: The Historians' History of the World in Twenty-Five Volumes Volume 08 Parthians Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy by Williams Henry Smith Editor - World history

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Illustrator: H.P.

A Pair of Clogs, and other stories, by Amy Walton.

After a few years, and in a particularly tense moment, the true mother is found. An agreement is reached, whereby the child is shared.

As with Amy Walton short stories, there is not only a well-told tale but also a moral.

HER FIRST HOME.

"My! What a pretty pair of clogs baby's gotten!"

The street was narrow and very steep, and paved with round stones; on each side of it were slate-coloured houses, some high, some low; and in the middle of it stood baby, her curly yellow head bare, and her blue cotton frock lifted high with both fat hands. She could not speak, but she wanted to show that on her feet were tiny new clogs with bright brass tips.

She stopped in front of all her acquaintances, men, women, children, and even dogs. Each of them, except the last, made much the same remark, and she then toddled cheerfully on, until nearly everyone in the village of Haworth knew of this wonderful new thing.

It would have been much better, everyone told her, to leave her up at Haworth instead of bringing her into the smoky town; Maggie knew it, but her answer was always the same to this advice:

"I couldn't bring myself to it," she said. "I niver could git through the work if I didn't know she was near me."

So winter and summer, through the damp cold or the burning heat, she might be seen coming quickly down the steep hill from Haworth every morning clack, clack, in her wooden shoes, with her child in her arms. In the evening her pace was slower, for she was tired, and the road was hard to climb, and the child, generally asleep, weighed heavily. For the baby was getting beyond a baby now; she was nearly two years old. How pretty she was, how clever, what dear little knowing ways she had, what tiny feet and hands! How yellow her hair was, how white her skin! She was unlike any child in Haworth; she was matchless!

And indeed, quite apart from her mother's fond admiration, the baby was a beautiful child, delicately formed, and very different from the blunt-featured children of those parts; she was petted by everyone in the village, and had in consequence such proud, imperious little ways that she was a sort of small queen there; the biggest and roughest man among them was her humble subject, and ready to do her bidding when she wished to be tossed in the air or to ride pickaback. She could say very few words yet, but nothing could exceed her brightness and intelligence--a wonderful baby indeed!

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