The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-04-15

NtVuGuutu II0U our last Issuc.t
a. Sabre said the letter was
the most frightfully pathetic docu-
ment he could ever have imagined.
Smudged, he said, and stained and
badly expressed as if the writer
this Effie Bright-was crying and
incoherent with distress when she
wrote it. She said she'd got into
terrible trouble. She's got a little
baby. Sabre said it was awful to
him the way she kept on in every
sentence calling it a little baby
never a child, or just baby, but
always "a little baby my little
baby He said it was awful. She
said it was born in December-you
remember, old man, it was the
previous March she'd got the sack
from them-and that she'd been liv-
ing in lodgings with it. and that
now she was well enough to move,
and had come to the absolute end
of her money, she was being turn
ed out and was at her wits end with
despair and nearly out of her mind
to know what to do and all that
kind of thing. She said her father
wouldn't have anything to do with
her, and no one would have any
thing to do with her-so long as
she kept her little baby That was
her plight; no one would have any
thing to DO with her while she had
the baby. Her father was willing
to take her home, and some kind
people had offered to take her into
service, but only, all of them, if she
hoI n
out to nurse somewhere; and she
said, and underlined it about four
teen times, Sabre said, and cried
| over it so you could hardly read IL.
she said: And, oh, Mrs. Sabre, 1
| cant, l can't, l simply cannot give
up my little baby. He's mine
| she said He looks at me, and
knows me, and stretches out his
| tiny little hands to me, and l can't
give him up. | can't let my little
| baby go. Whatever I've done, I'm
| his mother and he's my little baby
and l can't let him go
Sabre said it was awful. I can
! believe it was. I'd seen the girl, and
| I'd seen her STOPPING over her baby
and l can well believe awful was
| the word for it. Poor soul.
And then she said can re
member this bit-then she said,
| And so, in my terrible distress,
dear Mrs. Sabre, l am throwing
myself on your mercy, and begging
/ you, imploring you, for the love of
! God to take in me and my little
baby and let me work for you and
do anything for you and bless you
and ask Gods blessing forever upon
| you and teach my little baby 10
pray for you as something or
other, l forget. And then she said
; a lot of hysterical things about
working her fingers to the bone for
| Mrs. Sabre, and knowing she was
a wicked girl and not fit to be
| spoken to by anyone, and was will
| ing ito sleep in the shed in the gar
| den and never to open her mouth,
and all that sort of thing; and all
the way through my little baby
my little baby Also she said, and
Sabre told me this bit deliberately,
also she said that she didn't want
| to pretend she was more sinned
against than SHINING, but that il
Mrs. Sabre knew the truth she
might judge less harshly and be
| more willing to help her. Yes,
/ Sabre told me that
''All right. Well, there was the
appeal, there was this piteous ap-
peal as Sabre said, and there was
| Sabre profoundly touched by it, and
| there was his wife bridling over it
lone up against her husband who'd
always stuck up for the girl d'you
see, and about two million up in
| justification of her own opinion OF
her There they were; and then
Sabre said, Well, what are you go
ing to do about it?'
You can imagine his wife's tone.
DO about it. Do about it! What on
earth do you think I'm going to Go
about it?'
She was furious Absolutely
white and speechless with fury =;
but not speechiess long, Sabre said
| and l dare bet she wasn't SABRE
said she worked herself up in the
most awful way and used language
about the girl that cut him like a
knife-language like speaking OF
the baby as that brat 1t male
| him vince. 1t would-the sort Of
| chap he is. And he said that the
more she rallied the more fright
fully he realized the girls position
up against that sort of thing every
where she turned.
He described all that to me and
then, so to speak, he stated his
case. Well, what l say to you
Hapgood, is just precisely what
said to my wife 1 felt that the
girl had a claim on us. In the
| first place, she'd turned to US IN
her abject misery for help and that
alone established a claim, even if ii
had come from an utter stranger
1t established claim because here
was a human creature absolutely
down and out come to US, picking
us out from everybody, for succor
| Damn it, you've got to respond
You're picked out. Youi One hui
man creature by another human
creature Breathing the same air
Sharing the same mortality Re
! sponsible TO the same God. You've
got to! You can't help yourself
well, Hapgood,' he went on
that's one claim the girl had or
US, but she had another, a persona
claim. Shed been in our house II
our service: she was our friend; sai
with us; eaten with US; talked
with us; shared with US; and now
now, turned to US. Good God, man
was that to be refused? Was thai
to be denied"