The pioneer press. (Miller, Hand County, S.D.) 1893-190?, 1900-09-27

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tain leaden chill
about his feet; all
else hal disap-
peared in one vast oppression OF ca
lamity and physical faintness. 1t was
drawing on to noon -two-and-twenty
hours since he had broken bread; in
the interval, he had suffered tortures
OF sorrow and alarm, and been partly
tipsy; and though it was Impossible to
say he slept, yet when the cab stopped,
and the cabman thrust his head into
the window, his attention had to be re-
called from depths of vacancy.
IF you'll no stand me DRAM" said
the driver, with well-merlted severity
of tone and manner, Il dare say ye'll
have no objection to my taking one
mysep?"
! "Yes-no- do what you like" return
ed John; and then, as he watched his
| tormentor mount the stairs and enter
| the whisky shop, there fioated into his
mind sense as of something long ago
| familiar. At that he started fully
awake, and stared at the shop-front.
Yes. he knew them, but when? and
| how? Long since, he thought; and
then, casting his eye through. the front
glass, which had been recently oc-
| cluded by the figure of the jarvey, he
| beheld the tree-tops of the rookery in
| Randolph Crescent. He was close to
that hour. TO be sitting in the well-re-
! membered drawing-room in friendly
| converse; and, instead
1t was his first impulse to drop into
the bottom of the cab; his next, to
cover his face with his hands So he
| sat, while the cabman toasted the pub
| lican, and the publican toasted the cab
man, and both reviewed the affairs Of
l
master condescended to return, and
drive off at last down hill, along the
curve Of Lynedoch Place; but even so
sitting, as he passed the end of his
fathers street, he took one glance from
| between shielding fingers, and beheld a
| doctors carriage at the door.
well, just So" thought he; "Ill have
killed my father! And this is Christ
mas-day"
| IL Mr.. Nicholson died, 1t was down
this same road he must journey to the
grave; and down this road, on the same
errand, his wife had preceded him
years before; and many other leading
citizens, with the proper trappings and
attendance OF the end. And, now, in
that frosty, ill-smelling, straw-car-
peted, and ragged-cushioned cab, with
his breath congealing on the glasses,
where else was John himself advancing
to?
The thought stirred his Imagination,
which began to manufacture many
thousand pictures, bright and feeting,
like the shapes in a kaleidoscope; and
now he saw himself, ruddy and COM
fortered,. sliding in the gutter; and,
again, little, woe-begone, bored ur-
chin tricked forth in Grape and weep
ers, descending this same hill at the
foot's-pace of mourning coaches, his
mothers body just preceding him; and
yet again, his fancy, running far in
| front showed him his destination
now standing solitary in the low sun
shine, with the sparrows hopping on
the threshold and the dead man within
staring at the roof-and now, with a
sudden change, thronged about with
white-faced, manipulating neighbors,
and doctor bursting through their
midst and fixing his stethoscope as he
went, the policeman shaking saga
cious head beside the body 1t was to
this he feared that he was driving; in
| the midst Of this he cav himself arrive
heard himself stammer faint explana-
lions, and felt the hand of the consta-
BILE upon his shoulder. Heavens! how
he wished he had played the manher
part; how he despised himself that he
had fed that fatal neighborhood wien
all was quiet, and should now be
tamely travelling back when It was
thonging with avengers!
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