TOLD OF HORACE GREELEY

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 219, 20 October 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

TOLD OF HORACE GREELEY

This story of Horace Greeley i:. vouched for by the narrator: — Soon after the close of the C'.vil \Va,\ while 1 was trying to regain the heaL'l and strength I had lost in the Confederate prisons at Petersburg, Libby, and Salisbury, I visited my brother, whv was the principal of a school at Port Jefferson, Long Island. On my return I came across tho Sound, and took the train at Bridgeport for New York. It was crowded, and 1 could find only stand:ng-room. For a long time I held on to the door-knob, swaying back and foit'i with the motion of tne train. At length someone touched me on the shoulder, and I turned to face a greyhaired, benevolent man, who said, "My boy, you have held on to that door-knob long enough. Let me have it, while you take my seat yonder." I thanked him, and sank wearily into the vacant seat, while my benefactor <in turn took his stand by the door, and tried to keep his balance in spite of the swaying of the car. As we neared the city we stopped at a station for a few moments, and the sentinel at the door-knob alighted. As soon as te stepped from the car he was surrounded by a group of men who seemed to know him well. 1 sai'l to the man in front of me, "Who is the grey-hasred gentleman? - ' and he r.cplied, "Why, don't you know him? That is Horace Greeley?" Imprisonment and suffering had worn mo to mere skin and bone, an 1 my lack of strength must have l*een apparent to everyone, but the otluvs gave no hoed. ft was the tenderhearted, kindly old editor, who saw in me one of Father Abraham's boys, who sacrificed his own comfort for mine.