The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-06-05

with having spent any OF IL f00nshly or
unnecessarily.
He reated room in Sedgewick st.
for one dollar week. 1t was not a
large room and 1t was too near the roof
for comfort. both summer and winter,
but then one dollar week was not
high rent for any kind of accommoda-
tions, and his landlady was highly re-
spectatble and not avaricious.. When
Jefferson went to her at the end of the
fourth week and told her that he had
not been able to get work, and that he
could not pay rent, she said: "Oh, well"
and then told him not to worry or get
discouraged.
About a week after that Jefferson got
a few days work shoveling grain in a
Goose island elevator and that enabled
him to pay up arrears and gave him
little surplus to lay in a small stock of
provisions. He was doing light house.
| keeping on an old gas stove. Some
times the housekeeping was painfully
| light, consisting of mainly bread and
| coffee, with an apple or something like
that as dessert. He began to get hollow
| checked and to lose his fine. healthy
| country color. Once or twice his land
| lady made him sit down in the little
| room that she reserved for herself and
keep her company" at her slender meal
but Jefferson was generally sincere
| when he said that he would rather not.
He knew that the good woman did not
| have and too much for herself at best
of times, and they breed fine variety
of men down in that part Of the country
where he came from.
| At the same time, he says, he had
/ 4, ,s,tp
solid Egyptian fiesh-pots. He yearned
for the pork sparerlbs, corn pone, hot
| Sour milk and soda" biscuit, honey and
huckleberry pie whereon he had been
| tenderly nurtured, but, most of all, and
| beyond everything, he longed for
| chicken.
spring chicen, fried to delicate
crisp brown-chicken in any form what
ever-just so it was chicken! Jefferson
used to lie in his bed in the spring
mornings with an aching void within
him and listen to the hens in the yard
next door as they crooned and cracked
in the narrow limits Of wire meshes
runs. He could imagine himself home
again.
He was going out to the woodpile now,
/
to sadden him, as 1t might be expected
| to. He actually whistled He grasped
the ak and swung it vigorously, and the
basswood sticks. with a clean white
cleavage, piled rapidly up around him.
| Presently he stopped, and with his
right elbow braced firmly against his
| hip, gathered up a towering load, with
which he staggered off to the kitchen
/ ha q
blew little punches of gray chicken
| feathers towards him. Inside. his
mother was bustling about the cook
stove that already showed dull patches
of red where the draught drew the
flame to the battered pipe. His mother
laughed as he toppled the load over into
the spacious woodbox with a resound-
ing crash.
That's a lazy mans armful, jeff"
she said. 81 guess I'll have chicken
every day SO you'll keep my woodbox
full for me-"
The changing gong of trolley car
broke in upon Jeffersons drowsy rev.
erie and brought his wondering spirit
back to Sedgewick street. He rose and
dressed and wandered forth once more
in search of work.
l
weeks went dragging along, and he
seemed to get just odd Jobs enough to
enable him to keep body and soul to-
gether. The bread and coffee diet, even
when supplemented by an occasional
weinerwurst and periodical cans of bek-
ed beans, is lowering, and when the
long sought for jobs were secured JEFF
ferson felt that he was physically un-
| oil m do or 90
weariness beset him. That and the
homesickness.
Then came the temptation. Jefferson
had been well brought up, and was
naturally conscientious and honest.
Still 1t cannot be denied that nature
and conscience are often at variance.
1t was natural that the young man,
being hungry, should satisfy his hun
ger and the means being available, that
craving chicken, above all other food,
he should select chicken. Conscience
interposed obstacles, hut these were
swept lightly aside by opportunity.
| 1t is hard thing for hungry, coun-
try bred young man, who knows the
possibilities of the situation. to en-
| counter a hen trespassing within his
doorway. Jefferson came in faint with
| munger one AFTERNOON and mad this ex-
perience. The hen was at the foot of
the stairs, where she had no earthly
business to be. A morbid curiosity was
the only thing that could account for
her being there at all. She seemed SEN
sible Of this, for she fled instantly. with
a nerve-shattering series Of squawks,
when Jefferson surprised her. The
young man thereupon proceeded up
stairs to his room.
| He began to think it over, with the re-
suit that he presently went down to
the elevator, where he had worked once
or twice, and asked the foreman IL he
might have handful of grain.
1T amt my wheat said the foreman,
but as Jefferson was turning away with
a look Of disappointment. he added:
$50 you are welcome to all you can
carry away for all of me-"
Jefferson filled one pocket and went