Fw: N&W in 1907--Five-year-old lad

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
January 29, 1909

KEYSTONE TOT IN BRISTOL SUFFERS
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Stranded at Station by Relatives, Five-Year-Old Lad Vainly Appeals to Police for Shelter and Spends the Night in Flagman's Shack

    Bristol Herald-Courier:  A five-year-old tot, homeless, friendless and alone in what, no doubt, appeared to his juvenile vision as a "big city," came to Bristol late Wednesday night on No. 3* over the Norfolk and Western railway.  The lad was apparently bewildered as he alighted from the train which had borne him as a tiny passenger from Radford.
    He gazed first this way, then that way in a seemingly vain endeavor to locate some one who would take him under their protection, but as his eye hastily scanned the hurrying around of people embarking from and entering the several coaches of the train, it could be easily determined that the object of his search had failed to arrive.  The little chap, who was decently garbed, waited until the big conductor shouted "all aboard" and the puffing engine began to drag its burden out of the station.  Then it was that a tear stole down the tot's cheek as he inquired in a limping voice of a stranger who had turned to heed "If any one had seen his uncle."
    "Who is your uncle, lad, and what is your own name.?"
    He began to sob afresh, but managed to choke his cries sufficiently to say that the relative he sought was a "Mister Martin, who lived in Bristol," and who had promised to meet him at the train.
    His own name was Albert Lawson, he said, and he had come from Keystone, W. Va., under the care of the big " 'ductor who took up the tickets on the train."
    The police were appealed to in vain to find shelter for the lad, giving as a reason for their seeming indifference "that it was none of their business."
    At last unable to find a sympathetic ear among the blue-coated gentry the lad was taken in charge by a man at the depot who had listened to his sad story.
    The flagman's shack, near the State street crossing was his abode last night, and before the tired little head lay down on the hard wood box seat, the only place of rest the house afforded, the child lisped, "I thought in a city like Bristol there would be some one to take care of a little boy like me on a cold winter's night."
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[Some writers really know how to tug at the heartstrings of their readers!  *Could have been No. 13, which a 1915 schedule shows arriving in Bristol at 10:10 PM.]

Gordon Hamilton
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