Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-10-31

view, il might have been endurable but
looked at it till my eyes ached, and the
more looked the worse II appeared to me.
My desperation took the guse of cour-
age, and acquired the reputation Of being
q strong minded woman. When we got
out of the wagons, and the "corraling" was
gone:through with, every thing available
| in the way of material about us being used
as sort of protection against the Indians,
| Charley always said to me the last thing be-
fore we went to sleep:
Remember, Kitty, remember my brave
little wife-deuth before being dragged a.
way by the red skinsr'
ooh, yes" said, certainly" and look
ed to tho printing OF the pistol with great
interest. Charley went right of TO sleep;
but many and many an hour went by and
1 lay wide awake, looking at the queer
gloomy skeletons in the clouds, and Won
dering how coldly and mockingly the stars
glittered in the great desolate sky
suppose the food had something to do
with it, always had an instructive aver
| sion to pork and saleratus and dried beef,
and 1 really never supposed there could bo
so loathsome and repelling thing as coffee
| without milk. 1 must say 1 think it was
very careless and thoughtess for Charley
Pierce to forget to procure some necessary
articles of food in the 'stores" as he called
them. He personally superintended the
| transportation of great deal of material
| for his uncle, and II wouldn't have hurt
| him to have provided us with at least plain,
| coarse, wholesome provisions. Because he
| had the digestion of an ostrich, it didn't
| follow that every body else had and 1 was
not the only one that suffered in that
wretched caravan. I'm sure mamma took
the trouble 10 have everything nice for him
at our table, and he seemed to enjoy his
meals at our house wonderfully. The beau
tlul light mullins and the delicious French
coffee, that mamma made with her own
hands, were absolutely famous and as for
the jellies and preserves, they were in ev
cry body's mouth, in every sense of the
word. 1 never spread that old wretched
tarpaulin under Inc and squatted on that
horrible prairie, finding before me the same
pork and tough yellow dough, hard beef
and black coffee, but simultaneously that
| glad, sweet vision of home trembled before
my oCuih6 cyc L 81" thO NShi Oiu iiOhb
basement, with its glowing fire in the CRATE,
the great oleander bush in the corner all in
bloom, and the canaries singing away in
the sunshine; the long table glitteiing with
snowy damask and well-burnshed britain
mia ware, and the quaint, old fashioned
china, plate after plate heaped up with del
icacies too delicious TO dwell upon. AT the
head of the table dear papa, who bore so
nobly the grand old name Of gentleman,
and opposite him in her afternoon black silk
and lovely India muslin cap, her slim, del
icate hands busy with that delicious gol-
den coffee, my dearest best mamma ; and
all arounu the table scrambled tne boys,
while like a skeleton at the feast there sat
Kitty Malcolm's empty chair-and she
poor child, sitting out in the damp, cold,
snaky prairie!
The dear, desperate little woman, no
wonder she wasn't much afraid of pistol!
We got to the city at last-it don't mat
ter what city. 1 won't injurn it or its in
habitants by this sad retrospect. Unless
they are greatly changed, they are quite
wretched enough already. We got TO what
they called city! A few sheds loosely
thrown together, so that when the inmates
get used TO them, and have few nails TO
hang clothes on, and screen by the way
of partition, the faintest perceptible sign
of a human babitation beginning to dawn
upon these boards, they can Immediately
be battered to pieces and put into the wag-
ons again, and carried "out West"
Never could these unhappy creatures,
cursed with "the spirit of enterprise" find
rest for the sole of the foot. There was al
ways some El Dorado farther on, beckon-
ing them with ghastly pertinacity to an il
lusive paradise that went by the name OF
West" l always thought the whole thing
was fearful embodiment of the Wander
ing Jew. We became part and parcel of
this unhappy community. 1t would take
many quires of paper and talented scribes
to depict the trials that filled every hour in
the day, the petty torments that edged into
the marrow of ones bones, taking the life
and substance out of them.
When 1 think of that wretched thing
they called 'street," with its struggling
rows of dilapidated sheds on either side,
great patches of country stretching between
| swept NY ucItt ocdtbSh ny ICY
frosts, scared by burning heat, devoured
by an implacable mud, haunted through
the desolate night by grim gaunt Indian
phantoms riding wildly and wierdly one
after another, always with terrible precs.
ion keeping that grim order in the process
sion, causing the blood, that had hardly
been saved from congealing by cold, to cur
die in ones veins from fright, and murder.
ing the few snatches of sleep vouchsalet
from other horrors-whan thinh ulIUn al
these, / can only look upon the ridiculou.
tales that hear about this region now a
absurd and fallacious fancies of diseased
brains.
After had been there three years | look
cd for the first time into a looking-glass Il
was just before my little blessed darling
came into the world, and Charley did his
best, poor fellow, to have things at least de.
cent about mel, and was positively fright
ened. 1 started back in terror-pork, sale
ratus, black coffee, jerked beef, the cutting
winds of the prairie, the burning sun o
the American desert, homesickness, terro
of the savages, fever and ague, and few
other little things, had done their work
Kitty Malcolm was an unrecognzabl
wreck, mummy with parchment skin an,
great glaring hollow eyes. / gulped dow
a sob or two, and turned the glass to Tn,
l wall.
l Two weeks ailerward l was n mother
two months later and l was Kitty Malcolm
again, only twenty times a better woman
!, than the old Kitty.
= Baby was the necromancer that shed ligli
S and joy into every Granny of the old rail
Y ers, that softened mammals eyes an