The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1878-04-25
FOR HIS SAKE.

FOR HIS SAKE.
One Christmas eve strange tragedy
was acted in the far northwest. Away
up in Montana a mining camp was es-
tablished in days when women were as
scarce in that country as they were in
the early days of settlement of Cali.
fornia; there was in fact but one woman
in the camp. She was young, of fine ap-
pearance, great physical strength and
endurance and imdomitable nerve. Two
years before she had left an unhappy
home in Wisconsin to become the wife
of a reckless daredevil named Jim Oaks,
with whom she had shared the vicissi-
tudes of long, slow journey across the
intervening plains. This man just
missed being a ruffian through his wife's
influence. She loved him with noble
devotion, and although he was incapa-
BILE Of like attachment, he loved her,
too, after a fashion of his own. She was
made much of by the camp; it would
have been a sorry day for the miner who
should have shown any disrespect to
Minerva Oaks.
The day before Christmas dawned
lowering. Towards the middle of the
afternoon huge, numbering clouds began
to loom in the northwest. A mournful
wind sighed through the gulches. The
miners, housing their pixies, shovels and
pans, took their axes into the neighbor-
ing bottoms and set at wood-cutting
with vengeance. All signs portended
go ,f &I..>so fa~oa ,o1I ekor,,,o that ~
casionally descend upon the border, ar
resting torrents in chains of ice and
freezing even the shaggy-coated buff
faloes.
The wagons, heaped with freezing
chopped sticks of cottonwood and aspen,
had hardly distributed their loads at
nightfall when the wind, changing to
the northwest, grew stronger and brought
snow. Higher and higher it rose as the
darkness came on; faster and faster fell
the snow. As the cold increased the
snow was condensed into fine particles
that bit like needles into the cheeks of
the belated miners struggling towards
the cabins. Still swelling in volume the
tempest appeared to affect the earth as
well as the sky; the plains and distant
mountains were shaken, and the ground
under the camp trembled like the floors
of dwelling in the city when heavy
trucks roll along the pavements; the
heavens swirled gigantically overhead
at length the tempest became a hurri-
cane. The violence of pulverized snow
in the atmosphere was now SO dense and
piercing, and the gusts were so violent,
that it was impossible to see even
a lighted window at few yards dis.
tance.
It.was considerable past Jim Oaks's
supper time. But as Oaks was the only
man in the camp who didn't have to
cook his own meals he had lapsed into q
habit of coming in late to supper, fol
which fault his wife, who was not of 9
complaining or haggling disposition
never reproached him.
Seven o'clock, Mrs. Oaks fed the fire
from the ample supply of wood which
one of the wagons had dropped at her
door, then stepped to the pane of glass
which formed the only window in the
diggings, and assayed to look out into
the night. The glass was caked inside
with frost and covered on the outside
by snow-drift. Signing, the young
wife returned to her seat by the fire
She snuffed the candle with pair ot
snuffers which Jim Oaks had ingeniously
carved out of an antelope's horn for hel
last birthday present, and then putting
her hand into the bosom of her dress she
drew out-what?
A well-worn copy of the New Testa
ment.
There was something covert in the
mannerin which she brought this volume
into the light, and, thinking she hearG
a noise at the door, she thrust it bacl
again. Jim Oaks had somehow anc
somewhere acquired so rank destesta
ton of the Holy Scriptures that he coulG
not bear to hear them quoted from OF
even mentioned. The sightof the Bible
affected him exactly as the devil wal
described by Pat OGrady's grand
father to have been affected by holy
water.
Finding that the noise was nothing
but the crunch of the settling drift, sht
opened her little book and began tx
read:
"For if ye forgive men their tres
passes, your heavenly Father will alst
forgive you.
But if ye forgive not men their tres
passes, neither.will your heavenly Father
forgive your trespasses.
Come unto me, all ye that labor ant
are heavy laden, and 1 will give yor
rest.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, L
any one will come after me, let hin
humble himself, and take up his eros
and follow me.
am the resurrection and the life
he that believeth in me, though he wer,
dead, yet shall he live; and whosoeve
liveth and believeth in me shall neye
die"
These passages, on which Minerv,
Oaks was accustomed to dwell, were al
marked in her New Testamenyand un
derscored with pencil. High-spirite
and able to handle rife and revelve
on occasion, she was a sincere Chris
tian IN most respects and quiet in he
ways.
She sat with the, Testament sprea
open on her lap and the Christmas ev
supper growing browner in front of tn
fire, until nearly eight o'clock. Then, a
mighty throe of the storm threatene
to wrench the cabin from its found,
tions, she started up with a cry:
Jiml Why, Jim was to be off 8
Wild Swan Gulch this afternoon. "a
was going to get US some feathers fc
Christmas. Oh, God 1t is eight o'clocl
And thestorml How ever can he fin
his wayhomep
springing to the door she lifted Ii