WHO TOOK THE ORPHAN?

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2419, 17 December 1880, Page 4

WHO TOOK THE ORPHAN?

A few days ago a boy about ten years of age, Jamo and sickly, who had been living with his mother in rooms in the city, found himself alone in the world. The lad was too ill to ride in the one carriage which followed the body to the grave, and yet no one thought his condition serious. After (he funeral a number of persons gathered in the poverty-stricken room where he lay weeping, to see what disposition could be made of him. “If he wasn’t lame I’d take him into my family,” observed one of the men, in a tone that seemed to show he blamed the boy for his misfortune. “ Well it’s awful hard.” sighed one of the women, “ but I know he could'nt get along with my children.” “ Nor with mine,” added a second. “ If I should take him, he’d run up a big doctor’s bill on me,” said a man as he tilled his pipe. Mach and every one had some excuse. The boy heard them all without a word, but with quivering lips and C3’es full of tears. I’nder one pretext and another all slipped out and left him alone, promising to have another talk in the morning, Perhaps that night before they closed their eyes in sleep some of them thought of the poor lad lying in the dreary room, alone aqd almost helpless, hut if so none of them went near him. Late in the morning, a woman living on the same tloor went to see if ho might not have a bit to eat, and the question of who should take care of him was settled. God had taken him. Hugged close to the wall, as if he feared the midnight shadows, and with eyelashes yet wot, he was dead and cold, no longer a burden to anyone. The boy, too lame to be taken care of on carth—too feeble to earn the crusts that someone would have given him — had a home better than the best. When they knew that he died alone, women bent over him and wept. When they lifted his wasted body from the bed, men s consciences smote them for their harsh words, but it was too late. He had gone from earth feeling that there was no mercy in the human heart.—“ Philadelphia Catholic Standard.”