Show TOMS CRIPPLED SISTER UI is biome down in Ellyn ellenbeth beth street and the present for the little girl if you cross city hall park in the evening you will likely encounter little tom theres a something in his voice as he cries out to make you think of a night bird a tremulous quavering call that attracts your attention over all other sounds tom and I 1 went into partnership last fall after the first freeze up I 1 got the shoes and hat and suit and lie wore them it did him proud and now and then an envious fellow newsboy would havo have thumped him out of spite if I 1 kept an eye on him and bribed a policeman to do the same I 1 went d down own home with him once down in elizabeth street and 1 found lie had a one armed father who found it hard to get along and a mother who worked hard and kept hoping and a sis sister kate ten years old the girl met with a fall years before and was so crippled that she hall had not been out of the house for long years etwas it was awful tei ta realize of what she was deprived and ot of tho the bitter poverty still further to bo be endured but she was trying to be brave and cheerful and mako make tho tho best of fate tom I 1 said one day after that 1 I want to buy kate a santa claus present when christmas comes you keep quiet but find out what will please her most and she shall have it I 1 suppose that little chap worked and worried harder over that thing 0 than over anything else in his whole life he ha came to me time after time with su suggestions 0 gest ions ono one day it would bo be a book the next a slate the next nest a new dress or a pair of slippers but when lie was at the point of giving givin up in despair we do decided filled on a hand glass brush and comb in in a red plush box bos it the cli checker ecker shouted little tom is as I 1 took him into a store one day and made a selection jemimah whiz but when kate gets that she trade places with the richest girl in now new york I 1 took the box bos to the office and almost very every day tho the lad came up and we hall had it out for another look he have been more elated had he known that he was to get a fifty dollar billin bill in his own stocking I 1 expect he had a hard time of it at home to keep tho the secret but ho he managed to do it just a week before christmas little tom came up stairs ono one day just as I 1 was going ho ciomo mourith with an attack of the grip I 1 made it up with him how ho he was to get the box bos if 1 I was laid up and so go when alien tile days passed and I 1 was still loused up I 1 felt that the little cripple would not be disappointed after all alit alii that night before christmas how many little hearts were made glad in this great city and how many thousands were gifts gifts which public I 1 charity bought and distributed it was on christmas day that I 1 went down into elizabeth street and climbed to the iop op floor of a tenement to wish little tom and his folks a merry christmas and to see if the crippled girl had safely received her much talked of and anch in tich looked at present I 1 found gloom and woo where I 1 had looked tor for smiles and sunshine there were tears and sobs and lamentations in those poverty stricken rooms while everywhere elso else in new york there were shouts of joy and exultation little toms mother led mo me into a abed bell room without a word on tho the bed dressed for her conin coffin was tho the crippled girl dying 0 quietly and peacefully the day before on oil the stand beside her was the red plush box bos which she hall never beli beheld eld they had taken out the comb and brush to arrange her chestnut curls and from thenceforth forever nothing will avill bo be bield more sacred iu in that household than the gift which providence willed should not be given there may come con ae hun hunger er and cold and rags and sickness they may sit in the darkness for want of light they may lie be evicted for the need of a few shillings but that red plush box will be held bell as sacred as the grave itself and poor tom when the night sky banks up with tho the gray snow clouds and winter gusts hurry pedestrians across tile the park I 1 hear bear him calling and calling and I 1 know that thero there are tears in his big bi blue eyes as aa his voice goes out into t tho lie darkness now york world |