The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1875-03-26
MISCELLANY.
Kit Carson.


The broad piazza of our house at ST.
Louis was always the welcome gathering
place of trappers and hunters, as well
as of the traders to Santa Fe, and the
mountain men generally With these
my father loved to talk and gain the
knowledge afterwards put to such good
use. There, also, narratives of endur-
ance, sagacity, daring, and-self-relying
courage were told in the quiet, matter
of-course manner of men to whom the
opposite qualities were unknown.
When Washington Irving was about
to make his journey in the Indian coun-
Try, he was often at our house while in
St. Louis, and his comments upon the
simplicity as we'll as the fine courage of
these men was my first perception that
there was anything unusual in them.
am not qualified to do justice to the best
of these-only men who have shared
their lives can do So But as a'child in
| st. Louis, then in our winter home in
/ Washington, and for many years after
on our own frontier, on that of Californ-
ia, and in long weeks of camping out
travel, l had many opportunities of
knowing them we'll. They were "princes
in their own way" az one of them said
to me when he had his feelings a little
hurt by a man of high position in
Washington. "Who would have thought
it of him, such fair, looking gentle
man, too. They are great men here
| princes in their way-but when they
come out TO the plains, we are the
princes, and they could not live without
u.s."
When needy King John tried to col
lect revenue by requiring each noble to
produce his titles and written deeds, or,
failing, forfeit them to the crown, one
old earl's answer was charming. He
drew his great sword, and flung it on
the table before the kings ENJOYS:
"Tell your master am no clerk, nor
were my ancestors before me. These
| lands are ours by the swords, and by the
sword we will hold them"
So with our mountain men-they were
not clerks, but they were great men.
Ono of them, to whom I had been
| reading Mazeppa, said to me:
Read that part again where he comes
back with twice FIVE hundred men to
thank him for his courteous ride Thas't
the way I felt when the Blackfeet de-
stroyed my caches, and I went back and
thanked them for 1t. Now if l had had
reading like that might have made
scholar. was young boy in the
school house when the cry came, In
diansP jumped to my rifle, and threw
down the spelling book, and thar it
lays"
Our good, dear friend Carson made
his mark true and high, however, with
out the need of any more scholarship
than the frontier school house gave.
His instinct was true and delicate. and
led him to acts as correctly courteous as
the most thorough training could do.
When the first boat that had ever
rested on the lonely. silent waters of the
Great Salt Lake made its way to the is-
land in the center, and the man at the !
bow was Jumping ashore to draw her up
Carson held him down with "the cap
tain steps there first"
1 liked greatly an expression of his |
referring to man who-had done him a
mischief: off l ever get the chance l will |
do him an honest injury" Nothing
that was not honest and fair and open
and Of good repute found its place in
this wholesome nature.
Carson had eminently the nature that
comes from gentleness combined with |
strength, from that innate sense of just
ice which gives TO others what we re-
quire for ourselves, from healthy ma
ture to which cheerfulness is SO natural
that instinctively they feel its lack and |
seek to impart it. To such a nature the |
morbid, the nervous, the heart sick and |
weary, come and are comforted. and feel |
as invalids when they get into those fav-
ored climates where an even tempera-
ture and the certainty of daily returning
sunshine and no surprises of frost or
rains insensibly bring calm and heal
ing.
Such a nature attracts to itself and |
retains only what is best in all it meets,
and as the character engraves itself up |
on the countenance, so the many years
since had seen Carson had done their
ennobling work so effectually that my
old friend was perfectly in keeping with |
the beautiful library of the friends |
house in which we met again.
He had lived what we ideaIize in |
writings and love to read of.-And about |
him, too, was the dignity of coming
death.
l had been written to from Washing |
ton that Carson was there, i'll and de- |
| pressed; that he had not consulted
physician yet, but thought he had had |
the heart injured in an accident; that if |
would urge him to come to me and
be well nursed and see a physician,
something might yet be done, although |
his condition seemed very serious.
Carson had been for years an import
ant part of my life, when it was filled
with energetic action, and when true
friends in the old home watched for
and protected the absent, and welcomed
them back on the return from long dan
gers; and now that death, and political
differences as relentless, and the war,
had completely ended that life, saw.
for the last time, one of the few who had
not changed from that old time of youth
and health and friends and complete
home.
But Carson was only troubled by my
emotion, and told me, with his own
simplicity of courage, that he had seen
| Il L a..