Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1883-04-14
MARK EAsTERsHEAD'S LUCK.

Perhaps there really never was so
completely worthless a fellow as Mark
Observation-Disclosures Lafayette East
ershead was his name in its entirety, but
it was too heavy a fgure-headfor so small
a craft, and the neighbors had cut it
down to more convenient dimensions.
Only to his mother was the dignity of
name and title a dignity inseparable
from himself, in spite of his worthless
ness. For worthless he was, as 1 say,
TOO worthless even to be vicious. No
body ever saw him drink; I don't be-
lieVe he smoked; he had no habits of
any kind, good, bad, or Indifferent, un-
less you could call his i%nveterate ability
to do nothing a habit.
lie lived with his mother, old Mrs.
hatershead, as she had been called from
time immemorial-old, although she
was but little past sixty, and the av-
erage OF life is frightening, so that we
are rather inclined to call sixty the
prime OF life than otherwise. At any
rate That is the way people feel who are
IN the nelghborhood of sixty; and Mrs.
Eastershead looked forward to a good
many years yet. She had to do SO, in
TACT; she could not bear the idea of any
1hlng else; she must live as long as Mar
gus dld,or who in the world would take
care Ut him? He certainly could not
LAKE care OF himself. He had had to leave
ScAool because it hurt him so to study.
ms mother found him a situation be.
alna a counter; he had to leave that be-
cause 1t hurt him so to stand. Then she
secured him a place in a ma~nufactorv:
ne mad to leave that because it hurt him
S 80 to breathe the flying fluff. She
legged for him an opportunity to go to
ses ne came home by land because it
aur! nm so to be seasick. At last she
aeclaed to let him work out his saliva
.on IN the little garden patch; he gave
maj up because it hurt him so to weed
aho noe. In truth, it hurt him to do
anything except to sit round idle, and,
n there was any work to do, let his
mother do it.
II hurt her, too. When the doctor
wanted his alder swamp cleared, and
oaered Mark a dollar and a half a day
70 60 and clear it, his mother said, after
.ne second day, that she couldn't have
any more of that; it wet his feet, and he
siways was so delicate that wetting his
,ees was ruinous. 81 don't know what
Marquls is going to do" she used to
|ssy, "He's one Of the people that ought
W nave been born to a fortune. I sup
Pvse It's his great.grandfather Dupan-
,baP cropping up in him. They say
t; rvy 40 re-appear every few genera
Whomsoever the "they" referred to,
]. !ney reappeared in Mark, they GER
htalnly had no very fattering avatar-a
- asanss.dog, slouching, ill-favored fellow
Ibs ever looked capable of foul deeds,
~ ~. was really as incapable of them as
H. any other. There was only one thing
r. DC said of him-he couldn't help it.
IA ~ Is was laziness,if it was ineficiency,
~ was shiftlessness it was just as much
forthcoming of the brain as any other
euvllal or nervous deficiency. Had one
snamined the cranial organs of the
mar according to the method of
norlz Benedict, he would have found,
Fvrnaps' not the deep and frequent fs-
putes OF criminality, nor even the nor
s,,r ones OF health, but rather a smooth
u,lace without any assures whatever.
yet ne loved ease and comfort, and