, direct, frank, handicapped by physical defects, wistful in his
longing for love, helpless to express what he felt, with a heart that
went out to children in a great welling desire to give them what Fate
had withheld from him.

Stephen Girard's parents were lowly and obscure people. They were
Catholics. His father was a sailor and fisherman. Fear, hate,
superstition, ignorance, ruled the household. When the father had money
it went for strong drink, or to the priest. Probably it would have been
as well if the priest had gotten it all. The mother went out as servant
and worked by the day for her more fortunate neighbors. The children
cared for one another, if the word "care" can be used to express a
condition of neglect and indifference.

It might be pleasant to show, if possible, that the mother of Stephen
Girard had certain tender, womanly qualities, but the fact is that no
such qualities were ever manifested. If there was ever any soft
sentiment in her character, the fond father of his flock had kicked it
out of her. That she was usually able to hold her own in fair fight was
the one redeeming memory that the son held concerning her.

Stephen was the eldest of the brood. He attended the parochial school
and learned to read. His playmates called him by a French term
meaning "Twisted." He was eight years of age before he realized that
the names his mother called him by, were of contempt and not of
endearment--"Wall-Eye" and "Mud-Sucker"--literally the vocabulary of a
fishwife. Then he knew for the first time that his eyes were not like
those of other children--that one eye had a bluish cast in it and turned
inward. That night he cried himself to sleep thinking over his dire
misfortune.

At school when he read he closed one eye, and this made the children
laugh. So much did their taunts prey upon him that he ran away from
school to escape their gibes.

One of the Friars Gray caught him; whipped him before the whole school;
put a dunce-cap on his head, and stood him on a high chair. Then his
humiliation seemed complete. He prayed for death. At home when he tried
to tell his mother about his trouble she laughed, and boxed his ears for
being a "cry-baby brat."

Back in this boy's ancestry, somewhere, there must have been a stream of
gentle blood. He was a song-bird in a cuckoo's nest. When the military
band played, his spirit was so moved that he shed tears. But when his
mother died, and her body was placed in a new