Story of a Worthless Fellow

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 180, 23 October 1903, Page 7

Story of a Worthless Fellow

I By JOHN H. RAFTERY. | fL—m— j .Mm ii i if*

IF THEEE are any sufficient reasons why a married man should g"o into the army, Louis Tappan had them. His five years of married life had been a cumulative failure and he knew it. What was more important, however, his young wife knew and charged the whole score of their mutual disappointment to him. TB.eir one child, now a teething- baby, had not healed their chaied spirits nor brought together their wandering hearts. Mrs. Tappan -was a good little. woman, so good that she neither sympathized with nor understood Louis' puerile ways, his 1 passions' for excitement, his slavery to habits that -were neither necessary to her happiness nor warranted by his slender means, even in the days when he earned a good salary as booJckeeper for the Buena Vista bank. Her father owned the little town ■where they liv«d, but he was one of those sitern men who, having made their' own way in the world, would discourage and resent the idea that they should give aid to others in the nght for independence or wealth. When Louis married Lucy Haxd-ing he admitted to himself that the old bank president was "a grouch," but in those days his seLf-confidence was not shaken by the prospect of working out a way for himself and Lucy. For a year he carried out his good re*olutiu3is, and even won a measure of Mr. Hoarding's crabbed regard. During that year the young people were fairly happy. The entering wedge of misery came when it dawned on Lucy that Louis didn't have any religion and couldn't "get" any. When he heard that she "had him frayed for" he lost hie temper and they had their first quarrel. A,fter that his descent was rapid. They drifted further and further apart. The boj- (he was only 23) lost hie grip on goo-d resolves and slid along the smooth and winsome current of his old, free habits. The row with Harding didn't come till the second year, but after that Louis' place in his fa-ther-in-la"W's bank became precarious. The old man warned, threatened and even pers'ecnted him in the mistaken belief that "he could scare the young husband back into the narrow path. But Louis didn't scare worth a cent. Long before the baby came he was in debt, neck and crop. His wife was getting morose and quarrelsome, and his creditors were beginning to Uilk a^bout "going to the old man." Ever, that didn't move the rascal. He began to think that he was the martyr oi an unhappy marriage, that Lucy didn't understand him and that her father was determined to break up a union that he had never approved. When a man gets to coddling himself wit.li swell assurances he's in a bad way. And Louis was in a bad way even before the grocer, who was a deacon in Hard- - ing's church, made what Louis called "a holler" about his bill. That settled tbe young man with Papa Harding. A month's notice, a threat of starvation and a mumbled imprecation were "what the bookkeeper got with his next pay envelope. After he was out of his> position he made a few feeble efforts to find work; he made a trip to Chicago, and in a weak way determined to take his v wife and make a home for himself elsewhere. But somehow the. world seemed to ha 1 "*. 1 suddenly grown, very .narrow and sfcT"- --| ish. His comrades of -dissipated days i and nights couldn't help him fur tin r than to "hope the old man will come round all' right," and buy another drink. Harding'didn-'t come round. Hiignored his son-in-law when they m«: on the street, and only when the chiio •was born did he insist on taking ohargt 1 of Lucy. After,«he was taken to the Harding home .Louis' heart began t<> fail him. He discovered that he was fond and apt to grow fonder of the ••child— a boy. Brorken in spirit and pocket, he swore he'd mend his ways and. find work. But there was none - HeAvent- to Chicago, met an old companion, forgot his troubles for a niglr 1 and a day and came, to his dreary sense? in the blue, ill-fitting uniform of a "rookie." ( :<, ._ ;'■ He had a ■ vague iSea that he would "win hisway" as a soldier in the waj ''r '■: ■ ; ' : - - ; :' '''':' "'""■ V •- ' - . ■ ■ ''■-■*

Mg home a stern and famous officer — ;a jit am at ieast-Tcrow&ed. his boyish aiind, and with his hopes there mingled, stinging' pweet* the sense that at last he might have brought hometo, Lucy and her people a /realization of thb "fact., .that he was not all bad. lie ; even imagined the old. "gTOuch" pity- ! ing him, and in. the thought was the grim satisfaction tha b no-w at least he '; had martyred himself He swore softly toihimself that he would never drink , nor gamble, again, and when, he left, for Chickamauga with his regiment he had not fallen, from grace. A 1 scribbled note on a postal card telling Lucy that he was "gone into the army" was all they heard about him at.. 1 Buena Vista far three years after that. The Hardings read all the war news with ■- eager curiosity at first," hoping to get some news of Louis', but their interest waned againVand again, to-be faintly renewed with'theiactual beginning ..of the fig-ht: But there was not a word about Louis, not even his name among the wounded, siclcbr dead, much less notice -of his gallantry or promotion. Not un,til the Cuban and earlier Philippine campaigns had dwindled down into intermittent skirmish t's in far parts of the islands did there come a hint that he was> yet.on earth. Then just a line in the list ot "dead from disease:" "Tappan, private company X, Twen-ty-third infantry; dysentery." And there ended the career of Louis" ! Tappan, the worthless young man of Buena Vista. * * * The station agentat Culver, ten miles below Buena Vista on the Louiyvijlc & Nashville, saw the last train "iu-si-tate" at his door, and was getiing oiii his key to lock up when a well-dressi-il. swarthy young man with a small Wi;; dropped off the rear coach and approached him. "This is Culver, isn't it ?" "Yes, sir." "Do you know where Mrs. Tappan, Mrs. Louis Tappan, lives?" "Don't live here, lea&tways not- in town. I & kuow 'em all. NoTappans and nothing like that name round here. I'm pretty sure." "Moved here from Buena Vista," suggested the stranger, wistfully; "moved up about a year ago." "Oh, hold on! Tappan — oh, her vnrru' ain't Tappan no more. She's miinrieii to Bill Chesebrough. They was Quarried at Buena Vista a year ago, and come up here to live. Sure I — " The Bt*ranger coughed a few times, looked up and down the tracks, and then: "Her flrsi husband, Patten, la"Tfen — " "Tappan," mussxraretr the uneasy visitor. "Tappan, he died in. the Philippines. He was a no-good bum and deserted her and the kid, so she ups and marries Bill Chesebrough... Bill is rich, owns all them quarries over to Hope ton. I'll show you where they live; take you right past the door." "No-oo," mused the visitor, half aloud, and fumbling in his pocket, "I guess I won't go up; I — what did you say her first name was, Lucy?" "Yes, that's her. She was Miss Lucy Harding, daughter of old > 'Skinflint' Harding-, down, to Bue-na Vista, ricker'n hell and mean<er a till. Be — " "Yes, I know," was the interruption, "but you're going past the house, her house?" "Yep." "Would you mind stepping in with this?" handing o*er a photograph. "It's a picture of Tappeun for the boy. his boy. You see, we, Tappan and I. were in the same regiment, and when he got sick, he asked me to — for the boy, you know; his daddy's picture. I promised to give it to him." "Oh, the Tappan kid; the one by her first husband, he — " "Yes, that's the on«. How is he? Does he look like — " "Oh, that on* died the first week they come here, diphtheria got him. He just— r" But the newcomerwas out of earshot before the station agpeut could finish. Down the tracks he went toward the* *ast, walking like a fury, with bis head down and his little bag swinging in'the dim light of the yard lamps till the night swallowed him. The station agent whistled a note of wonder, looked at the photograph he yet held in his hand, saw it was of a young soldier standing bravely at salute, and turned it over. On the back was written: "For Louis Tappan'* little boy." The station agent shoved it into his overcoat pocket. "I'll bet that chap was a bug," he mused, as he walked toward Chesebnough's -house, "but I guess I'd better give the picture to Mrs. Chest) — . N-o-o-00, come to think of it, I guess \ I'd better not. Tappan is dead, the kid is dead and old Bill Chesebrough is I jealous as an old maid." He tore the photograph into small bits after another look and flicked the pieces into the air as he walked homewards. — Chicago Record-Herald. "" Crabi and Poached Essb. Toast rather thin slices of bread a nice brown; butter slightly and cover with half an inch of crab meat; place in the oven and heat thoroughly. Have some eggs nicely poached in rings, ojio for each slice. Lift from the water onto the crab meat and serve very hot. — Washington Star. A Matrimonial Suggestion. London newspaper men are afraid that American -women journalists are going to crowd, them out of business. Why, asks the Chicago Record-Hera id. don't they eKecute^a coup by marrying the lady journalists? Sent? in jr Fsofl Our Way. Ship loads of potatoes are nrrivi7u>at New York from. Ireland, Scotland and Belgium. Evidently, says the Chieagp Record-Herald, ■'; all the ' ivorlr doesn't propose to get all its food frpjj; 1 jDncle Sftj»mi tfce time , I