I was so weak that I could not hold my baby, for all at once there came over me the sense of my utter helplessness to prove that my child was my own. There was no one to whom I could telegraph without revealing my identity and the purpose of my journey. A telegram to my friends at home would alarm them and might betray me. A message to my Soldier would jeopardize his safety, for he would surely come to me at once.
"Look, look!" I said to the magistrate and officers when they read aloud the suspicions and accusation of the philanthropic ladies who were with me on board the Albany steamer and who, in their zeal to secure a right and correct a wrong, ignorant of the cause of my child's discomfort and unhappiness with me and the reasons for my rather suspicious reticence, had caused my arrest.
Thus do the pure and holy ever keep guard over the sins of the world and throw the cable-cord of justice around the unregenerate to drag them perforce into the path of rectitude. May they reap the reward to which their virtues entitle them.
"Look at his eyes and look at mine," I exclaimed, holding his little face up against my own. "Can't you all see that it is my child?"
"That may be, but give us the name of some one to whom we may telegraph—some tangible proof. If he is your own there must be some one who knows you and can testify in your behalf."
"No, no," I said, "there is no one. I have nobody to help me, and if God does not show you all some way and your own hearts do not convince you I don't know what I shall do."
My poor little, half-starved, in-litigation baby refused to be comforted. The kind gentleman with the shawl could amuse him no longer. He had dashed from him the keys and pushed the watch from his ear and demanded impatiently the right of sustenance. The dear, good woman beside me, with the smile of the redeemed and a look of relief lighting up her face, touched mine, whispering in my ear while I held the baby's hands to prevent him in his impatience from tearing apart my mantle and untying my bonnet-strings:
"Do you nurse your baby?"
"Yes," I replied, "and he is so hungry, poor little thing."
She stood up, leaning on her cane, for she was slightly lame, and said in a voice clear and sweet: