The Nome daily nugget., 1910-11-02


 messages from home. Bill Skyes was putin m little extra dog cause he had received five letters and four pe- ri"dic,ls and one package Now We jrat right tn spread il on when he gifts snch Il mail as that. but we was snrtcr s'IiciuuS that Bill had his name put on some turin mailing list or one of them durn mail-urdcr house books as most "f his readin' was of a printed nature with fancy pictures of knives. clothes and the like mixed in it. There was one letter though that looked sorta official like and We didn't know then what the black border aroun' the en- vclope meant
 Baldy Watts. who was workin' on the MaNner dredge. stated as how the epistle might be from the president of teh United States, but Tommy the Terror laughed at that and ventures that the communication was most probably from some black handed gang
 Anyway We was all nightly inter ested when Bill presumed that the cas- fest way of findin' out what was inside of the scarey lookin' envelope was to open it. Mac layed aside his Home and Preside" magazinle and Swenson looked up from his Swedish publication h.r or paper from the envelope and pro- ceeded to read aloud as per the fol- lowin:
 Dear old Pal: do not know if this letter Will ever reach you as We have not heard from you for so many years. but if it should. come home immediate ly as your poor mother is dead and there is no one here to take care of your little sister Jane. who was seven years old on her last birthday. Your mother passed away last night. but bv the time you receive this letter. if vou ever do. it will have been weeks since your mother died of broken heart. IL was you Bill-she grieved about you night and day and her last words were to ask for you Now, you know. dear old pal that | ! never did have any money and am | m no position to care for little girl. | SD I guess it's up to you. 'If you can't see your way clear to | leave the camp for some time. I will | take care of Jane the best l know how. Shes all alone now. since your poor dad and mother died and if you re- | member you have no relations within A | thousand miles of that little cottage | you used to call home.
 It's been eleven years since we shared the same room at college and | since We played side by side on the | varsity eleven. but will never forget | you. old pal, and God knows that the | little girl needs friend now. Bill, for the sake of the old days come home. l. as the dearest friend to | your mother. buried her and I could | not help but think of you. way up there in the frozen North. as they laid
 
 her to her final rest That's all. Bin but God knows that that little sister needs you. her brother the big man who gets gold out of the ground'- that's the way she speaks of you
 Goodbye for this time. BH and God bless you. Remember me always as your old pal. Dick"
 Bill didn't read the letter as smooth as it is written here. He was a erwin all of the time and he didn't try to hide it. either
 IL made us fellows feel mighty funny | tp see big an strong man like Bin | was. sobbin' like a baby. We all knew that the boy had never written home | but We also knew that there was never | man who loved his mother more'n | Bin did. He told us one day that the reason he didn't write back to the folks | was because when he left home he told | his kin that they would never hear from him until he had made his stake and We all knew that poor old Bin never dld have penny an his pros peet for gettin' a fortune was mighty slim as the big chap was an awfully unlucky cuss
 When Bill finished readin' the letter he didn't say a word hut gifts up and leaves the shack. Poor old Bill. A'rter the boy had left. Abe Wolfe. l who ran a Jew-store on Front street sez as how 1t was the proper article | for us to start a purse an sen Bill hack to the little gal. His motion was seconded and carried by Carl Schmidtz. who was famous for his sausages from Yukon territory to Seward Peninsula. When we got the poke filled up we got Steve. the smart alec bookkeeper for the Gilt Edge Mining Company. to