Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-07-02
THE LETTER,

you and the babies like I hoped to do cause
IN broke again; leastwise hev 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 I can scrape
together, and 1 want you and the babies to
pack up and come out.
know it looks hard fer you to have to make
tne trip across tine plains alone with the chill.
oren, but don't see no way to help it unless
we are never to see one another again. and /
can stand that, nor don't believe you want
70 either. And there's Rastus; he must be
se..ln most man now, and will help you a
heap, and an III do the square thing by the boy
10 Bronson's wifes cousin. Sy Peters, has
writ 10 that he Is gon to come out this sum.
mer with company, and you can come with
You remember Sy: He's Twin up near
Perkinsville now, bein driv off of his land
long or the rest of us. Sy will be glad 10 do
you good turn know, for when we was both
broke up back in New England by goin Sc
pathy with one another, and now that the
railroad corporation has gobbled us BOTH Sy
same KIND reckon as swopn sympathy
means swopin help with poor folks.
spose you'll want to know what kind of a
place am aSkin you to come to- and tell
You honest, Marty, when ! say that natur
done way up job when she made this coun-
try; just about the best she is capable of doin,
reckon. an all I'm askin for now is to have
you an the babies, an Ill be satisfied for all
the hard work and losses we've had, and
IL
bhn up one home after another after we had
made en- by hard work.
wrong with the law, fer the Door don't stan no
chance with the rich. an the more law the less
the fellows that works gifts.
When wrote you afore, was rakin in the
aust pretty smart me an my pard, but some
fellows from New York came up there and
proposed to form jint stock company, and
offered to put in a lot of machinery for histin
out the ore, agin our claim; an bein as we was
anxious to get at the dust as fast as possible,
m ha RI fha faS for.n
didn't pan out like it OFT, to a done.
directors, pnted one of themselves
book-keeper, and pard and me never exactly
ments instead of DIVES, 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
with EN-.
81 After that knocked around in the diggns
Ranch struck out for it. and here am: an
tell you, wife, shes just the most glorious
which nobody doesn't come back from when
they hev crost it, and hev took up $50 acres
of land, and will hev cabin up an a good bit
of the sile broke afore you git here, and We'll
be comfortable in our old age yit, in spite of
everything.
This here's the finest valley III the State and
would all have been took up long ago only
some rich fellows pretended to have kind of
q Spanish claim on to i, ana folks were afraid
driv off like we have been. but finally some
Teller took the case up to court and it 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
pre- -emptin quarter sections. and you needn't
be afraid of bein lonesome. for wen have
neghbOrs on every side in less than year.
Well, this is an awful long letter, but you
dee wanted to tell you all about everything,
and hope you wont feel too bad because
cant come for you. You know Id like to if
as cant drHe ns
much further any way. unless they make us
take ship fer it; an they cant do that fer the
courts hes decided that no body hes any claim
on to this here ranch, ceptin the fellows that
pre-empt it.
/ think Sy Peters will be down to see you
within week from the time you get this, for
wrote him to go at once so as to give you all
the time possible for gettin ready.
Hopin this will find you and the babies as
well as it leaves me, i 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
years of age, as they stood in front of
their mother and listened with breath
less attention and wide open eyes, as if
seeing wonderful things, half glorious,
half frightful, but altogether strange
and unexplainable.
These were the babies that John Par
sons had left six years before, when a
corporation representing railroad laid
claim to large tract of land upon
which he and hundreds of others had
settled, having bought and paid for it,
and holding, as they supposed, incon-
testable titles thereto.
When it first became known to them
that corporation would contest with
them the right to their homes and
farms a portion of the settlers threat
ened vengeance and declared they would
give up their own only with their lives;
but John loved peace better than con-
tention. and knew by experience the
difficulty of fighting bodies that have no
souls within them, and he had said to
his wife:
ut is no use, Marty. The Philistines
are upon us agin. and we have got to
git. It's hard, l know; harder fer you
, ner for me, for you was brought up sort
O tender like and ust to better things,
an you've worked hard and gone with
out much, and now when we was just
gettin' a start agin' after losin' what
your father Civ us an all we had added
to it, on the spot where you was born,
it's mighty tough. bit Wen have to
stand it.
..They can't put us off the place for a
time, any way, for some of the fellers
are goin' to fight EN- with the law,
though faint no use, for they'll take
everything they want in the end; and
they want it all But while they are a
dom it I'll try an win enough to make
another home for you and the babies.
I'll 60 to California, Marty, and make a
fortune, while you stay on the place
with the youngsters, and by the time
they git ready to turn you out OF this,
never fear but I'll come back with
enough to take you to another home
an a better one. May be it is for the
best, after all May be I'll git rich
enough to 90 back East and buy the
old place where you was born
And so John Parsons had got to-
gether what money he could by the sale
of their few head of cattle and sheep,
leaying the family with one cow to sup
ply them with milk, had kissed the
babies as they lay asleep in their cradle,
had kissed the wife who for long years
to come should only know such sleep
AZ comes to those worn with ceaseless
labor and study of how to make the IN
come meet the expenses which must be
met, and had crossed the plains and
mountains that lay between his home
and the Pacific Ocean, hoping to gather
enough gold to repay them for all their
past labor and sufferings.
AS John had anticipated, some OF the
homesteaders had contested with the
railroad company the right to the land
for which they held deeds from the
United States Government, but only to
find by decision of the last court of re-
sort that individuals have no RIGHTS