Lawrence democrat. (Lawrenceburg, Tenn.) 1884-1925, 1891-04-10
A GROCER'S DREAM.
He Is Buried In Bank Notes BY Delin-
quent Customers.

He Is Buried In Bank Notes BY Delin-
quent Customers.
All his customers had long since de-
parted and the old man, tired with
long days toll, sat himself in his big
arm chair by the warm fire in the rear
room to have good toasting of his tired
feet, and final drive at his paper
which he had only read in occasional
chances during the day. As he sat there
the bright light above him brought out
strongly the wear and tear of the years
that had come and gone since he had
first faced the world behind the counter.
His face was scanned and marked and
his hair gray, and scanty, told of the
years he had been at work. AS the
ready light faded from his eyes the old
mans head fell back on the chair, while
the paper went fluttering to the floor.
The old man slept and as he slept
dreams came to him.
He dreamt that he stood behind the
little counter in the dim little store,
which stood so many years in one of the
narrow streets of this big city, where
he had first learned his lesson in life,
and he recalled with pleasure how his
master patted his curly head in congrat-
ulation of his efforts to neatly fill
brown paper funnel with brown sticky
sugar for the little girl who was at the
side of the counter. He had never in
his life since felt quite the same sense
of qualification that he felt when his
maiden effort was commended. After
ward, memory gently moving along
the spaces of time, brought before him
his ambitions to do business for him
self; how he saved and plodded along;
denying himself all pleasures, making
his one Sunday best" do for four
years, until he had enough capital to
start for himself in small way. How
at first he worked by himself; liv-
ing on but two meals a day and deny
! ing himself pleasure as before, until
at last he had one, then two, and now
five assistants. AS he dreamed it
seemed that he lived over each day and
each transaction of each day. And
then strange thing seemed to happen
before him grew a great pile of books;
ledgers, old, musty and many, long since
forgotten, which came from their rest
ing places all dusty and time-worn.
They came to him as he slept, and ar
ranging themselves with exact precis-
ion, the leaves opened page by page
and revealed to him the records of the
past He recognized with pleasure the
many well worn pages, whose neat
record told of trust not misplaced, saw
that here and there misfortune had been
cared for and in most cases apprecia-
ton had followed. But many pages
came before him which told of conf
dence misplaced, and revealed the grow
ing skeleton of dishonest patrons. So
the procession went on, and, as the
pages turned, the sleepers mind seemed
to take on a new view of affairs. Some
thing said to him that high power had
moved the souls of those whose still
open records, showed obligations not
kept 1t seemed to him that one after
another of these trooped up to his chair,
and silently left each pile of bank
bills before him. The heap grew until
it covered his lap and spread over the
floor and covered that, until greenbacks
literally buried him and hemmed him
in.
The dream was sweet-tOo sweet
and he, suddenly awakening, found
that his newspaper had tangled itself
about his feet that the fire had nearly
burnt out and that he had the state
ments for last month purchases still
unopened in his coat poeket--NatiOnal
Grocer,