Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1904-10-27

saved the child,-but no one knew.
Though the child talked much of big
gray dogs" when her delirium had
passed she had forgotten all-the
mountain path, even that she had
strayed away.
Yet though she wrought no harm to
any one and good TO many, all felt
horror of her, and little children hid
behino their mothers as she passed,
and whispered low, ''The Woman Who
Kills" Only Nature was kindly to
| her. or most unkind, perhaps. for it
was whispered that she could not die
The wild storms found her on the
mountains, the gray mist overlook her
far from home. Sometimes so i'll
from exposure that hhe could only
crawl about, yet she might not give
up to weakness; she must out and kill
her work must still be done.
! Sometimes God wills that man
should bear punishment for many
years before he lay it down, but some
times his mercy grants us a great ex-
| patton and then,-peace.
| So it was with Margaret Willoughby.
| A half a century of years had left
their changing tokens on Blare's Hol-
low, now no longer a numbering viii
| lage. The sound of the woodman's
axe no more resounded on the slopes of
Blare'S mountain. The tall pines
still waved above its most rough and
inaccessible heights; below, young
maple, oak and birch grew where for
est monarchs once stood. The merry
stream, which of old had sported
through the Hollow, was no longer
FREE but made TO do a mental service
for the f. 'ories which had been built
along its banks.
Not far from these stood a great
stonebuilding-the grade school of
Blare's Hollow, where throngs of mer-
ry youngsters passed in and out each
day
The winter afternoon is WANG.
The great doors of the school are
swung open, and out file the lines of
children, happy to be released from
lessons. The small children come
first, then the older ones marching
steadily outward, three hundred hap
ny mortals, singing, talking, laughing
down the street toward them-a gamt
dark beast, doglike in form but with
hair stiff and bristling' bloodshot
eyes glancing this way and that. and
its great jaws as it snaps them from
side to side? Far down the street
sounds the cry-"Mad dog! Mad dog!"
Men and women are wild with panic.
Several dogs and horses are already
victims. What if the dread thing
meet the children? God save them!
Already the terror has seized them;
they huddle like sacred sheep; they
turn; they run; but the thing of death
runs faster,-he is almost upon them:
foam flecks are all along the road.
Is he upon them, No. not yet.
crosses the street there comes from
up the road a bent, gaunt, wrinkled
children toward the beast. Is she,
too, mad? ely fly Mad dog! Mad
dog" They know her now-"The Wo-
man who Kills" Does she seek fear
full death? Not so!
Not so, but here before her is that
which seeks to kill. and her days
work is not ended. Calmly she
meets the beast and grapples with it.
God gives her strength to overcome,
and when that fearful battle ends, the
great black dog is dead. Dead, too,
the Woman who Kills" her life work
done. For God is merciful No lin
eering death of hydrophobia was Hers.
The claws and teeth had torn and
eashed too deep in that death strug-
gle: she lived but long enough to feel
hot tears of men and women raining
or her face, kisses of mothers lips up,
on her poor, torn hands. In conse-
Grated earth rests the form of her
whose bitter lifeworl was to KILL