Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1884-09-10

"a.
and there was now town. They called
it Bay City, possibly from the fact that
there was no bay there. The nearest
stream of any size was ten miles to the
eastward, and this was only navigable
for light steamers at high stages of the
water. With that curious completeness
of modern frontier life, the town within
ninety days of the time the first rough
shanty was put up, had post-office,
churches, school-house, stores. and
saloons. The people had arrived, settled
down, laid out the city. and assumed a
certain state of civilization within the
space of three months. Though coming
from fourteen different nations, total
strangers to each other, and hardly able
to master the legal language of their
adopted country, they seemed to imbibe
at once with the free air of the prairie
that spirit of fraternity, helpfulness and
good nature that characterizes the West
ern American.
Among those thus thrown together in
new land, as it were in an eddy of the
mighty stream of emigration, was Nina
Landerfelt. Her father, evidently re-
leased too late from Prussian military
service to be of any value to himself, had
taken quarter section, and with some
help from the neighbors, particularly
the Americans, had reared some kind of
house just at the edge of the woods.
Here with him lived Nina, stout of heart
and strong of limb, his daughter and
more than helpmeet. Wife and mother
there was none. She slept near Bingen
on the Rhine.
With the others came also Silas Hig-
gins, from Vermont, half farmer, half
sailor. wanderer with neither home
nor friends. He too had run up vel
low shanty, and lived alone, his own
housekeeper, man of all-work, gardener,
and carpenter There were whispers
through the place that he was in some
sense wanting, witless creature, vision
airy and impractical. This last,
in the eyes of the Americans, was enough
to place him at once among the fail
ures. He had few tools, chiefly an
ak, which he could WELD with won
derful skill, and his services were al
ways in request. He seemed shy man,
reserved, silent, and not social. This
too was against him, in the opinion of
the foreign element. Moreover, he
saved his money, which in the eyes of
the saloon-keepers and patrons was a
serious fault.
He was, in truth, man ignorant of
himself. His life from his youth up had
been so rough, SO marked by toll, neg
lect, and hardship, that he had grown
patiently dull. He had not yet walked
up to human life. He had been too long
struggling for food. Nina came-and
he lived. He was at the rough shed
that served as railroad station when
she and her father were set down on the
raw prairie, weary, frightened, and a
little dazed at the strange place and
stranger people. He had even spoken
to her about her baggage, and offered
have a house. She understood not
word, and yet she did understand, and
blushed and smiled upon him.
Six months passed, and a new man
had been born of full stature in that
place. He was thinker, an observer
and an inventor. If ne toiled before,
now he worked If they had thought
him stupid once, now they called him
insane. He saw Nina every day,
for her fathers land adj
Joined his own. He had often tried to
speak to her, but it had not been happy
conversation, and yet it served to thrill
him with something new, which he
guessed at, but could not name. 1t
seemed too good to name or sneak of,
except to himself He could not tell her.
He could only show her some day by
some grand deed, and then she would
know and understand.
His new birth made him an observer,
and this is what he observed: the one
great danger that oyerhung the town was
FIRE. If forest fire should ever get be-
y0nd control nothing could save the
place, the farms, the houses, or even the
people Flight would be nearly impossible.
Where could they 90 from the fire that
outran the wind2 Where could they hide
from a tempest of fiame2 From obser-
wing he moved on, impelled by desire
to do something. if the need came, for
Nina. TO invention. He would prepare
for that dreadful day-the coming of
fire. Not with swift horses to run to
the river: that were idle He would
stay and fight the fire. He would build
an ark of safety against the deluge of
smoke and fame He thought much
about the matter, and even neglected his
work, and wandered about the country,
spade in hand. in search of something
He soon found it, almost a mile from
the town, and at once sold part of his
land and with the proceeds bought what
seemed ! worthless tract Of land on the
banks Of little run. He smiled in q
| quiet way to himself When the bargain
/ xroc r.xns,1nfn The sesnorsrY4 settler had