River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1882-06-15
DORICE AND 1.


they did not know, and told what, at
best, was only a shrewd guess.
Tonight it is all over, and am In a
sell-not on murderer's row-but safe
enough for all that!
Oh, it has been great fun-and to-
night is the greatest fun of ALL
| have laughed till / can laugh no
more. I am absolutely tired of laugh
ing. / would sleep, but sleep has fed
from me, and cannot WOO her back
again.
/ used to sleep, but that was when |
had Dorice-beautiful golden haired
Doricel Doricel Doricel Why, every
thing begins and ends with Dnrice
Here is pen and paper. My jailor
does not forbid me to write. will write.
You can never know the story from
what you have heard in that hot and
staring courtroom, with its eyes-thous-
ands of eyes-that glOwed, and stared,
and swayed and fioated III and out of the
mist, in which hung faces-ughl such
faces! No, no! do not listen to them.
Come back, / will tell you my story.
Tomorrow / am to go to a lunatic
aslyum-that is what they said, the
twelve men. "He is mad, and not res
ponsible for his act" they said.
Oh, how / laughed. If they could
have seen the little devils leap and play
all around their stupid faces while they
were sitting there, they must have
laughed, too, know they would.
OF what was ! accused? Did you not
hear2 So much the better, | will tell
you. They said | murdered my child
my child and Dorice's.
am Homer Ogden, and Dorice-
beautiful Dorice-was my wife-is my
wife. By heaven, is my wife! What
can separate us2 The boy? No! He is
dead, they say. l see him here always,
but Dorice cannot see him. No one
sees him, save me
Let me be calm. l will tell you
clearly enough.
was Just twenty-five when | first
met Dorice Allen-the age when
mans passions are strongest, and he
loves, II he ever loves, with all the
force God has given him; and | loved
Dorice with all my heart, with all my
soul, with all my mind. The sun shone
when she smiled, and the flowers
doomed, and the trees nodded only at
her coming. l was not long in telling
her of my devotion, and claiming her
for my very, very own.
And she-well, she was cast in an
other mold. Her soul was clear and
limpid stream, with no fierce fall of
love or hate to break over the rocks of
fate, and fall with the thunder of
mighty passions into the great sea of
that unknown possibility which girts in
every life.
Yet she was sweet, and pure, and no.
ly, with beauty God gives only to his
angels. And she loved me.
Do not come to me, foul hends of
darkness! Stand back all you who
whisper and gibber at my elbowl l
will write it again and again! She
loved me! She loved me! Great God!
my own sick heart that thrObs so nerce-
ly, she loved me.
We were married, and | took her
from her friends and mine lest some
one should gain smile which l was
too miserly to lose.
She was happy that it should be So
content to leave the world, and live
with me apart.
Two long, blissful years passed, and
not one night but her golden head was
pillowed on my breast, and her lovely
eyes looked last into my watchful ones
ere sinking to sleep. Not morning
but her dear lips returned my kiss,
and her eyes opened as they had closed,
on me.
Two years. Then the little boy was
born-Dorice's child and mine.
never loved him. Never! Per
hsps, mad he been endowed with his
mothers face, | might have found it
in my heart to have given him a spark
of the groat love bore her. | cannot
tell-it may have been.
| only know that when l saw my
darling's white face, and heard the first
wall from the lips of another, who
should come in royal babyhood to
claim kingdom in his mothers heart
/ hated him.
| bent over Dorice to hide the frown
upon my face, but the kiss she gave
me sent my pain away. My love was
still mine.
DAYS, weeks and months passed slow
w on, and gradually my happiness
grew less and less.
At night my darling's head no logger
rested on my heart the baby boy lay
in her arms. When morning came,
and | reached my arms to encircle my
world-she was not there, but was bend
ing over her boys cradle.
At last | could endure it no longer.
told her. l knelt al her feet and
begged her to send away this new love.
| besSught her to return to me, whose
all she was. | confessed | did not love
the child, but promised | would try,
if only she would 1--we him less.
At first my Dorice was frightened.
Her beautiful face grew white, and she
shrank from me, and shivered when |
took her face between my hot and
trembling hands.
Then for moment was mad, one
fierce, fleet moment. My heart throb-
bed and burned. My wife-mine-
turned from me.with look of terror in
her steady eyes, and shiver at my
caress. Was it not enough to drive one
mad?
But laughed and told her l was
but ioking-I even took the hoy in my
arms, and bent as though l kissed him.
Twas bordering how might WOO the
old days back again.
God and my own sick heart alone
can know what | suffered for the next
two years. Every day was more bitter
than the preceding one.
The ohlld-his mother called him
Homer, and abbreviated lovingly
grew, and engrossed more and more OF
my darling's time. was no longer her
first and only love.
Every night and every morning l
prayed Heaven to take the boy away.
prayed as l walked or drove-weary-
ing Heaven with vain petitions.
One day, while walking through the
garden, heard voice close to my ear
and it whispered:
Kill himw
looked about. No one was near
but sgain the voice whispered:
Kill himw
All day thought of the strange voice.
At last / answered, "How ?"
That night l could not sleep. AL
thorough the silent hours l lay with
eyes wide open.
Once | saw Dorice leave her place
by my side and so to the boys crib
then | closed my not eyes that she
might not see that l watched.
In the morning it ali came back t
mel do not know how, never did
Prehaps l read the way-perhaps
dreamed it-perhaps it whispered it