The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1899-12-28
NEW YEARS STORY.
By s. b. McManus.

want TO tell you THIS New fedr
ht. what happened jist a year ago
Hank Harmon's blacksmith shop.
Init much to tell, nor over much Tor
outsider to harken to, but IL means
Mighty sight to me and the boys,
|. for one, jist like to think of 1t
talk 1t over and kind of hug and
brace the words, expressin 1T as 1t
Il. and hold the sentences like
er sweet morsel under my tongue.
strength don't in any wise lay in
Btln' things and incidents. and 1T
Il be a good precaution, when ! warn
= not TO break in into ME and ac-
*dingly interrupt ME, for it will take
haired and top sawyer work to
Ike my story look as if it had any
Use or meanin' at all, except TO me
the boys as understand it COM
he.
LIST a year ago tonight we met in
&nk Harmon's blacksmith shop to
citrate the day by gettin' so para
lin drunk. that we could disremem-
4 the miserable homes we had
baked away frum and the heart
bken and down-lookin' wives and
kldren we had left in them. We hung
boss blanket over the biggest cracks
the sides after Hank had fastened
h door, and then we was in shapeful
ndition to guzzle and pour down
II red-hot, thirsty throats, jist as
Ach of Joe Towards red-hot, pizen-
N whisky as we could manage TO get
ith cur tremblin' hands, to our weak,
nterin'. disgraced mouths. After this,
know what would most likely hap
In, iudgin' of course by what had
appened before-we would fall over
nongst the cinders and boss hoof
aims and old wagon tires and drag
eth and scrap iron, where we would
eep like hogs-hogs as had lost their
lf-respect-until the cold and the
would wake and
,ber us enough to crawl home to our
retched houses, which we would
axe wretcheder and miserabler by
lr comm.
We talked of this tonight. and we all
everything that was done
I'D said, as If 1t was writ on the black
alls of the shop with white heat run
in iron from the forge, and we all
greed too, never to try to disremem-
er that night-the night when God or
me of mis- shinin', holy angels come
own to us and shamed us into bein'
,cent, sober, Christ-lovin' men.
There is recollections," Jim Cam
'on said, that alters ought to be
.collected and kept like a blazin' torch
| front Of us. Some of them fer
ifety sake and some fer shame sake"
I'd Jim furthermore said we ought to
ear the memory of them disgraced
nd wicked days about US as an an
ent sailor or some old salt, wore a
Fad goose about his neck as a keep
Ike that he had been low down and
nful.
But drunkards as we all certainly
as, and what is more, vergin' clost
ITO bein' Dar-fer-keeps, old drunk
IDS as was no likely salvation for, we
ant any Of us so very happy and
and easy into our minds, at
lie beginnin' of that night a year ago
Hank Harmon's blacksmith shop
the alley, jist off the Rudy-some-
ling, bullygard in the city of Sardin-
polls, where we boys lived. We put
lie boss blanket over the gapinest
'acks to keep the wind frum farm
1t. the smutty lamp that stood smokin'
nd wobbly on an old table where
ank writ his accounts, amongst lot
nails and bolts and rivets and small
sarin', with jug Of Joe Towards
,eapest, hellishest whisky in the mid
Ie as kind of devil center piece. o.
INT l, and can't all of us cronies jist
'member exactly, how that jiggly,