The Lancaster Gazette

Finding a Baby.
My name is Anthony Hunt. I am a drover; and I live miles and miles away upon the western prairie. There wasn't a house in sight when we moved there, my wife and I, and now we haven't many neighbors, though those 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 a store doll of her own, only the rag babies her mother had made her. Dolly could talk of nothing else. and went down to the very gate to call after me to "buy her a good 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 was Dolly's doll. I found a large one, with eyes that would open and shut when you pulled a wire and had it wrapped in paper and tucked it under my arm while I had the parcels of calico and delaines 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 on a steady going old horse of mine, and pretty well loaded. Night set in before I was a mile away from town. while I was in the middle of the wildest bit of road I knew of. I could have felt my way through, I remembered it so well, and it was almost that when the storm that had been brewing broke, and pelted the rain in torrents, five miles or may be six from home yet, too. 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 about the grass—called again, and was answered. Then I began to wonder. I am not timid. but I was known to be a drover. and to have money about me. It might be a trap to catch me unawares and rob and murder me. I'm 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. The bit of a coward that hides itself in most men. showed itself in me then, and I was half inclined to run away, but once more I heard that cry, and I said: "If any man's child is hereabouts Anthony Hunt is not the man to let it die."
I searched again. At last I 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 up my horse and the beast came to me. and I mounted and tucked the little soaked thing under my coat as well as I could, promising to take it home to mamma. It seemed tired to death, and pretty soon cried itself to sleep against my bosom. It had not slept more than an hour when I saw my own windows. There were lights in them and I supposed my wife had lit them for my sake; but when I got into the door yard I saw something was the matter, and stood still with a dread fear for 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 hid her face. "Oh don't tell him," she cried. "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, "that I found in the road. Take it, will you? I feel 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 I 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 whom they were lamenting 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 night, 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.