IN THE TRAIN. [By Arthur H. Adams]

Evening Post, Volume XLIX, Issue 134, 8 June 1895, Page 2 (Supplement)

IN THE TRAIN. [By Arthur H. Adams]

r The train stopped at some Godforgotten flag station, and she came 3 in carrying a muffled-up baby. She B , took the corner seat opposite me, next to the gushing girl who was B beguiling the journey with peanuts P and a policeman. But policeman % and even peanuts were forgotten ' when this white-faced, faded, pretty girl mother came in, her great ej'es, ¦} heaving with grief and her weary arms holding her child to her breast. r She wore some dark dress tliat suggested crape, fitting close to her girlish curves. A widow, probably — !¦ perhaps an unmarried one ? She sank wearily into the corner, huddling t the bundle of baby clomr, wliilo a 0 curiuus half (kfimce looked out of t her wide, wet-lashed eyes, seeking f no sympathy — even dreading it. s By-and-by the gushing girl sidled s up to the new comer and cooed coyly - at the muffled child. Wiih a gesture s of disgust, the mother turned from B her, as if to shield herchild, bending . back into the corner. But tin* gusher i. was not easily baulked. How old ,f was the ickle darling? Mightn't 1 she see its pretty wee face ? JJid-it like peanutß ? — didn't it, then ? And '. the hopeless weariness showed in 8 every lin<- of tho mother's white face. .. At last the gushing girl left her in a peace, and returned to her peanuts it and her policeman. 6 The train Blouched on, as slowly i and sullenly as only narrow gauge Maoriland trains dare; and silenco b settled in the carriage. The girle mother had sunk limply to sleep — a the drugged sleep of weariness and c misery. Her child had slipped slowly t. from her weak arms and was prea, cariously resting ou her lap — sleeping >. too. A. ,6udden jolt of tno train a almost threw the baby on the floor ; a, but tho mother did not stir. In an >, instant the gushing girl was a-woninn. f Without waking the sleeper ahe i clutched the tired little heap of clothes, and took it to her breast with an o involuntary choking whisper in her voice, sooching it softly and lovingly. She slipped back the shawl to look at it — such a white little face ! There was a shriek that filled the carriage, and the girl stared at tho r child, holding it at arm's length, her '" horror almost thrusting it from her. A moment later the mother leaped at * her angrily and snatched the child 0 from her stiffened arms. The girl sank back. i; Why, its B dead/" she gasped. * Then the only smile that had lit V the mother's face flickered slowly 3 across it. " Yes," she said, " she died yesterday, and I am taking her o to be buried." And the rest was buried in a flood of tears, t * * # # In Maoriland the conveyance of a n corpse is charged for at a shilling a mile. — From the Bulletin. c _________