The Wahpeton times., 1888-11-29

One Of the strangesatt 4 i6itt6fi t of q
drunkard's 4 I rsformat ion b n y =
the Philadelphia Timea l
H, prosperous tEades1 s6I
Eastern Pennsylvania, lost his p@r6pi @
erty through Unforeseen busineal !
troubles, and, leaving his young fsu,-ii
ily, went West toretreive his fortune.
but discouraged BY want 81 sucscsess,i
he took to drink, and finally became,
a degraded loafer. he drifted East:
ward again, and was seen in Troy,i
N. Y, hanging around liquor ga,
looms. He had lost his manhood,
and his very name (having long BEEN
ashamed to be called by fly, all men.
knew him as "The Worm of the
Still" ,.a,.,-,....,s,
Once, soon utter the arrival of a
circus and menagerie combination to
exhibit in the city, the drunkard saw.
one of the keepers purchase pailful
OF whisky for q sick elephant, and
sneaked after him to the circus tent,
following the impulse of his raging
thirst.
The keeper put the bucket ofwhisky.
down before "Betsy," the sick ele-'
plant, and she drank about half of,
it. The Intellectual brute knew it
was medicine, and did notpropose to
take more Of it than she. thought
she needed. The bucket, still half
full ofliquor, was left standing near
her, and the keepers attention was
called away for a moment.
Hardly was his back turned when
q bloated, red face was poked
through under the canvas, and it's
pNir of watery eyes were fastened
greedily upon the bucket. Betsy fix
ed her keen little eyes on the intruder,
stopped swaying to and fro, and
waited to see what he would do. {.
He did not notice her. The facina-
tion of the whisky blinded him to
everything else. The bucket was be-
yond his reach. He drew himself un-
der the tent until he could clutch it, :
The instant that he did SO, Betsy
flung herpowerful trunk around his
waist, and whirletl him up in the air.
She did not mean him any harm,
but he was tampering with her medi-.
cine, and she would not stand that.
So he had barely time to give one
wild shrek of terror, when she tossed
him thirty feet away, where he struck
against one of the ponderous wheels
of a lion cage, fell to the earth with
one leg broken, and three fractured
ribs. She did not attempt to follow
and hurt him, for she had no malice.
He was carried away on q stretcher
to the hospital.
The rest OF the story is a pathetic
romance. The wretched mans re-
covery was so slow that fifteen weeks
passed before he could walk on crutch-
es; but in that long time the thor
ough hospital treatment had cleansed
oil the liquor out of him, and he had
begun to look something like his
former self.
One day, when q party of ladies
visited the hospital, distributing
flowers and reading matter to the
patients, one of them, a handsome
but sad-faced young woman. stopped
by his chair, and gazed at him as il
strangely startled.
"Father," she said, "you don't re-
member me. l am your daughter
Mary"
1t was twelve years since she had
seen him, but she knew him.
She had him conveyed to her home
as soon as possible, where, in time,
he was restored to health, found
good employment, and began a new
life of sobriety and industry, which
continued to the last.
His adventure with the elephant,
80 nearly fatal to him, proved the
means of his entire reformation.