The Portland daily press., 1878-07-13

Junction Union; then working a week tor
Mt. Reynolds of the Parsons Sun; then in
the calaboose at Fort Scott, and Web. Wilder
of the Monitor, paying fines for him to keep
him out of the chain gang; aud from Fort
Scott he swung around, about the middle of
December, to Topeka.
Just glided in to pay my respects" he
remarked, "and to tell you Pm off for the
sunny South. l like you Kansas fellows ever
50 much, but want to see the magnolias."
That was all he said. An hour later, hap
pening 20 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 been disappointed him. He
talked gl0Omly about it, when l could oct
him to talk of it at all, and the very Thought
cloudep his spirits like the haunting of some
miserable dream. Perhaps the trouble was
deeper than my shallow vision discerned; per-
haps 1t came from within and not from with
out at all. Sometimes I 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 familiar, quizzical expression in
his countenanee 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 I confer
upon you," said he, Sin selecting you to give
my final send-off. It's because like your
style ;and want you to tell just the barefooted
facts about me-"nothing extenuate, nor
aught set down in malice Don't speak of
me as brilliant but cratic fellows for that
will simply mean that YVES an awful liar.
Don't say of me, He had his faults as who
OF us has not because that is merely polite
way of telling that the deceased was drunk.
en- sot. And if die of jimjams, as proba-
bly, shall, don't say it was apoplexy, or paral-
ysis, but call it jh,jams, plain and simple;
I'll feel better about it if you do. / suppose
there are good things you can say of me.
Say 'em as kindly as possible, pleas. And
chuck in little subsequently, you think Of
something to suit. OF course you can't say
anything about where I've gone; we can't
everythiDg's so mixed and uncertain over
there. Genesis closes with coffin, you rec
ollect."
Having thus bespoken my services and in
dcated his preferences as to how the delicate
task should be performed, he retired, hum
ming TO himself the breezy chorus of an old
drinking song; and thought but little and
that only in ludicrOus vein of his singular
request, until, some days afterward they came
and told me he was missing. Nobody knew
when, or how, or why he had departed. Ev-
identity 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 settle with his too indulgent land
lady. But in his composing-stick, lying upon
his case he had left line of type, which
spelled these words, "Gone West, to grow up
with the country"
never saw him any more, and never
heard from him till I CHANGED one day upon a
fugitive notice of his death. He was discov-
cred, the paper said, frozen stiff and stark in
the February snow and 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 wood.sled, the Coroner and few 9TH
ers and then, suppose, they dug hole tor
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 beckoned you
to an end SO pitifully desolaie? Did you meet
death as you had confronted life, with that
smile? And did they find, wonder, in some
whimsical recess of your ragged garments, a
poVerty-stricken old leather pocket book and
little sprig of faded cedar?
Here might stop, content to let silence do
the rest. But, recalling his injunction to
'chuck in little Shakespeare" and remem-
bering also his skepticism and his hayward
ness, / deem it only meet and fair to add in
his behalf that carefully charitable petition
which the great monarch of thought puts in
to the Kings mouth at the death-bed of
Beaufort:
''Peace to his soul, if Gods good pleasure be.''