Williston graphic. (Williston, Williams County, N.D.) 1895-1919, 1901-01-17

|, Why THE YOUNG ;
{, MAN DIDN'T PAY UP 8
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4 NAlSA0O, Nov xts-IMy Lear LUG.
u tor: I haven't time to write you
a letter just now, old man, but sim
ply want to drop you line SO you
will know I haven't forgotten you and
the lift you gave me out west. don't
mean to make any excuse for not hav-
ing repaid that 40, which represents
my monetary Indebtedness to you,
long before this, but
Last week I managed to have SAT
left after paying my board. Fearing
lest the money should burn hole
in my pocket went post haste down
to the Office intending to mail you
that 40 Immediately. Barely had ]
got seated at my desk when the
phone rang. Hark, now; the plot
thickens! A soft, sweet feminine
voice came drifting over the wire ask
ing If was anywhere about. 1t was
Billy.
Billy's other name is Ruth Hard
ing Hampton. met Billy down in
Kentucky about five years ago and
we fell desperately in love with each
other. More plot, see?) She was
then about II and I was two years
older. Billy's dad" as she called him,
had some Of the best trotters in the
whole bluegrass region moonlight
drives and all that! You know, doc
tor?
Billy was a great kid. She owned
q long-bodied, bench-legged dog that
was exactly her age to- day. Now.
please, treat that statement kindly,
doctor, for Billy is the only authority
I have for the dogs age and how Billy
knew is more than l can tell. Any
how, the pup had woolly face AID
a hump on his back like weasel. He
was fully three feet long without
counting his tail and he was not more
than six inches in height except at
the point where the hump came in.
There he was little higher, but as
I said before I haven't any statistics
relating to that particular pup. so it
is possible that I err slightly in the
matter.
Billy said he was grounding dog.
Perhaps he might have been ct some
time in the dim past distant rela-
tive of the grounding, but IN the
course of evolution the groundhog's
good looks must have gone astray be-
fore the dog developed. Between the
grounding and the dog there were
strained relations-no joke intended
and I think possibly that state of
affairs might have been brought about
at the time when the dog claimed
kinship to the grounding, But what's
the odds?
Billy used to take me and the dog
down through the tall grass of the
meadows to the little creek that wan
dered cool and clear through the rich
bottom lands of the valley. Here
was Billy's private hunting ground.
Along either bank of the stream
whole colonies of groundhogs had es-
tablished themselves, and thus it was
that sport was never lacking for Billy
and Bruiser-Bruiser being the dogs
name.
Billy always carried long club
when she started after groundhogs.
In the hot summer afternoons, under
the butternut trees that fringed the
banks of the stream, she would sit
dreamily for hours in the cool shade
watching the shadows at play in the
placid waters until aroused from her
dreams by bark from Bruiser. Then
like deer she would race to the dog
to see that the fight was pulled off
on the square.
Billy wouldn't stand for foul fight.
If Bruiser happened to have fallen
into company with grounding that
was too big and savage for him to
handle, Billy would wade in with her
club and whack the big rodent few
times over the head just to even
things up. On the other hand, if it
came about that Bruiser had met up
with an understood antagonist she
would always pull him off and give
the grounding chance to run for it.
Billy might have been little rough
at times, but if she was it was all be-
cause she was the only girl and the
youngest child in family of eight.
One time 1 took hand in one of the
grounding fights, and Billy promptly
gave me rap over the head with her
club and ordered me to mind my own
business.
Billy was not unsympathetic, for