Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1879-04-14
How Kitty Got Lost.
BY EDWARD EGGLEsToN.

not a tendency to rowdyism and lumber
men, sailors, fishermen and other men
that live alone with men, are proverbial-
ly, half bear sort of people. Frontiers
men soften down when women and chill
dren come-but 1 forgot myself, it is
the story you want
Burton and Jones lived in shanty
by themselves. Jones was married
man, and finding it hard to support a
wife in a "down east village, had en-
igrated to northern Minnesota, leaving
his wife under her fathers roof, until
he should be able to ''make start.
He aud Burton had "preempted" town
site of three hundred and twenty acres.
There were perhaps twenty families
scattered sparsely over this town site
at the time my story begins and ends,
for it ends in the same week in which
it begins.
The parties had disagreed quarreled,
and divided their interest. The land
was also shared between them, except
one valuable forty acre piece. Each of
them claimed that piece of land, and
the quarrel had grown so high between
them that the neighbors expected them
to shoot at sight In fact it was un-
derstood that Burton. who was on the
forty acre place, determined to shoot
Burton, when the fight was postponed
by the unexpected arrival of Jones' wife
and child.
Jones' shanty was not finished, and
he was forced to forego the luxury of
fighting his old partner, in his exertions
to make wife and babe comfortable for
the night, for the winter sun was sur
rounded by 'sun dogs" Instead of one
sun there were four, an occurrence not
unfrequent in that latitude, but one
WHICH UUuGS d leIIlUlG
In his endeavor to care for his wife
and child, Jones was mollifed little,
and half regretted that he had been so
violent about the piece of land, But he
was determined not to be backed down,
and would certainly have to shoot Bur-
ton, or be shot himself.
When he thought of the chance of
being killed by his old partner, the
prospect was not pleasant. He looked
wistfully at Kitty, his two-year-old child,
and dreaded that she would be left fa-
therless Nevertheless, he would not
be backed down. He would shoot or be
shot.
While the father was busy cutting
wood, and the mother was busy other
wise, little Kitty managed to get the
shanty door open. There was no latch
yet. and her prying little fingers easily
swung it back. A gust of wind almost
took her breath away, but she caught
sight of the grass without, and the new
world seemed so big that the little feet
were fain to try and explore it.
She pushed out through the door,
caught her breath again, and started
away down the path bordered by sere
grass and the dead stalks of the wilG
flowers.
How often had she longed to escape
from restraint, and paddle out into the
world alone. So out in the world shc
went, rejoicing in her liberty, in th'
blue sky above, and the rusty prairi,
beneath. She would find out wher,
the path went and what was the end o
the world. What did she care if he
nose was blue with cold, and her club
by hands red as beets Now and thel
she paused to turn her head away iron
rude blast, forerunner of the storm
but having gasped moment, she quick
ly renewed her brave march in searcl
of the great unknown.
The mother missed her, but supposed
that Jones, who could not get enough o
the cbild's society, had taken the littl
pet out with him. Jones, poor fellow
thinking that the darling was safe with
in, chopped away till the awful storm
broke upon him, and at last drove him
half smothered by snow, and half frozel
with cold, into the house. When ther
was nothing left but retreat he seize,
an armful of wood and carried it int
the house with him, to make sure 0
having enough to keep Kitty and hi
wife from freezing in the coming awful
ness of the night, which now settle
down upon the storm beaten and sno1
binding world. 1t was the beginnin
of that horrible storm in which so man
people were frozen to death, and Jone
fled not to soon.
When once the wood was stackad b
the stove, Jones looked for Kitty. H
had no more than inquired for her whe
her father and mother read in each 9th
er's faces the fact that she was lost !
the wild, dashing storm of snow.
SO fast did the snow fall, and so har
was the night, that Jones could not Sc
three feet ahead of him. He endeayol
ed to follow the path which he though
Kitty might have taken, but it wa
buried in snow drifts, and he soon 10.
himself. He stumbled along not know
! | inO Uhithar ha uont