The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-10-19
Select Story.
POINTE D'ALENCON.
A Story Of Kansas i'm Pioneer Days.

i
A Story Of Kansas i'm Pioneer Days.
Mrs Rutherford was looking over her
laces. There were many choice pieces OF
pointe purchased in Europe: Mechlin
and Brussels pointe, with other Irish
laces; Honiton, delicate d'Alencon and
one precious piece of antique pointe de
Venise, for Mrs Rutherford was con
noisseur in laces, and threw away her
money in recklessly extravagant way
whenever fine piece was concerned.
"Ho. e Rutherford, wish you would
tell me how you happened to take the
lace mania" / said, as lifted from the
handsome japanese casketan odd piece,
a mixture of lace and embroidery, which
I fancied she had picked up in some
out ofthe- way corner in Switzerland.
81 believe 1 was ten years Old" she
replied, when 1 began my study of
laces. The strip which you hold in your
hand was my first acquisition. 1t has a
rather curious history. Wonld you ike
to hear it?"
And then Hope Rutherford told me
the following story, which proved to be
of quantity costumed peasants in some
Swiss Valais or of some princeley lady
of the court of Francis /, but of her own
stormy childhood and first love:
The daughter of a pioneer Judge,
Hopes early life had been spent on a
farm in the West, five miles from the
little town of Conflict. Their nearest
neighbors were the Antonies. A shrink
ing little woman with light hair and
washed-out eyes was Mrs Antoine, but
she had curative way Of glancing from
them that seemed to tell that she might
have had ideas Of her own before they
we're crushed out by the Colonel" who
had never been in the army. OfFrench
descent and of fiery Gallo tempera
ment he united to many hereditary
vices others for whose distinctive origi-
nality he might have taken outa patent.
Life with him could not have been pleas
ant under any circumstances.
The two dwellings stood within few
rods of each other, but a long detour
was necessary to pass between them, for
dividing the wooded knoll on which
Col Antoine had reared his strange
structure from the broad acres of corn
field, scarcely overtopped by Squire
Mays stockade of logs and mud, ran a
deep ravine. the bed of fierce little
stream called the Wild cat.
Another gulf separated them, for,
though their position as settlers in new
Kansas offered many points of resem
blance in the trials and hardships which
Doth met so bravely, yet the heads of the
families when they met, as they did on
their way to and from Conflict, never
recognized each other. Mrs Antoine
would have explained this in her mel
low accents: "Tain't to be helped, l
s'pose, sence you uns are from the Nawth
and We uns from the Saouth.''
The very houses with their surround
ings spoke the difference between them.
Squire May farm had been as thickly
wooded as the Colonel's estate, but with
his own right arm he had chopped down
the trees, built his home Of two rooms
and loft above them, and pried up the
stumps, plowed and sown his corn-feld.
After three years of labor as farmer he
was beginning to reap results. The de
serted law books stood upon rough
shelves against the log wall of the front
ROOM" good library of miscellaneous
literature kept them company. Above
the books hung the Squires carbine,
only used against the prairie chickens,
for he was man of peace. 4 rag carpet
of Mrs Mays workmanship covered the
floor: Eeverthing bore marks of thrift
and industry.
Col Antoine had pre-emuted his claim
the year previous to the coming Of the
Mays. The Wild Cat joined the Mis-
souri, River near the site which he had
chosen for his residence, and the reason
Of his choice of this particular spot had
been the presence at its mouth of
sunken steamboat, Its upper cabin just
emerging from the muddy water. A
band of the Colonel's companions, sym
pathizing in the cause which had led
him to leave his plantation in Missouri
that of helping to drive all free State"
men from Kansas, had come over to es-
tablish him in his new home. They
brought a gang of negroes with them,
and had "raising," in which a great
deal of whisky was consumed, and the
cabin of the sunken steamer was raised
and dragged to the top of the knoll. Its
side faced the road, presenting the Pc
culiar spectacle ofa house with twenty
doors. After this it needed not great
deal of work on the Colonel's part to
render it habitable, and it was not long
before he removed to it his family and
chattels. The former consisted of his
gentle little wife and four boys, and the
latter of one mule, one cow, and one
anigcah,n faithful Aunt Pollyanthus.
The Colonel made no attempt to improve
the place,but proceeded daily to Conflict
mounted on his mule, and armed in the
most erocious manner, his business be-
ing politics and gambling. E-
And yet, in spite d this chasm BE-