AND THE BABY BLIND.
From Sedalia a Deserted Mother
Walks Here With It.
A tired and worn little woman carrying a baby was picked up by the police in the bottoms about 9:30 o'clock last night. She was wandering about aimlessly. When she was taken to police headquarters later she gave the name of Mrs. Mabel Henderson and stated that she had walked all the way from Sedalia, Mo., and had carried the baby, 15-months old. At the station it clutched at its mother's dress and held tightly to her baby with its little hands.
"My baby is blind," the mother said in explanation, "and he is afraid to be away from me. The noise is new to him and he is frightened.
"My husband, John Henderson, left me three months ago," went on the worn little mother who is herself blind in one eye. "Then I had a hard time, as no one would take me in with baby, and I had no place to leave him. I took in washing, though, and got along. Then I thought I could do better in Sedalia, and I saved money and went there. That was a month and a half ago, but it's just the same. Nobody wants a woman with a blind baby and me half blind, too. It's pretty hard, I'll tell you.
"Last Monday at sunup I left there. A man gave me a quarter as I was leaving the town. I saved that to buy something for Robert Earl. That's my boy's name. I have walked all the way and carried him, too.
"The 25 cents was all the money I had to live on. I bought crackers and cakes for baby with that. I walked as early in the morning as I could to as late as I could stand it. Yes, I'm pretty tired now, but not much hungry."
Mrs. Henderson reached here about 9 o'clock last night, having covered eighty-five miles, the distance from Kansas City to Sedalia. When she reached headquarters she was given a ticket and sent to the Helping Hand Institute for the night. She says that she has two brothers-in-law, Claarence and "Cal" Graves, in the city somewhere. The police will try and find them for her.
