The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1904-08-02

attentive capable IN the PERFORM
lance OF his duties: and was, besides.
attractive personally. with handsome
face and graceful
But bad company and his social gifts
betrayed him into the power of strong
drink, and he became dissipated. His
employer was very faithful to him
pleading with him, even looking him up
In his periods of intemperance, and for
giving him again and again. But on
one occasion h young man was guilty
of a mt OF drunkenness having about il
some such objectionable features that
he despafred, it is presumed. OF ever
lrehabilitating himself in the cofnmuni-
lty. He disappeared. and as utterly, TO
use a trite expression, as IL the earth
had opened and swallowed him. Those
Intimate with him said that il was i'm
possible that hec ould nave had any
money; he carried no trunk or change
of clothes-but beyond the limits OF the
town., not The most vigorous search.
not the most mute persistent and
long continued inquiries were ever re-
warded by the slightest trace of him..
Years passed on. and two circumstan-
ces arrested the attention of Fayette-
vile people who recalled this remark
ale disappearance. Just before the civ
il war a light artillery company was
sent here as a garrison, of which /
lgave an account in may last letter to
THE Messenger. One of these men had
served in the army out west, and he
told some of the citizens here that out
in that country he had met a white
man living with a tribe Of Indians, alid
much esteemed as a medicine man."
who informed him hat he was born in
Fayetteville, North Carolina, but de-
ciined to give his name. After the ur-
render a federal officer, Col. Cogswell,
commanded a garrison of soldiers here
g. ~ =
Dobbin House on Hay street. One
of these soldiers, a corporal, who had
also served out west, struck by the
name of Fayetteville, told almost iden-
tically the same story about meeting a
white medicine man" as that related
by the a~rtilleryman at the arsenal.
But the world is not so large, after
all. About the year 1890-nearly forty
years after the handsome, graceful
young clerk, with the iron deep driven
in his soul from the commission OF a
great fault, a apparently passed
away from the vacations and concerns
of life, dead to the friendship Of man,
dead to the love of home, his younger
brother, then a man about fifty years
Of age, received d letter from an Off
cial of a county in a western state, in
forming him that the clerk, whose dis
appearance had been so long a mystic
ry, causing so many tears, so much
heart ache, had just died, revealing
his identity before leaving the world,
and giving instructions as to commune
cation with his relatives, to whom there
was left a small estate.
This, in my view, was a very extra
ordinary case. 1t was the result Of a
grave transgression, which, however,
developed a sinister, highstrung nature
This young nan awoke to the realiza-
ton of a serious ~offense, with his pride
suffering from UGH a wound as he
felt that it would take a lifetime to
heal-and he devoted a lifetime to 1t
He resolved on self-effacement from
the scenes of his childhood and youth,
with all that made them so precious,
and he seems to have adhered to his
resolution to the end. ]. H. NJ.
Fayetteville, July 10.