The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1910-01-12
= Day Dreams.
By GEORGE T. HARGREAVES.

Hopeful Bill" he was dubbed in
his schooldays. The nickname chung
through all the years. With his hair
tinged to the shade Of the gray Of
storm clouds, his labby cheeks cor
rugated by cares and his squirting
eyes watery from the unspectacled
strain of half a dozen decades, he was
still Hopeful Bill"
Dreaming in boyhood of the day
when as an MISUNDERSTANDING
which profession his plastic mind as
pired-he would stir throngs with
The fervor of his words, the original
ity of his ideas and the eloquence of
his voice. Bill was deprived Of even
the final -rudiments Of a common
school education by the death of his
father.
The dream Of fame in the law dis.
solved, but the glow it shed for him
continued until his duties as roust-
about in a hardware shop pointed his
mind in another direction. Here new
hopes were born Bill, as he grew to
know something Of trade, pictured
himself as master Of all its details
and then as the owner of a vast estab-
lishment, employing hundreds OF
hands and handling thousands OF dol
lars. Till, outstanding much tech.
meal knowledge and on the way tc
promotion, this dream, too, was dis,
sipated when business fell away'and
the sheriff locked the doors on the
scene of his labors.
Came other hopes no less satisfy
ing. Bill, trying to be a carpenter
drew himself on the canvas OF his
dreams as the builder Of business
skyscrapers and palatial homes. But
these hopes were blurred when q
scafold's fall bent n Of his arms
into palsied shape.
Then he tried Office work. Dreams
again vanished his toll as they pic.
trulred him t~herising master mind of q
great commercial house. But the
handicap of Disagreement blotched
these. He lost his position when his
feeble arm proved unequal to his
figure task.
The browning hope arrived when;
having welded a pretty girl who had
accepted him o in pity than In
love, relvet-cheeked babies were con.
signed tenderly to his awkward arms.
One-two-three-four Of the little
visitors arrived in turn, stretching the
meagre income so tenuously that par.
ents suffered 70 give the growing
children food and clothes. Yet Bill
whimpered not. His mind was toe
crowded with glowing dreams of the
future attachments of his offspring. 3
Even when age-slackened feet re.
duced him to the task of a common
night Waterman Bill kept his pros.
poets bright with a~nticipations OF a
brilliant rise Of his boys and girls.
Friends smiled sympathetically, ac.
quaintances grinned sarcastically,
neiEhbors scoffed rudely as. Bill
voiced glowingly his predictions OF
the coming achievements of his
children. =.
And later, when the burden OF
| years made daily toll impossible and
the aged man found shelter beneath
the roof of a grown and married SON.
Bill still nursed dreams Of greatness
for the chuckling grandchildren who
scrambled to his knee.
And, finally, when the family
physician left the sickroom with 8
solemn shake Of his head and the
declaration that Bill could not last
but a day or two longer the patient
| when asked how he felt, wheezed:
"Oh, better; I'm hoping to be ou1
of this tomorrow"
Bills life a failure? Surely, the
superficial vor5d will insist.
But Is it certain that ali the vivid
dreams that filled Bill's wakeful
hours were not the bearers OF as
much happiness and satisfaction tc
him as the pomp of power to kings
unbridled luxuries to the rich or cap.
stone achievements to tho master
builders in science and the arts?-