MOBILE DIGITAL LIBRARY - SOCIETY OF YOUNG NIGERIAN ...

"When the minister reached home, the first thing he did was to start out to tell hiscomrades of the value of their find. As he drove up to Landlord Stensson's place, wherehe had intended to go in and inform his friend that they had found silver, he paused at thegate, for he saw that white sheets had been hung before the windows and a broad path ofhemlock boughs led up to the door step.""'Who has died here?' inquired the minister of a little boy who stood leaning against thefence."'It is the landlord himself.' Then he told the minister that for a week past the landlord hadbeen drinking ever and ever so much liquor, until he was drunk all the time."'How can that be?' asked the pastor. 'The landlord never before drank to excess.'"'Well, you see,' said the boy, 'he drank because he was possessed with the idea that hehad found a mine. He was so rich, he said, that he would never need to do anything nowbut drink. Last night he drove out, drunk as he was, and fell out of the carriage and waskilled.'"After the minister had heard all this, he started homeward, grieving over what he hadlearned. And only a moment before he had been so elated over the good news he had totell his friends.