That a widower might possibly be so situated as to render such a measure necessary, I could conceive, but that a father could pen such a brusque, hilarious, jocular—“halloa-there”—announcement of the fact, rather stunned me.
“Who wants a boy?”
As if it were a colt, or a calf, or a six-weeks young pup—or any thing under heaven but his own flesh and blood! as if the little innocent had never lain beneath the loving heart of her whose last throb was for its sweet helplessness—last prayer for its vailed future.
Shade of the mother hover over that child!
I read again:
“Information wanted of a little girl, who, at the age of five years, was placed, ten years ago, in —— alms-house.”
I thought of her cheerless childhood (as I looked around my own bright hearthstone at my own happy children). I saw her yearning vainly for the sweet ties of kindred. I followed her from thence out into the world, where all but herself, even the humblest, seem to have some human tie to make life sweet; I saw her wandering hither and thither, like Noah’s weary dove, without finding the heart’s resting-place; wondering, when she had time to wonder (for the heavy burden of daily toil which her slender shoulders bent beneath), if one heart yet beats on God’s green earth, through which her own life-tide flows.
I think of this—I wonder who it is who “wants information” concerning her. I wonder is it some remorseful relative, some brother, some sister, some father whose heart is at length touched with pity for the unrecognized little exile—ay—such things have been!
“Clerks out of employment.”