The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-07-07
THE GUNPOWDER PLOT.
A Story of "A Fourth of July.


YOU should ever ride over the new
Northern Pacific when it shall be COM
pleted, or over that branch of it which |
CT losses the Pomme de Terre, you can
get at a station which will, no doubt, be
called an old settler, Gager's station
and if you would like TO see some beau
tiful 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 Gager's, but its present
owner is hospitable.
A queer old chap was Lindsey the
last time | saw him. | remember how
he took me all over his claim and
showed me the beauties of Lindsey
vile, as he called it. Lindsleyville was
a hundred and fifty miles out Of the
world at that time. Its population
numbered two, Lindsey and his daugh-
ter The old man had tried to make a
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-otfS
and baby;jumpers, lightning churns and
flying machines on which he had taken
out patents, assured of making a for.
tune from each one. He had raised
fancy chickens, figured himself rich on
two swarms of bees, travelled with n
magic lantern, written 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 ex-
pertinent of building an Uptonian city,
he had travelled to the summit of this
knoll ON the right bank of the Pomme
de Terre. There never was q more
beautiful landscape than that which
Lindsleyville commanded. But the
town did not grow, chiefly because it
was so far beyond the border, though
the conditions in his deeds intended to
secure the character Of the city from
deterioration were so many, that no.
body would have been willing to buy
the lots.
At the time l speak of, David Linds-
ley had dwelt on the Pomme de Terre
for five years. He had removed sud-
denly from the Connecticut village III
which he had been living because he
discovered that his daughter had, in
spite of his watchtulness, formed an at
tachment for a young man who had the
effrontcry to disclose the whole thing to
him 10y 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 institu-
ton No, sir not till meet philoso-
pher whose mind has been symmetri-
trieally developed can | consent 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 relations; and he, a sensitive,
romantic man, was heart-broken, and
left the village. He only sent farewell
to his friends the day before he was to
sail from New Bedford on a whaling
voyage. He carried with him the inn
preston that an unaccOuntable change
of mind in Emilia had left no hope for
him.
TO prevent recurrence Of such an
untoward accident rs this, and, as he
expressed it, "to bring his daughters
mind into intimate relations with ma
ture,n the fanatical philosopher estab-
lished the town of Lindsleyvlle, deter.
mined that no family in which there
was young man should settle on his
Ia ,,l,nl
man should prove to be the paragon he
was looking for.
Emilia's motherless life had not been
a cheerful one, subject to the ever
changing whims Of visionary father,
with whom one Of her practical cast Of
mind could have no point Of sympathy.
And she came to Lin lsleyville it was
harder than ever, for there was no
neighbOr nearer than Gager's ten miles
away, and there was not woman within
fifty miles. There is no place so lone
some as prairie; the horizon is so
wide, and the earth is 50 empty
Lindsey had spent all his own money
long ago, and it was only the small an
nuity of his daughter, inherited from
her mothers family, the capital of
which was tied up to keep it out of his
reach, that prevented them from starv.
ing. Emilia was starving indeed, not in
body, but in soul. Cut off from human
sympathy, she used to sit at the gable
window Of the cabin and look out over
the boundless meadow, until it seemed
TO her that she would lose her reason.
An old daguerreotype of her mother
and a carefully hidden photograph
marked on the back in rather imma-
ture hand "E. Brown seemed to an
swer with looks Of love and sympathy
when she wetted them with tears. They
were her rosary and her crucifix; they
were the gifts of beclouded life,
through which God shone in dimly
upon her.
This poor girl looked and longed so
for the company of human kind that
she counted those red-letter days on
which halfbreed voyageur travelled
over the trail in front Of the house, and
even party of begging and beggarly
Sioux, hungry for all they could get to
eat, offering importunely to sell "hom.