The San Saba weekly news. (San Saba, Tex.) 18??-1???, 1891-12-25

s'Did you really hear me Z" she almost
whispered. Il fear 1 cannot make it
alone"
"Can you keep ahoat if you throw
your arms over my back : can carry
you easily enough that way"
81 think can, " she replied.
''Then do So" said.
It cost me very little extra effort to
swim with the girl resting only part of
her weight upon me. The arrangement
evidently relieved her, for, when we had
gone about half the distance, she said:
SIT is very good of you, Mr.. Dilwyn.
think / can swim now"
''Better not try l answered CURLY.
'sTell me, then, when we reach shall
low water"
When we were within fifty yards of
the shore and in not more than four
feet of water, said: "You are not ike
ly to drown now, even if you should
have to walk"
She loosened her hold of me, and,
floating on her side, proceeded to thank
me profusely. But was in a contrary
humor and borrowing the words which
she herself had used at the crib, I said;
''Pray do not burden me with thanks, F"
and added, "you know would have
done as much for one of the small boys
from the city-it is no particular credit
to be commonly humane"
rWell, she said, in. disappointed
tone, "let me at least tell you my name.
1t is Lucille"
But I gave her no chance to finish. I
considered it a good opportunity to "get
even" SO exclaimed loudly, "No, do not
tell me. 1 object to such informal in
Productions"
And, with that, swan away toward
my home.
More than two years passed away, dur
ing which period did not again meet
Miss Lucille, although / speedily discov-
cred her patronymic. At the end of that
time saw the young lady at neigbor-
hood musicale and was formally intro
duced.
Alasi within half an hour put my
awkward foot in it, by referring Gnno-
Gently enough to the more than informal
reception which she had accorded me at
the crib. She was especially angry in
that a local wag stood sufficiently near
to overhear and drink in every word
which 1 uttered, so that much to the dis
gust of both of US, we were, thanks to
him, ever afterwards known along few
miles of the Lake Front as the "pair of
ducks"
1t took my fair would-be despot a
month to recover from her huff, by which
time was ''huffy" myself.
So it has been-the same old story ever
since. Whenever have felt good and
gracious, Lucille has invariably been angry
or sulky; while, whenever the young
woman has been disposed to smile, have
persistently refused to bask in the sun
shine of her kindly glances. For two
steady years we have played at cross pur-
poses-a big but rather tiresome game of
bluff and huff, and yet strange paradoxD
1 have loved Lucille, l have ever been
the girls ardent admirer and willing
slave. That is to say, would have been
her willing slave had she permitted such
a state of affairs when I happened to be
in the humor.
A few weeks ago seriously offended
'the other duck" I was certainly in
the wrong and behaved like a perfect
brute. It took about nine days for me
to discover this fact, and then wrote
note full of profuse apologies, tender re-
grets, etc.
The note was returned to me unopened,
as l half expected it would be. But,
three or four days afterward, I received
penitential letter from Lucille, which
my state of mind just then would per-
NIT me to look upon as nothing less than
stub pei thu daippsa-
It deep down into nv red ink. Across
the first page of Lucile's letter scrawled
'sToo late. Upon the second page 1
wrote "Rats. Over the third 1 scrib-
bled "Chestnuts"-And upon the fourth
and last. page 1 printed in heavy Old
English text "Farewell.n
Then I returned her letter to Lucille.
1t was the last straw. I was morally
certain that I was an "A-number-one''
fool; and felt tolerably sure that Lucille
was not far behind me in the same
category.
Between Lucille and the temperature
Gt was July and the thermometer stood
at eighty-three degrees, about two A. NJ
I passed q wretched, sleepless night.
When walked down to the lake at six
o'clock I had arrived at a very logical
conclusion, namely: could not live
with Lucille; 1 could not live without
Lucille; ergo-I had better die right off.
Down in our little bathing house we
kept, for prudential reasons only, a
large bottle of brandy. took this bottle
and deliberately emptied its contents on
the pebbly beach. Then tore from my
note book a fly leaf, and with my pencil
wrote as follows:
II have lived & fools life: I viii die FOOLS
death, in the hope of reaching a fools para
disc. am tired Of the part have played in
Lucie's game of bat and ball. / am about
TO swim as far as my strength viii carry me,
when shall sink to rise no more.
JOHN DuwYH."
1915 A. n, July 10th"
This document thrust into she empty
bottle, corked it up and flung 1t as far
as could into the lake-morbidly i'm
agining, as 1 did so, the head lines of
the newspapers when that bottle should
be recovered:
"a story from the deep. The mys-
terry of John Dilwayn at last solved,
ETC."
1 donned my bathing suit, but sat in
the hut, perhaps half an hour, buried in
deep meditation, before l entered the
water and struck out.
l had left the shore nearly mile be-
hind me, and, must confess, was be-
ginning to wish that had not launched
that bottle with its respondent declara-
ton. In fact faltered SO considerably
in my suicidal resolve, that 1 deter
mined to halt at the waterworks crib
and reconsider the situation. So 1
shaped my strokes accordingly.
1 was very near to the low, clumsy
structure, when an intensely familiar
voice shouted to me across the few yards
of water:
Don't you do it, you great stupid"
| gtraiphtpned nm in the voter and