Laura Brayton — page 188: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

LAURA BRAYTON. eo 179 With a wild scream of alarm, quick as thought, she sprang and grasped the uplifted arm. In an instant, the wretch, finding it in vain while she clung there to strike him whom he meant to kill, turned on her and drove the knife into her breast. It was but the work of a second, yet in a crowded © street, not only the young man, but many more turned upon him; but it was too late. With the agility of an eel, squirming from: the hands out- stretched to seize him, the murderous wretch plunged through the crowd, and while young Put- nam lifted the young woman up, the blood gushing in torrents over his hands, she gasped out: “Thank Heaven! I have given life for life! You saved me and my child; I could not let him kill you!” Then the young man recognized the woman he had saved from the fire, and instantly carrying her into a drug store close at hand, called for medical aid to stanch the wound. But all effort was useless. She lived long enough to tell how she had seen the man lurking near by all day nearly, how she had seen his knife, and afterward his murderous look as he followed one whom she recognized as he passed, and whom she had indeed saved at the cost of her own life. Long enough, also, to confide her child to the care of him who had before saved its life, and then she died, with a smile on her wan face. | Eldridge Putnam, sad at witnessing that which he could not prevent, washed the stains from his hands, and gave orders to have the body removed to an undertaker’s. He also employed a nurse recom- mended by the druggist, who fortunately lived over Eomicboo gS) €O