The Coconino sun., 1902-05-03
Story of a Worth less Fellow 9 9 9 By JOHN H. BATTERY.

IF THERE are any sufficient reasons
 why a married man should go into the army, Louis Tappan had them. His five years of married life had been e cumulative failure and he knew it. What was more important, however, his young wife knew and charged the whole score of their mutual disap- pointment to him. Their one child, now a teething baby, had not healed their chafed spirits nor brought to- gether their wandering hearts. Mrs. Tappan was a good little woman, so good that she neither sympathized with nor understood Louis puerile ways, his passions for excitement, his slavery to habits that were neither necessary to her happiness nor war ranted by his slender means, even in the days when he earned good salary as bookkeeper for the Buena Vista bank.
 Her father owned the little town where they lived, but he was one of those stern men who, having made their own way in the world. would dis courage and resent the idea that they should give aid to others in the fight for independence or wealth. When Louis married Lucy Harding he admit ted to himself that the old bank pres ident was "a grouch," but in those days his self-confidence was not shaken by the prospect of working out way for himself and Lucy. For year he car ried out his good resolutions. and even won a measure of Mir. Harding's grabbed regard. During that year the young people were fairly happy. The entering wedge of misery came when it dawned on Lucy that Louis didn't have any religion and couldn't "get" any. When he heard that she had him prayed for" he lost his temper and they had their first quarrel.
 After that his descent was rapid. They drifted further and further apart. The boy Che was only 23) lost his grip on good resolves and slid along the smooth and winsome current of his old, free habits. The row with Hard ing didn't come till the second year, but after that Louis place in his fa- ther.in-.aw's bank became precarious. The old man warned, threatened and even persecuted him in the mistaken belief that he could scare the young husband back into the narrow path. But Louis didn't scare worth cent. Long before the baby came he was in debt, neck and crop. His wife was getting morose and quarrelsome, and his creditors were beginning to talk about "going to the old man." Even that didn't move the rascal. He began to think that he was the martyr of an unhappy marriage, that Lucy didn't understand him and that her father was determined to break up union that he had never approved. When man gets to coddling himself with such assurances he's in bad way. And Louis was in bad way even before the grocer, who was deacon in Hard ing's church, made what Louis called "a holler" about his bill.
 That settled the young man with Papa Harding. A months notice, threat of starvation and a mumb.ed imprecation were what the bookkeep CT got with his next pay envelope. Aft CT he was out of his position he made few feeble efforts to find work; h. made trip to Chicago, and in wea !, way determined to take his wife anu make a home for himself elsewhere. But somehow the world seemed to have suddenly grown very narrow and self ish. His comrades of dissipated day and nights couldn't help him furthe r than to "hope the old man will come round all right" and buy another drink. Harding didn't come round. He ignored his son-in-.aw when they met on the street, and only when the child was born did he insist on taking charge