Evening journal., 1902-06-12
A NEW CASTLE LABORER WHO
NOW Is A CHICAGO MILLIONAIRE

/
lowing interesting article for the
Evening Journal:
When / was wading, for about the
first time in my life, knee-deep in
leather. and tall men and fat women
were not quite knee-high to my i'm
agined Importance in life, an incident
loomed up in New Castle, which !
shall never forget, and l think quite
number of that unknown quantity,
known as "Ye Oldest inhabitants" will
be pleased to have their, pure minds
stirred up by way of remembrance" to
have related. OF course they will ex-
cuse me for not dealing in the real
thing" when using the names of the
parties involved. Should l use their
names. as my crop of hair is now some
what limited with age would be badly
in need of some kind of hair restorer
which could be warranted to produce
Ihair on door knob, or
cobble stone, the next time
yentured to stick my head in the
grand old and happily remembered
birthplace, providing any OF the fam
ny relatives still live to get red headed
because of this reference to their
family.
There arrived in the tewn q father,
mother anu five children, and without
ooubt the homeliest "culled pusson"
one ever gazed upon at that period
(lS42l. jobs of OK" and that fire.
quently used type of emaciation and
distress from poverty-a church
mouse" we're never more attenuated,
except in the mothers case, whose
adipose tissue would have tipped the
beam had she been testing her pull
down qualities forninst barrel OF
rOur, minus two bakings out When
they came to New Castle from down
country" an indefinite geographical
depression, they all used at that time
in describing any particular
geological location from Delaware City
to the capital of the State, when not
certain as to name OF the county, the
town, the hundred, or on what creek
located. The down country" OF this
particular family | don't think ever
would have been ascertained definitely
il il had not been for a one-eyed con-
stable who sought them out months
after, not as fugitives from slavery or
justice, but who had forgotten in the
multiplicity of their cares and concerns
to be reminded Of a debt for ring
bonva, spawned and knock-kneed
horse, used in bringing them there and
for which the constable seemed to
have kindly attachment which
had no doubt sprung from some JUS
tice of the peace's desk rather than the
constable's big wallet of paper in his
bosom.
The eldest was girl, the next two
were also of the same persuasion and
the younger pair nondescript boys,
with a lone yaller dog of so bright a
waller. the family unanimously named
him "Goldy" when they wanted to
arouse .Ae ambition of the dogoned
kind to eat what they could not-the
bones-already as void OF meat as
though located on the Western plains.
The girl-the older-was as fond OF
colors as a Comanche Indian and
could make a rainbow sick, when ar
rayed for an airing with her feller.
Her feller had preceded the family
about two years from their old neigh
borhood down country" and had been
to work for Boss Bill Dobbs at the
New Castle Locomotive Works, but he
had quit there and was working ror
some smaller shop in Wilmington
when they arrived at New Castle. He
made a regular Sunday pilgrimage to
New Castle TO see the object of his
Elections" either "con" or "aff 'ections
and we never knew which, any more
than we boys were able to define her
first name. II was something that
sounded-as her lover spoke it-likt
any unpronounceable name one could
select from the "Begat" family in the
Book of Numbers, and when having il
selected they should undertake to ar.
ticulate while the mouth was full d
lmush or potatoes OF the highest tenn
lperature. But she knew it and always
responded promptly, and he knew 1t
perhaps from having heard it from his
youth ND. We did hear once that this
fifteen puzzle Of a name to us boys
jim and Tanner Duncan, Tom Chal
llenger, George Caldwell and DR.. Coop
er's "Ait"-'was Matilda Jane" but !
never occurred to us this was so, from
the manner in which the young ma
chlnist articulated the same.
The old man and old woman wer
dead" set agin' the young man
courtin Of the gal if their frequen
protestations against the machinis
were to be taken as an index TO thei
feelings upon this delicate subject
,ney refused to give him his Dime
on Sundays as they had been doing a
first. When this young man worke'
at the foundry''-as it was then calle
he boarded with old man Todd i
the New row" and thither he wen
> each Sunday for his meals. The
were not only dead gone" in love, bu
as the old man said, lin yearnest up I
their eyes," The young man ha
commenced his visits in the cold shad
, fshing months OF spring and-to hee
what the old man said keepe