Marshall County Republican. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1856-1878, 1873-10-02
THE PIXIES PENANCE.

Among the farmers near the Bend there
was ample ability to conduct researches
beset by far more difficulties than was
that of the origin of the Pixies but
charge of buckshot which a good-na-
tured Yankee received one evening,
soon after putting questions to a veneer
able Pike, exerted a great depressing
influence upon the spirit of investiga-
ton. They were not blood-thirsty, these
Pixies; but they had good reason to
suspect all inguirers of being at least
deputy sheriffs, if not worse, and
Pixies hatred of officers of the law is
equaled in intensity only by his hatred
of manual labor
But while there was doubt as to the
fatherland of the little colony of Pixies
atJagger's Bend, their every neighbor
would willingly make affidavit as to the
cause of their locating and their remain
ing at the Bend. When humanitarians
and optimists argued that it was because
the water was good and convenient, that
the Bend itself caught enough drift
wood, and that the dirt would yield a
little gold when manipulated by placer
and pan, all farmers and stock owners
would freely admit the validity of these
reasons but the admission was made
with countenancew whose Indignation and
sorrow indicated that the greater causes
were vet unnamed. With eyes speaking
emotions which words could not express,
they would peint to sections of wheat
fields minus their grain-bearing heads
tohides and hoofs of cattle unslaughtered
by themselves to mothers of promising
calves, whose tender bleatings answered
not the maternal call to the places
which had once known fine horses, but
had been untenanted since certain Pixies
had gone across the mountains for game.
They would accuse no man wrongfully
but in a country where all farmers had
wheat and cattle and horses, and where
providing Indians and Mexicans were
not, how could these disappearance
occur?
But to people owning no property in
borhood-to tourists and artists
the Pike settlement at the Bend was
as interesting and ugly as a Skye ter
rier. The architecture of the village
was of original style, and no duplicate
existed. Of the half dozen residences,
one was composed exclusively of sod,
another of bark, yet another of poles,
rooted with wagon-cover, and plaster
ed on the outside with mud the fourth
was of slabs, nicely split from logs
which had drifted into the Bend !; the
fifth was of hide, stretched over frame,
strictly Gothic from foundation to ridge
pole while the sixth, burrowed into
the hillside, displayed only the barrel
which formed its chimney.
r,Cro rov,,y,,1,,ifx- 1,1
not exist on the Pacific coast. Visit
the Pixies when you would, you could
never see any one working. OF churches,
school houses, stores, and other
plebeian institutions, there were none,
and no Pike bemeaned himself by enter
ing trade or soiling his hands by
agriculture.
Yet unto this peaceful, contented
neighborhood there found his way a
visitor who had been everywhere in the
world without once being made vel
come He came to the house built of
slabs, and threatened the wife of Sam
Trotwine, owner of the house and
Sam, after summing himself uneasily for
day or two, mounted pony and rode
off for a doctor to drive the intruder
hcWhen he returned he found all the
men in the camp seated on log in front
of his own door, and, then he knew
he must prepare for the worst-only one
of the great influences of the world
could force every Pike from his own
door at exactly the same time. There
they sat, yellow-faced, bearded, long
heeked and bent each looking Like the
other, and all Like Sam, and, as he dis
mounted, they looked at him.
p 50 How is she ?" said Sam, tying his
horse and the doctors, while the latter
went In.
"Wen," said the oldest man, with
elaboration, - the wimmin's all thar, If
that's any sign a.
- Each man on the log inclined his
head slightly but positively to the left,
thus manifesting belief that Sam had
Been correctly and sufficiently answered.
sSama himself seemed to regard mis- in
formation in about the same manner.