The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1890-05-19
HOW jim WAS FOUND.
Thu Result Of Consulting the Exchange
Editor.

Tho Result Of Consulting h Exchange
Editor.
From the Detroit Free Press.
The search began in May and ended In
November. II was made within the four
walls of a country newspaper office and
through the medium Of It's exchanges. No
exchange fiend' has bored me since that
search, for I have always remembered
that perhaps there was, even In the per
son whom l detested q sorrow or a long
ing that made his actions warrantable.
/ first heard Of Jim when one May after
noon, the doors and windows being open
and the ''copy" rustlinR In the breeze,
bent, white-haired settler entered the
Weekly Palladium Office.
"YOu paper fellers git each others pa
pers, l s'pose 2" he asked timidly.
"Yes, sir; we exchange with N an.
other"
'Could We let q person see some err yer
papers? I'D pay yer fer it," he added, as
il shS it that x he W. was sI Hs skiing TOO , much; ,s
l piled fifty or more exchanges before
"Ye see, I'm lookin' for Jim,r my visi.
tor said, apologctically, as he was adjust
ing his steel-bowed spectacles. "Jim, my
son. We came West two years q an
tOOk UP - Ciittus BTotty tfoIu WOTh,
! know, an Jim q hiRh-strung. Bein'
the baby of the family he bed been petted
a good deal, an workin' came hard on
him."
"Did he run away ?" l queried. wishing
to appear sociable and interested.
"No, that's the worst of il; | drove i'm
away. / got mad at lin one day cause he
wouldn't mind an l told i'm to clear out.
He went, an l amt seer i'm since. I'm
thinkin' I'll find somethin' of i'm in the
everythin'."
With that he began to look through the
local columns OF the journals before him.
1t was an hour before he had finished his
a and laid by the last one with n sigh.
"I1l look ag'in next week." he said
sadly as he departed.
The next week and the mex he was
there, each time chatting with me and re-
vealing more of the longing for a chance
of reparation for his harshness.
All through the hot summer months he
was faithful to his task, and l too, began
tn take an interest in the missing boy and
look for his name in the papers that went
through my hands.
October. with its Indian summer. had
gone. The praries had taken on their
robes of brown, n nightly the prairie
fires cleaned i'm a ragged line at the far
horizon. Then November. On the third
Saturday my visitor came through a bitter.
clustering wind, and his hands looked
white and pinched with cold.
The tears dimmed his glasses as he took
up his task as usual. He had gone about
half through the pile of papers when he
suddenly Strengthened up, brushed the
page out smooth and fixed his eyes in
tently upon il. He handed the paper to
me n l read:
"A stranger, giving his name as James
Meserve, vas found in the depot this
morning sick. He is scarcely more han
a boy, but seems TO have had hard lines
He says he has friends i'm Kansas, but
will not give their names. He was taken
to the Merchants hotel, where he is be-
ing cared for by the city authorities"
The paper was published in a small city
in Northern Iowa, and was dated three
days previous.
"Fve found him !" calculated the father,
gladly, 'I'm goin' ter get him."
That night he left for his sons side, and
in n week the two alighted from a train,
the father joyous and happy, the son pale
and emaciated.
As they rode over the prairie toward the
old mans claim he called back to me:
"Come an see us some time"
did shortly afterward, and, as we sat
up to the w~ell-supplied table, though our
chairs rested on the bare earth, and the
walls of q dugout were around us, | found
as happy a host as presided In any palace
i'm the land.
The old man bent his white head, and
i'm fervent tones thanked the Giver of all
good for the return of his boy-thanked
him in such words as only the full heart
can prompt.
CHANGING to one side I saw tears drop
from Jim's eyes upon his plate.
Jim was found in more senses than one.