Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1899 — MISUNDERSTOOD HIS LETTER. [ARTICLE]

MISUNDERSTOOD HIS LETTER.

JiatMie Wa* Working in the Navy and Not for a Min later. “There to a young man on board the revenue cutter McCulloch which waa at the battle of Manila, whose mother has a totally erroneous idea of his present occupation,” said a Chicago traveling man who sells goods through the Southern States. “This lady Is one of the nicest, most motherly old souls I meet In my rounds, but She Is at the same time one of the most ignorant of everything except bow to get up a good meal of victuals and give a tired drummer a comfortable bed and clean sheets to sleep in. ‘She has been running a little tavern In a Maryland town for forty years, I suppose, and hasn’t been five mites from home since she was a glrL Her only son, a chap of about 28, on the contrary, has not been within five miles of home for longer than six* months In the last twenty years. However, he keeps her posted as to his whereabouts, and In all his wanderings he does not forget her. When last heard from he got some kind of a position on board the United States revenue cutter McCulloch, the vessel that was Dewey’s dispatch-boat at Manila, and Is at present doing duty between California and the Behring Sea. About a week or ten days ago I took dinner at her place, and a fine country dinner it was, too, and 1 asked her about the boy. “ ‘Oh,’ she responded, with a smile that would make anybody glad to have her for a mother, ‘Jimmie to; doing so well now. He don’t always get into the best places, and I am afraid that sometimes he gets into real bad ones, but he to turning over a new leaf, I guess, for he has gone to work with a preacher. He didn’t mention what denomination he was, but that don’t make any difference, so long as Jimmie just workß for him.’ “ ‘l’m glad to hear it,’ I said. ‘Who is the preacher?’ “ ‘I don’t know, except that his name is the Rev. Cutter McCulloch. I’ll show you Jimmie’s letter.’ “She did so, and there I read briefly, as might be expected: ‘I am now with tfie Rev. Cutter McCulloch and doing well,’ and I smiled softly to myself, but I never said a word to Jimmie’s mother.” —Chicago Chronicle.