Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-02-02
LOCKED INTO A TOMB.

AVoaAHb 1A\ ~ "A IVMDs
"Well, what's the news, Colby?" said
I, getting down from the stage at the D.
House, at one Of the pretty little villages
on the Androscoggin, land how goes the
old placer
"0h, the town is behaving itself as
well as usual. 1t isn't place for news,
you know said Colby, leading the way
to the re ister. "Only," -lowering his
7oice,-"only Burt Slater; you remember
BUlt?'
Eyes, indeed What of him?'
Hes got the sim jams again."
'Agaln I'm sorry for that!'
'Weil, lie has; awful, too! There are
two men with him in his room over the
L. Both OF them can hardly hold him.
- felt sorry, indeed, for the poor fei-
low, for I had known and respected him
for his manly qualities. He kept a neat
and weil-o1dered livery-stabie near tbs
hotel, and even now he was scarcely
nineteen years old. But though boy
In years, Burt was every inch man,
genial, handsome, obliging.
He was a fellow, too, who always had
his business at his fingers ends. He
could tell you, days ahead, just what
horses were engaged, and what he could
90 for you if you wished to engage a
team, and when the time came, you
could rely on him to the hour and min
ute.
Yet he never used an order book. His
memory was so tenacious and accurate
that he could safely rely upon it for his
ordinary business, and but for this one
failing--drink---he would have been the
favorite with every man in the village.
In Burt's case there was this excuse for
him. His grandfather and father (now
dead had been tavern keepers in New
Hampshire, where rum, IN their day, was
used as freely as water.
Burt had been brought up in the odor
OF a bar-room, so to speak, and his faith
er had been drinking man. am sure
that poor Burt had inherited an appetite
for alcohol.
Much as I condemned and lamented
his bad habit, l yet was pleased with
him, and liked to be in his company Il
was pleasure to spend an hour in his
room, he was so gQod-natured and cheer
full. was very often saddened, too. For,
though ordinarily bri hit and witty, there
was always, when we CHANGED to speak Of
personal matters, a certain hopelessness
in his way of abiding to himself, as of
one "bool1ed' for ruin and premature
grave.
Burt did not drink habitually. About
once in three or four months, an ungov-
ernable desire for alcohol came over him,
and he would drink necessarily for thu ee
or four days. These excuses could not
fail to result in delirium tremens.
When Colby told ne Of this second at
tack of this fearful disease, my heart
sunk, for it seemed that Burt must now
be utterly lost. And as there are thou
sands of similar cases, the country over,
should hardly deem this one likely to in
terest the reader, but for strange Incl
dent which led Burt Slater to rise from a
condition that is ordinarily as hopeless as
death itself.
I did not see Bart that week. He kept,
or rather was kept, to his room. and I
did not care to see him. In the course
OF a fortnight, however, he was once
more at his work; and during all the
rest Of the summer and fall up to Novem-
Der, he did not indulge in intoxicating
drink. One bleak, windy November
morning, however, the insane appetite
again rose up within him. He wandered
round with parched lips and blood-shot
eyes, suffering almost uncomfortable tor.
ment from his raging thirst. At last, he
harnessed ono Of his horses and rode down
to r., twelve miles distant, hoping,
as he afterwards told me, that the Isierc-
ing cold would help him to overcome his
raging thirst.
Having arrived at e., he put up his
horse at a stable where he was known,
and began to walk the streets, still hop
ing to overcome the burning desire for
alcohol.
But the appetite was more than he
could control, and yielding to it at last.
he went into saloon, and after taking
one glass, he gave himself up to utter in
diligence.
At night, when he went to the stable,
he could scarcely stand, and seemed so
unconscious Of what he was about that
the men woald not let him have his horse,
and tried to have him go into the hotel
and sta! until morning.
It was already late in the afternoon,
and the weather was bitterly cold, but he
would not heed their good counsel, and
instead Of going back into the hotel, he
started to walk home, twelve miles dis
tant.
About half mile out of the town, the
road forks, the right branch leading out
towards the river into a grove, where
there IS large cemetery. By this time,
Burt did not know one road from another,
and taking the wrong one, he got into
the cemetery, where he staggered round,
hoplessly lost.
It happened that there had been a
funeral that afternoon, and a coffin had
been deposited in one of the tombs
the door Of which had not yet been
closed. 1t was late when the funeral
procession left the Cemetery, and the gate
still stood open; otherwise, Burt would
not haye entered it.
The wind was piercinglv cold. and
though'hardly conscious Of it, Burt, to
escape 1t, recled through the open door
into the tomb, and tu1nbled down in one
corner.
lie either fell asleep Or became utterly
insensible from the liquor he had drank
for what followed till towards mornino
is a blank to him. He must have beer
very quiet, too, for the sexton, on his
late rounds, closed and locked tbs door
Of the tomb without seeing or hearino
anything Of him.
It was not until some hours had passed
Burt came to himself, somewhat, and be-