Klondike Nuggets - Edward Sylvester Ellis (robert munsch read aloud .txt) 📗

between drinks was ten years?"

"I've never thought, and don't care."

"He would have died long before the time was up."

"When you left the boys in the diggings you came to Dawson City to spend the worth of that nugget for whiskey. I happened to meet you in time and made you go back with me. You'd been off on sprees a half dozen other times, if I hadn't kept an eye on you. Drink is the enemy that will down you if you don't stop at once. If you'll stay sober for ten years, I'll take the chances after that. Are you going to sign?"

Tim's eyes were fixed on the paper which he held in his hand. He mused loud enough for the listening Jeff to catch every word:

"To sign that means no more headaches and bad health, but a clear brain and a strong body; no more hours of gloom, no weakness of the limbs and pricks of the conscience; no more breaking the heart of me good old mother in Ireland, but the bringing of sunshine and joy to her in her last days; it means the signing away of me slavery, and the clasping to me heart of the swate boon of liberty; it means the making of mesilf into a man!"

With a firm hand he wrote his name at the bottom of the paper, and flinging down the pen, said:

"With God's help, that pledge shall be kept."

"Amen," reverently responded Jeff; "there's your check for seventy-five thousand dollars."

THE END.
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Publication Date: 01-04-2010

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