Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1875-06-29
How Kitty Got Lost.
BY EDWARD KGGLEsToN.
A FoRTY-ACRE STORY.

1t doesn't do men good to live apart
from women and children. l never
knew boys school in which there was
not tendency to rowdyism, and lum-
bermen, sailors, fishermen, and other
men that live only with men, are pro-
verbally a half-bear sort of people.
Frontiersmen soften down when women
and children come-but.. i forgot myself,
it is my story you want.
Burton and Jones lived in shanty by
themselves. Jones was married man,
and finding it hard to support his wife
in a 'down east" village, had emigrated
to northern Minnesota, leaving his wife
under her fathers roof until he should
be able to ''make start" He and Bur-
ton had gone into copartnership, and
had ''pre-empted" 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 1t
begins.
The parties had disagreed, quarrelled
and divided their interests. The land
was also shared between them, except
one valuable forty-acre piece. Each OF
them claimed that piece of land, and the
quarrel had grown so high between
them that the neighbors expected them
to "shoot at sight" In fact it was un-
derstood that Burton was on the forty
acre place determined to shoot Jones If
he came, and Jones had sworn to go 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
fighting his old partner, linshis ..exertlons
to make wife and babe comfortable for
the night. For the winter sur, was sur
rounded by 'sun bugs" Instead of one
sun there were four, an occurrence not
unfrequent in that latitude, but one
which always bodies terrible storm.
In his endeavor to care for his wife
and child, Jones was modified q little,
and half regretted that he had been SO
violent about the piece of.land. But he
was determined not to be backed down,
and would certainly have to shoot Bur-
ton, or be shot himself.
When he thought of the chance of
being killed by his older partner, the
prospect was not pleasant. He looked
wistfully at Kitty, his two-year-old
child, and dreaded that she would be left
fatherless Nevertheless, he wouldn't
be backed down. He would shoot or be
shot. ISL. Is.
While the father was busy cutting
wood and the mother was busy other
wise, little Kittie 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
almost took her breath away, but she
caught sight of the brown grass with
out, and the new world seemed so big
that the little feet were fain to try and
explore it. ..s.
She pushed out through the door,
caught her breath again, and started
away down path bordered by eere
grass and the dead stalks of the wild
flowers l..s. .s.>.s.-.
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
and what was the end of the world.
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 rude blast, a
forerunner of the storm, but having
gasped moment, she quickly renewed
her brave march in search of the brave
unknown. .t.
The mother missed her, but supposed
that Jones, who could not get enough of
the child's society, had taken the little
pet out-with him. Jones, poor fellow,
thinking that the darling was safe with
in, chopped away till the awful storm
broke upon him, and at last drove him,
half smothered by snow, and half frozen
with cold into the house. When there
was nothing left but retreat he seized an
arrnful of wood and carried it into the
house with him, to make sure of having
enough to keep Kittie and his from
freezing in the coming awfulness of the
night, which now settled down upon the
storm beaten and snow binding wolrd.
1t was the beginning of that horrible
storm in which SO many people were
frozen to death, and Jones fed none.too
soon.
When once the wood was stacked by
the stove, Jones looked for Kitty. He
had no more than inquired for her when
father and mother read in each others
faces the fact that she was lost in this
wild, dashing storm OF snow. S.. 2.
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 ii was bur
led in snow drifts, and he soon lost
himself. He stumbled through the
drifts, calling out to Kitty in his dis
tress, not knowing whittier he went.