The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 1, 1900, Page 3

FEERRESTE BREERe From Pittsburg done. Vi wented to get to Omaha. and I sos & Jo Jan jFrancisco Remarkable Trip of a Small Boy Who Qame West to Pick Us Geld and Fight 1 ent all T earned, buyin’ novels. I But I was that time, e me up. one that told pped a plum ‘stone Francisco and & m an idea; T ie $50,000. I thought I could ralse f as well as anybody eise, so T ed up, and I made up my mind to keep on “After four months workin' T started out again and wi it a cent. I'd spent it all. But I came pretty straight to Saa Francisco. “In all novels the boys go west to find their fortunes, and so I came West, and I kept comin’, hopin' all the way for somethin’ to turn up. But when I got here there wasn't any further west to go— unless I joined the navy, and it took me two days hang!n’ around the water fromt to find out there wasn't any chancs to do that. ‘When I was comin’' over on the ferryboat I sald to a man, ‘Is that Geat Island? and hs sald ‘Yes,” and I sald, ‘T'm going there,’ and he laughed at me, apd I guess he laughed right. I've come as far west as I can get, and It isn't & big gold fleld, and thers aren’t any bar- rels of money for a boy to maks In & few weeks. It's a big city whers I don’t know anybody, and where thers are more boys than there are jobs.” “What can you do?" I asked him. Hs makes a bold stretch at a fourteen-year- old height, but he Is far too slight, and his plain, strong le face is pinched and white. He is wearily tense in body and mind, for the nerves have been strung tight, and they are only a child’s nerves. “What can you do?" I asked, and look- ing I saw only a pale. worn little speci- men of humanity that looked absurdly incapable set in contrast to the big hulk- ing, jostling world. But when I asked him what he could do he replied without a hint of boast, “Anytht It was as unconscious and simple as if T had asked, “What do 2 a 7" and the an- swer had been “4 Then in the light of what he had done, I.believed the word of this strangsly oid 3 i ot youngster. He stepped forward and opemed the door for me perfectly. I left a good luek wish behind me and reflect all the way to the means & whole block of refl The moral is as crudely U s that of any Sun- day-school be away boy and his c i S 1 the wild goose chase of - But I marveled that it was the splendid folly of one whom yo burry for only an boy. Jome &Iondarful &ounds Jeen in Jouth African &ar, From Mool River llam Mao- Cormac, England’s ¢ 1guished surgeon, who took the fleld with the soldlers in South Africa, sends to the London Lancet an interesting set of notes on the remark- able bullet wounds he has seen recently. “The greater nu , “‘were caus v the Mauser bullet, and nearly all presented the characteristio slightly de- ab. The features—a sm pressed area c exit wounds of g tle larger, sometimes presenting a scar like an incised wound and difficult to dis- cover. “When I saw them a week or ten days after the injury they wers for the most part healed. How these bullets fafl te damage vital str in their path ous. The proportion of fatal to those that are recover we began t he povels made all be proceeded the book that my head. You ses I deas when I came just what\I would e navy,hor ship going to make & fortuns, ‘hen he speaks and is a Wminor kb ®OT H if\the 1d they let their en they is it out and buy a up a house with it to their father the folks say they say ‘Don’t mention it." I'd Go something like that, but look that way now. All I want is eny kind of a job as beilboy, elevator-boy or anything that I can live on and get some decent clothes and have a chance to £ to night school.” It is & long step Gown from the goid nugget path to the bell boy ambition. The pity of & lies in that he has learned to take thegtep gracefully. “For along time I kept thinkin’ about startin’ oif, but I couldn’t see how to do it until ond day last October my mother gave me ted dollars to buy some clothes. I saw here %as my chance. I bought a ticket with % I never thought I was stealin’, \ “The ten dofgrs bought me a half-fare ticket to Chicigo, and there was some left. 1 took a good look at Chicago, and then I went on tj Joliet. That's as far as my money lasted), “¥From there on { had to work my way. Island for breakin’ t that's pretty hard coal for the engine, work for & boy.” I looked at the intelligant hands that had made for coal, and flashed inte my mind 2 thought of the mother that misses him. 1 know no more of her than that she is his mother, but I know just how the sob sounded in her voice when she read out the letter that told about break- ing coal. The father, it seems, is stern and a politician, and he has had neither time nor will to write to the youngster during the five months’ absence; hence I know that he only grunted when he heard the coul story, and he probably said, “Let him find out for himself,” and he said it within basso range. But when Frank enters the Pittsburg home again, some- how politics will be laid aside for the evening and Frank’s mother will not be the only Interested and proud listener when Frank gives an account of himself. “I didn’t walk any of the way, and I neyer bummed my way, either, I never asked at houses for anything to eat. I cnanceto ride on the Iimited. Ho I a14. I rode on the mail car. Omahs was where I expected to ses the first signs of what I was lookin’ for. I thought it was all a big mining camp, with gold as easy 2s ripe peaches. It was at Omaha that Dick the Dangerous went for a walk and came home with dusty shoes, and when he went to brush them he found it was all pure gold dust he was brushin’ off. He had to kill nineteen Indians there to keep them from killin’ him, but that ‘was easy. I wouldn’t be afraid of Indians, but there aren’t any to be afraid of. I never saw but three. They came out to meet the train, and they looked too lazy to care about fightin’. They didn’t have a sign of war paint nor a feather, and they left my scaip. you see.” 1t is an unlovely siraw heap that they left, but it is brushed fit for Jack-a- AL Ti. & queer feeling. Ever have 1t? You feel awful far off from everything, and you kind of think you wouldn’t duck your, head under the bed clothes if your mother’ tried to kiss you good night. It's a queer feelin’. “It came ower me S0 queer that I thought I'd_ better do somethin’ to get over it, so I moved on to Grand _apparently was perfectly well, leved to bs sma tion precisely is abundantly often both lungs ma in many directi symptoms, any symptoms A halt was T forating abd. is because so many recoveries from such wounds wers noted. So, the previous indications for operations in such cases had to be re- vised completely. Recovery from wounds of the knes joint were 30 many as tomake & chapter ent w in the experfence me is trus of pelvic injurtes earned. It tand the Iimited amount of damage done. Bullets perforate arteries and U or, In the case of art ing the expected amount of | A private who looked said he had nothing to complain of had & hole seven inches long and three inches wide in his ches h involved the lungs. Part of [ ribs wers car. rled away and the lung was exvosed. The soldler lay in a trench or the tisld from $:30 to 5 o'clock before ha ceuid be attend- ed to. He was carried to the hospital at 12:30 o’clock that night. Another private was hit in the middle of the nose. and the buliet passed out the back of his neck. He had a little head- ache and some trouble in swallowing, bug in ten days the wound healed and the man He @EE&@OAT’ stanD AT LAST