A little boy was riding in a street car, and, observing a kindly
looking woman, he snuggled closely up to her, and unconsciously
rubbed his dusty feet against her dress, when she leaned over to
a woman on the other side of the little boy and said shortly,
“Madam, will you kindly make your little boy take his feet off
my dress?” The other woman said, “My boy? He isn’t my boy.” The
little fellow squirmed uneasily, seemed to be greatly distrest,
and looked disappointedly into the face of the woman who had
disowned relationship to him. The woman whose attention had
thus been called to the little boy presently observed that
the child’s eyes were fastened upon her with a peculiarly
wistful expression, and she said to him, “Are you going about
alone?” “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, “I always go alone; father
and mother are dead, and I live with Aunt Clara, and when she
gets tired of me she sends me to Aunt Sarah, to stay as long
as she will keep me; but they both tire of me so soon, I keep
changing from one to the other; they don’t either of them care
for little boys like me.” The woman’s heart was drawn to the
motherless boy, and she said, “You are a very little boy to be
traveling alone like this.” “Oh, I don’t mind,” said he, “only
I get lonesome sometimes on these long trips, and when I see
some one that I think I would like to belong to, I snuggle up
close to her so that I can make believe I really do belong to
her. This morning I was playing that I belonged to that other
lady, and I forgot about my dirty shoes. But she would not let
me belong to her. Do you like little boys?” The pitifulness of
that appeal overcame all restraint of the woman’s feelings, and
regardless of a car full of spectators, she put her arms around
the tiny chap, hugged him close, and kissing him, said, “Yes,
and I only wish you wanted to belong to me.” The boy looked at
her with rapturous content, and replied, “I do.” And she said,
“You shall,” and she adopted him.--JAMES T. WHITE,
“Character Lessons.”
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