up with a start
 The policeman on the post was standing in front of me. together with A stranger, who informed me that 1 was wanted at the hospital. A small boy named Quinn, who was thought to be dying, had begged that should be sent sent for.
 He had fallen off a car while stealing ride. they told me. Both legs had been crushed and had to be amputated. I Now he was crying for me all the time, A nurse took me in charge as soon as I mentioned my name at the hos pital door. While leading me upstairs