The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-11-17
CHAPTER V.

NI1AI LEN v
When Susan Rutherford found her
s9lf alone upon the busy docks border
ing great city, where, among all the
thousands who were hurrying to and
fro, as though each individual life de-
pended upon individual dispatch, her
heart gave a great flutter and her brain
grew clouded with confusion. Hack
men offered all sorts of civilities which
she was afraid to accept, lest the drivers
should attempt to rob or insult her;
street-car men looked uncOnsciOusly at
their dash-boards and failed to answer
her very faint halloo; policemen gave
terse, unsatisfactory replies to her un-
certain questions, and her head swan
with bewildering sensations.
How L wish Solon was here !" she
exclaimed, repressing her hot tears with
much effort. yet, if he were, couldn't
accomplish my errand," she added, as
an afterthOught. "Let me see Ive
got to depend upon myself, so I'd just
as well keep cool. Aunt Judy said /
must go to the American Exchange.
Dear me I didn't know I did depend
so much on Solon When we came
down here once to a barbecue, ever so
many years ago, just hung to his arm
and paid no attention to streets or
squares or numbers"
Thus soliloquizing, Mrs. Rutherford
felt for her pocket-book to assure her
self that nobody in the crowd had stolen
it, clutched nervOusly at her great reti-
cule, and ventured across the street.
A dapper little man stood behind an
elegant counter in profusely orna-
mented drug store, abounding in nau-
seating redolence.
"Can you direct me to a good, first
class hotel, sir? I'm a stranger in the
city, and want to go to respectable
place"
The obliging vender of drugs directed
the wanderer to an elegant uptown pal
ace, where, had she known the prices for
entertainment, she would not have
thought to enter.
A woman whose three-score years of
life has been spent in constant toll and
strict economy upon a farm, where
scarcely a dollar comes into her own
hands in a quarter of a century, is lily
prepared for the extravaganza of a
modern city hotel.
'If wives would only learn a. little
self-dependance !" sighed Mrs. Ruther-
ford again. "But there! That's just
what am learning now. love Solou
God bless him-and 1 want him al
ways to be near me; but, when 1 know
I'm right in wanting to do or not to dc
a thing, and he has air the power and
all the say, and I've no alternative but
to deceive or defy him, and hate to dc
thefirst and won't do the last; and as I'm
as determined as he is to have my OWL
way little, there's nothing else left tt
do but to go my way and attend to my
own business. Twill assist Edna that's
settled. But I feel like a sheep thief
1 wish mothers either hadn't hearts ant
souls, or else that they had legal powe
to acquiesce in the dictates of their owl
consciences.h
The colored porter stared impudentl.
at the lone woman who dared to seel
protection for the night IN a first-clas
hotel without the fostering care of
man to guide her; and as Mrs. RutheI
ford sat waiting in little reception
room while her name was being Tegi.
tered, she became so nervous that sh
would have gladly retraced her steE
had she known how to do SO. But til
winding corridors bewildered her, anC
with her plain shoes patting restlessl
upon the cold stone floor, she waited
waited, waited.
She could never remember just how
was, but after loug while, in obeyin
the directions of another servant, sl
found herself within an elevator ra
ity in Western cities in those days
and ascending heavenward through
square tunnel with a velocity that WI
frightful, was soon landed at the door
her room. The good woman gave Ii
tie eshriek, the ebony conductor chuckle
and as they reached the sixth foo
gave her the key and number of h.
apartment, indicated its direction, al
shot down again, leaving her in utt
trepidation. She would have escape
but to her unsophisticated mind escal
was impossible. Hurriedly disrobin
she laid her weary form upon the b.
in that dingy chamber, and composil
her anxious brain as best she could, f.
into a restless sleep. AS she slept,
seemed to her that in a far-off city
vast concourse of human beings had s
sembled to consult upon some very il
portant public measure. Distanta as th
were, it yet seemed that they were ne
her; or, rather, it seemed that she cot
span the intervening space with thoug