The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1894-11-28
SAVED BY A GALE
A THANKSGIVING STORY.

On the night of November %,
1873, the bank of Davids & Davids,
at Gainesville, was robbed of bonds,
cash and notes of the face value of
100000. 1t was a private bank in
a town of 4, 900 people, but the town
was the center of a rich agricnltur-
al community. Nearly every far
mer had money in bank or invested
in bonds, and the bankers were
trustees or administrators for sever
al.estates. They were brothers and
both well off, andso it came about
that their vaults held rich pickings
for robbers.
On the morning of Nov. % a
horse which had been rendered
helpless by hard riding was found
in the streets of Charlotte. a village
% miles west of Cartersville. About
midafternoon and officer who had
been tracing the bank robber ap-
peared in Charlotte and identified
the horse. 1t was plain that the
man had come that way, but it was
not SO plain which direction he had
taken from Charlotte. A score of
people turned out and secured the
country, but no trace of him could
be found. AT midnight, with most
of the searchers camped on the
highways and in the fields. still be-
lieving that the robber was hidden
in the woods, snow began to fall
and the wind to rise, and by day,
light gale was sweeping over the
country.
Uncle Jim, as everybody called
the old man whose real name was
James White, had lived for many
yearsin the outskirts of the village of
Charlotte. he was what people call
a "fated man." He married in 1860
and had just got settled in homo
when the house took fire and burn
ed down, and he lost everything.
The next year his wife was killed
by accident. Six months later he
was badly hurt while at work.
When he recovered, he enlisted as
soldier, but had only reached the
front when the accidental discharge
of cannon deprived him of his
right arm and most of his left hand.
He had not been home two months
when he was run over by a vehicle
and SO injured that his left leg had
to come off at the knee. With his
pension money he bought an acre OF
ground, with poor old house and
a tumble down barn on it, hoping to
make his living by growing fruits
and vegetables, and for a time he
got along reasonably well.
Then his health gave out, his pen
sion was stopped on the grounds
that he had given wrong date in
his application, and on Thanksgiv.
ing morning, which dawned bleak
and drear enough for the happiest
in the village, Uncle Jim had two
callers.
One was from a villager who held
mortgage on his real estate and
called to tell him that it must be.
foreclosed, and the other was a coun,
ty official who tried to tell him in Q
kindly way that the matter had
been talked over and it had beer
decided to send him to the poor
house for the winter.
When the callers had gone their
ways, Uncle Jim sat down and ate
his meager breakfast and looked out
of a back window upon the drearJ
landscape and reflected and wept
Fate had followed him for years
and downed him at last. The eli
max had now come, and as the ole
man sat down to face it alone h,
could find but one way out of it. Hs
would never go to the poorhouse
and he would never hobble arounC
the country as a professional men
dicant. The alternative was suicid,
and he would accept it. While
other villagers prepared tbei,
Thanksgiving dinner or sat in th,
] churches and listened TO the ser