The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1909-04-30
The Man Without a Grave
lcopyright, 1900, by American Press Asso-
citation.

ciation.l
The question was. What had become
OF the body7 That Dick sturteTant
was dead was not the question or a
question at all. He had been visiting
the electrical works OF Peter Robin
son X Co.. wal shown through by the
electrical engineer, had graslsed d live
rod. receiving some 10000 volts Of cleo
tricity, and passed from life to death
80 quickly that he hadn't the slightest
consciousness Of the transition. New
ertheless an effort was made to resus-
| citate him, but after half an hours
constant application OF all sorts OF
stimulants without the slightest sign OF
Improvement the work ceased.
All this happened about 10 O'Clock in
the morning. The undertaken did not
appear till 4 In the afternoon, when
the key to the room IN which the boAy
lay was handed him, and he went up
stairs. He returned to the Office, say.
ing that there was nobody, dead OF
alive, Ia the room and there must be
some mistake. Several men declared
that they had put sturtevant's corpse
In that very room and there was no
mistake about It, but they had never
been In that part Of the building be-
fore and didn't know there were sew
eral vacant rooms there. Anyway,
there seemed to be some doubt as to
which OF the rooms had been used.
This doubt grew till the matter was
lost In confusion. The only plausible
theory Of the disappearance was that
the body had been stolen by medical
students for dissection. Since there
was a surgeons college In the neigh
borhood. this finally anne to be the
accepted explanation.
The h~eartrending part OF 1t all was
that Bturtsvant was engaged to be
married. Every n sympathiEed with
the girl he had left behind him. espe-
cially that she should be prevented
from paying due respect to his re-
mains. No n else was especially In
terested since the deceased had been
an only child and both his father and
mother we're dead. The wedding was
to hav 70 come off In a few days. and
the cards were out. The bride to be
put on mourning. shut herself up and
would see no one.
A year passed, and Miss Minton-
that was the girls name-threw off her
mourning, and 1t was reported that
she was again engaged to wed. Then
everybody said that she had been
shamming about her grief for sturte-
want, had had another lover most Of
the time since bis death and had only
waited the conventional year allotted
to widows to marry another mar.
These reports were repeated to the
lady, and they made her very angry.
1t was supposed to be on this ac-
count that she did not give the name
of her new l%over-that Is. II she had
one, which must be since she did not
deny the reports OF her engagement.
Besides, II was known that she was
AL NAHk SUttaih hitiele" VI heA iou0
seat Of O year before altered to meet
changes in fashion. doubtless to be
used as an outfit In her marriage with
the man who had taken the irst low
er's place. This set everybody talk
ing. tits shameful" said Mrs. Cloudy,
"the way that girl has treated poor
Sturtevsnt-going TO wear the same
things she was to have worn on her
honeymoon with him. why. she hasn't
even given him Z headstone."
Where would she put I'll" inquired
Miss Reasoner.
"Oh, yes; | didn't think Of that. At
all events, It's shocking about the
troussesu. And think how 500 she
has been consoledl The courtship must
have begun a. loon as S%turtevant died.
II not before"
Kind friends-there are always kind
friends to tell US dlssgreeable news
kept Miss MintOn posted N to all this
talk. and In the meanwhile there
sprang up a universal desire to know
who 1t was that was to replace the IN
fortunate sturtevant. But the more
the criticism the further every n
seemed to be from getting at the facts.
Miss Minton gave out through . friend
that she had been so outraged at all
that had been said that "What's-his-
name or Where's-his-h home" should
never be known till she and he stood