Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1874-08-28
Kitty's Fo ty.
BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.

BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.
1t doesn't do men any good to live
apart from women and children. l
never knew boys school in which
there was not a tendency to rowdy-
ism. And lumbermen, sailors, fisher
men, and all other men that live on
" with men, are proverbially half
bear sort of people. Frontiersmen
soften down when women and child
rem come-but forgot myself; it is
the story you want.
Burton and Jones live in shanty
by themselves. Jones was a married
man, but finding it hard to support
a wife in down east village, he en-
igrated to North Minnesota, leaving
his wife under her fathers roof, un-
til he should be able to 'make a
start" lie and Barton had gone in
to partnership and ''pre-empted a
town site' of three hundred and
twenty acres.
There were perhaps twenty fam
lilies scattered sparsely over this
town site at the time my story be-
gins and ends, for it ends the same
week it begins.
The partners had disagreed, quar-
relied and divided their interests.
The land was all shared between
them except one valuable forty acre
piece. Each of them claimed that
piece Of land, and the quarrel had
gone so high between them that the
neighbors expected them to shoot at
sight In fact it was understood
that Burton was on the forty acre
piece and determined to shoot Jones
if he came, and Jones had sworn to
90 out there and shoot Burton, when
the fight was postponed by the un-
expected arrival of Jones's wife and
children.
Jones's shanty was not finished,
and he was forced to forego the lux
ury of fighting his old partner in
his cxertions to make his wife and
baby comfortable for the night.
For the winter sun was surrounded
by "sun-dogs." Instead Of one sun
there We're four, an occurrence not
uncommon in this latitude, but one
which always bodies terrible storm.
In his endeavors to care for his
wife and child, Jones was Modified
little, and half regretted that he
had been SO violent about the piece
of land. But he was determined not
to back down, and he would certain
ly have to shoot Burton or be shot
himself.
When he thought of the chances
of being killed by his old partner,
the prospect was not pleasant. He
looked wistfully at Kitty, his two
years. old child, and dreaded that
she should be left fatherless. Never
theless, he wouldn't be backed down.
He would shoot or be shot.
While father was busy otherwise,
little Kitty managed to get the shan
ty door open. There was no latch
as yet, and her prying little fingers
swung it back. A gust Of cold air
almost took away her breath, but she
caught sight Of the brown grass
without, and the new world seemed
SO big that the little feet were fain to
try and explore it.
She pushed out through the door,
caught her breath again, and started
away down path bordered by sere
grass and dead stalks of wild sun
flower.
How often she had longed to es-
cape from restraint, and paddle out
into the world alone! So out into
the world she went, rejoicing in her
liberty. with the blue sky above and
the russet prairie beneath. She
W ould find out where the path went
to, and what there was at the end of
the world! What did she care if her
nose was blue with cold, and her
hands were red as beets! Now and
then she paused to turn her head
away from a rude blast, a forerunner
of the storm; but having gasped a
moment she quickly renewed her
brave march in search Of the great
unknown.
The mother missed her, and sup
posed that Jones, who could not get
enough of the child's society, had
taken the little pet out with him.
Jones, poor fellow, chopped away
until the storm came upon him, half
smothered by snow and half frozen
by cold, in the house. When there
was nothing left but retreat, he had
seized an armful of wood and carried
it into the house with him to make
sure of having enough to keep his
wife and Kitty from freezing in the
coming awfulness of the night, which
now settled down upon the storm
beaten and snow blinded world.
1t was in the beginning of that
terrible storm in which SO many peo-
pie were frozen to death, and Jones
had fled none too soon.
When once the wood was stacked
by the stove, Jones looked around
for Kitty. He had not more than
cnquired for her when her father and
mother each read in the others face
the fact that she was lost in the wild
dashing storm of snow.
So fast did the snow fall, and SO
dark was the night, that Jones could