The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1907-09-11
THE SALVAGE OF THE NIAD|GAN BABY
BY Mary Roberts Rinehart
By Mary Roberts Rinehart.

exile and their few meetings docily.
But he watched the papers for the
doings of No. II Fire Company, and
the sound of an engine gong put his
heart at 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 I ward
was the dormitory of the fire corps;
there twenty eight embryo fremen
went to sleep every night Usually
they slept, moist and quiet, until
morning. But once every month
there came tremendous moment,
when some time in the night the
clapper of the big gong over the
mantel would give a whirr and then
set up a 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 a dozen i'm
perious strokes, the twenty-eigh
small boys were standing straight as
drum-majors, each beside a white
iron crib; a 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 baby-a 1ife-saving
corps which deposited it's 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. It was a long time be-
fore James William convinced Miss
Adams that 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, perhaps,
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-o1d boy did
with one and a fraction. To Miss
Adams, however, the fraction was an
impossible barrier to the salvage
corps, until one day James William
picked up the Madigan baby from a
wicker go-cart in the yard and darted
impishly up the fire escape with her
in his free arm. At the top he paused,
looked down in triumph to the breath
less crowd below, and disappeared
jauntily through a window. That the
board of lady managers was holding
meeting just inside rather added to
the dramatic effect Of his entrance.
But the Madigan baby kicked her
feet and squea1ed with joy, and James
William received a reprimand and
commission on the fire corps, pro-
vided he avoided any more practical
demonstrations of his ability.
And then he fell down the stairs
Some one had tripped him, and
de1iberately-hej knew that. He
looked down the long table to where
the Virgins boy was catching flies
and putting them down his neigh
boris back 1t was quite likely to
have been the Virgins boy. When
things happened to James William
it usually was the Virgins boy. The
more James William rocked the more
he became convinced of the Virgins
boys gui1t-he bore an almost I'M
natural air of joy, and he seldom
looked up the table.
James William drew a breath and
looked at Miss Adams. Somehow
she, too, seemed to avoid his eye.
The boy listened rebelliously to the
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