LOST BOY FOUND

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LX, Issue 11095, 21 April 1933, Page 2

LOST BOY FOUND

ON E MORE WONDERFUL, STORY OF THE WAR. From France conies a true fairy tale of real life. During 1918 a family had to retreat from the, war area, and a little boy of three vanished. All efforts to trace him were vain in thte confused times. His mo4her at last gave up hope of seeing him again, and spent many sad hours wondering what had happened to him. Fourteen years went by. The other day she opened a newspaper and saw a photograph of a young man whose face was somewhat familiar, and under the photograph were a few lines of print which made her erv; “It i,s my boy I He is found! The paper told how the young man had been parted from his family in the war. Kind-hearted soldiers had taken care of the little fellow, and petted him, but. of course, ho could not go into the front line with them, and soon they left him at a hostel for Belgian refugees at Dunkirk. The soldiers told the boy's story, but no one knew his name. Afterwards he was adopted by a Belgiau farmer, but lately there had been trouble with officials, who said that a Frenchman could not live in Belgium without being naturalised.

This brought to a head the hoy’s wistful longing to know' his own people. For aught he knew they might all be dead, but luckily it is not so, thanks to the wonderful coincidence that the newspaper which told the lad’s story chanced to come into his mother’s hands.