THE UNCALLED
44 lines✦
Pore Freddie," she said, "I wish you could stay here all the time and playwith the other little ones." The child looked up at her with wondering eyes. "I kin stay till mammacomes back," he answered. "But, Freddie dear, mamma won't come back any more. She 's'"—thewoman hesitated—"she 's in heaven." "I want my mamma to come back," moaned the child. "I don't want her tostay in heaven." "But you must n't cry, Freddie; an', some day, you kin go an' see mamma."The child's curiosity got the better of his grief. He asked, "Is heaven far,Mis' Davis?" "Yes, dear, awful far," she answered. But she was wrong. Heaven is not farfrom the warm heart and tender hands of a good woman. The child's head drooped, and he drowsed in her arms. "Put him to bed, Melissy,—pore little fellow," said her husband in huskytones. He had been listening and watching them around the edge of hispaper. The child slept on, while the woman undressed him and laid him inthe bed. On the morrow the women dropped in one by one, until a half-dozen ormore were there, to plan the boy's future. They were all poor, and most ofthem had families of their own. But all hoped that there might be someplan devised whereby Margaret's boy might find a refuge without going tothe orphans! asylum, an institution which is the detestation of women. Mrs.Davis, in expressing her feelings, expressed those of all the others: "I hateso to think of the pore little feller goin' to one o' them childern's homes.The boys goin' around in them there drab clothes o' theirs allus look likepris'ners to me, an' they ain't much better off." "An' then childern do learn so much weekedness in them places from theolder ones," put in another. "Oh, as fur that matter, he 'll learn devilment soon enough anywhere,"snapped Mrs. Warren, "with that owdacious father o' his before him. Iwould n't take the child by no means, though his mother an' me wasfriends, fur blood 's bound to tell, an' with sich blood as he 's got in him Idon't know what he 'll come to, an' I'm shore I don't want to be a-raisin' nogallus-birds." The women felt rather relieved that Mrs. Warren so signally washed herhands of Freddie. That was one danger he had escaped. The woman inquestion had, as she said, been a close friend of Margaret's, and, as such, anaider in her habits of intemperance. It had been apprehended that herassociation with the mother might lead her to take the child. "I 'd like to take Freddie myself," Mrs. Davis began again, "but with myfive, an' John out o! work half the time, another mouth to feed an' anotherpair o' feet to cover would mean a whole lot. Though I do think that ef I 15
✦