River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1874-01-20

! II
stood sponsor for me, and his emphat-
ic assurance of my unproacher-like
character and proper disregard of the
value Of money put the Bar in good
humor; so ] explained my business,
and hoped to deserve well of the boys.
And | won the friendship of these peo-
ple-not by panderng to their tastes
or by falling into their practices, but
/ by minding my own business. While
abstaining from rubbing against their
preiudiees, and scrupulously avoiding
all interference with their pleasures, /
sympathized with them in their little
troubles and they respected me. The
Bar by day, did not seem to he very
bad on boisterous place in working
hours it INDUCED in kind of feverish
rest. But it was 10y night that it
ehone in the full glory of its APP
propriate name. Then il was that
the vampires that sucked the
blood of honest labor came forth.
Short-card men, poker sharps, monte
dealers, faro dealers and others of the
fraternity sneaked out to prey on the
earnings Of the day, and the bar ran
riot II was then that great strong
fellows, who were wearing ont their
lives in daily conflict with nature
tearing open the mountains and wrest-
ling with the streams, that others
might wear the gold they won, would
gather round the gambling tables to
"try their luck and this thing called
luck in the early day was a strange
thing. Existing on the superstition
that is found in the composition of
every man, in a greater or less degree,
it was phantom that haunted all
classes and entered into all human cal :.
culations. Luck shamed reason
and set at naught all mathemat.
ical certaiutics, and, forgetting thai a
mans luck was much of his own max
ing, it was followed with persistent
faulty that led the feet of too many
into bad aud dangerous places. 1t was
the scapegoat for all sins and short.
comings. IT was the rock upon which
were built the golden castles OF the
hopeful future; the shifting sands that
carried away with it the unfrutful aud
disastrous past; the harvest whose
sheaves of promise often yielded only
bitterness and disappointment In
these tits with fortune the Bar drank
deep. If it was dry by day, it was un.
quenchable by night. Ii luck was with
the boys, they drank and dallied with
it; if against them, they drank still
deeper and cursed it.
Altogether, the Bar was a wild and
abandoned place; but attntion with
these people taught me that there ale
solvents for even crystallized wicked
ness, that there is no cloud so dark as
to be without a single streak of silver,
no nature so rugged as TO be impene-
trable OF beyond the reach Of human
izing influences.
| had been domesticated in my new
home about a month, when circum-
stance took place which seemed to
He'll Roaring. There was ana arrival
one morning, and the Bar throbbed
with new sensation. a quiet, unassum-
ing lady-a Mrs. Hampton-and her
little daughter, who sought rest and
health il the mountains. Mrs. Hamp-
ton was widowed, but no one imputed
into her history. She was welcomed
40 new and strange element among SO
much wild, reckless life, that brought
back memories of mother, or sister, or
sweetheart far away, and the Bar
was pleased. The Bar chrlstened the
little daughter Daisy" and she was
well named. From this day a marked
change took place. Every one desired
to be well thought of by the new
corners, dress became an object of
4, I Al
quiet night were less frequent, spirits
of evil seemed quelled, and the Bar was
on its good behavior.
/ Little Daisy was everywhere as a
ministering angel. If there was a sick
bed in the camp, Daisy was beside it
with the little Injuries that the hand of
woman alone knows how to prepare.
If a poor fellow was about to "pan
OUT his few last sands Of life, Daisy
was there, TO wet the parched lips, To
fill the poor neglected heart with hope,
or to write the last message to loved
ones over and beyond the Plains. Quiet
and unobtrusiye, Daisy moved about in
her minlstrations. As she passed the
saloon on her errands of mercy-heE
brown hair neatly folded over the pale
forehead, her little basket of 4" goodies
on her arm, and word and a smile for
every one-oaths half uttered would be
choked back, and rough and brutal
tests shrunk unspokeD, az if ashamed
in her presence. Even Ore
gon Sis--to whom blush was
q stranger-would hang her
mead silently when Daisy was near,
and her eyes would fill--perhaps, poor
thing, with looking back to the old
days among the apple-blossoms, when
she, too, was pure and innocent-at
least, / thought SO. Somehow, the Bar
was not so dry as formerly and Joe
Miles, its ruling spirit, neglected his
business and said he was tired of whis-
kcy-seliUg. He laid aside six
shooter, that, reports said. had served
him only too well on more than one
occasion, with the remark that " the
Bar was SO quiet now, il want no use
to carry il. Joe was very particular
now as to his personal appearance,
dressing in the once despised store
clothes, aud took To- solitary rambling
about the neighborhood.