Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-12-05
KITTYS FORTY.

1t doesn't do men any good to live
apart from women and children. never
knew boys school in which there was
not tendency to rowdyism. And l1m-
bermen, sailors, fishermen, and oil other
men who live only with men, are pro-
verbally half-bear sort of people
Frontiersmen soften down when women
and children come-but 1 forget myself;
it is the story you want.
Burton and Jones lived in shanty by
themselves. Jones was O married man,
but, finding it hard to support his wife
in down-East village, he had emigrat-
ed to Northern Minnesota, leaving his
wife under her fathers roof until he
should be able to make start He and
Burton had gone into partnership, and
had pre-empted town site" of 800
acres.
There were, perhaps, twenty families
scattered over this town site at the time
my story begins and ends, for it ends in
the same week in which it begins.
The partners had disagreed, quarreled,
and divided their interests. The land
was all shared between them except one
valuable forty-acre piece. Each Of them
| claimed that piece of land, and the quar-
rel had grown so high between them
that the neighbors expected them "to
shoot on sight" In fact, it was under
stood that Burton was on the forty-acre
piece, determined to shoot Jones If he
came, and Jones had sworn to go out
there and shoot Burton, when the fight
was postponed by the Unexpected ART.
val of Jones' wife and child.
Jones shanty was not finished, and he
was forced to forego the luxury of fight
ing his old partner in his exertions to
make wife and baby comfortable for the
night. For the winter sun was sur
rounded by "sun dogs Instead OF
one sun there were four, an occurrence
| not uncommon in this latitude, but one
which always BODIED terrible storm.
In his endeavors to care for his wife
and child, Jones was Modified q little,
and half regretted he had been SO violent
about the piece Of land. But he was de-
termined not to be backed down, and he
certainly would have to shoot Burton or
be shot himself.
When he thought of the chance of
being killed by his old partner, the pros
pect was not pleasant. He looked wist-
fully at Kitty, his 2-year-old child, and
dreaded that she would be left fatherless.
Nevertheless, he wouldn't 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
as yet, and her prying little hands easily
swung it back. A gust of cold air almost
took away her breath, but she caught
sight of the brown 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 wild
sllnfower.
How often she had longed to escape
from restraint and paddle out into the
world alone. So out into the world she
went, rejoicing in her liberty, in the
blue sky above and the rusty prairie be-
meath. She would fno cut where the
path went to, and what there was at the
end of the world. What did she care if
her nose was blue with cold and her
chubby hands red as beets? Now and
then she paused to turn her head away
from the rude blast, a forerunner of the
storm; but, having gasped moment
she quickly renewed her brave march in
search of the great unknown.
The mother missed her, and supposed
that Jones, who could not get enough of
the child's society, had taken the little
one out with him.
Jones, poor fellow, sure that the dar-
ling was safe within, chopped away until
that awful storm broke upon him, and at
last drove him, half smothered by snow
and half frozen by cold, into the house.
When there was nothing left but retreat
he had seized an armful of wood and car
RED it into the house with him, to make
sure OF having enough to keep his wife
and Kitty from freezing in the coming
awfulness of the night, which now set
tied down upon the Storm beaten and
blinded world.
1t was the beginning of that horrible
storm in which so many people we're
frozen to death, and Jones had fed none
too soon.
When once the wood was stacked by
the stove, Jones looked around for Kit
| ty. He had not more than inquired for
her, when father and other each read
IN the others face the ia ct that she was
lost in this wild, dashins storm of snow.
So fast did the snow fall, and so darl
was the night, that Jones could not see
three feet ahead of him. He endeavored
to follow the path which he thought
Kitty might have taken, but it was
buried in snow-drifts and he soon lost
himself.
He stumbled through the drifts, call
ing out to Kitty in his distress, but,not
knowing whittier he went. After an
hour of despairing, wandering and shout
ing, he came upon house, and having
raped on the door he found himself
face to face with his wife.
He had returned to his own house in
his bewilderment.
When we remember that Jones had
not slept for the two nights preceding
this one, on account of his mortal quar-
rel with Burton, and ne had now been
beating against an Arctic hurricane and