Year: 1878

mild kind of a shrek, and then giggled
a tall, thin woman in q black bombazine
dress and q gray shawl, and an angular
woman in a calico dress and O sun bon
net, gasped, "Whyi" in a startled duet,
fat woman with q small herd of child
rem and a market basket, shouted,
"Wellr' and then Immediately clapped
her plump hands over her mouth as
though the exclamation had been startl-
ed from her, and q tall, raw-boned
woman who wore horned spectacles and
talked bass, said, "The poor lambl" in
such sepulchral tones that everybody
else laughed, and Mr.. Thumbledirk,
who didn't just exactly know whether
she meant him or the baby, blushed
scarlet and felt his face grow so hot that
he smelt his hair. And his soul was
filed with such gloomy forebodings that
all the future looked dark to him.


The baby opened it's blue eyes wider
than any man who never owned baby
would have believed it possible, and
stared at Mr.. Thumbledirk with an ex-
preston of alarm, and general lack of
confidence that boded distressing want
of harmony in all further proceedings.
Mr.. Thumbledirk viewing these signs of
carelessness with inward alarm, con-
ceived the happy idea that the baby
needed a change of position. So he
stood it upon its feet.


1t is unnecessary to tell any mother
OF family that by the execution of this
apparently very simple movement, the
unhappy man had every thread of that
baby's clothes underits arms and around
its neck in an instant. A general but
suppressed giggle went around the
room.


Mr.. Thumbledirk blushed, redder and
hotter than ever, and the astonished
baby, after one Mortified look at its
strange guardian, whimpered uneasily.


Mr.. Thumbledirk, not daring to risk
the sound of his own voice, would have
danced the baby up and down, but its
little legs bent themselves into such ap-
palliDg crescents the first time he let the
cherub's weight upon them, that the
wretched man knew in his heart of
hearts that he had forever and eternally
most hopelessly "bowed" them, and
felt that he could never again look O
bow-legged man in the face without q
spasm of remorse. AS for meeting the
father of this beautiful boy, whose life
he had blighted with pair of crooked
legs-never, he would face death itself
first And in coming years whenever
ne met this boy waddling to school on
pair of legs like ice-tongs, he weuld
gaze upon them as his own guilty work,
and would tremble lest the wrath of the
avenging gods should fall upon him.


Alarmed at the gloomy shadows which
these distressing thoughts cast over
Mr.. Thumbledirk's face the baby drew
itself up into a knot and walled. Mr..
Thumbledirk balanced it carefully on
his hands and dandled it, for all the
world as he would " heft o watermelon.
Instantly the baby Strengthened itself
out with such alarming celebrity that the
tortured dry nurse caught it by the
heels just in time to save it from falling
to the floor.


"Hen kill that child yet, ," said the
gloomy woman who talked bass, and
Mr.. Thumbledirk felt the blood curdle in
cold waves in his veins. By this time
the baby was screaming like calliope,
and the noise added inexpressibly to
Mr.. Tumbledirk's confusion and dis
tress. He would have trotted the baby
on his knee, but the attempt occasioned
too much comment. The fat woman
with the market basket said:


"Oh-h, the little dear |"


And the short, pretty woman snapped
her eyes and said.


"Oh-h-h how cruel


And the woman in the black bomba-
zine, and the woman in the sun bonnet
said:


"Oh-h-h just look at him |"


And the woman who talked bass said,
in her most sepulchral and penetrating
accents:


'The mans fool"


And the baby itself, utterly ignoring
the fact that Mr.. ..Thumbledirk was labor
ing in its own interests, threw all the
obstruction it could IN the way of furth-
er proceedings by alternately straight
ening itself out into an abnormal con-
dition of such appalling rigidity, that
Mr.. Thumblekirk was obliged to hold its
head tightly in one hand and its heels
in the other, and then suddenly doub-
ling itself up into so small a knot that
the poor man had to hold his two hands
close together, like a bowl, and hold
the baby as he would pint of sand, and
these transitions from one extreme to
the other were made with such startling
Ihplulby anu hpPhIilnB euuuohhoSSy 1haO
Mr.. Thumbledirk had to be constantly on
the alert, and his arms ached so, and he
exhibited such signs of fatigue and dis
tress that the depot policeman looked in
to say to him that if he was tired out, he
would send in section hand or the
steam shovel to give him spell.


It seemed to Mr.. Thumbledirk that
he never heard 80 much noise come from
so small a baby in his life. The more
he turned it around and tossed it about
the more its cloak and dress, and skirts
and things became entangled around its
neck, and now and then the mass of
drapery would get over the baby's face
and stihe its cries for a second, but the
noise would come out stronger than ever