ce going, in my gig, up the hill, in
the village of FRANKFORD, near Philadelphia, when a little girl, about
two years old, who had toddled away from a small house, was lying
basking in the sun, in the middle of the road. About two hundred yards
before I got to the child, the teams, five big horses in each, of three
wagons, the drivers of which had stopped to drink at a tavern on the
brow of the hill, started off, and came, nearly abreast, galloping down
the road. I got my gig off the road as speedily as I could; but expected
to see the poor child crushed to pieces. A young man, a journeyman
carpenter, who was shingling a shed by the side of the road, seeing the
child, and seeing the danger, though a stranger to the parents, jumped
from the top of the shed, ran into the road, and snatched up the child,
from scarcely an inch before the hoof of the leading horse. The horse's
leg knocked him down; but he, catching the child by its clothes, flung
it back, out of the way of the other horses, and saved himself by
rolling back with surprising agility. The mother of the child, who had,
apparently, been washing, seeing the teams coming, and seeing the
situation of the child, rushed out, and catching up the child, just as
the carpenter had flung it back, and hugging it in her arms, uttered _a
shriek_ such as I never heard before, never heard since, and, I hope,
shall never hear again; and then she dropped down, as if perfectly dead!
By the application of the usual means, she was restored, however, in a
little while; and I, being about to depart, asked the carpenter if he
were a married man, and whether he were a relation of the parents of the
child. He said he was neither: 'Well, then,' said I, 'you merit the
gratitude of every father and mother in the world, and I will show mine,
by giving you what I have,' pulling out the nine or ten dollars that I
had in my pocket. 'No; I thank you, Sir,' said he: 'I have only done
what it was my duty to do.'

179. Bravery, disinterestedness, and maternal affection surpassing
these, it is impossible to imagine. The mother was going right in
amongst the feet of these powerful and wild horses, and amongst the
wheels of the wagons. She had no thought for herself; no feeling of fear
for her own life; her _shriek_ was the sound of inexpressible joy; joy
too great for her to support herself under. Perhaps ninety-nine mothers
out of every hundred would have acted the same part, under similar
circumsta