Signing the Contract and What it Cost

“Give her to me – my little Ethel!” she said faintly.

“You are ill, my good woman, not able to hold her,” Mrs. Kemper said, as she reluctantly complied with the request.

“Yes, and I – have eaten nothing to-day – and have walked many miles.”

“Poor soul!” exclaimed Irene, the kind-hearted mistress of the shanty, coming in with the tea. “Here, drink this, and I’ll bring you some supper. You look more dead than alive, and the rain has soaked you through and through. Dear, dear! you’ll catch your death o’ cold!”

She raised the wanderer’s head as she spoke, and held the cup to her lips.

It was eagerly drained to the last drop, and seemed to revive the poor creature greatly.

Food was brought, and the babe devoured it as if half famished, but the mother ate sparingly. She was evidently very ill, almost dying, thought those about her, and hastened to do all in their power for her relief and comfort.

Plainly she was, as Mrs. Kemper had said, no common tramp: there was lady-like refinement in face, voice, and manner; her accent was pure, her speech correct and even elegant, as, in answer to kindly inquiries, she gave a brief account of the causes of her present sad condition.

At an early age she had been left an orphan and without any natural protector; had married some three years ago, and two years later her husband had died, leaving her penniless, in feeble health, and with a babe to support. She had managed for a time to earn a scanty living by needlework, but there was little demand for it where she lived, and wages were very low; so, taking her child in her arms, she had set out in search of other employment or a better location.

It had proved a long, weary quest, and here she was, in utter destitution and about, she greatly feared, to die, and leave her helpless babe with none to love or care for it.

With the last words a great sob burst from her bosom; and clasping the little creature close,

“Ah my darling, my little Ethel, if I might but take you with me!” she moaned in anguish.

“Ah now don’t take on so,” Irene said kindly. “You’ll be better to-morrow. Walking all day in the cold, and gettin’ wet too, it’s no wonder you’re down-hearted like; but cheer up, you’ll get over it and find work, and maybe see as good days as ever you did.”

The wanderer thanked her with a grateful look, as she continued silently to caress Ethel; the child, no longer cold and hungry, hanging about her mother’s neck, stroking her face lovingly, and prattling in innocent glee.

Mrs. Kemper watched her with delighted, longing eyes, the tears starting to them once and again.

“What a lovely, darling little creature she is!” she whispered to her husband; “just the age our Nellie was.” And then she added a few words in a still lower tone.

He nodded acquiescence; and turning to the mother, said that he and his wife would like to adopt the child and bring it up as their own; that they would do so if she would at once give it up entirely to them.

A look of mingled grief and terror came over her face at the bare suggestion. She clutched her treasure in a death-like grasp.

“No, no! how could I? how could I?” she cried, “my baby! my precious baby! my all! no, no, never, never!”

“Take time to consider,” he said soothingly. “I am sorry to distress you, but, as you have yourself said, your child will soon need another protector, and it is very unlikely that another will be readily found to do as well by her as we would.”

“But wait – wait till I am gone!” she moaned. “She is my all, my all! Oh, ’tis hard to die and leave her! My baby, my baby, your mother’s heart will break!” and the tears fell like rain on the wondering little face upturned to hers.

“Don’t ky, Ethel’s mamma! Ethel love ’oo!” cooed the babe, lifting her dress to wipe away the tears, while with the other arm she clung about her neck, then kissing her wet cheek again and again.

Mrs. Kemper, with great tears of sympathy rolling down her own cheeks, knelt at the wanderer’s side, and, taking one thin hand in hers, said:

“I feel for you, my poor, poor friend! I do indeed. I know a mother’s heart, for I once had a little one like this, and when death snatched her from me I would gladly have gone down into the grave with her, for she was my only one. That was ten years ago. I have never had another, and it is not likely I ever shall; and now when you feel that you must leave this darling, will you not let me have her to fill the vacant place in my heart – in our hearts and home, for my husband will love her dearly too, and be a good father to her?”

“Oh, gladly, when – when I am gone!”

“But we cannot wait; we must go on our journey in another hour. And it will be to you only parting a little sooner; for her good too. You cannot be selfish where your dear child is concerned.”

“No, no, God knows I would suffer anything for her. I love her better than my own soul. But I cannot give her up till – I must. Have pity, have pity! she is all I have left – parents, sister, husband, home, all – everything gone but her – my precious, precious baby! Oh, don’t, don’t ask me to let her go from my arms while I live!” she pleaded in heart-broken accents, and with bitter sobs and tears.

“We would not if it could be helped,” sobbed Mrs. Kemper, “but it cannot; and for her sake you will give her to us now?”

Mr. Kemper joined his arguments and entreaties to those of his wife. They engaged to do all in their power for the well-being and happiness of the little one, treating her in every respect as if she were their own offspring, on the one condition that she should be given up entirely to them, never to be claimed by any one – even a near relative, or the mother herself, should she by any possibility survive.

Mr. Kemper had torn a leaf from his note-book, and, with pen and ink furnished by Irene, had drawn up a deed of gift to that effect, which he was urging the mother to sign.

“No, no! I can never, never agree to that!” she cried in reference to the last stipulation. “Live without my own precious child! never, never!”

“A mere form,” he said. “You cannot live many days, my good woman; do you not feel that it is so?”

She but clasped her child closer, while her whole frame shook with the violence of her emotion. She seemed almost ready to expire with the mental anguish superadded to her great physical prostration.

At length the distant rumble of an approaching train was heard.

“There, you have but a moment left for decision,” said the gentleman; “that is the train we must take. Will you sacrifice your child’s welfare or your own feelings?”

She was now seated beside the table, her child asleep in her arms.

He laid the deed of gift he had made out before her as he spoke, and put a pen between her fingers.

She lifted her eyes to his with a look of wild anguish fit to move a heart of stone.

He simply pointed to the unconscious babe.

She looked at it, seized the pen, hurriedly scrawled a name at the foot of the deed, and fell back fainting.

But the shrill whistle of the locomotive and the thunder of the train close at hand aroused her.

“We must go now; let me take her,” Mrs. Kemper was saying in tones tremulous with great compassion. “I will love her dearly, dearly; I will cherish her as the apple of my eye. Let me wrap this warm shawl around her.”

“No, Dolly, I’ll carry her,” Mr. Kemper said, in a tone of half-suppressed delight, as he finished buttoning up his overcoat after safely depositing the note-book, with the deed of gift, in an inner pocket.

But silently the mother put them both aside. There was agony in her wan, emaciated face. She could not speak for the choking in her throat; but she strained the child to her heart, laid her cold white cheek to its warm and rosy face and kissed it passionately again and again.

“We must go,” repeated Mrs. Kemper. “Oh, my heart aches for you, but we must go!”

“We must indeed, poor thing! there’s not a moment to be lost,” added Mr. Kemper, taking the child from her with gentle force. “Here, this will supply your needs while you live, I think,” putting a roll of notes into her hand.

She dropped them as if a serpent had stung her, and with a wild cry rushed after him, as, hastily wrapping a shawl about the infant, he ran with it toward the train, his wife close behind him.

They had already tarried almost too long; had scarcely time to gain the platform of the nearest car ere the train swept swiftly on its way.

“My child, my child! give me back my child!” shrieked the distracted mother, pursuing with outstretched arms, the storm beating pitilessly on her uncovered head, her long, dark hair streaming in the wind.

For a moment she seemed to fly over the ground, love and despair lending her unnatural strength and speed; the next – as the train was lost to sight in the depths of the forest – she tottered and would have fallen but for the strong arm of a kindly switchman, who, hastily setting down his lantern, sprang forward just in time to save her.