Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1909-04-16

hope he had not dared to look at had
grown to strong certainty that babe
him look il its face, unafraid, with glad
eyes.
The mother had meant to lose the
child She would not come back. Ger
tainly she would not come back. The
child was his own. And what would he
not make of his own-what not do for
| it, be to it
They had closed the gates of the inn
before he went out, and they opened
, to him as he returned. He looked up
at the tall house; it did not seem the
sort OF house to which such gift would
come. His arms were full of lumpv
parcels, and the stairs seemed longer
| than usual, but here, at last, was the
black door with his name Whitley paint.
ed on it. He had to set down all the
parcels on the stairs while he found his
| key.
He threw all the parcels on the sofa
and turned up light The fire had
| burned clear again. What pleasant
| room it was for child to wake up inl
| He would set out the food and the TOYS
| and the clothes, and then bring the
child in and hold it in his arms till it
| woke to all the little intimate lows and
surprises he had prepared for it. Nov
| ing very softly, so that the Weakening
should not come too soon. he unpacked
| toys and sweets, and warm, pretty gar
ments, and laid out everything on table
| and chairs. Then he turned up all the
electric lights, and laid a match flame
to all the candles that never were light
ed. The old furniture gave back the
| light as a mirror gives it. The things
he had bought to please the child made
spots of merry, crude color on the back
ground of the dark room, set in the low
key of life from which youth had long
gone away.
The room being thus TRANSPORTED to
the lit shrine of youth and love and the
heart of the child, he went to bring back
in his arms the child itself.
And the child was not there His bed
lay smooth and neat; on its pillow. neat
| ly folded, the garment that he had seen
the child wear as, after the bath, it sat
before his fire. The child was gone. its
clothes were gone All was as though
no child had ever been at all in those
dark rooms.
Then the heart of the man was wild
with anger and fierce resentment, as is
the heart of man robbed of his most
precious treasure.
He searched wildly, dispacing the or
| dered furniture, disarranging the folds
of curtains and hangings, and, this being
fruitlessly done, went out to search the
staircase in its dark corners, and, later,
the quiet squares of the inn
But he did not find the child
Then, the sense of loss deepening and
intensifying within him, he found him
self at the police station, asking some
what wildly for child that was lost
a little child; no, he did not know its
name, nor the colors of its eyes and
hair; he had found it, and meant to keep
it for his own, and now it was gone. He
did not know its name, but it had bright
eyes and curly hair and very merry
smile 1t had no father 1t had worn
an old cloth cap and rag of coat with
NANCY fur.
The policemen looked at him and at
each other and smiled furtiveIy.
| Yes, sir. Certainly, sir one answered.
to whom a silvery voice had spoken.
| we'll keep a lookout, and let you know
if we come across the little chap"
And when the man was gone back to
| that room where the toys and sweets and
| clothes had cmptled themselves of mean
ing of value, the men in blue smiled
more broadly still.
Were so likely to come across the
| little chap, amt we" one said to the
other, seeing there's thousands and
thousands of little chaps exactly like
him? Bright eyes, and curly hair, and
a merry smile, and dressed in rags, and
no father Well, WELT"
| Perhaps it is because there are so
many thousands that the man has never
found the little chap again.
| But he has found some of the others
and he knows more about buying clothes
and sweets than he knew on that first
night. Only no other child can ever be
the same as that one. No other child
comes to such a desert with such a rose.
| And sometimes he wonders whether,
after all = But he will never know
Or perhaps some day it may be that he
will know He thinks of that; very
often he thinks of it.-E. Nesbit in the
London Chronicle.