Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1909 — FRIEND O’THE FAMILY [ARTICLE]

FRIEND O’THE FAMILY

“Well, Sir," said the shoeinaker shortly after the sunfish quit biting. “I got a letter yesterday that done me a lot of good. You remember I told you the last time we was out fishin* together that I used to have a shop of my own up to old Illinois an’ made good .money too. Well, sir, all the kids in that town knowed /me, tin’ they wasn’t a one of ’em that, wouldn’t have gone to the bad place fer me if they’d been old enough to know what that really meant. But they wasn’t—bless their little hearts! “An’ there was two of ’em in pertlcklep, the nicest little kids you ever seen. It’s a fact that there little girl ’<l come from school every day leadin' her little brother by the baud. An’ they’d never be a time they’d be passin’ the shop on their way to school or goto’ home to dinner that they wouldn’t stop an’ knock on the shop window. “An’ often after school ’d be out they’d stop in an’ see me. Why, I've had as high as ten or twelve of ’em at one time after school in my shop singin’ the shoemaker song an’ goto’ through the motions just like their teacher’d learn ’em to. * “Sometimes some of ’em would have to stop an' laugh—they thought it was such a good joke on the shoemaker. But there’d always be two or three of ’em would go on an’ finish out, ’cause they knowed they'd never get the dime fer candy if they didn’t. Au' there's where I used to have the joke on ’em. They never knowed how much I liked to hear 'em sing that there song. I’d sooner hear it now than have a dollar. “Well, that's just the way it was all the .time with ’em kids. They all knowed me, an’ they all knowed my ddg. An’ when they knowed. my dog they knowed a mighty good dog. “Well, sir, this little girl's daddy, used to be station agent there at that town, an’ it was known all along that part of the Btg Four lino that there wasn’t a depot (anywhere that was what you could call as model a depot as his. Course I knowed him, an’ he knowed me, an' his wife she used to tell the little girl when they’d want me to come an’ take dinner or supper with ’em. It wasn’t very often I’d go, but I couldn’t refuse when they’d send the little girl after me. “Now, him keepin’ his depot so model is what got him promoted. The Big Four sent him over to a bigger town in Indiana. Course I was glad to see him doin’ better—he deserved it. But after they’d gone me an’ my dog we used to shut up shop an’ go flshin’ an’ puntin’ a little oftener than before. “Well, come along Christmas 'time an’ what’d Ido but one day get a letter from this here little girl tellin' me her an’ her little brother was goto’ to have a Christmas tree an’ couldn’t I come over to Indiana an' see ’em Christmas. “So I made all arrangements to go, an’ you bet I laid out a dollar or two fer presents. But course, like it had to be, one day I gets word her an’ her Httle brother was took down sick—diphtheria, the dispatch said. “So I makes up my mind I’d go anyway. There’s no tellin’, you know, what’s liable to happen in a case like that. So'l put SIOO in my pocket—an’ even at that I didn’t have to put it there; I always carried at least a hundred in them days—an’ I went over. An’ I didn’t get there none too soon neither. She died the afternoon of the evenin’ I got there. “Well, I didn’t know then what to do. I wasn’t what you could call *a friend o’ the family,’ but I wished I could do somethin’ fer that poor little girl a-layln’ there. An’ before three days was out I got my chanst. “You see, her dyln’ of diphtheria, they wouldn't let ’em ship the body back over the railroad. Her daddy bein’ agent didn’t Help ’em* none In that case, neither. He tried hard enough to get a permit, but It didn’t do no good. He just couldn’t get it. “The mother was Just about crazy to think they’d have to lay her away in Indiana Instead of the old buryto’ ground over in old Illinois alongside of ’em that had gone before. But you bet yer life they didn’t have to, fer I went an’ got a team an’ a wagon, an’ I says, ‘l’ll drive her through.’

“It was 12 below zero when I started, a little before midnight. They took the mornlu’ train next day an’ got there long ahead of me. Ninety-one miles in a spring wagon at 12 below ain’t no picnic. “I didn’t get to see ’em after the funeral. I felt just a little bit wore out, an’ I thought the best thing I could do was to go lay down awhile. An’, leave me tell you, I got all the layin’ down*l wanted In the next year an’ a half; an’ it cost me everything I had but my tools an’ shoemaker’s kit. I’ve got that stored up there tn old Illinois yet. “I wrote to her folks one time, but 1 didn’t get no reply. I thought maybe they thought I wasn’t quite as good as they was, so I never tried writin’ no more.

“This here letter I got the other day was from a friend o’ the family that knowed them an’ knowed me. It said they hadn’t never heard a line from me an’ they often wondered what had become of me. It said that little girl’s mother often wished she knowed where I was at, so she could write, because, this letter went on to say, she said I was the best friend o’ the family they ever bad. “An’ that’s the kind of letter that makes a feller feel good.’’—St. Louis Republic. ’