St. Landry democrat., 1884-11-08

to do something q little unusual, but
then she always was vain of her good
| looks. AS to reyolyers, cfn declared
that she could not sleep MIlh one in the
! house. I Welded about the dressing,
]. but was firm about the revolver.
''You would be in a pretty condition,
wouldn't you," said |, ''if when you got
your house of mud and dirt, like the
foolish little pigs of our nursery days:
some tramp or other wild animal should
come along and take notion to muir
der you? No, | mean to have some
means of protection, and ] did.
l wish in the cause of public instruc-
ton, which, as a teacher, of course l
am interested in, that / had our caleu-
lations to give to the world, but I'M
fortunately they are lost, and the table
Of our real expenses does not help me
to reproduce them. All, well! | fear
that, could present it to you, it would
be robbed of its illusions and, like the
rose which the cunning alchemist re-
created from its own ashes,
| without the bloom, without the lost perfume.
| However, remember that the expenses
of our six months vacation and our
1 quarter-sectiop were to cost us just
| $354.23. We were very exact. | sug-
gested to Thompy that we could spend
| the extra two cents in chocolate creams
and have an even twenty-five, but she
| was ALWAYS close, and she said no, we
would do no such thing, that it looked
| better a good deal to have the three
cents there than not; that in all official
reports they always managed to have
an uneven number to show how
very exact they were in their calcula-
tions.
We always spoke of our possessions
as our "quarter-section," as 1t sounded
a great deal larger that way. We took
q half bushel of walnuts to plant, wal
nut timber is so very valuable, you
know. Thompy said we were like the
man who planted acorns for his first
crop. We took about peck of garden
seeds and hoe without handle, but
time would fail me to tell of all the abb
surdities we perpetrated. We were
ready at last. | presume the jour
ney was much like that of any other
two lone teachers who should under
take the same. We met with the most
perfect courtesy from railroad officials,
hotel-porters, hackmen and fellow
travellers. OF course we took in all the
points of interest about St. Paul and
Minneapolis, and we used to enjoy I'M
mensely the imaginary sensation it
would create among our fellow travel
ers If they knew of our daring project,
but we never electrified them by dis
closing it. They regarded us as q
couple of innocent and inoffensive
teachers In search of recreation.
How we enjoyed the journey from st.
Paul to our destination! 1t was here
that we had our first glimpse of the
lovely prairies, gorgeous with the red
lilies of the North and thousand other
flowers that crossed the waves of the
prairie-grass stretching away in end
less succession as far as the eye could
reach.
remember distinctly the first spell I
had of sinking of the heart. 1t was
when saw, in the midst of vast plain,
lone, forlorn little speck away off to-
ward the horizon that was some ones
home, not another dwelling in sight in
all that wide lonely prairie; the next
was when we reached LaWnsdale and
found that the city consisted OF two
tents and woodshed. It was evening
when we passed through Moorehead
and Fargo, and. the luminous ball of
electric light shining high over the lst-
ter city looked weirdly beautiful.
We reached our destination in the dim
twilight of a summer morning. and
stopped to get breakfast and rest little
before starting on our tour of investiga
%a1y
claims. Somehow it did not seem so
easy as it had at home and not quar-
ter as romantic, but Thompy was as
enthusiastic as ever, and when said
that wished had brought few trees
along in my trunk to improve the land
scape little she said it was wilder
without and what we wanted was the
sunshine.
After interviewing the land agent and
a lot more work and bother we finally
started over the prairie on an ox-cart.
The agent said he thought he knew a
place we would like, where we could
have our land joining and the other part
of the section occupied by man from
New York who had his family along
and his brother-in-law. Did you ever
rue aICer an OK team! nope so, IoF
if you have you will appreciate many
privileges that you would perhaps 9th
erwise pass over as but slight adyan-
tages. We moved through the prairie
(but that was ally and looked at the
wide monotonous landscape. After the
first hour I remarked to Thompy that I
thought we had better 60 into camp on
the wagon as we seemed to be about as
far as when we started, but Thompy
said she liked it, that she was always
afraid of fast horses, and she could get
as much exercise and all the scenery
she wanted from her perch on the OK