"That was what they told me. And they told me, the birds all begun to sing at once, and the flowers all lighted up like the sun was shining on them. They seed her. And she come down the walk, and through the gate," his voice lowering again to a whisper.
Aye, how the birds must have sung, and the flowers shone, to the widowed mother as she ran, nay, leaped, down that rose-hedged walk, with her restored baby clasped to her bosom!
"They seed her," repeated the little fellow. "And that is why you stand here—to see her, too?"
His shoulder turned uneasily in the clasp upon it.
"They seed her, and they ain't got no eyes."
"Have you no mother?"
"Ain't never had no mother." A thought struck him. "Would that count, ma'am? Would that count? The little baby that was dying—yes, ma'am, it had a mother; and it's the mothers that come here constant with their children; I sometimes hear 'em dragging them in by the hand."
"How long have you been coming here?"
"Ever since the first time I heard it, ma'am."
Street ragamuffins do not cry: it would be better if they did so, when they are so young and so blind; it would be easier for the spectator, the auditor.