The Wahpeton times. [volume] (Wahpeton, Richland County, Dakota [N.D.]) 1879-1919, 1910-08-11
Why Life Was a
Burden to Him
By Max Adeler


Some time ago Cooley caught a
young man who was just about TO
jump from the wharf into the river.
AS he seized him, he saw that it was
Jim Kelley, and he said:
'Why. Jim, what are you trying to
do?"
Il reckon it's for the best" said
Jim. Perhaps I'd better not do 1t,
after all. Why. I was going to com.
init suicide"
"Suicide!" exclaimed Cooley. Why.
what on earth's the matter with you?
Are you crazy, or drunk, or poor?"
mo"
"In love. maybe. and disappointed?"
no"
"Well. what's troubling you?"
well. I'll tell you," said Mr.. Kelley.
1T doesn't seem so much now, but
it bothereN me awfully while ago.
Why. you see, was sitting In my
room up in the boarding house there,
and got to thinking. thought what
If was to fall in love sometime with
red-haired girl, and was to marry
her, and what If she should give birth
to twins with the same kind of hair.
And s'pose those twins should grow
up, one named Isaac and the other
Jacob, and s'pose Jacob should want
to go to sea for a sailor and we let
him go, and he should get wrecked
on the Cannibal islands, and the can.
nibals should take fancy to him and
adopt him as an. idol, and set him up
in a temple.
"And s'pose, after while, he should
gradually kinder get into their ways
Of living and should become canni-
bal himself. And s'pose Isaac he
should marry and raise family of
children, and one of his boys should
go to sea and should be cast ashore
on the island where his Uncle Jacob
was acting as idol, and those canni.
balls should kill him. and cook him,
and offer some of him to Jacob, and
Jacob should eat him and want more.
And then s'pose the government
should rout out those savages, and
send Jacob home, and he should have
acquired such taste for Isaac's chill.
dren that he would get to nibbling at
the rest of them, and Isaac should
ketch him at it, and suspect him and
accuse him; and Jacob should then
kill that other red-headed twin and
eat him, and then eat all the children,
and finally eat his mother and me,
and then start out to swallow his
aunts and uncles. and other relations,
until he cleaned up the family?
"It was SO awful that couldn't
bear to ehink of it, and so I thought
would just block that heathens lit.
tie game by drowning myself before
| the thing went any farther
But why din't you block it by re-.
solving to marry some other woman? ~
asked Cooley. "You needn't marry a
red-haired woman unless you want
to-"
That's soS replied Mr.. Kelley re-.
flectively. II never thought of that.
But s'pose was to marry another
woman, how do l know she wouldn't
have son who would get up and be.
come a prize-fghter, and would get
up fights for the championship, and
of course I'G have to bet all my money
on my own boy. and he'd be licked
and Id lose and be brought down to
poverty in my old age, while he'd be
so grieved that he'd murder somebody
to get the money back for me again,
and I'd happen to be elected sheriff
just before he was tried and convict.
ed, and it'd become my duty to
hang him! Hang my own child!
Think of that, will you? l don't think
! could stand it. ! believe I'll commit
suicide, anyway, if you'll leave me
alone"
Then Cooley led him away, and rec
commended him to remain single and
to let his fancy have play in writing
stories for the papers. But Kelley
seemed bent on counting an awful
doom, and he proposed on the follow
ing Monday to Butterwick's oldest
daughter, although she has red hair
She refused him, and he told Cooley
the next day that he was cleared up
on the Isaac and Jacob business, any
how, and he thought maybe he might
stave off the other calamity by keep
ing out of politics and deciding never
r.. II,