The Cook County herald. [volume] (Grand Marais, Minn.) 1893-1909, 1906-06-02
Captains Double
CHAPTER |.
Orphaned at Birth.


George! George! Husband! Oh,
the bullet-the dreadful, dreadful bull
lett"
The faint, wailing cry that sounded
through the folding doors between
the rooms had died down now almost
to broken sob. 1t had gone on at
intervals ever since yesterday; at
first sharp in it's delirious raving, then
passing slowly away with the fading
strength of the poor bereft creature
whom the dreadful shock had struck
10 bitter a blow that it had smitten
her out of life. The two wee babies,
30 soon to be motherless as we'll as
fatherless, lay side by side, sleeping
placidly in the outer room. The land
ladys little daughter, herself a nurse
maid home for a few days holiday,
watched beside them with fright
ened face, and listened to the slowly
sinking means that sounded now only
at intervals from the room within.
The stout, highly respectable land
lady, who had been in service herself
in bygone times, came in on tiptoe,
her finger to her lip, and creeped
with elaborate caution across the floor.
She turned down the covering from
the two downy heads, so alike that
one could not have told one from the
other. and shook her head, with a
mournful compassion. eth, they may
sleep, poor lambs!" she said, as if
their conduct needed excusing on the
score of callous Indifference; they
may sleep, and their poor dear ma
slipping out like candle in
draught! 1t isn't any WONDER to be
sure, as she can't go on trying to live
after what's come to her. But these
two poor innocent babies, orphaned
almost before they're born, in a man.
ner of speaking-ones heart does
bleed for them, that it does!"
what does the doctor say?" Her
daughters whisper was aWestruck.
She had not stood so face to face with.
tragedy before in all her fourteen
year-old life. She was frightened and
excited and curious, all in one. She
drew up the covering again, as her
mother turned away, and patted the
two tiny forms under it, with the
touch Of her trade.
ri don't need 4 doctor to tell me!
She's been took for death from the
very first She's going now as fast
as she can go. Hark at that, now!"
AZ the murmur came again-a mere
lndistinguishab1e murmur now-after
long interval "Id best go in and
see if there's anything can do. Don't
you stir from here, Betsy! You know
there's nobody got minute to spare
for those babies in the house. It's
mercy you happened to be home just
when you was needed. Neither Mrs.
Dibble nor me don't know whether
we're on our heads or our heels!"
She tiptoed out again into the pas
sage, and the uneasy Betsy was left
alone with her sleeping charges.
There was silence now in the inner
room, except for the hushed stir of
a footstep or the moving of a chair
now and then. The walls had ceased,
the sobs, the whispers. It seemed
to Betsy that there was a terror and
mystery settling solemnly down
with dusky wings She stared with
round eyes at the folding doors. The
uneducated and the thoughtless find
a hideous fascination in such mo-
ments as these.
It had all been so unexpected, so out
OF the common round of Betsy's expe-
riences in life. Her mother had been
so pleased to get the lady lodger, the
wife of a military gentleman out in
India, and she had counted on having
her as s'let'' for the whole summer
at least. Mrs. Winstantly, the pale,
pretty lady with the sweet smile, was
rich, and "a real lady, in the view
of Betsy's class of thirty years ago,
In that she spent money without scru-
pie, and did not trouble about the cold
meat. They had all discussed her in
the kitchen downstairs-Betsy and
Betsy's mother, and the lodging house
servant, and the monthly nurse. They
knew she had been married seven
years and had never before started a
nursery; that her husband was ma
jor out in India, and she had come
home because the doctors thought the
heat was making further stay dan
gerous for her. She had come on
here to York to, go to one of the East
Coast watering places for the bracing
of the sea, breezes, and then she had
been unwell here, and so had stayFl
on.
They had all grown to like her in
the few weeks she had spent there
six injured.
to respect her Indifference as to
whether the half-fnished remnants OF
tarts and sweets ever made their ap
pearance again-to compassionate he1
when the relatives she had expected
to come to with horror and pity fol
her when that awful shock of fatal
tidings came. Her husband, Major
Winstan1ev. had taen accidentally