St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-08-01
Letter No. I.

Jean Norwood writes Lillian Russell why
she fled to the West.
DAKOTA (Sixty Miles from Railroadl,
July 3.-My Dear Lillian: You will
wonder, when you see the heading of this
letter, as you have wondered many times
before, whether or not l am in any way
responsible for my action.
know at first you will be furious and
disguised with me. but on second thoughts,
perhaps, you will think 1 am not quite as
insane as at first glance. Of course, my
dear, in some ways [ am fearfully
disappointed about our plans for
the summer (yours and mine / mean),
and l think of you and Minnetonka
and drop tear. But when ones throat
gets in that state that doctors, gargles, red
dannels, carbolic acid, etc., etc., ad nau-
scum, have no effect whatever, and when the
owner of said throat grumbles TO such an
extent that she is nuisance to herself and
the surrounding community, what can she
do but take flight to another cline? But
there. am, as usual, getting ahead of my
story. You always said l pronounced the
benediction before l preached my SER
mon, so [ shall try and reform and
write my reasons in an orthodox
manner. Well, to begin with, you remem-
Der the fearful cold l caught the night of
the Mardi Gras carnival. [ would insist on
taking off my thick clothes and wearing
that black Spanish lace gown. sans sleeves,
sans lining, and say it to my sorrow now.
sans common sense. phil insists looked
so stunning that night, it was worth twenty
sore throats.) You left next morning, and
1 did not really tell you how sick l
was, but for days 1 could hardly
speak. Don't you remember the
speech Walter Evans once made, Take
away Jean NorwOOd's power of speech, and
you leave her a wreck" So after being al
most speechless for weeks, when the doc
tors ordered a complete change of air and
suggested summer in Colorado. although
l knew it meant goodbye to Minnetonka,
goodbye to Lillian Russell. goodbye to all
my air castles, l uttered not one objection.
Mamma was going with ME. We were to
start in day or two, when l got letter
from Nan. Cousin PhiFs wife, in Dakota.
1t seemed Phil had the same trouble with
his throat and was ordered to Dakota. As
soon as Nan heard about my being sick she
wrote Inc to come and spend the summer
with her in her ''shack" as she called it.
She just 'enthused" over PhI's improve
ment, said it was marvellous, and dwelt Oh
so on the beauties of the climate that
they say, He who hesitates is lost"
Only this time it was a she instead of
I he, that hesitated and truly was lost.
While mamma was arguing the pros and
cons, l, Jean Norwood, settled the matter,
telegraphed to Phil that 1 would be there
such day, packed my trunks, started
! amidst the walls of my friends, and here l
am. An old friend of papa's came as far
as Aberdeen with me. l was then cast on
the cold world. by myself, and 1 tell it to
you in secret, and silence and tears. for a
while it seemed bitterly cold indeed. After
we left Chicago, the accommoda-
tons became poorer and poorer until 1
did not know to what base uses I might
come at last. The last hotel that we
reached at the end of the railroad capped
the climax. / was shown to a room with
rag carpet, pine set Of furniture, the bed
with such spirituelle and consumptive legs
that l was in fear in the dead of night, my
lis avoirdupois, would be lying PROSTATE
on the ground. The towel, l think. was
dolly in disguise. But, oh! ye Gods the
looking glass! It was eight by ten inches
in a sepulchural black frame When T
looked in it 1.-THE glass. not the frame), |
found l had ten noses; three mouths and
about eighteen eyes. 1t was one of those
many things that makes a person look
crazy. In despair, / fshed out my hand
glass, tied it with my handkerchief to the
side of the window and dressed. Wouldn't
l think myself imposed upon in dreadful
way at home if 1 were cut off from my i'm
mense cheval glass.
In about an hour the stage came
along, and there was another
discovery. By the way, think I am be-
ginning to be an embryo Christopher
Columbus. By stage, always imagined
an enormous, gorgeous, red-and-gilt affair.
like circus band wagon, drawn by eight
or ten dashing steeds l supposed the
driver was fierce, brigandish-look indi-
vidual, sitting way up in the air on a high
seat, footing on horn. and the whole
affair Oriental in the extreme. Imagine my
CONSERVATION when the stage arrived. It
was a dilapidated spring wagon, what
we call grocer's cart in the East. drawn
by two sad-looking animals with heads
between their knees. The driver was sad
der looking still. He was absolutely de-
jected and had such Marianna-in-the-
Moated- Grange look, that l was almost
tempted to ask him if ''he wished that he
were dead" Imagine my sorrow (for you
know l do like thrilling surroundings.
But there was no help for it. The mail
bag. my three trunks and I were hoisted
in and off we started at a funereal rate.
| was out of the states and really on the
wonderful prairies of Dakota. Nothing ex-
citing happened on the way. The stage
driver would not even talk to me. He ac-