SHE CAME TO HIS AID
The late Horace Leland, who for many years kept the Leland Hotel at Springfield, Ill., was an exceedingly generous man and an especial lover of children. One day he and Judge A. C. Matthews, then Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives, and afterward the First Controller of the Treasury, were walking out together when they met a man with a cluster of toy balloons. School was just out and hundreds of boys and girls came pouring from a building near at hand and formed in groups around the balloon man.
“Hold on, Ace,” said Mr. Leland, “there’s a joyous sight,” and the two stopped and watched the children gaze longingly at the balloons.
“I can make some of them happy, anyway,” said Mr. Leland, and he asked the man the price of the balloons.
“Fi’ cent apiece.”
“How much for the lot?” asked the philanthropist.
The man counted them over. There were twenty-one.
“One dol’ for de lot.”
Mr. Leland took them all and distributed them among the children with as much fairness as possible, and away the little codgers ran with them.
Then Mr. Leland put his hand in his pocket and said: