St. Landry democrat., 1885-09-12
CHAPTER L
THE LETTER,

THE LETTER.
DEAR MARTIAL can't come home after
you and the babies like hoped to do, cause
I'm broke again; leastwise hey ben since /
wrote you last, and amt squarely got onto
my feet yet, but I'm goin ter send you some
money by next steamer: all / can scrape
together, and / want you and the babies to
pack up and come out.
know it looks hard fer you to have TO make
the trip across the plains alone with the chill
dren but don't see no way to help 1t unless
we are never to see one another again, and
can't stand that, nor don't believe you want
gettn most man now, and Will help you
heap, and I'll do the square thing by the boy
when he gets out here.
writ 10 that he is gofn to come out this sum
mer with company, and you can come with
him reckon.
Perkinsville now, bein driv Off of his land
long of the rest of us. Sy will be glad TO do
you good turn know, for when we was poth
broke up back in New England by goin Sc
curity at the bank, he and sWopped SYM
pathy with one another, and now that the
railroad corporation has gobbied US both, Sy
will be willin to do some more sW0pin OF the
same kind / reckon, as swopin sympathy
means swopin help with poor folks
spose you'l want to know what kind of
place am askin you, to come to, and tell
you honest, Marty, when say that natuf
done way up job when she made this coun-
try: lust about the best she is capable of dom,
T ysacikon an nil I'm askin for now is to have
you an the babies an I'll be satisfied for all
the hard work and losses we've had, and
they've driV us from sea to sea almost COB
bin up one home after another after we had
made EN- by hard work
Seems to me tibet Their must be somethin
wrong with the law, fer the poor don't stan no
chance with the rich, an the more law the less
tie fellows that works gifts.
When wrote you afore, I was rakin in the
dust pretty smart, me an my pard, but some
fellows from New York came up there and
proposed to form jint stock company ana
offered to put in a l0I of machinery for h1stn
outthe ore agin our ein e1 fa oeln ~ we s
so as we could go back to the States Ter our
families, we agreed to 1t, but some way It
T 5dnt +B pan 3 eom ke ec aeS tbeirseVes
directors, an pinted one OF themselves
book-keeper, and pard and me never exactly
understood how it was, but there was assess
ments instead Of divies, and finally we wus
both froZe out of the mine entirely after pay
in back to the company all the dust we had
taken out afOre we was such fools as to go IN
After that knocked around in the diggins
for a SPELL an then hearin of this Suscol
Ranch / struck out for it, and here am; an
BIT Of country on this side OF the big range
which nobody doesn't come back from when
they hey crost H. ana hey TOOK up Iou aeTs ~
of land, and will hev cabin up an good DIT
of the sile broke afore you git mere, ana Wei
be eomfortablei in our old age yit, in spite OF
everything.
p
would all have been took up long ago only
some rich fellows pretended to nave KIND o.
d Spanish claim on to ii, and folks were AFRAID
to settle here, most of EN-, for fear OF bein
driv off like we have been, but hnally some
Teller took the case upto court ana 1t was de-
cided in favor of the squatters; that is, them
as was on the land maxim OF themselves
homes; and now everybody is a-rushin in and
Dre-emptin quarter sections, and you needn't
Be afraid Of bein lonesome, for we II nave
neivhbors on every side in less than year.
Well. this is an awful long letter. but you
see wanted to tell you all about everything,
and hope you won't feel too PAD because
cant come for you. You know Id ike 10 II
could, but cant and / promise you shant
much further any way unless they make us
take ship fer it, an they can't do that, ter the
courts hes decided that no body hes any claim
on to this here ranch, ceptin the feHoWs tlaG
preempt it.
/ think sy Peters viii be down TO see you
within week from the time you get this, tor
/ wrote him to go at once so as to give you all
the time possible for gettin ready,
Hopin this will find you and tho babies as
well as it leaves me, remain
Your loVin husband,
JOHN PARSONS.
The above letter was read by Martha
Parsons, first silently, and then aloud
to her two little girls, eight and ten
wears of age, as they stood in front of
their mother and listened with breath
less attention and wide open eyes, as II
seeing wonderful things, half glorious,
half frightful but altogether strange
and lnexplainable.
These were the babies that John Far
sons had left six years before, when
corporation representing railroad laid
claim to a large tract Of land upon