Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1902-01-17
Story Of a WORTH
less Fellow o o o
BY JOHN H. RAFTERY.

E THERE are any sufficient reasons
why married man should go into
the army. Louis Tappan had them. His
five years of married life had been
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.
Iappan 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 crouch" 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 measure of Mr.. Hardings
Grabbed regard. During that year the
young people were fairly happy. The
entering wedge of misery came whenit
dawned en- Lucy that Louis didn't have
any religion and couldn't "get" any.
When he heard that she chad 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 ia
ther-in-law's bank became precarious.
The old man warned, threatened and
even prosecuted 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 rtyr 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 a
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
ga holler" about his bill.
That settled the young man with
Papa Harding. A months notice, a
threat of starvation and mum bled
imprecation were what the bookkeep-
er got with his next pay envelope. Aft
er he was out of his position he made
few feeble efforts to find work: he
made trip to Chicago, and in weak
way determined to take his wife and
make home for himself elsewhere.
But somehow the world seemed to have
suddenly grown very narrow and self
ish. His comrades of dissipated days
and nights couldn't help him further
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-law when they met
on the street, and only when the child
was born did he insist on taking charge
of Lucy. After she was taken to the
Harding home Louis heart began to
fail him. He discovered that he was
fond and apt to grow fonder of the
child-a boy. Broken in spirit and
pocket, he swore he'd mend his ways
and find work. But there was none.
He went to Chicago, met an old COM
panion, forgot his troubles for night
and day and came to his dreary senses
in the blue, ill-titting uniform of a
rookie"
He had vague idea that he would
win his way as a soldier in the war
which had just begun; visions of COM
ing home a stern and famous officer
captain at least-croWded his boyish
mind, aud with his hopes there min
gled, singing sweet, the sense that at
last he might have brought home to
Lucy and her people realization of
the fact that be was not all bad. He
even imagined the old 'grouch" pity
ing him, and in the thought was the
grim satisfaction that now at least he
had martyred himself. He swore soft
| ly to himself that he would never drink
nor gamble again, and when he left
for Chickamauga with his regiment he
had not fallen from grace.
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