Connecticut western news., 1884-04-09
A Doctors Boy.
BY EDMUND LYONS,

Years flew over both of our heads be- fore called him by any other name than the Doctors Boy. The village knew that he was a foundling, because he had been left at the door of old Dr. Hart's house one cold Christmas-eve, but it was divided in opinion as to whether he was bad boy or good one. Some thought he was the latter, some the former. I was perfectly satisfied that he was a wretchedly iniquitous youth, and told him so. He burst into tears, and said I would change my opinion of him some day.
 But at first he certainly gave me no reason to do so. He compounded for me dose once to cure headache (for Dr. Hart was not above keeping drugs and making up his own prescriptions) that brought me to deaths door, and the old doctor was put to his wits end to cure me. But the Boy went to my mother and told her that it was his fixed intention to become great doctor and chemist, and I had given him his first opportunity to test his knowledge of medicine. He had given me the wrong drug, he acknowledged; but it was all in the interest of science, and he promised never to do so any more. So my mother forgave him, and persuaded Dr. Hart to retain him in his service.
 It certainly was not on account of the Boys good looks that his first misad- venture resulted harmlessly to him. He was an angular Boy. He was a red haired Boy. He was freckled Boy. But he was frank Boy Cat least my mother said so), and for two years more he was allowed to go about the village distributing the doctors nostrums. and making himself, as I thought, very ob- ectionable.
 Dr. Hart had no particular liking for the Boy. He said the Boy was Christ mas gifts, and, like all such presents, called for something in return. Thus he had been obliged to board and clothe the lad for seventeen years, and he al- ways protested that he was not worth the outlay. Still, those who knew the doctor best were we'll assured of the fact that if the Boy had not earned his board, clothing, and lodging he would not have received them. He was called, in later years, Ebenezer Dorking, though what right he had 10 that name nobody in the village knew.
 At last the Doctors Boy disappeared He stole quietly away in the night time leaving not line of writing behind hin to say where he had gone; so Mrs. liar suggested that he had robbed the till il the drugstore. A search was at once made, and the fact was developed tha not only had no money been taken from inc drawer, but that 0 new crisp five dollar bill had been added to its con tents There seemed to be no doub that the Doctors Boy had placed i there, and the matter was nine days wonder for the village. Then the docto hired another boy, who interested no body, and he was soon discharged.
 I suppose it was due to the subject matter of conversation furnished by th Boys departure that found mysel more frequently than before in the doc tors sitting-room. Agnes Hart was beautiful girl, about sixteen years C age, and she laughed so merrily at m tales of the eccentricities of the Boy that am afraid exaggerated them little; bu by degrees the recollection of the fugi tive seemed to pass out of our lives, an when, four years later, torrent of wa swept over the country, I was not think ing of the Doctors Boy when I tool Agnes Hart's hand to say good-b before going to the front; but I wa thinking very tenderly of Agnes h erseli < and believe she was thinking in muc the same strain of me. A hundred time during the past two years I had been O i. the verge of asking her the momentou question, but had decided to wait unt my position in the world was better ai < sured. And now that the country in ht ss extremity was calling for the best SC vices of her sons, would it have bee fair to ask simple girl to bind hersel even by an engagement, to one wi might never return to claim her pledge thought not; but as I watched her fa' when we were parting, and imagined saw what I longed for written there,
 determined to ask her to be my wi
 when the war was over
 Oh, the wretched years of strife tn
 followed I thought they would new
 end. But at last the closing scenes ha come, and the good fortune that ha followed me through score of engag
 ments, bearing me unharmed whi others went down by thousands, forsot