The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1881-10-21
ssRALDY."
A Story Of the wisconsin River
/" What'n they do!"

"What'n they do!'
Pm sure l don't know"
''Sim won't work and they're poor a. power
ty. It's year since the wife died, and now
the old mothers gone. She brought in the
pennies right smart"
''There he is now"
The two women stopped their whispering
as the tall, loosely-built figure of Sim PEBBLES
came stumbling along the ragged street Of
dearborn City," A look of m:stakable 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 ferce-frOnted house into
which he finally entered with them, and then
the two women went on with their interrupted
conversation.
q Who's a doing things for them, anYhowl
Who fixed hers'
4" Him, guess"
I" Then he's smarter than 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 large and
imposing figure, though far from graceful.
Her large hands swung almost iercely as she
walked, and her tread was hard and mascu-
line. With 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 faxen 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 q
woman Of whose opinion they stood somewhat
in awe.
terday," Raldy Scott said, disdainfully, paus-
ing 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 your
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
neighbors, taking on in her excitement more
of their peculiar Western twang. ''And here,
instead of walking up to his door and saying,
Sim, can't We help you in your troubleP 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
q 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 got
my fathers body, SO that his daughters could
bury him decently, and Mart and don't for
get it."
And Raldy Scott swung along, leaving her
listeners half stunned with her scathing re-
buke.
"Hump!" said one of them, sullenly;
''mebbe Raldy Scott can't always carry things
so high"
But the men'n always stand up for her, !"
said the other one, dejectedly. "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 q tipsy Irish
man, after all; and she with trousers and coat
on, lust like the men. O''-spitefully-ssshe
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
too;" and the two women laughed viperishly
ssPerhaps she'll get Sim PEBBLES, said the
other, as they parted; 'she's ben o likely
Young widower some time now,n and they
laughed coarse, hateful laugh q they went
10 their homes.
The two or three scores of houses, many Of
them built Of logs, which formed the homely,
habited almost wholly bylumbermen. During
q large part 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 Is it shot through
its wonderful Dells, and the roar Of its torrent
rose upon their hearing perpetually. just be-
low the site of the vi 1age there was Q break
in the high red sandstone which lined the river
for miles-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 arEosies to the
distant Mississippi. II the current was too
strong for the RATS to stop. Is was generally
the case, the men sprang into the boiling rap
ids and swan ashore. Many lie 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 q
dissipated one, but he had belonged to q
wealthy and honorable family. He sQuandered
his patrimony early in life, however, emigrAted
70 the New World, and pushed into the wilds
Of what was then the farthest West. There he
1z.no ma ON amcrod If the exciting Nfe AZ the