Three Months in Bed on Soft His Proposal Spurned He Diet; Mother Bound Over Ventures to Big City to The mother of a boy whom she Make His Fortune was alleged to have been "killing by By MARK Hemm kindness" appeared at Lindsey Quar-(Im the "Oregonian") ter Sessons, Lincoln, recently.
Mrs. Rebecca Burman, 46, 2 widow, The train left a long rope of gray of Cuxwold, Lines, pleaded not guilty smoke in the red valley as it started, to neglecting her 11-year-old son. asthmatically, to climb tortuously A. doctor had stated at the police through the foothills, It wheezed by court that the child was kept in bed the white barns and ignored the for three months, fed on a soft diet, mangy livestock that browsed along and had no playmates. the right of way.
Mr. Walker Carter, prosecuting, Painfully, the train crept toward said that the doctors who examined the top, sometimes almost doubling the boy found that he had no organic on itself like a jointed worm. And disease of any sort, except that his when it reached the summit at last tonsils were enlarged. His diet was: it raced along the fiat table land Breakíast: Bread and milk or por-toward Burnsdale, shrieking like ridge and weak tea, with an something frightened.
Occasional orange or banana.
"Over there," said G. Franklin Midday meal: Beef tea or ground Williams, "where you see the big rice pudding; occasionally stewed billboard, is where the old Sears farm fruit, custard, blancmange or jelly. used to be. I don't see the main Evening meal: Bread and milk or house any more, Guess it's been torn porridge, o perhaps an orange or down. Or burned, may-be." beef tea.
"Pretty country, Mr. Williams," ob-The boy, continued Mr. Carter, had served the other man, not been to school since 1933 and no "I should say so,"
Mr. Williams effort had been made to teach him nodded, "Look over there. You can anything, he could not read, and he see the water tower faintly from was mentally slow, frightened and here. It used to supply Burnsdale cowed. when wells dried up in the summer.
"Looks like a big, black, wooden "Might Have Died" bowl on sticks, doesn't it? When I He became pale, languid and was a boy any kid who couldn't emaciated, developed flat feet and climb it was a sissy." He smiled as could not stand properly, his legs he reminisced. "I almost broke my being wasted for lack of use. neck the first time."
On May 21 he was taken to Brigg infirmary, where under normal treat-Old Haunted House ment and given solid food, he had already made a remarkable improve-He saw again Ed Winston's farm, ment, where one day long ago he watched Dr. G. W. H. Townsend, of Lincoln, pop-eyed at a sow having a litter. gave evidence that if-the treatment He watched, he said, until a bee stung had been continued the child would him between the fingers and made have gone down physically, and per-him forget all about biology. haps even more so mentally, until He saw all the saddening land-he would have become feeble-minded murks of a man returning home after and might even have died. a long voyage. He saw, with heavy Another doctor stated that the boy heart, that things looked faded and ad scarcely enough energy to talk. down-at-heel.
For two years he had not seen any Well, he had been away a long other children, according to his time, The hot suns of summer and mother. the whistling gales of winter had come and gone 30 times since G.
Complained of Pain Franklin Williams had last seen these In the witness-box, Mrs. Burman fields. said that she took her son away He talked on, half to himself. from school in June, 1933, because "Once," he said slowly, "once, a long he had a very bad cold. time ago, I asked a girl in Burnsdale Last December, when the boy had to be my wife. I sat on her porch bronchial trouble, a doctor told her engi the mosquitoes had practically to keep him in bed, and give him rubbed romance n Between slaps milk puddings. She had never done at my legs I popped the question, anything which she did not consider "I was sure of myself, I was in-was best for him. tensely in love, and I never dreamed In cross-examination, Mrs. Burman shed turn me down. But she did—said she did not give him solid food that very night." from January to March because he "The other man looked over at him, complained of terrible pains.
"Why?" he asked curious; Ordering the child to be placed "Financial reason," replied Mr. under the care of the local authority, the Bench bound Mrs. Burman over Williams, "She said she loved me. for three years.
Admitted it bluntly, in fact. But It was made a condition that during life, to her, didn't rate love first, She that period she would obey the said that marriage meant placing her orders of the local authority as to the life in some man's hands. And she care and treatment of the child. wanted to be certain that her man was going to be a success in life.
"I asked her if she thought I going to be a failure. She said yi Just as though she really knew. '|^Strip Tease Act" in "Franklin, she said to me, 'I love you but I'm not going to marry yo
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.