Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1915 — DEATH SAVED HIM [ARTICLE]

DEATH SAVED HIM

By OLIVIA MEREDITH.

(Copyright, 1915, by W. G. Chapman.) “Tired,” yawned Boyd Leslie, prescription clerk tor Davis & Co. “I’m dead for the want of sleep. % The end of a long day. Oh, my!” There was a tinge of relief in his first words, for a respite, relief seemed in view. He had put out most of the lights, he had just locked the street door, when the knob was turned and a small boy breathless and perspiring, shouted lustily: “I must get in, doctor says 1 must hurry,” and he waved a fragment of paper which Boyd recognized as a prescription. He let the boy in. Midnight weariness made him sway, the lights were poor, he almost nodded putting up the prescription. It was “For Mr. Lewis/’ a heart tonic, Boyd noted that. He was so done out, that as he gave the waiting boy the bottle he left the last phial he had used in filling the prescription upon the case counter. Then, without even undressing, he flung himself on the lounge just behind the case and was plunged in sudden slumber Immediately. Long hours, irregular meals, lack of air and exercise were fast undermining a splendid constitution. There was no nine-hour rule at the Davis establishment “U-um!.just about half slept out,” yawned Boyd at daylight, rousing up at the call of an alarm clqck, unrefreshed for another day of hard work. “Well, if I can stand it out I’ll soon have enough to start a course at the medical college.” Boyd cooked his sparse breakfast on a spirit stove. He tidied up and ventilated the store and set at putting the disordered prescription desk in order. As he picked up a phial lying upon it he raised it slowly. A shudder passed over his frame. He turned deadly white. He uttered a great gasp. His horror-stricken eyes were glued to the label on the bottle. "The last I used last night in making up that prescription,” he spoke breathlessly, “and—poison! ’’ How had he come to make the fatal error? His dazed, tired eyes had read “ascetina” for “arsenic.” He had unwittingly substituted for a harmless alterative enough of the deadliest poison known to materia medica to kill a dozen men. Sick at heart, Boyd Leslie dropped the fatal phial and sank to a chair, overcome. The deed was done, without any doubt! Oh, was there the merest vestige of a hope that the prescription had not been used? Shaking from head to foot with anxiety and dread the young drug clerk hurried on hat and coat and rushed from the store. He knew where the Lewis home was located. His heart beat like a trip hammer as he turned into the street upon which it fronted. It seemed to halt with a shock as he saw on the bell handle of the house—a streamer of crepe! How he lived through that day, Boyd Leslie could not realize. He heard that the physician attending Mr. Lewis had given a certificate of death from natural causes. First an impulse came to his mind to confess his mistake publicly. Then dread of consequences made of him a coward. The episode passed by. He was safe, in the general acceptation of that word. But his mind was in torment. As to restitutiop —ah, there he could act! He had robbed the Lewis family, of a protector. He would take his place. His motives were never suspected by Verona or her mother. As the weeks passed on, however, the interest he took in the. children, his kindness in loaning Mrs. Lewis a small amount that enabled her to renew a mortgage on the hdmestead. began to endear him to the lonely, lovable young girl. As to Boyd, an angel with a flaming syrord seemed to stand between him and the beautiful girl who had won his soul’s devotion.

“I dare stay here no longer,” he told himself one day. “I will' find, some way to give my little savings to Mrs. Lewis and forget Verona.” His heart smote him the evening he announced to the family the demands of a fictitious position in another state. * He saw no-other way out of his difficulty, however. They helped him pack his effects, and during the process Verona brought a small chest of odds and ends, to find so/ Boyd a blood thermometer he had loaned her mother when she had a touch of fever. It contained some papers of the dead, father, some phials of medicine, a sealed bottle.' As ‘his eyes fell,npon this, Boyd Leslie grasped it with a - sadden eagerness that fairly startled Verona. .r “This—this is a prescription you had filled the night before your father died?” he uttered hoarsely. “Yes. Poor, dear hither!” replied Verona, sadly. “He died before brother got from the drug store with it." 7 “Innocent —he never took it!” cried Boyd Leslie, and ,then he fell to his knees—and prayed, the tears of relief and joy pouring down his happy face. “I need not go now,” he told VetonA : a little later, “If you do not wish it-” Her little hand Btole into his shyly hut confiding, those dear sweet lips breathed one throbbing, thrilling word 1 ' 1 “stay. -