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about to wire me that he and Fred Buckpitt should be here tomorrow morning and to meet them - and give Fred a good reception because he had never visited Erie before.  Fred would witness the weighing and credit was all okay and things looked good at last to get rid of them.
  
This evening I drove down to the peanut place on W. 6th to get some peanuts for "handouts" tomorrow night Halloween.  It was dark of course, and I saw a bunch of boys coming up 6th toward me, ringing doorbells - I was sitting in the car in front of the peanut place.  Suddenly I noticed one of the gang was walking very peculiarly [[strikethrough]]ly[[/strikethrough]], his head stuck out, his legs not well controlled, a cane held in both hands horizontally in front him, his head wobbling around in an odd manner.  He came across the street with the rest toward me and as he came under the lamp light, I realized it was a man - not a boy.  I could see then there was something terrible and shocking, wrong with him - he had to walk that way!  A couple of the boys suddenly broke away from the crowd and ran across the street and then quickly back and I heard the man say "No letter box over there, eh?" And then suddenly a cold chill ran down my spine - I realized who the man was! Ike Baldwin! He had changed so I had not recognized him at first! Evidently he has come home from the sanitarium where he has been for a long time with some terrible nervous disease - said to be the result of too gay a life in his younger days.  Now he is a wreck of a man - such a shocking wreck in fact, that I guess he confines his sallies outside to the night when people won't see or recognize him.  The last time I saw him he was normal and healthy appearing - thus tonight was a terrific shock to me!