The Donaldsonville chief. [volume] (Donaldsonville, La.) 1871-current, 1873-10-25

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full region, ] was compelled to 60 with
him. But l left half my heart and hall
my youth, and half of so many things be-
hind me that was quite a lapsided crea-
ture, and never got over that g F'gone'' feel
ing that took possession of me when the
carriage went round the corner, and the
last faint outline of mamma was lost to
me.
The first sight | gotof the prairie hated
1t. never saw anything so dreary in my
life. The infinity of it appalled, me, and
the monotony of it disguised me. If there
had been tree, or rock, or shanty, or teIe-
| graph pole, or anything to break the view.
it might have been endurable; but looked
at 1t till my eyes ached, and the more /
looked the worse it appeared to me.
My desperation took the guise Of cour-
age, and acquired the reputation of being
a strong-minded woman. When we got
out OF the wagons. and the 'scorraling''
was gone through with, everything avail
able in the way of material about US being
used as sort of protection against the In
dians, Charley always said to me the last
thing before we went TO sleep:
Remember, Kitty, remember, my
brave little wife-death before being drag
| ged away by the red-skins!'
"Oh, yes" | said, certainly" and
looked to the printing of the pistol with
great interest. Charley went right off to
sleep; but many and many an hour went
by and lay wide awake, looking at the
queer gloomy skeletons in the clouds, and
wondering how eoldly and mockingIy the
stars glittered in the great deaolate Sky
suppose the food had something to do
with it. | always had an instructive aver
sion to pork and saleatus and dried beef.
and 1 really never supposed there could
be SO loathsonle and repelling a thing as
coffee without milk. must say [ think it
was very careless and thoughtless
for Charley Pierce to forget to pro-
cure some necessary articles of food
in the ''stores.n as he called them.
He personally superintended the trans
portation of a great deal of material for
his uncle, and it wouldn't have hurt him to
have provided us with at least plain, coarse,
,clo3esone provisions. Because he had the
digestion of an ostrich. it didn't follow that
everybody else had and | wasn't the only
one that suffered in that wretched caravan.
I'm sure mamma took the trouble to have
everything nice for him at our table, and
he seemed to enjoy his meals at our house
wonderfully. The beautiful light mullins
and the delicious French coffee, that
mamma made teith her otcn hands, We're
absolutely famous; and as for the jellies
and preserves, they We're in everybody S
mouth, in every sense of the word.
never spread that old Wretched tarpaulin
under me and sqtlatted 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
aching eyes. | saw the dear old front
basement, with its glowing fire in the
CRATE. the great oleander bush in the cor
ner all in bloom. and the canaries singing
away in the sunshine; the long table gilt
terihg with snowy damask and well-bur-
nished britannia-Ware, and the quaint. old
fashioned china. plate after plate heaped
up with delfcacies 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 after
noon black silk and lovely India muslin
cap, her slim, delicate hands busy with
| that delicious golden coffee, my dearest,
best mamma; and all around the table
scrambled the boys, while like a skeleton
at the feast There sat Kitty Malcolm's emp
ty chair-anh she, poor child, sitting out
in the damp, cold, snalky prairie!
The dear desperate little woman. no
wonder she wasn't much afraid of a
pistol!
We got to the city at last-it don't mat
ter what city. | won't injure 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 thrown
loosely together, so that when the inmates
get used to them, and have few nails
ready to hang clothes on, and a screen by
way of a partition the fainGest perceptible
signs of human habitation beginning to
dawn upon these boards. they can imme-
diately be battered to pieces and put into
the wagons again, and carted - out West. y
kNever could these unhappy creatures,
cursed with ssthe spirit of enterprise, -
| find rest for the sole of their foot. There
was always some Ell Dorado farther on,
beGkoning them with ghastly pertinacity
to an illusiFe paradise that went by the
name Of West. - | always thought the
whole thing was a fearful embodiment of
the Wandering jew We became part and
parcel of this unhappy community. 1t
would take MANY quires ofpaper and tai
ented 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.
L
they called a . street, with its struggling
rows of dilapidated sheds on either side,
great patches of country stretching be-
tween, swept by fierce hurricanes, scathed
by icy frosfs. scared by burning heat, de-
youred by an implacable mud, haunted
through the desolate night by grim gaunt
Indian phahtoms riding wildly and weird
ly one after the other, always with terrible
precision keeping that grim order in the
procession, c,using the blood, that had
barely been saved from congealing by cold,
to clirdIe in ones veins from fright, and
numbering the few snatches ofsleep vouch-
safed from other horrors-when | think
upon all these, can only look upon the
ridiculous tales hear about that region
now as absurd and fallacious fancies of dis
eased brains.
After had been there three years ! look
ed for the first time into a looking-glass (it
was just before my little blessed darling
came into the world, and Charley did bis
best, poor fellow, to have things at least
decent about mel, and Twas positively