A Sporting Interest
It is a busy scene in the rear of one of Houston’s greatest manufacturing establishments. A number of are busy raising some heavy object by means of blocks and tackles. Somehow, a rope is worn in two by , and a falls. There is a hurried out of the way, a loud jarring crash, a cloud of dust, and a man stretched out dead beneath the heavy .
The others gather round and with efforts drag the beams from across his form. There is a of pity from rough but kindly breasts, and the question runs around the group, “Who is to tell her?”
In a neat little near the railroad, within their sight as they stand, a bright-eyed, brownhaired young woman is singing at her work, not knowing that death has away her husband in the of an eye.
Singing happily at her work, while the hand that she had chosen to protect and comfort her through life lies stilled and fast turning to the coldness of the grave!
These rough men shrink like children from telling her. They dread to bear the news that will change her smiles to awful sorrow and lamentation.
“You go, Mike,” three or four of them say at once. “ ’Tis more lamin’ ye have than any av us, whatever, and ye’ll be afther brakin’ the news to her as aisy as ye can. Be off wid ye now, and shpake gently to Tim’s poor lassie while we thry to get the corpse in shape.”
Mike is a pleasant-faced man, young and stalwart, and with a last look at his unfortunate comrade he goes slowly down the street toward the cottage where the fair young wife—alas, now a widow—lives.
When he arrives, he does not hesitate. He is tenderhearted, but strong. He lifts the gate latch and walks firmly to the door. There is something in his face, before he speaks, that tells her the truth.
“What was it?” she asks, “spontaneous combustion or snakes?”
“Derrick fell,” says Mike.
“Then I’ve lost my bet,” she says. “I thought sure it would be whisky.”
Life, messieurs, is full of disappointments.