Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1889-08-31

Neat Cottage of the Old Time Tom.
Tom Blinker was one of the ''boys."
and there are many in this city who
would know him should his right name
be given. He made good z spent
his money freely and was a hale fellow
well met with every one.
When he and Mary stood before the
altar in the little church and linked their
lives together many were the compli-
ments they received, for indeed they
were a fine couple. Their friends con-
graduated them and the future looked
bright. And when thu first little pratt
tier came the acme of their happiness
seemed 10 have been reached.
But Toms old habits clung TO him,
and ere many years had gone he began
to neglect his home. Often he would
come home late at night under the influ-
ence Of liquor. The money he earned
passed over the bar of the saloon, and the
roses faced from Mary's cheeks. The
stars left her eyes; her face became
pinched. and deep lines Of sorrow chased
away the dimples. Still she did not COM
/ plain. and Tom did not see what great
changes were going on in his home.
From one house 10 another they moved
The little home on which Tom on his
wedding day had made the first payment
was gone, and az last his midnight reel
carried him TO a miserable howell in which
a heart broken woman and children *
listed.
II ANGELS WIG.
Tom had reached the bottom. So low
had he descended that he would scrub
out saloons that he might get the dregs
of alcoholic stimulants. He was Bum
mer Blinker now with n rum colored
nose and eyes bleared and ~bloodshot.
Many times he inhabited the drunk
room at the station house. and when he
was brought in the desk sergeant would
say, "Hello, Blinker; you here again?
Why don't you brace up and be some
one? You used To DC a pretty good kind
of a fellow"
Tom would only humble and drop
down into a corner To sleep. In po-
lice court he was a chronic" and was
fined time and time again.
One cold and dismal night, when the
snow was on the ground and all nature
was ice clad, Tom was in u low barroom
asleep. Some cruel jokers had painted
his swollen face with lamp black ard
were having rare sport with the drunken
man. When he awoke and realized his
condition he became angry, and the re-
suit was that he was badly beaten and
thrown out of doors. Then he staggered
homeward. That night while the father
was at the barroom 5-year-old baby
Mary, whose eyes and dimples were like
mothers used to be, was taken suddenly
i'll with that night dread OF all mothers
the Group. and in a few hours its little
life was ended. While the mother bent
over the form of her child and bathed
its face with her tears, Tom staggered in
and threw himself on TO a char. ' It'll a
besotted oath: then, as sleep overcame
him, he fell Ia the floor, where be laJ
till morning with Mary's faded and torn
shawl under his head for u pillow.
All night long tho mother sat beside
her dead and sent her prayers heaven
ward. When mornings light appeared.
and Tom, benumbed with cold and par
TALLY sobered. saw his dead child and re-
allied that he had not been near TO wipe
the death damp from its brow, or help it
battle for life, then an old feeling, be-
come neG,, came to him. Down on his
knees, with lis face buried in the tat
tered bed clothing, he sobbcd as only
great strong men can sob, and Mary, the
wreck of long ago. placed her wasted
arm about his neck, and with her wan
face against his, unmindful of the lamp
black, the fumes of vile liquor, mingled
her tears with his. But no promises Of
reformation did Tom make.
Kind neighbors furnished a little coffin,
and when Tom. trembling in every Ii NIB
from dissipation, dropped hot, burning
tears on the little face upturned, and
with his shaking hand caressed the tiny
white hands peacefully crossed on the
bosom of white, people wondered IF
this will be a lesson to him." The flu
neral was unpretentious. Every clod
that fell ON the coffin struck n blow on
Toms heart. For two days Tom re-
NAMED at home, and on the third, when
he started away, he took his wife in his
arms and kissed her as he did in times
gone by. And when he returned Mary
listened for his step, oh, SO ~anxiously.
and, when she heard it, thanked God it
was the step Of a sober man.
Tom was missed from the bar room,
from the police station, from the police
court. He quit drinking and went to
work. Go to one OF the largest factories
in the city. Pass among the whirring
wheels and ringing hammers. See that
tall, broad shouldered man with a CHEEKY
face, begrimed not with lamp black, but
with the result of honest labor! That's
Tom Blinker.
When the whistle sounds he takes off
his apron, buttons his stout coat about
him and with a brisk swinging walk and
a CHEEKY whistle starts for home. Fol-
low him to a neat little cottage and
watch the picture that the light throws
upon the curtains at the window. See a
happy wife in,tidy attire throw her arms
around his neck and kiss away the dirt
of the factory. See happy children
clamoring to kiss papa. Sec them at
their evening meal-and then II Tom
does 90 out after s~upper-Mary and the
cb;,dren go along. The neat cottage