San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1879-02-15

and wcll-ordered livery-stable near the
hotel, and even now, was scarcely IL
years old. But, thoughsa boy in years,
Burt was every inch man, genial, hand
some, obliging.
| He was fellow, too, who always had
his business at his fingers ends. He
could tell you, days ahead, just what
horses we're engaged, and what he could
do for you il you wished to engage
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 in his
ordinary business, and but for this one
failing-drink-h might have been a
general favorite in the village.
In Burt's case, there might have been
found this excus. for him. His grand
father and father (since dead had been
tayern.keepers in New Hampshire, and
rum, in their day, almost occupied the
place of water.
Burt had been brought up in the
odor of bar-room, so to speak, and his
father had been a, drinking man. L am
sure that Burt had inherited an appetite
for alcohol.
Much as / condemned and lamented
his bad habit, 1 was pleased with him,
and liked to be in his company. 1t was
pleasure to spend an hour in his room,
he was so good-natured and cheerful: l
was often saddened, too. For though
ordinarily bright and witty, there was
always, if we CHANGED to speak of per-
sonal matters, certain hopelessness in
his manner of abiding to himself, as OF
one booked" to 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 drank necessarily for three
or four days. These excuses could not
fail to result in delirium tremens.
When Colby told me of this second
attack of this fearful disease, my heart
sunk, for it seemed that Bnrt must be
utterly lost. And as there are thous-
ands of similar cases, the country over,
1 should hardly deem this one likely to
interest the reader, but for strange
incident that led Burt Slater to rise
from q condition that is ordinarily as
hopeless as death itself.
l did not see Burt that week. He
kept, or rather was kept, to his room,
and did not care to see him. In the
course of fortnight, however, he was
once more at his work; and, during all
the rest of the summer and fall, up to
November, he did not indulge in intox-
icating drinks. One bleak November
morning, however, the insane appetite
again rose up within him. He wander
ed around with parched lips and blood
shot eyes, suffering almost uncomfortable
torment from his raging thirst. At last,
he harnessed one of his horses and rode
down to L., twelve miles distant, hop
ing, as he afterward told me- by ride
in the piercing cold to overcome his
raging thirst.
Having arrived at l., and put his
horse in stable where he was known,
he began to walk the streets, still hoping
to overcome the burning desire for alco-
hol..
But the appetite was more than he
could control, and yielding to it at last,
he went into saloon, and, after taking
one glass, gave himselfup to utter indul-
gence.
At night, when he again went to the
stable he could scarcely stand, and seem
ed to be So unconscious of what he was
about that the men would not let him
have his horse, and tried to get him to
go into the hotel and stay until morn
ing.
1t 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
started to walk home, twelve miles dis
tant
About half mile ont of town the
road forks, the right branch leading out