The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-10-22
sc RALDY."
A story of the wisconsin River,


"What'n they do!n .....
" I'm sure don't know"
''Sim won't work and they're poor as power
ty. It's year since the wife died. and now
the old mothers gone. She brought in the
pennies right smart"
There heis now.''
The two women stopped their whispering
as the tall, loosely-built figure of Sim PEBBLES
came shambling along the ragged street of
dearborn City, A look of unmistakable af
Fiction rested upon his weak but handsome
face, and rag of black stuff was tied de-
Gently about his shabby hat. Two children,
little more Than infants, came running to meet
him from the low but fierce-fronted house into
which he finally entered with them, and then
the two women went on with their interrupted
conversation.
Who's doing things for them, anyhow
Who fixed her?'
Him, guess
Then he's smarter than 1 ever give him
credit for" .-..-, . -
A young woman who was walking hastily
along the street had come close upon them
while they were engaged in watching Sim
PEBBLES, and had overheard these latter re-
marks of that gentleman's critics. She was
above the medium height, and of a large and
imposing figure, though far from graceful
Her large hands swung almost fiercely as she
walked, and her tread hard and mascu-
line. With a mouth and chin handsomely and
firmly though somewhat coarsely moulded her
broad and projecting forehead and brilliant,
fearless blue eyes, added to the heavy braids
OF haXen hair which were wound neatly about
her head made her face striking and even
comely The women turned with start as
they saw her. and realized that she had over
heard them. Geralda, or, as she was com
monty known, ''Raldy" Scott was evidently a
woman of whose opinion they stood somewhat
in awe. tf
You didn't offer to help Sim. PEBBLES YES
terday," Raldy Scott said, disdainfully, paus-
inga moment in her hurried walk ''He was
alone there with that dead woman and those
little children, and yet you, his neighbors.
women with husbands and children of vour
own, never offered to help him. You ought
to be ashamed of yourselves" she continued.
her eyes flashing, and her language, which had
been much better than that of her slovenly
nelghbors, taking on in her excitement more
of their peculiar Western twang. "And here,
instead of walking up to his door and saving,
Sim, can't we help you in your trouble you
are standing in the street outside, wondering
who'll help him. Raldy Scott despises lazy,
shiftless Sim PEBBLES as much as you do but
she washed and dressed his dead mother for
him, she fed his children, and, not being quite
a brute, she proposes to take care of them till
Sim PEBBLES can get somebody else. He swan
in, when the Dells were full of ice, and cot
my fathers body, so that his daughters could
bury him decently, aud Mart and don't for
get it."
And Raldy Scott swung along, leaving her
listeners half stunned with her scathing re-
buke.
Hump!n said one of them. sulleplv.
''mebbe Raldy Scott can't always carry things
so high.n
g But the men'n always stand up for her. ~
said the other one. deiectedly. ''They think
she's pow'rful smart because she's made two or
three trips up in the pines and down on the
RATS with the men. 1t must "a bin since YOU
come here that she come back the last time
with her drunken old father. She sorter
looked after him, reckon. He had fine airy
ways, he had, and nothing but tipsy Irish
. man, after all; and she with trousers and coat
on, just like the men. O''-spitefully-s1sh
amt pertickeler, Raldy Scott amt: can swim
and pole a raft with any man in the Dells
any day. Only since old Roy Scott died she
dresses like the rest OF us. Her sister Mart's
goin, to get married. Likely she wants to-,
too;'' and the two women laughed yiperishly'
Perhaps she'll get Sim Peebles," said the
other as they parted; "he's ben u likely
young widower some time nown and they
laughed coarse, hateful laugh as they went
to their homes.
The two or three scores of houses, many of
them built OF logs, which formed the homely,
struggling street of Dearbon City, were in-
habited almost wholly by lunbermen. DuriI.g
large ptrt of the year these men were away
from their families cutting wood in the pines
but when the ice began to break and the great
spring food of the majestic Wisconsin
rolled down from the north, they
massec their logs into RATS, and came floating
down the river to their homes. The village
had been planted in the midst of the forest
and from many of its houses were visible the
high red walls of the river as 1t shot through
its wonderful Dells, and the roar of its torrent
rose upon their hearing perpetually. Just be-
low the site of the vi lage there was a break
in the high red sandstone which lined the river
for mfles-with occasional riffs like this one
and here, when the current would permit, the
RATS paused in the spring long enough for
those to land who were not absolutely neces-
sary to conduct the unwieldy argosies to the
distant Mississippi II the Current was too
strong for the RATS to stop, as was generally
the case, the men sprang into the DO ling rap
ids and swan ashore. Many life even of ex-
perienced river pilots had been lost in the at
tempt, and it was in this way that Roy Scott
had persisted.
He had, indeed, been an Irishman, and
dissipated one, but he had belonged to
wealthy and honorable family. He squandered
his patrimony early in life, however, emigrated
to the New World, and pushed into the wilds
of what was then the farthest West There he
..sA 90 20 fl,a,