The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1927-02-17
BOY BELIEVED
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hangs like mask Of terror over
the mother of Bill.
1t Is this last thought which
keeps Edmund Gaffney, father of
Bill, tramping the streets, following
up every possible clue, however re.
mote, which may lead to the dis
covery Of the whereabouts OF his
small son-this son Of the house OF
Gaffney, around whom the hopes,
the aspirations, the love and the
dreams Of his parents have CEN
tered.
Terror OVerwheIms
1t IL a terrible fear to face The
days with, this fear Of the Gaffneys.
II is a terrible fear to lie down
at night with, the fear that their
child has fallen into strange and
perhaps vicious hands.
Six days ago this little boy dis.
appeared as completely. as IL Fit
teenth Street had parted to swallow
him.
A mother. opening the door Of her
flat to call in her baby, is met by
silence. A strange. terrifying
silence.
Bill has disappeared.
The three-year-old child with
whom he had been playing in the
hallway can give no accounting. A
frenzied mother runs through The
dark lanes Of the flat building,
with what frenzy only women, who
have lost track Of their children.
for even so long az five or ten
q 1
A woman's hearts blood has
stopped flowing. A woman's world
has suddenly closed her in like a
block OF ice.
A father comes home that eve.
ming to a house of calamity and
terror. The two remaining chill
dren, a boy of and a girl OF s,
are trapped with that same sense
OF fear.
Where Is the BOyS
Where is Billy?
The prattIing playful youngster
Of their hearthside?
What silent, dreadful destiny has
befallen him?
There is a canal within half a
mile Of the Gaffney household.
Sombre men drag and dredge IL
for the little body that might have
fallen in.
No Billy.
All day. all night, the strange,
the peering, the curious, the sym
pathetic faces of neighbors, re.
porters, friends and detectives
cram in and out ofSthe tiny apart
ment.
And Billy's mother, who has pale.
red hair, and frail, pale face, and
eyes that can no longer weep, stands
in that overheated kitchen, clutch
ing Andrew, the youngest, who IL too
heavy for her, and pressing her tired,
pale, distracted eyes against every
newcomer. as IL she would tear from
him the secret Of the whereabouts
Of her child.
Almost Insanity
What horror the nights must have
been for Mrs. Gaffney after the ex-
citement, the comings. the goings of
the day.
The long nights, that somehow
have a quality or terror all their
own, with her husband out search.
ing. searching. and the mystery of
the whereabouts of little Billy press
Ing against her heart, the heart that
gave him life.
Strange faces prowl the neighbor.
hood where the Gaffneys live. It
Is near the docks.
A tumble Of alien races have made
that neighborhood their home.
The Gaffneys have lived there 10 /
years, steady folk that they are, aflo
they have seen these things happen
to their neighborhood.
Men with prickly jowls and an.
steady salt infest that part of
Women Of dreadful finery who
congregate near the docks.
That is why Mrs. Gaffney keeps
her children closely indora during
the long hours Of her workaday
about the little home.
Longed for Outdoors
That il probably why little Billy.
tull OF adventure Of the unknown
out-of-doors, stole out one day when
the opportunity presented Itself
stole out after all the years of
pressing his chubby little face
against window panes.
Stole out to what?
That Is what Mrs. Gaffney must
ask herself in terror when the night
closes In on her.
That Il what she does ask her.
self.
She sobbed It to me with the only
tears she has left, the dry, rath
terrible tears Of dry agony:
my baby IL helpless. He can
only lisp his wants. He has never
been away from me an hour. He
VIII cry out his life for me.
81 have prayed.