Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1858-06-30

VI y 1dtUSi NdtClltu Hill " I'LL 81 StldISG
intensity, and countenance unusually
pale and excited by some strong emo
ton.
4 was once a fanatic, and madly
followed the malign light which led
me to ruin. | was a fanatic when
sacrificed my wife, children, happiness
and home, to the accursed demon of
the bowl. I once adored the gentle
being whom injured so deeply.
[ was drunkard. From respecta-
bility and affiuence, plunged into deg
radiation and poverty. I dragged my
family down with me- For years
saw her pale cheek, and her step grow
weary. [ left her alone amid the
wreck of her home idols and rioted at
the tavern. She never complained,
yet she and her children went hungry
for bread.
One New Years night, I returned
to the hut where charity had given us
y root. She was yet up and shivering
over the Goals. | demanded food, but
she burst into tears and said there was
none. | fiercely ordered her to get some.
She turned her eyes sadly upon me-
The tears falling fast over her pale
cheek. At this moment the child in the
cradle aWoke and sent up a famished
wall, starting the despairing mother
like serpent's sting.
eve have no food, James-have
had none for two days. I have nothing
for the babe. Ny once kind husband,
mist re StQrUe?@
That sad pleading face and those
streaming eyes, and the feeble wall Of
the child maddened me, and I-yes, I
struck her q fierce blow in the face, and
she fell forward upon the hearth. The
furies of hell boiled in my bosom, and
with deeper intensity as I felt that I
had committed a wrong. | had never
struck Mary before, but now some ter
rible impulse bore me on, and I stopped
down as we'll as [ could in my drum ken
state and cIinched both hands in her
hair.
"God Of mercy, Jamesn' exclaimed
my wife, as she looked up in my fend-
ish countenance, ''you will not kill us
you will not harm Willie," and she
sprang to the cradle and grasped him
in her embrace. Icaught her again by
the hair and dragged her to the door,
and as lifted the latch the wind burst
in with o cloud Of snow. With the veil
Of q fiend, | still dragged her on and
hurled her out into the darkness and
the storm. With a wild ha ha clos
ed the door and turned the button, her
pleading means mingling with the wall
Of the blast and sharp cry Of her babe.
But my work was not complete. [ turn
ed to the little bed where lay my older
son, and snatched him from his slum-
bers, and against his half awakened
struggles, opened the door and thrust
him out. In the agony of fear he call
ed to me by name was 10 longer fit
to bear, and locked his little fingers in
to my side pocket. I could not wrench
that frcnzied grasp away, and with the
GOODNESS Of g devil as | was, shut the
door upon the arm, and with my knife
severed the arm at the wrist -
The speaker ceased . moment and
buried his face in his hands as if to shut
cut some fearful dream, and his deep
chest heayed like storm-swept sea-
Ny father had arisen from his seat. and
was leaning forward, his countenance
bloodless, and the large drops standing
out upon his brow. ChiIls crept back
to my young heart, and I wished was
at home. The old man looked up, and
l never have since beheld such mortal
agony pictured upon a human face as
there was upon his.
''1t was morning when awoke, and
the storm had ceased, but the cold was
intense. | first secured q drink Of wa
ter, and then looked in the accustomed
place for Mary. AS I missed her, for
the first time a shadowy sense of some
horrible nightmare began to dawn upon
my wandering mind. I thought that I
had dreamed a fearful dream, but invol-
UNFAIRLY opened the outside door with
shuddering dread. AS the door opened.
the snow burst in, followed by fall Of
something across the threshold, scatter
ing the snow and striking the floor with
sharp, hard sound. Ny blood shot
like red-hot arrows through my veins,
and I rubbed my eyes to shut out the
sight. It was-it-God, how horrible!
it was my own injured Mary and her
babe, frozen to ice! The ever true
another had bowed herself over the
child to shield it, and wrapped all her
own clothing around it leaving her own
person bare to the storm. She had pla-
ced her hair over the face Of the child.
and the sleet had frozen it to the white
cheek. The frost was white in its half
open eyes, and upon It's tiny fingers. /
know not what became of my brave
boy.''
again the old man bowed his head
aud wept, and all that were in the house
wept with him. Ny father sobbed ike
child. In tones Of low and heart
broken pathos, the old man concluded:
Il was arrested and for long months
I raved in delirium. awoke. was SEN
fenced to prison foF ten years, bat no
tortrlres could have been like those
endured within my own bosom. Oh,
God. mol am not a fanatic. [ wish
to iniure no one. But while live, let
me strive to warn others not to enter
II, II hoe Eoar, CO