Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-12-09
A Rescue,


"A few years ago, on any sunny morn
ing, heap of filthy rags might be seen
stretched on some of the bales OF q pa
per warehouse III q n8ighboring city,
Win strong smell Of stale tobacco and
WHISKY hanging about it. Turning it over
lWhlch you could as though it we're a
/ log any tune after ten o'clock in the
morning. you could find the swollen
lace OF what had once been handsome
young man: but there was little hone
that the bleared eyes or thick tongue
could give an Intelligent answer. The
porterss, passing by, would push him
aside, but not roughly. The time had
been when he had been jolly, gener-a
GUS young fellow and favorife in the
office Young Rodgers some one
would give you his history in five min
utes: "Iaken to rum-no chance
poor devil. Stokes (tho proprietary
could not turn him out to starve, so he
still gave him a nominal salary, and sui
fered him to hang about the house,
lest he should take to worse courses
than drinking" There were hints,
too, of widowed mother, away
off III the country, who had been de-
pendent on him, and q sweetheart,
pretty, clinging little girl, both of whom
long ago he had abandoned. But there
was nothing to be done. The end,
through the usual horrors Of dezdr5atna
t''emae'as, was apparently not far off.
One day, as Rodgers was creeping to
the nearest bar for his morning bitters,
a man whom he barely knew by sight,
took him by the elbow, and walked with
int, a.
me you are Richard Rodgers son." he
said. 6 Dick Rodgers was the only
friend [ had for years, and, for his sake,
I'd Like to save his boy. Are you will.
ing for me to try?" "Oh! you can try
muttered the lad, with an imbecile
laugh.
This nameless friend, nothing daunt-
ed, took him to chamber in his own
house, and put him to bed. There he
and his sons kept watch and guarded
this poor wretch for months like pris-
oner, keeping liquor from him, and try
ing to supply it by medical treatment.
A physician he employed, but he was
not able to pay for a nurse. Any one
who has had to deal with victim of
naa1ai0-0- pOtu can guess how difficult
and loathsome a task he had set himself.
Ungrateful enough it was at first; for
Rodgers strug against his tormentors
with the ferocity of-just what he was
a starving animal. AS reason began to
return, and his unnatural strength to
vanish, he would beg them in his inter-
walls of reason not to fail him, but to
work out the experiment either to sue
cess or death. 1T is my last chance"
he would cry; s'for Gods sake, be pa
tient. % This friend, with his son, did
work it out through all the foul, unmen-
tionable details, and the end was not
death, but success.
"How soon," asked a friend of
Rodgers afterwards, ''were you trusted
alone?" "Not for two years" he an
swered, laughing. 81 was out of Jail
bounds. DO you remember that lank,
muscular fellow who had desk beside
me In the Office? He took it with the
condition that he could leave it to dog
me night and day, to ny meals and to
my bed. That was the son Of the man
who saved me. He was taken from a
lucurative situation in order that he
might become my jailer. God bless
him How [ used to curse him!
Can't YOU trust my honorH I would
cry. I'm not convinced that your
honor has not the consumption, the
Scotch Irishman would say. We'll
put no burdens on it until it has re-
gained it's health. ,"
"Your friend was wealthy man, no
doubt, and SO able to give both time and
money to your case p ," fa
con the contrary, he is but the own
er of asmall hat. store, and supports his
family out of that. He is rich or noble
only in the deed and spirit of friend
ship
All this was years ago. Rodgers is
now an industrious, honorable man,
married to his old love, with his grey
haired mother by his hearth, bringing
to it the perpetual benediction OF benig-
nant old age.
His friend sells hats-makes no
speeches nor bruit Of any sort in the
world. Nobody has recognized in him
a hero. Yet who, for the sake of a
dead OF living friend, would go and do
likewise ?-Er