Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1873-08-27
The Loves of the GOld-Miners.

THESE men are mostly shy with their
letters and their tales of love. That was
sacred ground, upon which no strange,
tude feet could pass. No gold-hunter
here, perhaps, but had his love-his one,
only love, withouta change or possibility
for changing the object of his devotion
even if he had desired it. Men must love
as well as women 1t is the most natural
and, consequently, the most proper thing
on earth Imagine how intensified and
how tender a mans devotion would be-
come under circumstances like these. The
one image in his heart, the one hope
her. So much time to think, bending to
the work in the running waters under the
trees, on the narrow trail beneath the
shadows of the forest, by the camp and
cabin-fire, her face and hers only, with no
new face rising up, crossing her path,
confronting him for days, for months, for
years-see how holy thing his love
would grow to be. This, you observe, is
new man, a new manner of lover. Love,
/ say, is as requirement, necessity. 1t
is as necessary for a complete man to love
as it is for him to breathe pure air. And
it is as natural.
These men, being so far removed from
any personal contact with the objects of
their affections, and only now and then at
long intervals receiving letters, all marked
and remarked across the backs from the
remailings from camp to camp, OF course,
knew no interruptions in the current of
their devotion, and loved in singularly
earnest and sincere way. ] doubt if there
be anything like it in history.
When men go to war they have the
glory and excitement OF battle to allure
them, then the eyes of many women are
upon them; they are not locked up like
these men of the sierras, with only their
work and the one thing to think Of When
they 90 to sea, the sailors find new faces
in every port; but these men, from the
time they crossed the Missouri or left the
Atlantic coast, have known no strange gods,
hardly heard woman's voice till they re-
turned.
[ was in the confidence of one young
fellow here, very young and very verdant
not of the grand type at all; in fact, he
was of Pacific growth as far as he had yet
developed, and not a representative man
at ALL But he is the only one who took
me wholly into his confidence, and of
whom l can truthfuliy speak by the card,
as they say. He had three letters, stained,
and worn, and torn. They looked as old
as some of the sacred relics you see under
the glass cases in the British museum
These letters we're his treasures. True, he
had a bag or two of gold, bowie knife, a
pistol, pair of blankets, and, what was
really marvel and mark of eXtrava-
gance, an extra red flannel shirt; but these
were trifes These three letters were the
boys chief pride Every Sunday, up on
the hillside, where a little sun broke
through the cedar tops and split itself in
shifting pools and pillows along the leaves
we two would sit and read and re-read
these letters, and talk, and think, and plan,
and prophesy in way that was as earnest
as it was absurd.
/ remember but one of.these letters en-
tirely-the tamest and shortest one. But
that one, no doubt, is quite enough. It
had no date Or postmark, and was signed
Merinda only, with small initial letter.
The name was followed by many stars,
the significance of which is too well
known to repeat:
''mi deer love want to see you so bad I was in
the hay lofte Yesterday when you druv the cows
past our hous yore spotid horse and sede you
thru the crack, and think he so Mise only he holds
Tern him to lift his legs quiker and not step SO long
nor silk his he'd out killed rattle snaik to da and
aboute an our befour sun down will go out to
drive in the shepe from of the rocky butte and it
will be very Ion some with mi silver tale pony i
think mi silver tale pony and your new spottid pony
will both drive shepe altogether furst rate mi one
dere low
There was hollow tree that stood at
the edge of grove that lay partly be-
tween the parental ranches, which was
aginative young lovers, it seemed to me,
with disposition to make the most of
their limited resources for innocent amuse-
ment. There was an old bushy-tailed
squirrel in the branches, adorned with
ide-whiskers like an English military
gentleman, and always civil and very talk
alive when they walked together in the
grove, and him they named their postmas-
ter-general.
A hundred little things like this were
told and related Sunday after Sunday on
the hillside, when the sun split through
the leaves in the majestic calm of noun
tain Sabbath. That boy had not the
shadow of a doubt 1t was his first love
How royal how earnest and unselfish!
She was the older of the two, and his
overthrow was, of course, only question
of time. Who does not know that much
now?
How the news came to him at last how
it sifted and drifted little at time
vaguely at first, to this boy in the forest
with his great faith; how he refused to
listen or to believe, the agony of the first
doubt that struck and lodged like a poi.
soned arrow up to the feathers in his heart
would be long to tell and very sad.
But it came to him at last. The great
big, ugly tact lay like a bowlder in the
trail before him, that he could not get
around, yet could not muster courage to
mount; and so he sat down on the
leaves and hid his face in his hands, and
wept like child that he was. She had
married man with beard-a great, six
foot, raw boned, muscular monster with a
rancho and herds of his own, and hands
like slabs of pine.
This young mans name was Ginger; or,
at least that is the name, and the only