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Show Mother Dead, Crippled Boy Does Not Despair Deprived of Both Legs, Frank1 Hendrickson Possesses Dauntless Spirit. ! J "Out 6f the. night that covers me. Black as the pit from pule to pole. J I thank whatever pods may be For my unconquerable sou'.". j Frank C. Hendrickson didn't say that, but he might have said It. for In him js the stuff and the 111 fortune that Inspired the first utterance of the wohIa. Hendrickson is 13 years old. He Is legless and helpless. Until Tuesday he had a mother und, according to him, the finest mother any body ever had. Death Takes Mother. Hendrickson and his mother lived alone in two cramped, albeit clean and com- fortahle, little rooms In the upper floor of n house at f0 Xorih First West street. They had no money, only that which dribbled In from the daily toil of the little lit-tle woman and dribbled out ngain for dally bread and roof. Friday Mrs. Hendrickson went down town to consult a doctor about herself, leaving the boy alone a? she always had to. It mined that day and the streets were slippery. She fel1 en Main street near Scrace's bakery shop and so hurt hci-self that a hemorrhage resulted. They carried her into the bakery shop and a doctor was called. She was found to be in a critical condition and so weak that she could only murmur something about her son, but nobody en tight Just what she said. Tuesday Mrs. Hendrickson died at St. I Murk's lihsnltal Alt I'rlrinv afternoon the boy sat helpless In his chair and waited for het to come home and prepare the supper. .Night came, on and he began to worry. I-l called, hoping to attract someone's attention and send him looking for his mother. No one heard because the boy is weak of voice and the little home fs far removed from the. street and the walls of the old house are exceedingly exceed-ingly thick. All through the night the bo sat helpless, help-less, his mind filled with black dread. All Saturday ho sat. Finally hunger drove him to edge his chair about the room until he was able to reach the bread box and obtain a crust. Late In the afternoon a neighbor called as was her wont. The boy appealed to her to find his mother. That night he learned his mother was mortally HI. Learns of Mother's Death. "I could not. go to her. for I have no legs and no money to employ the legs of others." ja!d the boy as he told lUs story yesterdaj. "But tho hospital people peo-ple promised to telephone to n neighbor who had a telephone the moment my mother became any worse so that 1 could go to her even If I hail to crawl. Tuesday Tues-day the message name that mother hail died in the night. "My mother was far more- than legs to me." he said yesterday. "She was everything a boy could want. She lived only for me, It seemed. Every cent she could save from bare expenses she spent for books for me and I have been studying study-ing them." The boy pointed lo a library that would have done credit to a home far more pretentious. "It was her hope that maybe I could equip myself ,by reading so as to make n living in some way after she became too old to support us botb," he said. "Mother was 5" years old." Neighbor Pays Tribute. Mrs. Carrie Hendrickson .-was buried yesterday. Services were held at' the QiiHltroiigh-Alcotl undertaking rooms. Through tho kindness of neighbors the boy was able to attend, being lifted down the stairs Into a carriage. "Mrs. Hendrickson was one of the most lovable women T ever knew,' said a neighbor yesterday. "Her devotion to her crlppleri lvy was beautiful." Frank C. Hendrickson lost both legs In an elevator accident Ihrec years ago. Both limbs had to be amputated so close to his thighs that the merest slumps remain. re-main. "Before the accident he helped support his mother. After the funeral they broucht the boy back to th empty home and there ho sits looking Into the motherless future. And like the. poet Henley, who sang the defiant song of his unconquerable soul. "Under the bludgeoning?; of fate mv head is bloody hut unbowed," the boy is not. cheerless. "Maybe it will not turn out so bad as it looks .lust now," he said, "and anyway any-way I still have my hands." i. .i F. C. HENDRICKSON |