Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-06-24
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT,
-HE STORY OLA FOURTH OF JULY

actness Of frontier lie, he is accrsed OF invitins
improbable things
s'Old Davy Lindsey lived in a queer cabir
on the POmme de Terre River. In you should
ever ride over the new Northern Pacific wher
1t shall be completed, or over that branch OF 4
which crosses the POmme de Terre, you can gel
out at station which Will, no doubt, be called
for an Old settler, Gager's station; and II you
would IKE 70 see sSms BEAUTIFUL scenery, take
River. You wiz have to make some partsges
and you viii have q good appetite for supper
when You reach the old Lindsey house, ter
miles from Gager's, but its present owner is hoe
pitable.
queer old chap was Lindsey the last tina
saw hlm. 1 remember how he took me an over
sleyviIle, As he called il His long iron-gray
hair futtered in the wind, and his face seemsd
like a wizards, penetrating bat unearthly.
That was long before the great tide of immi-
grants had begun TO find their way into this
paradise through the highway of the Sank val
ley. Lindsleyville was 3 hundred and fifty
miles out of the world at that time. It's popula-
ton numbered two, Lindsey and his daughter.
The old man had tried to make a fortune in
many ways There was no sort of useless inven-
ton that he had not attempted, and you win
find in the Patent Office models without number
OF bee-hives and cannOns, steam cut-Offs and
baby-jumpers, lightning churns and flying ma
chimes on which he had taken out patents, AZ
sured of making fortune from each one. He
had raised fancy chickens, figured himself rich
on two swarms OF bees, travelled with magic
lantern, written philosophic novel, and started
a newspaper. There was but one purpose in
which he was fixed: which to guard his
da ghter jealousy. To do this and to try the
experiment OF building an UtOpian city, he had
travelled TO the summit OF this knob ON the right
bank OF the POmms de Terre. There never WAS
a more beautiful landscape than that which
Lindsleyville commanded. But the town did
not grow, chiefly because il was 50 far beyond
the border, though the conditions in his deeds
intended TO secure the character or the city
would have been willing TO buy the lots.
At the time / speak Of, David Lindsey had
dwelt on the POmme de Terre for five years He
had removed suddenly from the Connecticut
village in which he had been living because he
discovered that his daughter had, in spite of his
watchfulness, formed an attachment for q young
man who hadthe effrontery to disclose the whole
thing to him by politely asking his consent to
their marriage.
Marry nv daughter,'' choked the old man;
'why, Mr. Brown, You are crazy. have e,iu-
Gated her upsn the combined principles OF Rous-
ssnu, OF Pestalozzi, Of Frobel, and of Herbert
Spencer And you! you only graduated at Vale,
an old fogy medieval institution! No, siri not
till meet philosopher whose mind haS been
dramatically developed can oonsen. .or my
Emilia 10 marry"
And the old man became 30 frantic that to
save him from the mad-house, Emilia wrote a
letter. at his dlctatiOn, TO young Brown, peremp-
tOrily breaking OF all relations and he, sensi-
we, romantic man, was heart-brOken, and left
The village He only sent a farewell TO his
friends the day before he was TO sail from New
Bedford on q whaling voyage He carried with
him the impression that an unaccountable
change OF mind in Emilia had lost NJ hope for
him.
To prevent a recurrence of such an untoward
accident as this, and, a. he expressed it, .'to
bring his daughters mind into intimate rela-
tons with nature, /" the fsnaticAl philosopher es-
tabliShed the town OF Lindsleyvine, determined
that no family in which there was a young man
should settle on his town-plot, unless, indeed,
the young man should prove to be the paragon
be was looking for.
Flnilia's motherless life had not been a cheer
full one, subjected TO the ever-changing whims of
fa~l g.
cal cast OF mind could have no point of sympa-
thy. And since she came 70 Linisleyville IL was
harder than ever, FOR there was no neighbor
nearer than Gager's ten miles away, and there
was not a woman within fifty miles There is
no place - lonesome as a prairie; the horizon Is
so wide, and the earth is 50 empty,
Lindsey had spent all his own money long
ago. and il Wa only the small annuity or his
daughter, inherited from her mothers family,
the capital Of which was tied up to keep Ii out OF
his reach, that prevented them from starving.
Emilia was starving indeed, not in body, but in
soul Cut of from human sympathy, she used
10 sit at the gable window of the cabin and look
out over the boundless meadow, until IL seem ID
20 her that she would lose her reason The wild
geese screaming To one another overhead, the
bald-eagles building in the solitary elm that
heans that were fishing on the beach OF s.an
Lake, three miles away, were all objects of envy
to the lonesome heart OF the gir,: for they had
companions OF their kind they were husbands
and wives, and paints and chiisiren while She
here she checked her thoughts lest she should be
disiOyai 20 her father. To her diSordered fancy
the Universe seemed TO be q wheel The sun
And the stars came up and went down over the
mOnOtOnOus sea or grass with frightful regu-
laTity, ami she cOuld not tell whether there was
aGOd CT not. When she thought of God at all
II was a. a relentless giant turning the crank
thai kept the sky going round The universe
WIS an awf Al machine. The prayers her mother
taught her in infancy died upon her lips, and
instead Of praying to God she cried out to her
mother. Un-proteStant a. the sentiment Is,
cannot fOrbear saying that this talking u the
dead is one OF the most natural things in the
world To Emilia the dimly remembered love
OF her mother was all OF tenderness there was in
the N iyer~e, the only revelation or God that
had come TO her, except only the other love,
which was 70 her Paradise lost. For the great
hard Fate that turned the prairie Universe
round with a crank motion had also, 80 il seemed
to her, snatched away from her the object OF her
love. This disordered raithless state was all the
much Wanted by her father. She had eaten
the husks he gave her and WAS hungry
said she had no company. Anold dagucrreo-
type Of her mother and carefully hidden pho
t0graPh (marked on the back in n rather inlma-
ture hand: - 4: Brovn'D seemed I'd answer with
looks OF love and sympathy when she wetted
her erueifx; they were the gifts Of "a beclouded
life, through which God shone in dimly upon
hN.
This poor girl looked and longed 50 for the
company Of human kind that she counted those
red-letter days on which a half-breed voyageur
travelled over the trail in front of the house. and
ENtn party Oi DtSglnS anu DrSg3flJ oiOuA,
hungry for all they could get 10 eat Offering Inn
Fortunately 70 sell "hompcesn- occasfns-tu
her father, were not wholly unwelcome. But
the days Of all days were those on which Ed
wards, the tall, long haired American trapper,
tshed in the POmme de Terre in sight OF the
Lindsley cabin On such occasions the old man
Lindsey would leave his work and STAY about
the house, and watch jealously and uneasiiy
every movement OF the trapper, On one or two
q. occasions when that picturesque individual,
wearing wolf-skin cap, with the VOLTS tail
hanging down between his shoulders, presented
himself AZ the door OF the cabin 10 crave some
little courtesy, Lindsey closed the front door
and brought out the article asked for from the
JZek, - a medieval chieftain guarding his
castle. But all the time that poor Emilia could
hear the voice Of the tall trapper her heart beat
two beats for one. For IL not a human
voice speaking her own language? And the
days ON v hich he was visible were accounted rs
the gates Of paradise, and the moments In which
he spoke in her hearing we're a. paradise ITSELF
This churiish, inhospitable manner made
Lndsley many enemies In a land in which one
cannot afford to have enemies. Every half
breed hunter took the old mans suspicious man
ner a. a personal affront. [" He thinks are
hOrse-thieves," they said, scorBfully. And JAG
ques Bourbon, the half-breed who had "filed
on" the claim alongside Lindsley's, and even