THE DROVER'S STORY.

Clutha Leader, Volume I, Issue 21, 3 December 1874, Page 7

THE DROVER'S STORY.

My name is Anthony Hunt. I am a drover, and live miles away on the Western prairie. There wasn't a home within sight when we moved there, my wife and I ; and now we haven't many i neighbors, though those that we have are good ones. • ! One day, about ten years ago, I went away from home to sell some fifty head of cattle — fine creatures as ever I saw. I was to buy some groceries and dry goods before I came back, and, above all a doll for our youngest Dolly ; *she had never had a store doll of her 'own — only the rag babies her mother had made for her. Dolly could talk of nothing else, and went down to the very gate to call after me to buy a " big one." Nobody but a parent could understand how. full my mind was of that toy, and how, when the cattle were sold, the first thing, I hurried off to buy Dolly's doll. I found a large one, with eyes that would open and shut when you pulled a wire, and had it wrapped iu paper, and tucked it under my arm, while I had the parcels of calico and delaine, and tea and sugar, put up. Then, late as it was, I started for home. It might have been more prudent to stay until morning, but I felt anxious to get back, and eager to hear Dolly's prattle about her toy. I was mounted on a steady-going old horse of mine, and pretty well loaded. | Night set in before I -was a mile from town, and settled down dark as pitch while I was in the middle of the wildest J bit of road I know, This was about five miles, or may-be six, from home. I rode as fast as I could, but all of a sudden I heard a little cry, like a child's voice. I stopped short and listened — I heard it again. I called, and it answered me. I couldn't see a thing; all was dark as pitch. I got down and felt among the grass—called ' again and again, and was answered. Then I began to wonder. I'm not timid, but was known to be a drover, and to have money about me. Might it not be a trap to catch me unawares, and rob, and perhaps murder me ? Not superstitious— not very. But how could a real child be out on the prairie in such a night and at such an hour ? It might be more than human. I The bit of a coward that hides itself in most men showed itself in me then, | and I was then half inclined to run away ; but once more I heard that cry, and said to myself — " If any man's child is lost hereabout, Anthony Hunt is not the man to leave it to die." I searched again. At last T bethought me of a hollow under the hill, and groping that way, sure enough I found a little dripping thing, "that moaned and sobbed as I took it in my arms. I called my horse, and the beast came to me, and I mounted, and tucking the little soaked thing under my coat as well as I could, promised to take it home to its mammy. It seemed tired to death, and pretty soon cried itself into a sound sleep against my bosom. It had slept there an hour when I saw my own windows. There were lights in them, ancl I supposed my wife had lit them for my sake, but when I got into the dooryard I saw something was the matter, and stood still, with a dead fear at my heart, five minutes before I could lift the latch. At last I did it, and saw my room full of neighbors, and my wife amidst them weeping. When she saw me she bid her face and cried — " Oh, don't tell him ; it will kill him." " What is it, neighbors ?" I asked. And one said — " Nothing now, I hope. What's that in your arms ?" "A poor lost child," said I; "I found it on the road ; take it, will you, I've turned faint." I lifted up the sleeping thing, and saw the face of my own child, my little Dolly. It was my darling, and none other that 1 had picked up on the drenched road. My little child had wandered out to meet " daddy and the doll," while her mother was at work, and they were lamenting her as one dead. I thanked heaven on my knees before them all. It is not much of a story, neighbors, but I think of it often in the nights, and wonder how I could bear to live now if I had not stopped when I heard the cry for help upon the road, the little baby cry, hardly louder than a squirrel's chirp. That's Dolly yonder, with her mother in the meadow — a girl worth saving ; I think — but then 1 am her father, and partial, may-be — the prettiest and sweetest thing this side of the Mississippi. .