American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1878-03-02

( LETT again, without even the tOrmallty OF
saying goodbye to me. We heard of
him, in few days, cracking jokes with
| Nobe Prentis of the junction Union
then working a week for Milt Reynolds
of the Parsons San; then in the Gala
boose az Fort Scott, and Web Wilder of
the Monitor paying fines for him to keep
him out of the chain-gang; and from Fort
Scott he swung aroung, about the mid
die of December, to Topeka.
''Just glided in to pay my respects"
he remarked, ''and to tell you I'm off
for the sunny South. like you Kansas
fellows ever so much, but 1 want to see
the magnOliaS."
That was all he said. An hour later,
happening to look from my window,
saw him moving briskly down the street,
which was also the State road, and,
waving his hand to me, he Disappeared
He came back again, with the grass
and the birds, the following spring. He
had been to Galveston, he explained,
and had worked his way north through
Arkansas and the Indian Territory.
Somehow the trip seemed to have dis
appointed him. He talked gloOmily
about it, when l could get him to talk
about it at all, and the very thought of
it appeared to cloud his spirits like the
haunting of some miserable dream.
Perhaps the trouble was deeper than my
shallow vision discerned; perhaps it
came from within, and not from with
out at ALL Sometimes | thought so
but knowing him as | did, the absurdity
of the thing would creep in to upset
such notions. And finally, when he
came to me one night, with the old ia
miliar quizzical expires sion in his coun-
tenance, and told me he wanted to talk
to me about writing an obituary for him
when he should die, 1 felt sure that he
was recovering himself and would soon
touch his natural pOise again.
81 hope you appreciate the honor l
confer upon you," said he, " in select
ing you to give my final send-of. It's
because like your style; and [ want
you to tell just the bare-footed facts
about me-'nothing extenuate, nor aught
, set down in malice Don't speak of
me as brilliant, but cratic fellow,
for that will simply mean that | was an
awful liar. Don't say of me, He had
| his faults, as who of us has not be-
cause that is merely polite way of tell
ing that the deceased was a drunken
t sot. And if die of the jim-jams, as l
: probably shall, don't say it was apo
plexy, or paralysis, but call it jim-jams,
plain and simple; III feel better about
it if you do. [ suppose there are few
| good things you can say of me- Say 'em
as kindly as possible, please. And chuck
: in little SHAKESPEARE if you can think
l of something to suit. Of course you
; can't say any thing about where I've
/ gone; we can't any of us figure much
on that, you know-every things so
mixed and uncertain over there. Gene
sis closes, you recolleet, with coffin -
Having thus bespOken my services,
and indicated his preferences as to how
the delicate task should be performed,
he retired, humming to himself the
breezy chorus of an old drinking song
and thought but little, and that only
in a ludicrous vein, of his singular re-
quest, until, some days afterward, they
came and told me he was missing. No
body knew when, or how, or, why, he
had departed. Evidently, he had stolen
off in the night, not wishing to speak of
his plans, if he had any, for we learned
on inquiry that he had even omitted. to
t settle with his too indulgent landlady.
But in his composing-stick, lying upon
; his case, he had left a line of type,
which spelled these words: ''Gone West,
l to grow up with the country
l never saw him any more, and never
heard from him until L CHANGED one day
upon a fugitive notice of his death He
was discovered, the paper said, frozen
, stiff and stark, in the February snow aud
ice of Minnesota prairie. Very oddly,
it was young lady who found him
| some accidental Isabel, perhaps-and
they took him into the nearest town on
IA wood-sled, the Coroner and few 9TH
{ ers, and then, 1 suppose, they dug a hole
/ for him in the numb earth and put him
!, away.
Alas, you poor, queer, dead-and- gone
prodigal, where be your gibes now? Was
| it fate, or but your own folly, that beck
; oned you to an end so pitifully desolate
Did you meet death as you had con-
fronted life, with that unflinching eye
and that placid, masterful smileP And
did they find, 1 wonder, in some whim-
steal recess of your ragged garments, a
| poverty stricken old leather pocket-book
and little sprig of faded cedar?
Here L might stop, content to let 81
lence do the rest. But, recalling his
injunction to .'chuck in little Shake
spere," ana remembering, also, his
) skepticism and his waywardness, 1 deem
it only meet and fair to add in his be-
half that carefully charitable petition
which the great monarch of thought
puts into the kings mouth at the death
bed of Beaufort
''Peace to his soul, if Gods good pleasure be =
4 How Much to Eat.
L. Il