On Tap: Double-Dutch Lessons

--Wearing her favorite pink dress, 9-year-old Darlwin Carlisle, whose frostbitten legs were amputated just below the knee after she was abandoned in an unheated apartment this winter, walked out of a hospital on artificial legs. “She runs and she jumps and she can skip. She can do just about everything. The only thing she can’t do is double-Dutch jump rope because I don’t know how,” and so could not teach her, said Roberta O’Shea, the girl’s physical therapist at La Rabida Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Darlwin was found locked in a Gary, Ind., apartment Jan. 17 by a worker who had been sent to board up the home. Presents, letters and donations totaling $125,000 poured in to cheer the girl. Darlwin limped slightly as she walked from La Rabida, accompanied by her great-grandmother, Katie Carlisle, her aunt, Sallie Carlisle, and a cousin, Crystal Carlisle. Darlwin will live with her great-grandmother in Gary. Her mother, Darlwin Britt, faces trial June 20 on felony child neglect charges.

--The history of a 28-room Greenwich, Conn., mansion is not a happy one. Three of its residents have faced criminal charges, two have lost their fortunes and one killed himself. The latest owners of Dunnellen Hall are real-estate tycoons Harry and Leona Helmsley, who were indicted last week on New York state and federal tax charges. The house, built in 1918, was sold in 1950 to Loring Washburn, president of a steel fabricating company. But he suffered financial troubles and lost the house in 1963. Owner Daniel Moran shot and killed a man in 1968. The slaying was ruled justifiable homicide. Moran killed himself in 1977. After buying the house, investor Jack Dick was indicted on grand larceny and forgery charges. The case was pending when he died suddenly in 1974 at age 46. Former owner Ravi Tikkoo, who operated one of the largest oil supertankers, lost most of his fortune during the OPEC oil embargo in the 1970s.

--Habitat for Humanity, in honor of its most famous volunteer, has announced the Jimmy Carter Work Project ’88. The plan to build 20 homes for Atlanta’s working poor in five days starting June 27 is the volunteer agency’s most ambitious project. Former President Carter said Habitat “arouses the conscience of the world to the problem of the homeless.” The Americus, Ga.-based Habitat has built more than 4,000 homes for the poor on a nonprofit, no-interest basis since 1976. “Habitat is doing what the federal, state and local governments should be doing,” said Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young, who is active in the organization.