Page:Over the Sliprails - 1900.djvu/128



Joe died of consumption on the track. When he was dying uncle asked: “Is there anything you would like?”

And Joe said: “I’d like a lilly drap o’ rum, boss.”

Which were his last words, for he drank the rum and died peacefully.

I was the first to hear the news at home, and, being still a youngster, I ran to the house, crying “Oh, mother! aunt’s Joe is dead!”

There were visitors at our place at the time, and, as the eldest child of the maternal aunt in question had also been christened Joe—after a grandfather of our tribe (my tribe, not Black Joe’s)—the news caused a sudden and unpleasant sensation. But cross-examination explained the mistake, and I retired to the rear of the pig-sty, as was my custom when things went wrong, with another cause for grief.