Rensselaer Union, Volume 11, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1879 — A Fatherly Man. [ARTICLE]

A Fatherly Man.

Griswold street, from Fort to Congress, offers such superior facilities for falling down in the winter that all. newsboys and bootblacks who look upon the bright and cheerful side of life loaf around that section a great deal ih order to be on hand when the climax occurs. Seven of them stood in a row yesterday morning as a fatherly, unwieldy citizen turned the corner of the Moffatt Block. —- “ Select your spot!” they yelled, as he reached the descent, and is about a minute he reached the conclusion that they had gathered/there to see him Some men would have jumped aside into the street, but this fatherly man continued on. He resolved to himself: “Now, these boys are poor, forlorn boys. They seldom have any fun. They are hungry, ragged, and *do not look forward to Christmas. They wish me to fall. If, by falling, I can add to their happiness, it is my auty to do so.” ; Those hoys may never know that that good man fell on purpose to please them. He suddenly made a slip to the left, stretching out hb leg until it) looked to be ten feet long—then a slip to j the right, and as he recovered he stuck 1

his heels toward the South Pole, clawed out like a million angleworms fastened together, o*d the snow where he struck flew sixteen feet. He didn't get up and tell the boys that it was a put-up job to lighten their burdens of care ana sorrow for a moment, but he knows and the reader knows that it was.—Detroit Free Press. "7