Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-02-06

weeks ago. He can't last many hours
now. So, then, it had come at last.
l was almost face to face with the grim
enemy. l went quietly to bed and took
my choral. The doctor was to come
at ten in the morning and l was anx-
lously awaiting his arrival. He came
at last. The first thing he did was to
glance up at the windows to see if the
oilnds We're down. and [ think he was
disappointed that they We're not. Ibid
not l this man, and lay perfectly
still, with closed eyes, when he came
in. He felt my pulse gently enough,
and then stood looking at me for a few
moments with his hands in his pockets.
ENGINEERING what you wal put in my
death certificate, Ell, doctor?" said i,
opening my eyes" Il am" he re-
Piled bluntly. ''Then." said 1, '.here
is the verdict-telo dc Sc. Now, good
bye; can't bear talking" He went
away accordingly, thinking, no doubt,
l was slightly distracted. Hardly
had the sound Of this mans
carriage-wheels died away in the dis
lance when a hale, hearty, bluff old
gentleman stepped into my room. He
was a medical man l had often heard
OF; he had a good deal of business
about him, but hid a kind heart behind
a rough exterior. He soon elected
from me the whole history of the
chlora.. Then he stood at my bedside
and offered to bet me five to one that if
l followed his instructions to the letter
l would be a different man and in good
l health in Eyn roortho H. o.ro,..l
my heart; said it was weakened by the
poison imbibed, but nothing more.
Though his words seemed to me only a
cruel mbckery, I promised faithfully to
obey hin in every particular. Then he
destroyq all my choral, and asked me
if had by hidden store. 1 had no
chloral that night, and such a night /
never passed before, and I trust I v
shall agah. Sleep, of course, was i'm
possible; but l tossed about all the
long, long hours in a bath of perspira-
ton, yawfing, stretching and sneezing.
The mostPainful feeling was a sensa-
ton OF r4nding at my heart as if some
monstrouf crab were gnawing out my
vitals. lhever slept a wink for over a
week, anil then sleep came in ftful
snatches. 1 was, of course, too much
FRUSTRATED to leave my bed. On the
second niAht l vas dclirious, and so on
for severa nights following, My de-
lirium, tod took at first a strange form.
Some preence seemed to be ever with
me askingme question after question
in rapid luccession, which I was inn
PEELED to answer in rhyme. Words or
meter nevir once failed me, and in one
night l I'm certain I composed suf-
ticient veres to set a dozen poets up in
life; in flct, I had been suddenly
TRANSFORMED into a living, breathing,
rhyming dictionary; but the distress
this form Iof delirium caused me can
hardly be imagined. On the third
night ther$was an entire change in the
performance; the rhyming power left
me, my eye no more rolled in fine
frenzy, and the delirium was changed
to a dioranic observation-disclosures, in
my travels and voyages around the
world, l hap gazed on many a beautiful
coast scene from my cabin; these scenes
We're framed, as it were, by the round
portfolio, afd very pretty pictures they
often made, each n varied as the
weather or climate varied, but always
having the sea in the foreground,
wbather calm and serene, or rufied
aid angry; the sky above, whether
blue with focks of snowy cloudlets or
dirk and lowering with the coming
stprm, and the landscape in the middle.
Now back from the realms of memory
came those circulating pictures, one by
one, and by the hundreds gliding be-
fire my half-closed eyes like dioramic
scenes of enchantmcnt. My recovery
was a long one, but hope had renewed
in my heart, and in three months I
could walk as many miles. Sleep, too,
returned to bless me, and 1 felt indeed
a new man. Blessings on the rough
kindness of that good and clever doc
tor.-Cor. Brooklyn Eagle.