Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1875-07-30
THE SETTLERS TRAGEDY.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "GINX's BABY"

by IHE AUIHOk OF GlNA BABY.
"Yes; that's queer lookin' place,
now, amt it? It's the best piece of
land you've seen anywhere in this
days drive, and that's a good deal to
say, and likewise, it was once the
prettiest farm along this read. Why,
sir, mind the time when the porch
was all a glory with roses, like a 'ouse
in hopera bouffe for all the world.
An right hin the front there where
you see all them docks an mullen a
CROWN, that was chock full O. beds
Of Lunnun pride, an chinay asters,
an roses, an stocks, an marigolds,
an sweet migonnette; you could
smell the place mile off of warm
summers night. All! she was fine
girl, she was, that lived up there; an
a terrible story that 'ouse tells. 1t
isn't just pleasant to be on the next
lot to it,"
Mr.. Wellbeloved, for / had stun.
bled in my Canada ramble OH per-
son OF that name, thus spoke of log
house and lot which had attracted
my curiosity. On one OF the best
stretches of arabic land, lying well
up the gentle swell of the valley, with
a bold exposure, backed by fine wood
land, was-a singular sight in that
raw, yet thriving settlement-a s'con-
cession" which seemed to have been
swept by some spirit Of ruin and de-
cay. The log house stood, but its
roof was rotting; its slight porch had
been shattered or misplaced by snow;
its windows remained unbroken. but
one could see from the dragging pa
per blinds which had once made them
gay with color, that there was no
housewife within to mend or change
things; and all over the eight or ten
acres of land which had been cleared
about the house, there grew as high
as the unremoved stumps, a wealth of
weed, such as is only the crop of alb
solute desertion and death. BY this
place, on one side, my friend Wellbe-
loved, at whose house l had drawn
up for a midday meal, titled a thriv-
ing farm; the evidence was visible in
the roll of ripening wheat, dotted
with the disks ofthe blackened stumps,
and in the cattle that loitered from
the SUMS heat under the circle of
young naples he had left in a corner
of one of his fields, where a spring
welled up from among some bould-
ers, and by the grunt Of well-fed pigs
which wandered down the road and
cooled their heated sides in the
marshy bottom, where l found the
road like floating stage of logs
Moreover, there was Mrs. Wellbe-
loved, little weary-looking, perhaps,
for number nine in the cradle was
"the most bothersome child, that it
was, God bless it, she had ever knew"
and two or three fine s:rapping boys
that came home to the noontide meal
from some hoeing work at the back
of the concession with an appetite
for the pork and corn that made me
envious.
Wellbeloved was a Londoner, and
had been in Canada exactly six years.
He was '.just turned 4O," having mar
ried at 20, and now possessed a grad
uating scale of voracious infantry
which must in the metropolis have
severely worn his energies, and Mrs.
Wellbeloved's patience, but which,
out here, was his most promising
source of wealth. The elder boy,
nearly 10, had added 100 acres to the
original government concession, and
as the boys grew up more would fol-
low. Already Mr.. Wellbeloved's
house and barns began to take on an
air, not OF wealth or even comfort, but
of sufficiency, which, as one looked in
to his bronzed face and clear eyes, and
listened to his CHEEKY voice, gave
promise that the time might come
when the patriarch should. bless his
sons and daughters, and his sons-in-
law and daughters-in law, looking
out upon scene of civilized beauty
and fertility, and dividing among
them no mean inheritance. Such
scenes have been witnessed in earlier
settlements, and in the .antecedent
district Of Lake Simcoe, along whose
cultivated shores l had travelled to
Muskoka; and such scenes will be re-
peated over and over again as the
tide of population laps on and into
the forest wilds of Ontario.
SWELL" I said, "what is the story
of that place? 1t seems odd that it
should be deserted like this. Why
don't you take it up?"
"Me, sir? No, thankee. I'd not
own rod O. that soil for its payin' in
gold. No, no! There's blood on
that land, let some stranger come and
wipe it hout."
He wiped the beads from his fore
head (tlle day was hot) and began:
"The man what took hup that con-
cession was a gentleman, leastway,
sir, you know, gentleman by birth.
lis father was a Lunnun lawyer, YOU
have heard Of i'm. old Bytheway
who used to ave the big cases at the
hold Bailey. The old man, he made
money, an spent 1t, an this ere boy
e made none, an spent what lis
father made. Il were sent to Helton