Year: 1879

After we left Vincennes this afternoon,
writes Bob Burdette in the Burlington
Haaokeye, man got on with his wife and
two children. One of the little ones,
boy three years or over, was fretful and
weepful, and the father did his best,
and in the tenderest, patientest manner,
to quiet the child and put him to sleep.
How the little fellow did cry and kick,
and throw things around. He had been
crying that way, the man said, all day
long, and he couldn't imagine what
allied him. He "allowed he might have
the earache." The passengers were full
of sympathy, for which, as they strove to
express it in various ways, the father ap-
peared unspeakably grateful for, and
the boy repelled. One man gave him an
orange; the boy hurled 1t spitefully into
The face of his baby sister, sleeping in the
mothers lap, and the terrified young Ia
dy added her wall of fright and pain to
the general chorus. A lady gave him
her handsome smelling, bottle; he dashed
it on the floor, and howled more fercely
than ever. I handed the poor little in
mocent my pocket knife; away it went
out of the window, and the urchin walled
more Indignantly than ever. All the
time the father never got cross or grew
impatient, but "allowed he could hush
him off to sleep after Bit"


And by-and-by, sure enough, the pain
and impatience yielded to the fathers
patient soothing, the little head dropped
over on the fathers shoulder, the broken
sobs became less and less frequent, and
finally died away, and the poor little fel-
low just began to forget his troubles in
sleep as the train slowed up to a station,
when suddenly the father, walking up
and down the aisle with him, darted a
glance out Of the window, stopped down
and looked again, and shouted:


"What's the matter with that mana"


ssHello!" he shouted. Here, Emily,
take him-watch him-here! I can t
wait! Don't let him roll off! Watch
him!'


With hasty motion he tossed the
baby into the seat behind his wife, get
ting him just about half way on. He
gave hurried jab at the boy with his
extended fingers to push him further on
the seat but missed him and darted of
to the door Of the car, shot out Of it, and
was down on the platform in a fash. The
mother quickly put down the baby and
turned to attend to the boy, two or three
passengers at the same time sprang for
ward with the same purpose; all too
late; before the father was we'll out of
the door, the boy toppled off the seat,
came to the floor with a thump and a
howl Of real pain and fright, and when
the father, looking sheepish and cheap,
came back into the car, the poor little
fellow, wide awake to all his old miseries
and the one crcwning. insulting new one,
was screaming away at a rate that fairly
made the windows rattle, and kept it up
until we got to Terre Haute, and l don't
know how long after that. And all this
time nobody else had been able to see
anything to excite tie father to such a
remarkable degree, and he saw our won
der in our couLtenances.


"The man was coal-miner," he ex-
planned, as ne took the screaming boy,
land I reckon he'd been loadin' car OF
coal and got his face smutty.''


Our amazment looked out of our eyes
greater than ever.


can thought" continued the father
nervously pattipg the boys back, and
seeing that some further explanation was
necessary and expected, 81 thought his
eye was blackened, an I lowed maybe
there'd been fight"