The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1875-01-28
Kitty's Forty.
BY EDWARD EGGLESTON.

boys ScnOol IN Wnlcn there was not
tendency to rowdyism, and lumbermen
sailors. fishermen and other men that live
only with men are proverbially half beal
sort OF people. Frontlersmen soften down
when women and children come-but
forgot myself, it is my story you want.
Burton and Jones lived in shanty by
themselves. Jones was a married man,
and 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 he
able to 'make Il 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 parties had disagreed, quarrelled,
and divided their interests The land was
also shared between them except one val
liable torty-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 understood that
Burton was on the forty-acre place 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 torego the luxury of fighting
! his old partner, in his eXertions 10 make
| wife and babe comfortable for the night,
| For the winter sun was surrounded by
''slln bugs" Instead of one sun there
| were four, an occurrence not anfrequent i'll
| that latitude. but one which always BODIES
a terrible storm
| In his endeavor 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 de-
| termined not to be backed down. and
| would certainly have to shoot Burton, OF
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-year- old child and dreaded
that she should be left fatherless Never
| theless, he wouldn't be backed down. lie
would shoot OF be shot.
While the father was busy cutting wood
and 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 her breath
| away, but she caught sight of the brown
grass without and the new world seemed
so big that the little feet We're tan 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 the
dead stalks OF the wild flowers.
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 at 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 Il rude blast, q fore
runner OF the Storm but having gasped a
moment, she quickly renewed her brave
march in search of the great unknown.
The mother missed her, but supposed
that Jones, who could not get enough of
the chld's society, had taken the little pet
out with him
Jones, poor fellow, thinking that the
darling was sale within, chopped away
until the awful storm broke upon him,
and at last drove him half smothcred by
snow, and half frozen with cold into the
house. When there was nothing lett but
retreat, he had seized an armiul wood and
| carried it into the house with him, to make
sure OF having enough to keep Kitty and
| his wife from freezing in the coming aw-
tulness of the night. which now settled
down upon the storm-heaten and snow
binding world
| 1t was the beginning of that horrible
storm in which 50 many people We're
| frozen to death, and Jones fled none too
! soon.
| W hen once the wood was stacked by the
stove, Jones looked around for Kitty He
had no more inquired for her when father
and mother each read in the other face
| The tact that she was lost in this wild.
| dashng storm of snow.
| 50 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 Kit
ty might have taken, but it was buried in
| snow drifts, and he soon lost himself
| He stumbled through the drifts. calling
out to Kitty in his distress, but not know
ing whittier he went. After an hour OF
despalrng wandering and shouting, he
came upon :. house, and having raped
upon the door he found himself face to
tace with his wife.
lie had returned to his own house in lis
bewilderment
| When we remember that Jones had not
slept for two nights preceding this one
on account of his mortal quarrel with
| Burton, and had now been beating against
an arctic hurricane and tramping through
treacherous pillows of snow for an hour
we cannot wonder that he fell over his
own threshold in u state Of extreme ex
haustion.
Happy for him that he did not fall be
widercd on the prairie, as many another
poor waylarer did on that fatal night.
As it was, his wife must needs give III
the vain searches she had been making il
the neighborhood of the shanty She hat
a sick husband, with frozen hands and fee
and face, to care for.
Every minute the thermometer fell lowe
and lower and all the heat the little cool
stove in Jones shanty could give woul'
f hardly keep them from freezing.
| I'ui lot Htd ob'eI W. upon t'io loibN -tiNl
lot all day, waiting Tor a chance to shoe
, his old partner, Jones. He had not hear,
! of the arrival of Jones wife, and he con
: cluded that his enemy was a coward an,
, had left him i'll possession, or else mean
to play him some treachorous trick on hi
way home.
So Burton resolved to keep a sharl
lookout But he soon found that impos
, sible, for the storm was upon him in al
its binding fury. He tried to follow th
path, but he could not find it,
: Had he been less of u frontiersman h
must have perished there, within a turlons
, of his own house. But in endeayoring t,
keep the direction of the path he heard
smothered cry, and then saw somethin:
rise up covered with snow and then tal
, down again. He raised his gun to shoe
: it when the creature uttered another wall
ing cry, so human that he put down hi