Cousin Maude

"Where is Louis?" he asked. "Has anything happened to him that you

look so pale?"

"Louis is well," answered Matty, and then, unable longer to control

her feelings, she burst into tears, while the doctor looked on in

amazement, wondering if all women were as nervous and foolish as the

two it had been his fortune to marry.

"Oh, husband," she cried, feeling sure of his sympathy, and thinking

it better to tell the truth at once; "has it never occurred to you

that Louis was not like other children?"

"Of course it has," he answered quickly. "He is a thousand times

brighter than any child I have ever known."

"'Tisn't that, 'tisn't that," said Matty. "He'll never walk--he's

lame--deformed!"

"What do you mean?" thundered the doctor, reeling for an instant

like a drunken man; then, recovering his composure, he listened

while Matty told him what she meant.

At that moment Maude drew Louis into the room, and, taking the child

in his arms, the doctor examined him for himself, wondering he had

never observed before how small and seemingly destitute of life were

his lower limbs. The bunch upon the back, though slight as yet, was

really there, and Matty, when questioned, said it had been there for

weeks, but she did not tell of it, for she hoped it would go away.

"It will stay until his dying day," he muttered, as he ordered Maude

to take the child away. "Louis deformed! Louis a cripple! What have

I done that I should be thus sorely punished?" he exclaimed, when he

was alone with his wife; and then, as he dared not blame the

Almighty, he charged it to her, until at last his thoughts took

another channel. Maude had dropped him--he knew she had, and Matty

was to blame for letting her handle him so much, when she knew 'twas

a maxim of his that children should not take care of children.

He had forgotten the time when his worn-out wife had asked him to

hire a nurse girl for Louis, and he had answered that "Maude was

large enough for that." On some points his memory was treacherous,

and for days he continued to repine at his hard fate, wishing once

in Matty's presence that Louis had never been born.

"Oh, husband," she cried, "how can you say that! Do you hate our

poor boy because he is a cripple?"

"A cripple!" roared the doctor. "Never use that word again in my

presence. My son a cripple! I can't have it so! I won't have it so!

for 'tis a max--"