The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, February 25, 1906, Page 7

THE te, that was burned ff Manzanillo on her isco to Panama in d it is because he pled and twisted w—a son is a hero The Golden Gate was a X day, as ¢ that early £ the V lencia the oth- passengers go- all money- reciou oin the crowding ly a hand- crew o g down women and ch 2d beasts with the sk e Bourgogne & few y e he did his man’s duty, use of that “God’s hand held ars ago, tells the story not for the p imself, but to p fire broke out—we ly how—and did it broke out =o never so fast that it D DOROTHY SPENCER, and 40 years old, lived kirts of the village t She kept a serv- ant and a cow, had a cat and comfortable way on was neither homely nor e had a widowed sister 4 one day that sister vigit. Her name was Han- most other widows, she the o the got seated ant to know the sister 1 put. Haven't you th any one?” kept talk about it, sister. family well when you ind the Perkins family, but this otber matter. What's man you've been keeping xcitement was terrible, of course; w what it was like with- screaming and run- praying and - crying, heir hands and throwt ound each other; folks or scrambling into 1g off their money-belts, . and throwing —they didn’t wart n-down then. T satchel full of gold and 1. with it,.and, of course, ghted down like crazy, with excite- let go of jt—or with his death ¢ crew—went to our the after part af own there, but every- laz and crackl t through iw sometning on 'ning partition ticed around ing back home to and mother—and 1 dlone Nachally 1 tuned back and fought y over to wi he little thing something awful mes licking out a-spitting and right, and 1 and held it in ) arm,” and he- illus > good arm that is le ggled the little stranger breast and put his own his own-face between it up on deck, t I could with * and he holds d that those flames vears ago shriveled and ess thing dn't know whose s—T'd jus n it playing ship with its father and ard they were going back know In uch. that to be 50 were litile like there, liabie the brown-skinned one of the < who and had, as we -shall reasons _for tiding--it- 80, fought his and is*head to do any- all riied off me on’ indi th a jerk of wasn't a mark saw that afterw t in the boat. I was all all up and down from my foot, but I didn’t know that I guess [ was too ex- ted to notice it “The ship was all on fire when I got on deck, and I rushed to the rail and ropped the child overboard and jumped after it. The ship was going so fast —the engines running wild—that when I hit the water the child was about a block away, but I struck out and made for it. When I came up to it I grabbed its little dress in my teeth and held it up with its head out of the water and just kept ‘trailing’ along. That was what made the teeth come out on this side— holding on so long and the child getting heavier and heavier. “By and by we came up to a lifeboat. It was full of women a-crying and tear- ing their hair. They wanted me to get in, and tried to make room for me, but I wouldn’t do that. It looked to me as if there were enough in already, and I didn't want to swamp it. I put the child in and stayed in the water myself, just hanging on with my hand on the gunwale. “The ship burned in the Gulfof Te- huantepec, mot far from Manzanillo, d only about five miles from shore, so, along about night we reached the shore, and I was so tired and worn out I t fell down on the sand and slept there—all burned as I was. I was plumb worn out—I couldn’t have done any- thing else. The next morning I was waked up by the firing of guns on the steamer that had come up from Acapulco and was trying to pick up any of us from the wreck that might -be drifting around “I got up and ran out where they could see me, you may be sure, and they took me on board and brought me back to San Francisco. It was the steamer St. Louis on her return trip. I “It's Henry Goodbeart. I don't know whether you'd call it keeping company or not. He comes Sunday and Wednesday evenings and talks for a while.” “Twice a week, eh? And how long has he kept this up?” *N-ine years.” “Dorothy Spencer!” exclaimed sister Hannah, as she almost sprang out of her ‘Do you mean to tell me that & as been dawdling around here for nine years and never said a word about marriage?” “But he's one of the most bashful men you ever saw,” protested Dorothy, “and -1 " ““You are going to say vou couldn’t ask him to marry you. Of course you could but you could have brought him to time vears agp,” “He's a very nige man, and everybody th'rks so. I guesiihe thinks I don't want to get married to any one.” “You leave it to me and don't worry. I'm older than you are. I've had three not husbands and know how I got ’‘em. They were all bakhful men. I shan't do anything to shame you.” It was a conspiracy of one. Neither Dorothy nor Mr. Goodheart was taken into the widow's confidence. he “had been in the house three days when Sunday evening came and he showed up on his bi-weekly tour. The widow rning back | was in a pretty bad way, for all one side burned, and being in the water so long and lying there in the sand getting into the raw fle didn’t do much good. I found out what suffering was by tf When we got into San Francisco 1 was sent out to the Marine Hospital, that w then where the Sailors' Home is now, and I lay there for eighteen months out I was like this.” re disfigurement of 5 kind, with a movement of poor, twisted hand. And the littie child you saved? When 1 came and he “Why, I ain’t never heard of it since then—since we got to shore. You see, [ came back here on the St. Louis with the rest of thec rew that were saved; and the passengers that were saved—they were going home back East anyhow, went on, and the little child, it + hem. to Boston 1 guess; for ave had folks there.” “And you never heard from them?"” s ma’am.” never knew the little one's ma’am. Nor whether it was a boy rl,” he laughs. “I never did know 3 about it after that, for, you see, in the hosnital so long getting thing had sort o' blown srgotten, 1 guess, by the Anyhow, I never made any old Alta there were pieces printed about the burning of the Golden Gate, telling who was lost and who wasn’t. Ben Holladay was one of the passengers, and he was saved, but his partner, Mr. Flint, was lost. The paper said this one and that one were heroes of the wreck. It printed Mr. Waddell's name—he was our chief engineer, and did a lot toward saving a few that were saved—and another name or two, and told about ‘a colored boy—name un- known.' That was because I was called Jjust 'Sephus then. I never went forward and said who the colored boy was. Mr. Waddell often asked me why I didn't, but I didn’t want people bothering me and paying attention to me.” { WHEN SISTER HANNAH CAME. 505054 (o) liked him. He was slow, but sturdy and honest. He didn’t look nor talk love. He talked more of sunflowers and onlons than he did of love, Doro- thy was ill at ease, as she did not know what was coming, and her heart beat like a triphammer as the widow fin- ally said: “Mr. Goodheart, I think I shall take Dorothy back to Iowa with me when I go. “How gould you!” exclaimed Dorothy with a glance of reproach as the gate was heard to latch behind the man. “I wanted to jar him,” replied the widow. “He'll be over here within a day or two and ask you to make him happy.” “But it will look as if we were drag- ging him in by the hair of the head.” “Never you mind the looks. The great object is to get married.” Mr. Goodheart didn’t show up till his usual Wednesday evening, however. About the time he was expected the widow was at the gate to meet him. szen they had saluted each other shg sald: “Mr. Goodheart, I want to ask you a question in confidence. . “Yes?" “I understand that a sewing machine agent who comes through these parts is very much smitten on Dorothy. Is ‘Wilson chucklés a Ilitle at his own cleverness at keepving out of the public eye. . . But this isn't all the story. There's another chapter that shows still more clearly the. simple honest heart of the man who “nach’ally” risked his life for that little unknown child, apd then counted it only as part of the day’s work. It is this: There was a girl at his home in the West Indles that he had found out be- fore the Golden Gate burned to the wa- ter's edge, was the only girl in the world for him, and she had given him her promise, just as girls of fairer face B T Ty RSNSOI SEGNEO0L0000050, his occupation an honorable one?” SAN ‘| FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. give theirs. After his eighteen months in the hos- pital he took a good long look in the glass. “Then he had his picture taken and sent {t to ‘the girl, a pitiless ple- ture of his cruel - disfigurement, and with it he sent her a Jetter telling her ghe could have her promise back. “And the answer I got,” he says, “was that she meant to keep it more than ever—and so we were married, and we lived together for twenty-two years— until she died.” . That unquestioned sense of duty that “nach’ally” sent him back through the flames for the little stranger child was the same fine sense of duty that made him write that letter and send that pitiless picture to his sweetheart in the Indies; that made him a good husband to the girl who was so loyal; that made him a good father to the nine Jlitt ones that came to their modest ‘little home at North Beach; that made him the faithful servitor of the same company for so many years. “Accident may make a hero of any man,” says some poor cynic, but it was no accident that made a hero of Wil- son, who so courteously opens the door of the Best & Belcher office for you, and no accident that has kept his herolsm hidden from the world for nearly half a century. WA\ \N W\ “I dom't mind telling you about It now,” he tells me, “for I'm getting old. and It happened so long ago that folks won't bother me about it now, but I never wanted any fuss made about it. I like to live quietly.” There is something Wilson is much prouder of than this gallant deed that he counts in the day's work, and it is that he holds the certificate of a mas- ter mariner; that he is the first man of his color who successfully passed the examination and reached the rank of captain. “Now, THAT,” he says with satisfac- tion, “is something I consider worth while. DISAPPEARANCES IN LONDON. jovooeY > Mr. Goodheart gave a start and his % hand on the gate trembled. He had to wait a minute before he could trust his voice, and then he answered that he didn’t go much on sewing machine agents, “Did you say anything to him out at the gate?’ asked. Dorothy. “None o' your busjgess whether I did or not. He's the Woodenest man in four States, but I'll bring him to the mark. He has either got to show his hand or dust along and make room for somebody else. I imagine he'll be around to-morrow night.”” “It's awful, sister—positively awful,” said Dorothy as the tears filled her es. Mr. Goodheart did not make his ap- pearance at the time expected. He was in no hurry to get up a feeling of jealousy. The widow was provoked. On Sunday evening she met him a quar- ter of a mile down the road and gave him meore of her confidence. “Mr. Goodheart,” she began, “at the time I spoke to you about the sewing machine man I didn’t know that you and sister were engaged. You really must excuse me."” “Yes—just 80" was all he could say, but a month later he was on hand for the wedding. “Here only two weeks, and yet see what I have done!” sald sister-Hannah after the knot had been tied hard and fast. (Copyright, 1906, by Beatrix Reade.) BY A PRIVATE INQUIRY AGENT. HAT becomes of the 40,000 peo- ple who are officially reported as lost In London year by year? Who are they? Why are they missing? What is their ulti- mate destination and destiny? It will surprise most people when I af- firm that less than 2 per cent of this le- glon of the ‘“lost” wander beyond the confines of the metropolis itself. In the vastness of London, and amid its teem- ing pupulation, may be found a safe sanctuary for the person whose ambition it is to ‘be unrecognized and unknown. If I wished to do so, I could change my residence, select a habitation east or west and defy anxious friends to trace me to my hiding place. That this is possible is due In the majn to the “‘ugfriendliness’ of Londoners. The average ¢itizen does not «know the occupant of the flat below nor the identity of his mext-door neighbor. Tenants come and go, strange faces are seen at the window opposite, and again disappear to be replaced by others, but 1t is no concern of ours, and the procession of changes passes on unheeded. I can recall a case in which a retired tradesman lived In a South London sub- urb, while three doors lower down re- sided a nephew for whom he had been eagerly searching for half a year. The facts were ultimately brought to light through a chance remark of a milk car- rier, who had noted the similarity of the names. The great majority of London's ‘“offl- clal” lost is composed of deserting hus- bands—men after whom boards of guard- ians inquire with commendable insistence and pertinacity. The number of these do- mestic outlaws runs into tens of thou- sands. Some of the runaways clear right away, And in a provincial coal mine as- sume the black and Identity-defacing “diamond” dust of honest labor. But hera again the larger part rely for con- cealment upon the possibilities of London. ‘Working casually at the docks, lounging, begging, stealing. these ruffians .exist in much-coveted bachelordom, until a mis- demeanor more daring than the rest drags them under the official eyes of the police. Even then, unless they are previous of- fenders’ whose damning records lie com- venlently in the Habitual Criminal Reg- istry Department of Scotland Yard, they may easily pass from the dock to,prison and thence to liberty with their real iden- tity unrevealed. These romances of the missing would fill volumes. I have worked out a few hundreds in the course of my forty years of detective work. Only last year I was engaged by a Glasgow merchant to trace his sod, who, after plundering his father’s safe, eloped with a house- malid. For six months I sought him, advertising In the newspapers and leav- ing no means to find him that I could devise untried. One evening as I was leaving my office I was accosted by a shabby, unshaven youngster who, after making ma.y cautious Inquirfes, In- formed me that he was the person whom I sought. He had long known that I was looking for him, but the dread of his misdeeds held him back. It was only utter destitution that drove him to declare himself. " The percentage of the missing who seek ablding sanctuary Iin suicide Is small. But it must be remembered that the river does not give up all its dead; ner, I am sorry to say, are all the mur- ders of London dragged into the light of day. I assert emphatically that each year adds to the toll of London’s un- discovered crimes. All the victims of “foul play” are not identified, nor are the criminals always brought to justice. The most useful and energetic agency In seeking cut the lost is the Salvation Army. These people have reduced the work to a science, and many hundreds of people are restored through their kind offices to mourning relatives and friends.