Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-10-01
CHAPTER xvII.-cosr1suEn.
Or, JUST A CAMPIN'

- SAAAA = SO III lCst1 iCI OCuHlS S1u
Ensign. They'll git on all right, as far
as they let folks git on that works for q
Twin, and if Lucy loves Mr.. Annelsey
Is'pose that's all right. too, and she
had better write fer him to come and
get her at once eff he don't want her to
get tanned up with campin' out in the
foothills"
Mrs. Parsons thought the whole sit
uation over and over, again and again.
All night she lay awake thinking of
their changed circumstances and of her
husbands words, and in the mornin o
she did substantially what he had sug-
gested-she wrote her daughters, tell
ing them the ranch was flooded and de-
stroyed, that the cottage itself would
be untenable before many days, but
forbidding them to return home until
they heard further from their parents.
"Your father and do not yet know
what we shall do" she wrote. There
seems no place for us to 90 to. Some of
the neighbors, whose houses are on
higher ground than ours, have offered
to let us stay with them until we can
lind a place to rent, but we can not
long be tax on the hospitality of those
who have themselves lost everything
except the shelter over their heads, and
who must, like us, soon seek other
homes.
''We are talking of going down into
the great valley and renting place of
some of the big landlords, but it is very
hard to think of working all the rest of
our lives without hope of ever having a
place of our own again, and if we can
lind little place anywhere that is for
sale If If il n,,1yr fau
ing but a shanty on it, we had both
rather buy it than to rent, even if we 60
in debt for it; but we do not know of
any such that is safe from the overflow
of these terrible mines.
You must not worry about it too
much, dears; and you must not come
home until you hear from US again,
which will not be long, for we must do
something, and that quickly.
"9ou could not help much if you
were here until we know what we are
to do, and would probably be more ex-
pense here than there, and we will
write you again just as soon as we de-
termine where We shall 60"
Then she added, in a postscript:
'You know how much your father
and love you and how anxious we are
to have you always with us; but this we
know can not be, and if the men whom
you are to marry urge you to a speedy
union you have our consent, and it may
be best So"
This letter John Parsons mailed at
Phippsturg, little town on the river
ten miles above the landing where they
usually did their trading.
When Johnny saw his father prepar-
ing to start he began to cry piteously,
L, I'll 4 L,
swallowed up by the terrible flood.
The poor child was not only nervous,
but actually frightened. He had sat
propped up in his little wheeled cot at
the low window and watched the slow
ly rising flood until it had grown to
seem a thing of life, frightful mon
ster, such as he had read about in fairy
stories, only a thousand times more
horrible, ready to swallow them all
alive; and his pale face grew paler
still, and his eyes, large with suffering.
grew larger yet with fear, and he would
not consent that either parent should
remain long out of the room, and at
night went to sleep holding to his
fathers hand only to awaken when all
was still with screams of fright at the
things which he saw in his dreams.
Then John Parsons would arise and
sit by his side and talk to him, and tell
him stories, and soothe him until his
sobs ceased and gradually he dropped
off to sleep again, only to see once more
the horrd shapes that peopled his sleep
ing fancy, and awake in an agony of
fear and trembling.
And now he begged and cried until
his parents feared he would go into
commissions at his fathers leaving, but
there seemed no other way, for they
knew that the neighbors were either
busy trying to save something from the
general wreck, or absent looking for
some place to move to. People who
are so foolish as to build their houses
where wealthy corporations may wish
to empty the garbage from their back
yards can not humor the fancies of their
crippled children. They are like the
birds that build their nests upon the
ground where the farmer desires to sow
his grain-whose nests are turned under
by the plowshare with never a thought
of the loss to the little bunch of brown
feathers that cries so piteously and tiut-
tiers about the spot where its little ones
lie buried beneath the sod.
1t was early in the morning when
John Parsons started with the letter.
He knew that he would be forced to
follow q somewhat devious route in
order to avoid the overfiowed district,
but he was on horseback and expected
to make the canter of ten miles and
back by noon at farthest, and so told
his wife and Johnny.
But noon came and no father. Then
one O'Clock, and still he had not come.
Mrs. Parsons kept the dinner warm
and waited. She had spent the morn
ing in packing. as best she could, their
household goods in shape for moving,
at the same time amusing Johnny with
talks of the new place to which they
would go.
She did not know where it would be,
yet tried, for the lads sake, to picture
it as pleasant as possible, and so half
made herself believe that they might
not fail in getting another home and be-
ing happy once more, and now while
she waited she continued the prepare
tions for moving; but as the hours
passed and her husband was still abb
sent, she became uneasy and fancied
all kinds of evils that might have be-
fallen him.
Had he attempted to cross some place
in the road that was covered by the
overflow. and miring down been unable
to extricate himself?
The thought was horrible, and her
brain reeled beneath it.
Then she told herself that it could not
Be; that instead he had been forced to
go further around than he had antici-
pated, and so more time was con-
sumed.
Then again, she feared that his horse