Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1871-06-29

could not tell whether there was Zoo o.
not When she thought Of God at all, 4
was as a relentless giant turning the crani
that kept the sky going round. The uni
verse was an awful machine. The prayer!
her mother taught her In infancy died upoI
her lips, and Instead Of praying to Goo
| she cried out to her mother Un-protest
ant as the sentiment is, ! cannot fcrbeal
saving that this talking to the dead is one
| of the most natural things in the world
To Emilia the dimly remembered love o.
her mother was all of tenderness there
| was in the universe, the only revelation o.
God that had come to her, except only thu
| other love. which was TO her Paradise
lost. For the great hard Fate that turned
the prairie universe round with cranl
| motion had also, so it seemed to her
snatched away from her the object Of he
| love. This dis0rdered, faithless state wa
all the fruit she tasted Of the peculiar edu
cation so much Wanted bv her father. Sht
had eaten the husks he gave her and wa
hungry.
said she had no compan An old da
guerreotype of her mother and carefully
hidden photograph marked on the back
in rather immature hand: "E. Brown,
seemed to answer with looks OF love and
sympathy when she wetted them with her
tears. They were her rosary and her cru.
cifx; 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 a
halfbreed voyageur Travelled over the trail
~, IF ha nd ~ nf
begging and beggarly Sioux, hungry for
all they could get to eat, offering impor-
tunately to sell hompOes"-moccasins-
TO her father, were not wholly un Welcome.
But the days Of all days were those on
which Edwards, the tall, long haired
American trapper, fished in the Pomme de
Terre in sight OF the Lindsey cabin. On
such occasions the old man Lindsey would
leave his work and stay about the house,
and watch iealously and uneasily every
movement Of the trapper On one or two
OCCASIONS when that picturesque individ-
ual, wearing a wolfskin cap, with the
VOLTS tail hanging down between his
shoulders, presented himself at the door
If the cabin to crave some little courtesy,
Lindsey closed the front door and brought
out the articles asked for from the back,
like medieval chieftain guarding his cas-
tie. But all the time that poor Emilia
could hear the voice Of the tall trapper her
heart beat two beats for one For was it
not human voice speaking her own Ian
guage? And the days on which he was
visible were accounted as the gates Of par
adise, and the moments In which he spoke
in her hearing were as paradise itself.
This churlish, inhospitable manner made
many enemies in land in which
one cannot afford to have enemies. Every
half-breeG hunter took the old mans sus-
picious manner as personal affront. He
thinks we are horse thieves" they said,
And Jaques Bourbon, the
half.breed who had "filed on" the claim
alongside Lindsley's, and even claimed
unjustly "forty" of Lindsley's town
plot, had no difficulty in securing the sym
PATTY Of the settlers and nomads, who
looked on Lindsey as monster quite
capable of anything. He was even report
ed to have beaten his daughter, and to
nave confined her In the wilderness that
he might keep her out of an immense for
une which she had inherited. 80 Linds-
ey grew every day in disfavor in region
where unpopularity in Its mildest form is
sure to take most unpleasant way of
making itself known. Emilia knew
enough to understand this danger, and she
was shaken with q nameless fear when
ever she heard the sharp words that pass
ed between her father and Bourbon the
half .breed. The resentment Of the latter
reached its climax when the decision Of
The land office was rendered In favor Of
Mr.. Lindsey From that hour the re-
genge Of this man, whose hot French was
mixed with relentless Indian blood, hung
,ver the head of the old man, who still
cad and wrote, and invented and theO-
lied, in utter ignorance OF any peril ex-
,ept the danger that some man, not fool,
hould marry his daughter.
The Fourth Of July was celebrated at
layers People came from Atty miles
ound Patriotismg No! But love Of
luman fellowship. The celebrated Pierre
Bottineau and the other Canadians and
were there, rnellowed with
rink, singing the sensual and almost lewd
French rowing songs their fathers had
sung on the 1T. Lawrence Whiskey
Jim," the retired stage-driver, and Hans
and the other German set
tlers, with two or three Yankees, COM
pleted the slender crowd, which com
prised almost the entire population OF six
skeleton counties. And the over popular
Edwards was among them, his tall, grave
face and flowing ringlets rising above
them all. A man so ready to serve any
body as he, was idolized among frontier
men, whose gratitude Is almost equal to
their revenge. Captain Oscar, the popular
politician, who wore his hair long and
swore and drank, just to keep in with his
widely scattered constituents, whom he
represented In the Minnesota Senate each
winter land who usually cast half dozen
votes apiece for him), made buncombe
speech, and then Edwards, who wouldn't
drink, but who knew how to tell strange
stories, kept them laughing for half an
hour. Edwards was type of man not so
on the frontier as those imagine
who think the trapper always half.horse,
half alligator creature, such as they read
Of In tho Beadle novels. ] knew one
trapper who was student ofnumismatics,
another who devoted his spare time to
and several traders and trap
pers who were men of considerable cul.
ture, though they are generally men who
are little morbid or eccentric in their
mental structure. All Edwards natural
abilities, which were sufficient to have
earned him distinction had he been
f" In civilization" were concentrated on
the pursuits of his wild life, and such
a al ha