The Stolen Birthright

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Silas Haskins, a poor farmer, is made happy through his wife bearing him a fine girl baby. At the same time the wife of his neighbor and landlord, Singleton, gives birth to twin daughters. While Mrs. Haskins is still in a highly nervous and weakened state from her illness, a deputy sheriff comes to the house demanding that the overdue rent be paid under the penalty of immediate ejection. The farmer pleads for time, pointing to his wife's condition as serious. The deputy sheriff reports to Singleton the result of his call and is ordered to go back and get the money or put the Haskins out. Enlisting the aid of two other deputies, he attempts to forcibly eject Mrs. Haskins. Her husband enters in the midst of the confusion, and angered beyond all control throws the emissaries of the law out of his house. While he is engaged in this Mrs. Haskins, temporarily deranged from the shock, attempts to hide her baby in the bureau drawer. The child, of course, soon suffocates. When Haskins returns he finds out what has happened, and in order to shield his wife from her insane act, decides to bury the child himself. While he is doing this, the nursemaid for the Singleton children wheels them in their perambulator to the top of the hill directly above the farmer. Owing to her carelessness the carriage escapes from her and plunging over a rocky precipice lands at Haskins' feet. Looking inside he discovers that the babies are uninjured, and determines to substitute his dead baby for one of the living in order to try and save his wife's reason. His deception succeeds and passes unnoticed. Shortly afterwards he decides to leave for the west and start life anew. Twenty years have passed and the twin sisters, ignorant of each other's existence, have grown to womanhood. Alice has become an orphan and is employed as stenographer by a young business man of her town, whom she eventually marries. Mary tends bar for her father, who owns a saloon in a little village in the west. High-hat Harry, a big-bodied, big-hearted gambler, comes to town, and being insulted by one of the cowpuncher patrons of the saloon, shows that he has also plenty of nerve by throwing the offender out of the door. He tells Mary that as it seems to be a nice quiet little town, he thinks he will stay. He soon learns to love the girl and tells her supposed father that she needs a protector, and that he proposes "to be it." When he asks Mary to be his wife she tells him that if he'll go to some big city, stop gambling, and be good for a year, she will marry him. Obeying her request he at once leaves for the east. Registering at a hotel in an eastern city he is astounded to see a girl whom he takes to be Mary. Stepping up to her and asking what she is doing there, he is amazed to find that she denies his acquaintance. He follows the girl (who, of course is Alice) to her home and later writes her a letter recalling the past. Smith, her husband, reading the letter, is filled with unjust suspicion and orders his wife from the house. How the truth is revealed, husband and wife, and Harry and Mary all reunited, end an interesting story.