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Show HOW JENNIE "WON THE CROSS. When the Paris Exposition opens it will have among its guests one young girl upon whom especial honors will be showered. Her name is Jennie Creek, and she will wear a five-pointed gold star upon her breast; and upon it will be the words, "Republique Francaise." She will go to Paris at the invitation of the National Humane Society, which means that she has done something very wonderful. If you should become acquainted with her and ask her the name of her home, she would say, "I live in Indiana." And if you should further question her and inquire, "And why do you wear the "cross of the Legion of Honor? You are not a great artist or a scholar or even a brave general. What have you done?" she might reply, "I stopped a train." Jennie was ten years old, and it was the year of the World's Fair. She lived in a little town in Indiana, and was just a dear, merry child; a trifle more thoughtful than most children, perhaps, for she had no mother. That may have been the reason why the little girl had e motherly care over everyone else; and the reason, too, why she won the five-pointed gold cross, for it was a deed of love that gained it. She was a pretty child and a good one, but no one had ever thought of her as remarkable in any other way. One day in September, after the district dis-trict school was out. she went to play on the railroad track. The town was only a flag-station, where trains never stopped without a signal. She ran i gaily up the track, chasing butterflies, singing, and thinking that the express train would soon be in sight. Just then she thought she smelled smoke. The bridge that crossed a little creek was burning If the train attempted to cross that bridge hundreds of lives might be lost," for the stream had worn a deep gully underneath the track. There was no time in which to go for help. "How would the station-master stop the train?" thought Jennie, quickly. quick-ly. "He would wave a red flag," was her conclusion. She was wearing a little scarlet flannel flan-nel skirt, and in a moment she had taken it off and was waving it frantic-taUywThe. frantic-taUywThe. IS$.incame. rumhiiru one. The engineer, looking ahead, saw the small figure and the waving scarlet signal. The train slowed up and came to a standstill, with the burning bridge ahead of it and all on board safe! Is it a wonder that the men carried the brave child about on their shoulders, and that the women rained upon her tears and blessings? On board that train were a number of distinguished Frenchmen returning from the World's Fair, and that accounts ac-counts for the fact that in a few weeks a five-pointed cross found its way to Jennie Creek, of Indiana. Now she is going across the water tcsee the grateful grate-ful people whose lives she saved, and to be the guest of the French nation. |