Waterbury Democrat., 1901-01-10
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 { WHY THE YOUNG t MAN DIDN'T PAY UP
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| X @<+<f444t<<<+t&t++t+ < <+t < | | { +t++%%+4t+11 < HHICAGO, Nov. 14.-My Dear Doc I 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 managed to have SAT left after paying my board. Fearing, lest the money should burn hole in my pocket l 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 thiclsens! A soft, sweet feminine voice came drifting over the wire ask ing if I was anywhere about. It 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 F 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 great kid. She owned long-bodied, bench-legged dog that hn1~ %o Iorn please, treat that statement kindly, doctor, for Billy is the only authority have for the dogs age and how Billy knew is more than I can tell. Any how, the pup had woolly face and 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 exccpt 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 1n 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 groundhog. 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 a 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 a 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 am undersized antagonist she would always pull him off and give the groundhog a chance to run for it.
 Billy might have been a little rough at times, but if she was it was all be- cause she was the only girl and the youngest child in a family of eight. One time took a hand in one of the groundhog fights, and Billy promptly gave me rap over the head with her club and ordered me to mind my own bui mess.
 Billy was not unsympathetic, for after she had split my head open with her club she took me down to the 1 creek, washed the blood out of my hair, tore her apron into bandages and dressed my wound like a little major. Then she made me wait at the creek until she we-.t home, hitched horse to the blackboard and came back after me.
 Billy was indeed in class all to herself. The day I was to leave for home we had a crying match all to ourselves down by. the creek among the groundhog3 and butternuts. For nearly a gear after went home we wrote letters back and forth, and once I dropped into verse and wrote quite a wad of it. l had it right, eh, doe tor? Say, old man, hold the wire just moment, and I'll dig up a verse or two of that old poem, just so you'll know where I was getting off about that time. Here we are:
 Billy thought this verse was great: