Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1871-06-29
Miscellaneous.
THE GUyPOWDER PLOT.
THE STORY or A FOURTH OF JULY

THE STORY OF A FOURTH OF JULY.
WHENEVER one writes with photo
graphic exactness Of frontier life, he is &C
Cused Of invcnting improbable things.
"Old Davy Lindsey" lived In queer
cabin on the Pomme de- Terrc River. /
you should ever ride over the new North
crn Pacific when 1t shall be completed, Of
over that branch Of IL which crosses the
Pomme dc Terre, you can get out at sta
ton which will, no doubt, be called for an
old settler, Gager's Station; and If you
would like to see some beautiful scenery
take canoe and float down the Pomme de
Terre River. You will have to make
some portages, and you will have good
appetite for supper when you reach the
old Lindsey house, ten miles from Gagers
but its present owner Is hospitable.
A queer old chap was Lindsey the last
time saw him. / remember how he took
me ali over his claim, and showed me the
beauties of Lindsleyville, as he called it.
His long iron-g hair fluttercd in the
wind and his face seemed like wizards,
penetrating but unearthly. That was long
before the great tide Of immigrants had
begun to find their way into this paradise
through the highway Of the Sank valley.
Lindsleyville was hundred and fifty miles
out Of the world at that time. Its popula-
ton numbered two, Lindsey and his
daughter. The old man had tried TO
make fortune in many ways There was
no sort Of useless invention that he had not
attempted, and you will find in the Patent
Office models without number of bee
hives and cannons, steam cut-ofs and baby
Jumpers, lightning churns and flying ma
chimes, on which he had taken out pa
tents, assured Of making fortune from
each one. He had raised fancy chickens,
figured himself rich on two swarms Of
bees, travelled with magic lantern, writ
ten a philosophic novel, and started
newspaper. There was but one purpose
In which he was fixed: which was To
guard his daughter jealousy. To do this,
and TO try the experiment Of building an
Utopian city. he had travelled TO the sum
nit of this knoll on the right
bank Of the Pomme dc Terre. There
never was more beautiful landscape than
that which Lindsleyville commanded
But the town did not grow, chiefly be-
cause II was so far beyond the border,
though the conditions In his deeds intend
ed TO secure the character Of the city from
deterioration were 80 many. that nobody
would have been willing to buy the lots.
At the time speak OF, David Lindsey
had dwet on the Pomme dc Terre for five
years. He had removed suddenly from
the Connecticut village in which he had
been living because he had discovered
that tis daughter had, in spite of his
watchlulncss, formed an attachment for
young man who had the ctfrontery TO dis
close the whole thing to him by politely
asking his consent to their marriage.
Marry my daughter" choked the old
man; "why, Mr.. Brown, you are crazy. |
have educated her upon the combined
principles of Rousseau, of Pestalozzi, Of
Froebel, and Of Herbert Spencer. And
you! you only graduated at Yale, an old
fogy medieval institution! No, sir! not
till meet a philosopher whose mind has
been symmesrically developed can con-
sent for my Emilia TO marry"
And the old man became SO frantic that,
to save him from the mad house, Emilia
wrote letter, at his dictation, to young
Brown, peremptorily breaking off all rela-
tons; and he, a sensitive, romantic man,
was heart broken, and left the village. He
only sent a farewell 10 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 left no hope
for him.
To prevent a recurrence Of such an un-
toward accident as this and, as he ex-
pressed 1t, ITO bring his daughters mind
Into intimate relations with nature" the
fanatical philosopher established the town
Of Lindsleyville, determined that no
family In which there was young man
should settle on his town-plot, unless, in.
deed, the young man should prove the
paragon he was looking for.
Emilia's motherless life had not been q
cheerful one, subjected to the ever-chang-
ing whims of visionary father. with
whom one of her practical cast of mind
could have no point OF sympathy. And
since she came to Lindsleyville It was
harder than ever, for there was no neigh,
Dor nearer than Gager's, ten miles away
and there was not a woman within fifty
miles. There is no place SO lonesome as q
prairie; the horizon Is so wide, and the
earth is 80 empty
Lindsey had spent all his own money
long ago, and 1t was only the small annuity
of his daughter, inherited from hel
mothers family, the capital of which was
tied UP to keep 1t 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 to sit At the gable window ofthe cabin
and look out over the boundlcss meadow
until II seemed to her that she would lose
her reason. The wild geese screaming
TO one another overhead, the bald.eaglei
building in the solitary elm that grew BY
the side Of the river, the flock Of grea
white pelicans that were fishing on tn,
beach Of Swan Lake, three miles away
were all objects Of envy to the lonesom'
heart Of the girl /: for they had companion
ef Their kind-they were husbands AMI
wives, and parents and children, while Oh
here she checked her thoughts lest Oh
should be disloyal TO hcr fAther. To he
disordered fancy the universe seemed TO b
3 wheel. The sun and the stars came u