Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1877-11-01
A Glimpse of Kansas Twenty Years
Aga.

I
/ OF every thing in the Centennial Elk
hlbition, think nothing interested me
so much as the display made by Kansas.
1t seemed so few years since had been
there, when only a small settlement
marked the steamboat landing where
now Kansas City stands. Looking
at Its silk manufacturers, its produce OF
not only essentials, but luxuries, it was
hard TO realize the untracked prairie oil
my time, with only Indians and wolves
for figures.
[ had been there before to meet Mr.
Fremont on his return from different
journeys; this time it was to stay with
him until the last preparations were
completed
The party was gone. Major Cum,
innings was to take me the next day tC
connect with the river steamer at West
port Landing now Kansas City, He
had been annoyed by a wolf, which
carried off his sheep to her cubs, and
had just succeeded in following up hel
trail and destroying her young ones
and as the place was not far, the good
major took me over for pleasant
change of ideas" [ was sorry for the
wolf, ''still for all sins of hers" with
the mother nature, coming back to hel
ruined place and her dead cubs.
We came back by way of the desert
camp, which did not lessen my sympa
thy Tor the Wolf; the ashes of the
mornings fire were still warm. Alto
gether nothing aleviated the lonely
impression of the evening, which closed
in on the old gentleman moaning with
a toothache, while the creak of his
wife's rocking-chair was the only other
break to the silence
l was glad to go off to sleep While
one is young, that comes with surprising
readiness. The house was a succession
Of log-cabins: set, some gable end on
some facing front, making a series OF
rooms alternating with open places,
having only the connecting roof. These
frontier houses grow as the family
requirements increase; the timber and
the strong willing hands are there, and
! the getting a new house costs no heart
of Major Cummings, who had been
fol thirty years superintendent Of In
dams there, was of many years growth,
and my room was the extreme end OF
the last added wing. A stone chimney
built up on the outside gave an ample
fireplace, whe the great fire of logs
made cheerful home light in the great
clean room.
My aunt "aunt Kitty" was in my
room, and we were both fast asleep,
when [ was awaked by sound full OF
pain and grief, and wild rage tOO-a
sound familiar enough to frontier peo-
pie, but new to me. 1t was the she
wolf hunting her cubs; there followed
with it, as chorus, the cry of the paclz
of hound puppies-thcy were young,
and frightened. AS for me, with nerves
already overstrained, a regular panic
came on. | knew hunters built fires
to scare off wild things; but after Kitty
had made q great blaze, Il new. feal
came. The windows were near the
ground, and without shutters OF cur
tains. What if the blaze only served tc
guide the wolf More than once [ had
seen dogs go through pane of window
glass as safely as circus-riders through
their paper hoops; so shawls were
quickly hair-pinned over the windows,
and by that time mems voices and the
angry sounds from older dogs gave a
sense of being protected, and sleep
came again, to be broken again by a
big dark object, rough-coated, ssand close
to me. 1t was a speaking wolf too, but
not exactly like Red Ridinghood's, al
though it was hungry. Camp had only
been moved about ten miles, and fast
ride through and back before sunrise
would give us another hour together,
and would Kitty make teaY' And
SO, with our early tea for the stirrup-
cup, he gave his bridle-rein shake, .
and we went our ways. one into the
midwinter SHOWS of untracked noun
tains, and the other to the long sea-
voyage through the tropics, and into
equally strange foreign places.-JEssIE
BENTON Fremont, in Harper's Magazine
| for Nouember.