"PHIL."

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2343, 10 July 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

"PHIL."

They were a bent and trembling old man—white-haired and broken old woman, and as they sat beside the coffin the old man said : 'He was about 10 years old. We found him in a basket on our doorstep one night in the long ago. We were old people then, but wife she begged that we should- take the little stranger in and care for him.' 'Because my own children were sleeping tinder the sod,' she explained as she wiped the tears away, ''•■ Jo wo made him our child,' resumed the old man, 'and in a little time we came to love him as if he had been born to us. He was ut strange boy—quiet, gentle, thoughtful, and sorrowful, There seemed to be a burden of grief weighing him down. He came to know in time—not from us, hut fro.n others—that he was no kin of us, and it troubled him much. Not that he did not love us, but we were old and poor, and he felt himself a burden upon ns. Last night a creditor came and abused us because we could not pay, and he said something about our picking up paupers to feed and clothe. If it was his case, he said he'd ship the hoy off to the County House.' ' I went to say good night to him,' whispered the woman, ' hut he had his face to the wall and seemed to be asleep. We hoped that he had not heard the harsh words, for wo knew how they would pain him, Why, sir, if worst comes to tho worst, I'd have gone hungry to give that hoy food, fie was the bit of sunshine in our lives,

I 'hi the morning, when I got up,' | said the father, ' I called to Phil, but ;he did not answer. I entered the | room to find that he had put a rope I over one of the clothes-boob and j strangled himself—comruitted suicide. J He muHt have got up soon after we went j to bed, for lm body was cold and stiff.' ; ' And—and he left this on the stand,' : sobbed the woman as she held a note. It was written on the leaf of an old memorandum book, and the writing : was in pencil. It read ' I no you wouldn't sent me to the county house, hvt you are poore and iindet. I'd go away if I could, but I j iloan't no where to go, Doan't feel : bad. If God lets me into Heven I'll see you up there.'