Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1907-08-09
The Salvage of the
Madigan Baby.
by MARY ROBERTS RINEHART.

he dropped his spoon liStleSSly and
let go of his tilted bowl, watching
1t sway drunkenly, and settle into
equilibrium again without enthusi-
asm. All around there was the scrap
ing of spoons or iron-stone china, the
scratch of small shoes on the rungs
of chairs, and the subdued hum of
little voices. The windows were
wide open, and from beyond the
dusty screen came the clatter of pass
ing wagons and the cool splash of
water from the asylum hose as John
washed down the brick-paved court
yard.
James William leaned back and
drew long breath; then, with SUI
perb indifference to his red-and-
white-barred bib, he wiped his mouth
with the back of his hand. Next
to him. selling an opportune mo-
ment when his neighbours eyes were
fixed on the window, a red-haired
boy seized the bowl with its soggy
remnants of bread and milk, and
greedily devoured them. 1t was an
indication of the depth of James
Williams gloom, that when he no.
ticed the theft he failed to resent it.
Outside push cart drew up be-
yond the iron fence-a push cart
containing a dingy tin can, whose
lid was fitted down over a sheet of
brown paper. ''Ice cream!" called
the vendor shrilly. ''Ice crea-am!"
James William sighed-not that
he cared about the ice cream, but
that, being sad anyhow, it brought
back to him the memory of his
mother, of the sizzling days on Wy
lie street when the car tracks burned
ones bare feet, and the paint rose
In blisters on the wooden shutters;
when the advent of the ice-cream
man, with his penny spoonful of
sticky deliciousness on a bit of
brown paper, was the only cool mo-
ment of the day. Family, perhaps,
he regretted his mother; there were
visiting days when other mothers
came with offerings of newly-mended
stockings and a surreptitious gift of
candy. James William sometimes
had heartache at those times, a
queer little pain that he hid under
q cloak of contempt, with lump in
his throat. that boy like. he COM
bated with gibe.
Hello, mothers baby" he would
say huskily, when some mother hav-
ing taken red-eyed farewell, a
little mattress would be left bullying
ut the side with a bag of molasses
taffy under it. taffy that in the heat
had melted into a knobby lump and
whose flavor was so strongly tainted
with portions of the adhering paper
bag.
But it was of none of these things
that James William thought as he
gazed broodingly through the screen;
1t was not inconsistencies that made
his mouth witch and his eyes blink
furiously at the upper windows of
the house across the street, blazing
scarlet in the setting sun. Instead,
there was passing through his mind
q chaotic succession of passion,
anger, resentment, humiliation.
James William had been taken off
the fire corps!
What did it matter that the next
week the Fresh Air" outings began?
What salve was it to his injury to
have Miss Adams say she knew it
was an accident, but that there were
no accidents in a fire corps, and that
q boy who would fall headlong down
the stairs from the dormitory would
be apt to fall with a baby in his
arms, with goodness knows what ter
rible results!
And his father was a fireman, too!
That was what hurt. The father
who had broken up the home after
the mothers death, and sent his boy
to the asylum because he couldn't
stand the familiar surroundings-he
was a fireman, with a record unsur-
passed for bravery. The boy wor-
SHIPPED his father, and he took his
exile and their few meetings docily.
But he watched the papers for the
doings of No. IL Fire Company, and
the sound of an engine gong put his
heart In his throat. Lonely? Well,
most children in orphan asylums are
lonely-at times.
It had all occurred during the fire
drill the night before. The B / ward
was the dormitory of the fire corps;
there twenty-eight embryo firemen
went to sleep every night. Usually
they slept, moist and quiet, until
morning. But once every month
there came a tremendous moment,
when some time in the night the
clapper of the big gong over the
mantel would give whirr and then
set up deafening clamor that
brought every small boy out of his
bed in an instant, wide awake, and
set his feet in a Decline for the
door. Just underneath B / ward was
the babies dormitory, where twenty
eight pink-cheeked. round-faced in
fants lay placidly Indifferent to the
clamor around them. Before the
fire gong had finished dozen i'm
perious strokes, the twenty-eight
small boys were standing straight as
drum-majors, each beside a white
iron crib; signal. and a procession
OF night-gowned figures made for
the door and the stairs, each boy
this time with mildly surprised but
generally resigned bahy-a life-sav-
ing corps which deposited its salvage
on the bricks of the courtyard.
To James William in bed seven
teen. fell the responsibility of Flea
more Louise Madigan, in bed seven
teen below. 1t was long time be-
fore James William convinced Miss
Adams that a boy with a crutch and
one leg gone from just below the
knee was an eligible fireman. But
after one knew James William one
forgot the crutch, or rather, per-
haps, one considered it a part OF
James William, and as such. never
noticed It at all. There were few
boys In the asylum who could do
more with two legs than this ten
year-old boy did with one and frac-
ton. To Miss Adams. however, the
FRO nffno Voc an IN, VI &C q h1o no v,~;nx