Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1902-05-17
BLESSEDTO GIVE.
By CLYDE A. MANN.
(Copyrtg1rt, 1902, By Daily Story Pub Coz

Christmas eve, and the swirling snow
was a halo about the Bugle building,
aglow from its basement pressroom to
the big composing room at the top.
One window of the upper row was
dark and within a queruious sounder
clattered an unanswered call. 1t was
a little, dingy room; the door was
open a crack into the big composing
room, where clanking, singing limo
types and rumbling turtles drowned
the howl of the storm, and in the twi-
light mice were scampering war1ly
for crumbs of Bill Clark's last mid
night lunch.
Bill Clark, red-haired, jovial giant,
seemed oddly out of place taking
news reports, deity lingering the keys
of his typewriter, as ne had done In
the Bugle Office seven nights in every
week for almost dozen years Rarely
in the gray years of night work had
the first tap of the sounder been I'M
answered, but the foreman's clock
crawled twenty-five minutes past the
hour, while Clark's den was still dark.
An impatient sender in the Associated
Press Office, with a tangle of market
figures, growled.
Under the long train shed where
throngse hurried with Christmas bun
dies Bill Clark waited for the limited
from the West. His wife and children
were to come home again. The snow
was a solid wall of white at the far
end of the train shed where the head
lights glared at the storm. Clark
strained his eyes, and in the swirling
flakes saw the waving handkerchief5
of three sturdy lads rolling away from
him three long months before Clark
was privately regarded as an "aHec-
tionate cuss'' around the Bugle Office.
The Christmas merriment around him
stirred the trait and the time worried
him The bulletin, Limited, late.
was posted
How later"
Don't know, Bill,'' was the depot
masters reply to his question. Mum
Der Two's in a little smash. Not a
word more
Bat" Pierce. a tall, worldly-wise.
freckled reporter who made the
trains for the Bugle, heard the ques-
ton and answer, instantly OWNED
the trouble and, shaping his notebook
shut, was at Bill Clark's side in a
moment A jiffy later Bat was at the
superintendent desk and Sherburne
looked up with a glum scowl. "Hullo,
Bat, what you botherin' round about
now?"
''Bad?" queried Bat.
Two sleepeES ditched and burned.
Don't get yellow now. If you want to
go down, Jim Actions goin' with some
doctors. Now clear out and-be de-
cent"
Bat and Bill Clark paused outside.
Now don't you worry about your
folks, Bill. l have a bunch they are
all right. I'm goin' down-ten Clark
son." A grip of their hands and a
look straight into each others eyes
and Bat was gone.
Sleeping cars ditched and burned,
sleeping cars ditched and burned"
rung in Bill Clark's ears as he trudged
through the snowy, Christmasy streets,
where sleigh bells jingled like those
on the three boys sleds waiting at
home. The words still stopped his
ears as he clicked off his tardy answer
and tried to unravel the Phillips code
that came with a rush.
In q house in a suburb the lamps
were ali lighted. the stoves glowed,
a supper was set and all was scrupu-
lousy neat with mans neatness.
Three little night dresses hung on the
chairs. Years of wandering had made
home doubly dear to Clark. There
were stray facts known of an adven-
turous young manhood that had car
ried him to the Texas ranges, to Ari-
IONA to carry chain, to Dakota, where
all his cattle had frozen in a dire bliz-
zard. He had turned his back on a col
lege education, and when he married
he put to use the telegrephy he learned
when fascinated by the clatter in the
depot Office in his home town, up in