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Show A TOUCHING INCIDENT. My name is Anthony Hunt. I am a drover and I live miles and miles away, upon the Western prairie. There wasn't a house within sight when we moved there, my wife and I, and now we have not many neighbors, though those we have are good ones. One day about ten years ago I went away from home to sell some fifty head of cattle-fine creatures as ever I saw. I was to buy some groceries and dry goods before I came back, and above all, a doll for our youngest Dolly; she never had a shop doll of her own, only the rag babies her mother had made her. Dolly could talk of nothing else, and went down to the very gate to call after me, "Buy a big one." Nobody but a parent can understand how my mind was on that toy, and how when the cattle were sold, the first thing I hurried off to buy was Dolly's doll. I found a large one, with eyes that would open and shut when you pulled a wire, and had it wrapped up in paper and tucked it under my arm, while I had the parcels of calico and ??, and tea and sugar put up. It might have been more prudent to stay until morning, but I felt anxious to get back and eager to hear Dolly's prattle about the doll she was so anxiously expecting. I mounted on a steady-going old horse of mine, and pretty well loaded. Night set in before I was a mile from town, and settled down dark as pitch while I was in the middle of the wildest bit of the road I know of. I could have felt my way through, I remembered it so well, and it was almost that when the storm that had been brewing broke, and pelted the rain in torrents, five miles or maybe six from home, too. I rode on as fast as I could; but suddenly I heard a little cry, like a child's voice. I stopped short and listened. I heard it again. I called and it answered me. I couldn't see a thing. All was dark as I got down and felt about in the grass; called again, and again I was answered. Then I began to wonder. I'm not timid, but I was known to be a drover and to have money about me. I am not superstitious-not very-but how could a real child be out on the prairie in such a night, at such an hour? It might be more than human. The lot of a coward that hides itself in most men showed itself to me then, and I was half inclined to run away, but once more I heard that piteous cry, and, said I "If any man's child is hereabouts, Anthony Hunt is not the man to let it lie here to die." I searched again. At last I bethought me of a hollow under the hill, and groped that way. Sure enough I found a little dripping thing that moaned and sobbed as I took it in my arms. I called my horse and the beast came to me and I mounted and tucked the little soaked thing under my coat as well as I could, promising to take it home to mommy. It seemed tired to death, and pretty soon cried itself to sleep against my bosom. It had slept there over an hour when I saw my own windows. There were lights in them and I supposed my wife had lit them for my sake, but when I got into the yard I saw something was the matter, and stood still with dead fear of heart five minutes before I could lift the latch. At last I did it and saw the room full of neighbors, and my wife amid them weeping. When she saw me she hid her face. "O don't tell him!" she cried. "It will kill him." "What is it, neighbors?" I cried. And one said "Nothing now, I hope. What's that in your arms?" "A poor lost child," said I; "I found it on the road. Take it, will you? I've turned faint." And I lifted the sleeping thing and saw the face of my own child, my little Dolly. It was my darling, and no other that I had picked up upon the drenched road. My little child had wandered out to meet "Daddy" and the doll, while her mother was at work, and whom they were lamenting as one dead. I thanked God on my knees before them all. It is not much of a story, neighbors; but I think of it often in the nights, and wonder how I could bear to live now if I had not stopped when I heard the cry for help upon the road-the little baby cry, hardly louder than a squirrel's chirp. Ah, friends, the blessings of our work often come nearer to our homes than we ever dare to hope.-N. Y. Evangelist. |