Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/84

 gathering in. Linton, feeling like an intruder, went in, too. But they did not consider his presence displeasing at all. They seemed to feel it an honor. The father arose and gave the reporter a chair, and the mother began telling about it all over again and cried some more. The neighbors fanned themselves and nodded assent to all the mother said about the dead child's virtues. Occasionally they stared at Linton. The old man smoked hard and wiped perspiration on his sleeve.

It was not a suicide—he verified this from the police later—but it was very sad, and the new reporter was sorry about it. They seemed grateful for his sympathy, and asked if he wouldn't like to see the body. Linton said, "Oh, no; thank you." But they wanted to show him some attention and insisted upon taking him into the room where the small, thin body lay all alone, with the hair still wet and the mouth half open, showing two big childish teeth. The other children's yelling voices came in through the window from the street below.

The new reporter had seen but two dead