Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-01-29
KITTY'S FORTY.
r EDWARD EGeLEsToN.

ny EDWARD EGGLESTON.
II doesn't do men any good to live apart
from women and children. l never knew
bows school in which there was not a
tendency to rowdyism. And lumbermen,
sailors. fishermen, and all other men that
live only with men. are proverbially a
balfbear sort Of people. Frontiermen
.offen down when women and children
come-but forget myself, it is the story
you want.
Burton and Jones lived in a shanty by
themselves Jones was married man,
but finding it hard to support his wife in
a down East village, he had emigrated to
Northern Minnesota, leaving his wife
under her fathers roof, until he should be
able to make START He and Burton
had gone into partnership and had "pre-
empted q town site" of three hundred and
twenty acres. =.
There were perhaps twenty families
scattered sparsely over this town site at
the time my story begins and ends, for it
ends in the same week in which it begins.
The partners had disagreed, quarreled
and divided their interests. The land was
an shared between them except one valu-
Able forty acre piece. Each of them
claimed that piece of land, and the quar-
rel had grown 30 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, deter
mined to shoot Jones if he came, and
Jones had sworn to 90 out there and shoot
Burton, when the fight was postponed by
the unexpected arrival of Jones' wife and
child
Jones shanty was not finished, and he
was forced to forego the luxury of fight
l.: 81 in his eYarfinnl tn
make wife and baby comfortable for the
night. For the winter sun was surround
ed by "sund Instead of one sun
there were four, an occurrence not un-
common on this latitude, but one which
always bodies terrible storm.
In his endeavor to care for wife and
child, Jones was Modified a little, and
half regretted that he had been so violent
about the piece of land. But he was de-
termined not to be backed down, and he
would certainly have to shoot Burton or
be shot himself.
When he thought of the chance of be-
ing killed by his old partner, the prospect
was not pleasant He looked wistfully at
Kitty, his two years old child, and
dreaded that she would be left fatherless.
Nevertheless, he wouldn't be backed
down. He would shoot or be shot.
While the father was busy cutting
wood, ana the mother was busy otherwise,
little Kitty managed to get the shanty
door open. There was no latch as yet,
and her prying little fingers easily 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 1t.
She pushed out through the door,
caught her breath again, and started away
down path bordered by sere grass and
rle dead stalks of the wild sunfower.
How often she had longed TO escape
from restraint and paddle out into the
world alone! So out into the world she
went rejoicing in her liberty, in the blue
sky above and the rusty prairie beneath.
She would find out where the path went
to, and what there was at the end OF the
worldi What did she care if her nose was
blue with cold, and her chubby hands red
as beets. Now and then she paused to
turn her head away from a rude blast,
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 supposed
that Jones, who could not get enough oil
the child's society, had taken the little pet
out with him.
Jones, poor fellow, sure that the darling
was safe within, chopped away until that
awful storm broke upon him, ano al las,
drove him, halfsmothered by snow and
halffrozen with cold, into the house
When there was nothing left but retreat
he had seized an armful of wood and car
ried 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.
Itwas the beginning of that horrible
storm In which SO many people were
frozen to death, and Jones had fled none
too soon.
When once the wood was stacked by
the stove, Jones looked round for Kitty
He had not more than inquired for her
when father and mother each read In the
others face the fact that she was lost IN
this wild, dashing storm of snow.
So fast did the snow fall and so dark
was the night, that Jones could not see
three feet ahead of him. He endeavored
to follow the path, which he thought
Kitty might have taken, but 1t was
buried in snow-drifts, and he soon los'
himself.
He stumbled through the drifts, calling
cut to Kitty in his distress, but not know
Ing whittier he went. After an hour OF
despairing, wandering and shouting, nc
came upon house. and having raped
on the door, he found himself face to face
with his wife,
He had returned to his own house In
his bewilderment
When we remember that Jones had moi
slept for two nights preceding this one
on account Of his mortal quarrel with
Burton, and he had now been beating
against an arctic hurricane, and trampiDe
through treacherous pillows OF snow lol
an hour, we cannot wonder that ne Tel
over his own threshold in state OF ex
Eeme exhaustion. !.
Happy for him that did not fall Devil
oered on the prairie, as many anotnel
poor wayfarer did on that fatal night!
As it was, his wife must needs give NJ