The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1893-06-20
BUSTED" BLAKE.
How q Fortune Fell to His De-
serted Widow.

Harken to the tale of how fortune
| fell to the widow of Busted" Blake.
The outcome has shown that Busted
was not radically bad. But he was
wretchedly weak of will to reject an
opportunity of having another drink
with anybody or nobody.
In the days Of his ascendency, when
he was young and newly-married
architect, he was buyer of drinks for
others. Waters In cafes We'd with each
other in showing readiness to take his
orders. He was rated jolly good fell
| low then. No one would have supposed
II destined that some fine night a leer-
| ing bar-room wit should reply to his
whispered application for a small loan
by pouring half-glass Of whisky upon
his head and sayings
IT hereby christen thee Busted.
The title stuck. Blake, through con-
tinued impecuniosity, lost all shame OF
IL in time; lost, too, his self-respect,
and his wife. Mrs. Blake, gentle and
pretty little brunette, had welded him
against the will of her parents She had
trusted for his safety, to the allure
ments of his future, which everybody
said was bright, and to his love for her.
The years Of fearful nights, the plead
ings, the reproaches, the seesaw OF hope
and despair, need not here be dwelt
upon. They would make an old story
and some of the details might be shock
ing to the young person. They reached
a elimination one day when she said to
hint
"You love drink better than you love
me. l have done with you"
She was a woman and took woman's
view OF the case.
When he came back to their rooms
that night, neither she nor his two
weeks old baby girl were there Then
he knew how much he loved them and
how much he had underestimate his
love.
She did not go to her parents. There
was very Inusty proverb that she
knew would meet her on their thresh-
old: "You made your bed; now lie on
It," Her father was man OF no orig
inality, hence he would have put 1t in
that way.
She got employment in photograph
gallery, where she made herself useful
by being ornamental, sitting behind a
desk in the ante-room. know not
what duties devolve upon the woman
who occupies that post in the average
photographer service; whatever they
are, she performed them, and with the
wages received managed to care for
herself and child.
The next day he made a Herculean et-
fort to pull himself together. He OBJ
tanned position as draughtsman from
one who had known him In his re-
spectacle period, and he went trem-
blingly and sheepishly to call upon his
wife and child.
The consequence Of his visit was re-
union, which endured for two whole
weeks. At the end Of that time she cast
him off in utter scorn.
How he lived for the next two years
can be known only to those who are ia
miliar through experience with the ex~
istence of people who ask other people
on the street for few cents toward the
price OF q nights lodging. BY those
who knew him he was said to be mo
good to himself or anyone else" He
ACQUIRED the raggedness, the impu-
dence, the phraseology OF the vagabopd
class. He would hang on the edge Of a
party of men drinking together In front
of a bar on the slim chance OF being
;scounted in" when the question went
round, ''what'll you have9' He was
perpetually being impelled out of sa-
looms at foot race speed by the officials
whose function it is in barrooms to
substitute an Objectionable persons
room for his company.
One winter Sunday morning he slept
late upon bench in a public square.
Awakened by an officer, he rose to go.
Hazy in head and stiff in joints he
slightly staggered. He heard behind
him the cooling laugh of child. he
looked around. It was himself that
had awakened the infants mirth-or
that strange something which precedes
the dawn of a sense of humor in chill
dren. The smiling babe was In a child's
carriage, which a plainly dressed WON
an was pushing. He looked at the
woman. 1t was his wife, and the pref
ty child was his own.
He walked rapidly from the place,
and on the same day he decided to
leave the city. He had herded with
Migrants of the touring class. The
methods of free transportation by
means of freight trains and free living
by means of beggary and small thiey-
cry in country towns were no secret to
him. Ha walked to the suburbs and at
nirhtfall he scrambled up the side Of a
coal car In train slowly moving vest
ward.
Mrs. Blake and the child lived in q
fair degree of comfort upon the moth
er's wages, but often the mother shud-
dered at thought of what might happen
should she ever lose her situation at the
photographers.
Consumption had its hold on Busted"
Blake when he arrived in the mining
town called Get-there City, in Kansas,
one evening Get-there City had not
gotten there beyond single struggling
street of shanties, but it had acquired
saloon, although liquor selling had al
ready been forbidden in Kansas.
Busted Blake, with ten cents in his
clothes, entered the saloon and asked
in an asthinatic voice for as much
whisky as that's I'm was good for.
While ;.--4ng a response his eyes
turned toward the only other persons
in the saloon-three burly, bearded
miners Of the conventional big-hatted,
big booted and big-voiced type. Above
their heads and against the wall was
this sign, lettered roughly with char
coal under crudely drawn deaths
head:
'Eive thousand S dollars viii be paid
by the undersigned to the widow of the
sneaking hound that informs on this
saloon. This is no meer bluff.
P. Gibbs"
Blake, after O brief coughing fit,
looked up at the man behind the bar--a
great, thick-necked fellow, with a mien
of authority and yet with certain
bluff honesty expressed about his eyes
and lips. This man, whose air of pro-
convinced Blake that he
could be none other than p. Gibbs, had
first looked sneeringly at the ten cents,
but had shown some small sign OF pity
upon hearing the ominous cough OF the
attenuated vagrant. He set forth q
bottle and glass.
''Help yerself," said P. Gibbs. While
Blake was doing so, Mr.. Gibbs went ont
bad cough o. yourn. Y mightn't
guess it, but that same cough runs In
my family. 1t took off q brother, butt
skipped me-"
Here was bond Of sympathy be-
tween the big law-defying saloonkeep-
er and the frail topper from the east.
Busted" Blake drained his glass and
presently coughed again. P. Gibbs
again sch forth the bottle and this tiwe
he drank with Blake. Before long hN
dint of repeated fits of coughing, QA4pN
part of Blake, the sympathy of p. Gkn4M