The true Democrat. [volume] (Bayou Sara [La.]) 1892-1928, 1897-10-09

whittier We had
gone as chance travelling companions
on train from the West. It was on
Sunday morning, and as we took it
easy in the handsome apartments he
was occupying, a messenger boy
brought him o telegram. The message
was from his wife, and the boy being
9 bright-eyed youngster, the cheerful
colonel chatted with him pleasantly q
moment and gave him a quarter as he
departed.
Doesn't that make telegraphing
come pretty high?" T. inquired, with
the true Yankee spirit Of thrift.
fused to be one myself" he said
In explanation, ''and now whenever
sec bright-eyed kid like that I warm
up to him and give him something,
though not always quarter. Being
Sunday, and the telegram being from
my wife, I do bit better than usual
and part with all of 25 cents"
EDO you really mean that you were
once messenger boy?" I asked in
great surprise, as I looked over the
elegant man of the world, every inch
gentleman born, who sat in the big
chair by the window gracefully pois-
tnga cigar on his thumb and finger.
"Really and truly" he laughed,
'and if you can stand a "reminiscences
this morning, I'll tell you the story of
my life. Journalists, and he bowed
over the arm of the chair, II believe,
are always on the lookout for interest
ing facts in history and fiction, aren't
they?"
I fastened to assure him that they
we're, and after making me swear that
! would keep awake at whatever sacri-
6ce, he began.
"When l was youngster of ten, ("
he said, II was messenger boy earn
Ing the luxurious salary of three dol
lars week, all of which I gallantly
turned over to my mother, who was a
bankers daughter, though she had
been turned out of her fathers house
because she had not married to suit
him and her stepmother. Indeed, she
had gone farther and married the man
who had suited her, and after that.
while her heart was never empty, she
and her husband and only son were
often so, and life was not quite as ROSY
as it might have been. We were brave
people, though, and with my three
dollars a week we managed somehow
to get along. I improved after year
pr two, and incidentally picked up to-
Biography, so that when I was fifteen I
BOT a place at small country station
In Missouri and took my mother there
70 live with me on my salary of forty
dollars a month, my father. having
died year before.
"At sixteen my mother died, leav-
Ing me alone in the world, and at nv
mothers funeral my grandfather re-
Tented sufficiently to propose that he
educate me, which proposal I accept
ed and agreed to take good business
education. BY the time was twen-
ty-one | had been graduated, and my
grandfather gave me o position in a
bank he owned in q very pleasant in
terror town, where I showed such ap-
| titude that the old gentleman entirely
lorgave me for having been the son Of
his disobedient daughter and told me
10 60 ahead and I should be a partner
some day.
"The next most natural thing in the
world to do was to fall in love, and I
did it for all there was in my thro5bing
heart, and on the evening of the day
was promoted to the cashiership of
the bank I asked Kate Vernon to be
my wife. I did it advised]y, too. for
my grandfather had told me when 1
married he would give me an eighth
interest in the bank. Miss Vernon
wasn't the most beautiful girl the eye
of man ever rested on, and even I was
forced to confess that there was too
nuch pug in her nose for classic
beauty, but she was the brightest
young woman in the county, and the
cheeriest, and I was heels over head in
love with her, which made up for all
discranancias
During all the time of my expert
ence in the bank I had kept up my
interest in telegraphy, and after Kate
and I had settled upon our future
relationship, I had connected her
house with my room at the bank, and
whenever I had the chance I called
her up and talked love to her between
meals by electricity. I don't know
how much of that kind of talk we in
dulged in, but I do know that
Kate became almostan expert telegraph
operator, and could easily have made
her living at it had there been such a
necessity.
"One.of the other customs of that
charming time Of love in the fore