Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-06

IA and a day old somebody
NV wrapped him In a bundle
of rags and left him whim
pering behind a pile of cab
bages in a corner of Les Halles, the
big central markets In Paris. His
voice, no stronger than a kitten =
came to the ears OF sodden heggar
woman. known about the markets as
Pink.Eye. who was shutting 10 her
home" a cellar hole near the mar
kets.
She, an old rag of humanity herself,
80 years old, hut looking much more,
and clad in a wardrobe gathered from
refuse heaps, was the only person who
over did anything for Ahadie. She
peered at the little, yowling bundle,
finally made out through her one in
famed eye what was making the
noise, pondered for some minutes,
then, picking Ahadie and his rags up
exactly as she had picked many an
other discarded bit from refuse heaps,
she took the infant to her cellar.
1t was not kindness that moved the
old crone. Society never showed her
any kindness. She would not have
recognized the quality II she expert
enced 1t, and she had none of 1t In
her meager bones. What she saw in
Abadie was an aid in her begging. In
the technique of panhandling. a baby
in ones arms 10 a help. So Pink-Eye
decided that Abadie could earn for her
more than. the cost of his keep.
1t did not cost much, his keep. His
cradle was a soap box she stole from
tins hack of a grocery store. The rags
that made his bedding and his ward
robe she got where she got her other
rags. In the same way she got an
old rum bottle, and with Abadie in her
arms begged of a workwoman some
rubber nursing bottle nipples which
her own baby could no longer use.
With Abadie as assistant in beg
ging. she induced a dairy dealer in the
big market to let her have bit OF
SKINNED milk for the infant. Pour
ing the near.milk into the rum bottle,
Pink. Eye forced one of the used rub
Der nipples over the neck of the bottle
and gave 1t to Abadie to suck. This
was the nearest thing to a mothers
care he ever got.
During the day he worked for her,
Of course. Swathed In a mass of pic
turesquely saualid rags, squalid both
bv necessity and by choice on the part
of Pink Eye, since baby In rags
moves the hardest heart to charity,
Abadie more than trebled Pink Eyes
takings. The worse the weather, the
IItOfC AO00tU . OApVDoAO ~ ~
Pink-Eye.
Nature so often seems to be mex
plicahly capricious. Man may breed
a rosebud from the choicest bush. give
1t dollhouse protection, scientific care
and perfect nourishment, and that
rosebud may wither in spite of all.
And elsewhere in a back lot in the
alums where refuse is dumped weed,
its seed blown there Heaven knows
how, will push through the clinkery
earth. writhe past and around rusted
tin cans, feed on stagnant puddles and
send up its wiry growth with such
vitality that it will even grow seed
and propagate itself.
III must have been that Abadie was
born of the toughest of weed stock.
Tor he did not die, tiny and frail as he
was.
nNE day when Pink-Eye was warm
~ ing the thin blood in her with
raw rum she tried to put Abadie back
into the cradle" stumbled and fell
with him. He fell on his back on the
cellar stones, but as baby bones are
soft he was not killed. Something in
his backbone twisted, however.
Pink-Eye did not know 1t. of course;