The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1898-10-21
A CAPITALIST.

In that time when big force Of work ;
men was busy tearing down the old gov
ernment building, it will be remembered,
something happened to stop work on the
southwest corner. All the rest of the
building had melted away, orumbled be-
meath the picks of the men, but the Sec
ton at Clark and Jackson streets still
stood a good tive stories high, though
teams were hauling foundation stones
from the opposite angle.
John Dawson, a laborer, % years old,
husband of one wife and father Of chill
dren, came down daily from his home at
Eighteenth street, walking every step OF
the way and carrying his pick and shovel.
He had been busy until the work was
stopped Then he was told day after day
to "come back in the morning" And he
| did come back in the morning. But the
work of demolition was unaccountably de-
layed and he was destitute No use look
ing elsewhere for employment. Work was
here in plenty as soon as this mysterious
delay was ended. No one seemed to know
why the picks had stopped on this corner.
But John Dawson and his waiting COM
panions, each with pick and shovel care
fully guarded from purloining, saw men
in good clothes bunting about In the dis
mantled rooms of the remaining corner
saw them through the grated windows, a
dozen VI them-and wondered.
Looking at them so one day, John Daw
son, conscious of absolute restitution, re-
membered the slender breakfast he left
untouched at Eighteenth street on pre-
tense that he had eaten heartily and need
ed no more; had left untouched that thu
wife and the children might have some
thing, conscious of the long walk will
the shovel and pick, which grew heavie
daily-conscious Of many rAings-fel
a.dreaming, and it seemed to him the mel
in the dismantled rooms there, passing
. and repassing before the iron bound win
dows of what had once been the subtreas
: ury, were looking for money. And b
| wished he might find it instead of they.
: What would he do with itH
: First he would spend cents for loa
! of bread. The other laborers had each
r brown crusted, long, round loaf, and the
< broke off bits now and then and ate OF 1t
e Over in the dismantled rooms the search
ers were giving it up and THE contractor
0 foreman at the door was stirring himse
u into profane heat, so that work migl
T. presently and properly begin.
:,
s. When the subtreasury was RUNNING
n Caleb Browning, being bonded van
70 clerk, had lost one package containir
$4,000 in various miscellaneous bills
a silver certificates and national bank note
d He really had lost it. He had not stol'
b. it. And when he could not account
it his father, Jabez Browning, had pa
the loss in full without word, and Gale
with no stain upon him, had resigned al
in accepted situation with railway COL
= pany.
he There was shout, rush, a clamoril
from men with picks and shovels. 7
contractors foreman, swearing now We
easily was sending laborers here and th'
on the delayed southwest section, and I
well dressed men who had been searchi
nm went over to their La Sale street ofii
and wondered where Caleb Browning
he SO, 900 package of bills had gone.
John Dawson, sitting on a block
stone, knew Of the shout, of the clamoril
!, of the rush to the work, knew even of
rs easy, satisfying profanity of the centra
or's foreman. But he could not rise. Il
1b- saseA to tis troubles. He wasAapparenl