Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1889-11-01

~
MS ( : on the Kaw River, in Kan
RZG&S/A sas, in the days prior to the
AIA9plZ< J sanguinary struggle that
~ N{jW marks such a heart-tOuch-
Il I'M Z ing epoch in the history Of
EezZSS| our country.
usHz< This old Justice was fre-
Sssr-iG quently called upon to tie
the nuptial knot for some very peculiar
backwoods couples.
One afternoon Hiram was sitting in
the door of his dingy, time-bIstered
cabin, perched upon bluff overlook
ing the blue waters of the KaW. The
old fellow was contentedly smoking
away at an old clay pipe, strongly enough
impregnated with long green" to
scare off a hungry buzZard from tan
yad.
The old Justice was bare-footed, and
his Well-wOrn. coarse, blue jeans
trousers was rolled pretty well up to
the knees, disclosing unlOvely, sinewy
ankles. He was cOatless and suspender-
less, for it was warm weather, and
Hiram wore neither in the summer
time. His shirt was of the thinner
quality of bed-ticking stuff, and
made after some nOndescTipt style
unknown east of the Missouri
River. He was bare headed, and the
recreant breezes that blew up the Kaw
Valley ruffied the thin, long locks of
reddish hair on his fat, sleek pate and
played hide and seek among the sandy
bristles Of his stumpy beard.
Old Hiram was a bachelor, and save
the old hound stretched in profound
slumber at his feet, he had no COM
paniOn. But he was well used to his
isolation from society, and if he ever
Yeared for a companion of the opposite
sex, he kept his wish jealousy locked
in his own heart. Perhaps the cere-
monies that he performed for his Kaw
Valley neighbOrs were sufficient for
him, and diverted his thoughts from
himself in a state of cOnnubiahsm. It
is proverbiaI of a carpenter that he
never attends to his own house, and it
may De that a man whose business it
is to marry others never devotes his
thoughts to his own marriage. But be
that as it may, old Hiram was a single
man on the shady side of fifty.
The Justice pulled away at his
shOrt-stemmed pipe, and gazed with
evident cOmplacence down the pic
turesque valley through which the
Kaw wound its placid way. Suddenly
his contemplation of Natures superb
painting before him is disturbed.
An odd-looking young couple on
horseback have ridden up the bluff
and approached the cabin of the JUS
tice. The girl bestrode bob-tailed
white mule, with one ear having a
triangular slit in it; for a saddle, she
sat on a piece of faded rag carpet,
strapped loosely round the animals
body, to allow the insertion of one foot
to support herself, while the other she
employed to goad the beast along by
applying sundry spirited kicks with
the heel of a No. Z cowhide shoe. She
was about nineteen years old, large
and long. She wore a green calico
dress, an apron of coarse. striped
shifting, and a pink sun-bOnnet that
might have belonged to a baby sister,
so small it was for her. The bonnet
only half concealed the big nose and
coarse features, strewn with freckles of
every geOmetric pattern known to
science, and many to be yet heard
of Her faded bronze hair strag-
gled from under the cape of her
bonnet, and dangled far down her
stopped shoulders, a prey to the rude
zephyrs that swept up the perfume
laden valley. About a ward of dark