The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-01-25

enough money to build the old hor,.
up again, in the evenings when many
are telling the little ones how John
Denier made them laugh in the LONG
ago, the clown of yesterday will he
looking out across the Ridge to where
the mound is.
The little woman who was the old
clowns wife was sweet and kind. and
after John grew wrinkled and his
voice cracked and there was a hollow
ring in his laugh, she would hold his
hand just as tightly as she did in the
time when the circus men were calling
for John, because they wanted the
world to laugh for an hour or so every
night. That wealth of love drew the
man out of the clown, and John be-
gan training young men, hardening
their muscles and developing their
chest expansion, and with each
triumph the little woman and sweet
Viola would smile, and that was bet
ter to old John than the money and
the praise of the scholars. They made
the old clown professor of athletics
in an uptown gymnasium, and aside
from working hard with the young
men, he would get up entertainments
and he would go back into his old
clown suit and sing and jest for all
JUST " AelP Tic dAdI dIonSi as ne
would say. ...
But the club lost favor. The doors
were closed and the red flag of the
auctioneer was nailed before the
place.
1t sent the old clown out into the
world a poor man, but there were his
wife and Viola and his sweet mother
in-law, Mrs. Fostick, and they were
willing to go out on the Ridge with
him, and he was ready to work all over
again and build them a home.
So he talked and toiled, and when
the City Park Commissioners gave
him grant on the Ridge for his home
on the promise that he was going to
devote his time to Strengthening the
youths Of the bayou, the old clown
started building. 1t was a labor of love,
and John never worried about the sun
or the raw cold; he just went on build
ing, and when the doors were opened
he led his wife and Viola and Mrs
Fostick into the new home.
There were not many who knew that
the Deniers were living in the house
on the Ridge until the morning of Dec.
2 last, when the storm came up and
beat the boards down.
Pretty Viola heard the wild song Of
the wind, and managed to half drag
and half carry Mrs. Fostick out of the
place and into the open, but before
the old clown and his wife could get
out the wind cracked the house, and
it tumbled down, the boards falling
upon the sleepers.
Viola had had her arms built up by
her father and she used her strength
and was pulling the boards away when
some men came up and began helping
her, and they took the elder Deniers
out of the wreck in an unconscious
condition.
They brought them to the hospital
Some thought that the old clown was
going to die, but he heard that his wife
and child and Mrs. Fostick were alive
and he prayed that he would live, too,
and be with them again. Where-well,
John did not know just where, but he
wanted to be with them.
He began mending, and not long ago
he left the hospital.
But the dear, good woman fingered
until three days before the New Year,
the end came. The song of the RAIN
against the window panes in the ward
of the hospital was over, and the sun
came out and stole through the glass.
1t found her asleep, and only touched
the silver of her hair with the caress
of eternity's promise.
And now the clay of the good little
woman is waiting in the parlOrs OF
Undertaken Schoen, on Elysian Fields
avenue, while Denier, now more than
ever, is waiting the cue that means
home beside her.