The Irish standard., 1895-11-09
a poor farmer Had she not done SO 1t is
probable that the contents of more than
one pigeon hole in the big safe would
have been added to the adopted daugh-

LBrobabIe that the contents Of more thar
one pigeon hole in the big safe would
have been added to the adopted daugh-
tiers share.
! One evening in March, 1852, John
iSteele, who had been away with a, team
hauling oil, returned home and found the
| house in ashes. The ychared bones of the
widow were picked out of the ruins II
was supposed that she had accidentally
set herself abiaze and then the house, by
rashly using petroleum to start the kitch.
en- fire.
AS John Steele had been legally adopt
| ed he was the natural heir 10 the con.
! tents Of the big safe and the river Of rev
enue from The oil-producing farm, his
possession of which was further fortified
Eby the Widows will, made before the
change In her fortune This sudden ac-
QUESTION OF enormous wealth turned his
! head, not all at once, but speedily. He
wished to find an enjoyment of it, an in-
tensified consciousness Of it's reality, but
was too ignorant to do so in any intelli-
gent way. He married the daughter OF
| one Of his Workmen, and she taught him
to write his name in a labOrious, mechan-
ical way, and that was ali he ever learned
of the art and mystery Of letters She
| tried to keep him straight, but he knew
| too little to comprehend self-resDect, felt
| himself to be too rich to be trammeled by
conyentionaltties, OF to care for the opin-
ions of others, and thirsted for a riotous
excess of sensuous qualification, the high.
est pleasure he was capable of.
Only few months after his marriage
! he went away to Philadelphia, taking
with him a boon companion named Slo-
cum, whose assigned duty was the car
rying Of his money and paying it out as
he chose to squander it.. The life OF
| prodigality and uncontrolled dissipation
into which he had plunged was so wild
as to be almost beyond belief. He or
dered champagne, not by the bottle, but
by the basket. He gave a $4,000 dia-
mOnd to a negro minstrel for singing a
song that pleased him. He frequently
bought carriages and the teams attached
when he wished to ride few blocks and
then present them to the drivers. On
one occasion he wagered bottle of wine
that he would spend, actually paying out
Hfor fun" and not giving away, 1000 a
day for 60 days, and won the bottle. At
another time he received a large sum of
money from the rentals on the farm
when he was on the street and quite
drunk 1t was in bank notes, as he al
ways required it, checks being objects Of
suspicion with him, and when he had
stuffed it into his pockets they bulged
out like those of an u1chin after a raid
on an apple orchard. His coat could not
set well on him padded with money as he
was, and he was disgusted. Just then he
caught sight of a bank, and rushing into
it with the airy forlnality Of, Here, take
care of this ID stuff for me; it's a
nuisance" dumped the whole pile before
the receiving teller and went away ere
that functionary could take breath or
gather his wits sufficiently to give any
evidence of the deposit. And WHEN, Coal
Oil Johnny, as John: Steele was by this
time known, tried in a brief spas1n of So
briefly, to remember where he had left
all that money, he was quite unable to do
so And he decided to hunt it up would
involve more trouble than it was worth.
It's loss did not worry him at all.
Suddenly his wealth came to an end.
He had succeeded in squandering even
more than his vast income, and was in
debt. OF course he had been plundered
mercilessly, right and left, but had liter
ally thrown away several fortunes, and
creditors scenting his downfall We're
pressing him. He mortgaged the farm
for large sum and plunged afresh into
even wilder extravaganza and more reck-
less dissipation than before, but with less
to so upon. and the end came quickly.
His mad career was over.
Aftef, a short time of abject destitution,
in which he was deserted by all who had
preyed upon him he went to- work driv-
ing the Girard House stage in which
guests were Carried to and from the rail-
road depots. Soon he .wearied of that, and
somebody paid his fare back to Oil Creek,
where he obtained employment as a
freight handler at the depot, in which
capacity he earned $25 a month. That
was not enough to support himself and
his family, and there was nothing more
remunerative that he could find there to
do.
His wife raised, by the. sale of her
jewelry, sum sufficient for the transpor-
tation of the family out to Nebraska,
and there, in Lincoln, Coal Oil Johnny
settled down. They we're very poor, but
managed somehow to live, for Johnny
was willing worker at any labor he
could procure. Realizing the evil fortune
of such limitation as had been put upon
his capacities by his ignorance, he took
care that his son, a bright lad, should
receive as good an education as was at
tainable under the existing circumstan-
ces. When the boy was old enough, he
obtained employment as a ticket and
freight agent at the Ashland Neb., rail-
road station, and there his father, Coal
Oil Johnny that was, plain John Steele,
as everybody about there knows him,
works steadily and patiently for the rail
road company under the sons direction,
handling freight, taking care of the sta
tion. and so on And he is hale, hearty,
a well-preserved man, apparently about
So years of age, seemingly we'll contented.
But he is by no means dependent now
upon his labor for the maintenance of
his family, or upon his steady and indus
trio,ls son. At time when his situation
| seemed most miserable and his prospects
! least hopeful, while he was still seeking
days work at any hard labor in Lincoln,
| fortune again smiled upon him, a CLEAN
of his old luck gilded his life once again.
In serne way the directors of that Phil
| adelphia bank in which he had made his
| informal deposits thirty years before
| learned of the unhappy condition of the
| Steele family away out in Nebraska. of
the total reformation in Coal Oil Johnnyfs 8
habits, and the manly struggle he was
making to atone for the past. Having
assured themselves of the Identification Of
| their erratic depositor, they made up his
account and forwarded to him the sum
LEFT in their charge, with interest from
/ the date OF deposit How much it was is
In, nnx.-a nnl those concerned hut it is