“What do you mean by getting so close to me?  Don’t you see you have put mud on my dress from your shoes?  Move away,” said the lady.

The little urchin replied:  “I’m so sorry I got mud on your dress; I didn’t mean to do it.”

“Where are you going, all by your little self, anyway?”

“I’m going to my aunt’s where I live.”

“Have you no mother?”

“No mam; she died four weeks ago.  I ain’t got any mother now, and that’s why I was settin’ up close to you to make believe you wuz my mother.  I’m sorry ’bout the mud, you’ll ’scuse me, won’t you, good lady?”

The woman extending her hand said:  “Yes I will; come here,” and soon her arm was about him, and tears in her eyes, and the boy could have wiped his feet on any dress in that car without rebuke.  We want more of human touch in national and individual life.

A tramp called at a fine home for his supper.  The owner said:  “You can have something to eat provided you do some work beforehand.”

“What can I do,” asked the “hobo.”

A set of harness was given him to clean.  The gentleman went to his supper, and soon after a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of four years came out, and approaching the tramp, said:  “Good evening, sir.  Is you got a little girl like me?”

“No, I am all alone in the world.”

“Ain’t you got no mama and papa?”

“No, they died a long time ago,” and the tramp wiped away a tear as memory came rolling up from out the hallowed past.

“Oh!  I’m so sorry for you, ’cause I have a home and papa and mama.”

The man of the house came out, and looking at the harness said:  “That’s a good job; you must have done that work before.  Come in and you shall have a good supper.”

The little tot ran around to the front gate, where a pair of horses, hitched to a carriage, waited to take the family on a drive.  The tramp finished his supper and passing out, the little one in the carriage said:  “Good-bye, mister.  When you want supper again you come and see us, won’t you;” and turning to the driver she said:  “He ain’t got no papa, nor mama, no little girl and no home.”

The tramp, who heard these words taking off his old hat bowed low to the little one who had spoken the kind words.

A few minutes later while standing on a street corner, wondering where he could spend the night, some one shouted, “Horses running away!” The driver had left the team and the horses started with the little girl alone in the carriage, screaming for help.  Men ran out but the mad horses cleared the track.  The tramp fixed himself, and as the team swept by, he gave a bound and caught the bit of the nearest horse.  The horses reared and plunged but the tramp held on, until he swerved them to the sidewalk.  As the near horse struck the curb he fell and the tramp was crushed beneath the horse.  A physician came and as he bent over to examine the heart, the tramp said:  “Was the little one saved?”