The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1881-12-08
SAM SPERRY'S PENSION.


OF pictures or of painters--dou't you see?
-HdfDers Bdzdr.
SAM SPERRY'S PENSION.
For more than two years 1t was the
joke of Bloomington Center-that
bright hope. that idle dream. that fond.
rvs Pension
The wits who congregated in the bar
room and. grocery of the Bloomington
Center Post-office sometimes had only a
sad consciousness of futility in their
best efforts; the column of facetie in
the local newspaper frequently palled
on the senses; but Sam Sperry's lank
and STOPPING figure as he descended
faithfully, twice every week. from his
lone home on the distant mountain, to
"learn the news from Washington, p"
bore with it an aroma of never-failing
interest and diversion.
"Any fetal dokkerments arrived for
me?" Sam was accustomed to inquire.
on entering the Post Office. with an air
OF ill-concealed consequence; and on
being answered in the negative. the
look of sudden surprise and incredu-
lily which overspread his features was
always as fresh and real as it had been
during the first six months he had un-
dergone the blow. His recovery was
as complete and instantaneous, when,
seated on the counter with the ''boys, "
he derided the very existence of his
proud Nations capital in terms of the
most reckless sarcasm, or, in a softer
mood. induced by certain grateful po-
tations, palliated the weakness of off,
cial judges with a forbearance which
his listeners found even more irresisti-
bly, entertaining.
They think they're comm it over
me. down there to Washington, Sam
observed on one occnsion, rolling his
eyes upon his near neighbor on the
counter with q look which was dark
without menace, and at the same time
forcibly introducing the sharp point of
his elbow to that gentleman's ribs
they think they're comm it over me,
down there to Washington. And all
the time they're hangin' off about
my pension, what's accumulatin' down
there?-what's accumulatin?' Here
Sans companion was actually obliged
to move an inch or two away in order
to escape the too severe emphasis of
that emaciated elbow. Back payr
chuckled Sam; "that' 8 what accumula-
tin'-back pay! Let 'em hold off ten or
a dozen years longer, and I'll be SWIM
min in back pay-rn be fairly wal
lerin' in it."
With which the deeply confidential
aspect of SANS face changed to a
triumphant shipper, and, turning to
nudge another companion Gas he sup
posed) on his right, he inadvertently
thrust his elbow through the wrappage
of large parcel of sugar, the contents
of (which were scattered over the grocery
floor.
Sans expression of dismay was pitt
full.
'.Have it charged to your back pay,
SAM cried ar uproarious. though cheer
full. voice.
Sam took up the cue. and ever after
that his descent from the West Mount
ain, which had before been significant
of a small invoice of skunks' fur, blue
berries. and the like, at the Blooming
ton grocery, missed the hampering
weight of those hardly acquired pro-
ducts. and Sans business transactions
at the counter-the understanding
being good between the grocer and those
jolly Bloomington boys-were rounded
by q regally careless: charge it to
pension, Ned-reg' lar pension or back
pay, don't care which,"
Rarely, very rarely. Sam really did
find document waiting for him at the
Post-ofice, marked with the mysterious
seal of the Department of the Interior,
and opened it with fingers of trembling
expectation, only to find a printed sheet
of painfully worded statistics, to the eff
feet that "besides the two hundred
and ninety thousand filled claims, 9TH
ers were constantly being entered, but
that in due time each would receive
careful consideration" etc. His first
heat of desperate indignation yielded
later to tears of unaffected sentiment, as
he murmured: "Pension! I guess so,
boys!-the grass IL be growing over my
grave before see any pension" and
later still to smile and hope again.
The gunshot wound in his right hand
upon which Sam had based his claim on
the National bounty was of small &C.
count compared with the harm which
he had suffered, both in body and soul,
from the soldiers camp life. the South
ern marshes and the Southern prisons.
Il don't know what Sam might "a
been, or what he might not q BEEN" said
Judge Holcomb, prosperous citizen of
Bloomington. "POn nv honor, BOYS,
he began uncommon bright, though he
want never what we'd call pertick' Ter
tough or long-winded. But can tell
We one thing, Sam Sperry want never
the same man after he come out o. that
Southern prison."
Even after this asseveration do not
know that any of the frequenters of the
Bloomington bazaar remarked that the
boyish head on Sans bent shoulders,
with its rings of close-curling light hair,
was of Byronic cast, or that his eyes,
when not filmy from the effects of ague
or rum, were of such q perfect and
heavenly blue as is seldom seen in the
undimmed orbs of children. Sam was
their Punch, their by-word. their the
ster- comique; they would have paid
twice the price of his lordly though pru-
dent negotiations at the counter rather
than miss the zesr afEsrded ~ his semi
weekly appearance. Wita, touch Of
real pity, too, perhaps, for their old
comrade. they cajoled with him in his
forlorn hope, encouraged in him at all
times the freest expression of his sem
timents. flattered him and RECALLED
him. And often, alas! the feet
which had come shutting down
the mountain awkwardly enough
and loosely enough. retraced their
steps in q still more desultory and I'M
certain manner. and chance passers-bv
have told how Sam, pausing ct length
by some way-side fence, FREQUENT
ly nudged the post with his elbow, a
though having just committed to it
some gravely confidential or facetious
remark.
There was one person whom Sam 8
weakness and derelictions failed to in
spire with appreciative mirth. In the
neighborhood Of SANS house ON the
mountain there were two other homes.
One was possessed bv Isaac Travers with
his belligerent wife and numerous small
children; In the other Mary Ellsworth