The Delaware City news. (Delaware City, Del.) 188?-18??, 1889-04-11
OLD MRS. DILL.

|
When all the other women In CAM
Paradise went away old Mrs. Dill stayed
| on.
Il come to the mountings in 49, she
often said, 'an' I've lived In the mount.
ings eyer sence, an it amt the fust
time I've been left the only woman
they was in mimi camp. I've lived
long es a year 'thout seein' the face Of
no woman 'ceptin' my own when ]
looked in bit Of lookin' glass. was
the fust woman in Camp Paradise, an
reckon I'll be the last to leave 'er.
Her many years of life in the mount
ings' had told on Mrs. Dill. She was
bent and gaunt, with a leathery,
wrinkled face and bony, calloused
hands-was masculine. The few graces
that old age vouchsafes Its chosen ones
had not been given to Mrs. Dill. She
was uncouth and repelling in appear
auce, the result Of years and years of
struggling against adverse fates amid
the demoralizlng influences OF mining
camp life.
They amt no kind o. roughing it
that amt used to- she often said.
"Lordl If amt roughed it l don't
know who has. They amt gulch in
this part o. the mountlngs 1 amt been
in or a trail I amt been over. I've
lived in tents and log cabins and some
times under nothin' but the trees. for
most thirty year. Dill he never once
struck it rich In all that time, and he
died poorer IN he was when we come
out here from old Missouri.
Wed good farm back there, but
Dill he got the gold minin' craze, an
we sold out an come out here with an
OK team an put our farm into a hole in
The ground, ez body might say, an
we've never got it out ag'ln. Talk
bout hard times and roughin' it, good
Lord! you might say SO If you'd went
through all haveli
Mr.. Dill had been dead six years.
leaving his widow homeless and penni-
less. Some of the miners in the camp
in which old man Dill died offered to
raise fund to send her back to her
friends II she cared to go. but she had
declined the offer.
I've lived in the moantings too long
To live any place else now,' she said; ;
and, anyhow, 1 hain't got no friends to
90 to. I'll stay here and rough ii out
to the end.'
She had been among the first comers
to camp Paradise in the days of that
camps short lived prosperity. 1t was
supposed then that the camp would be-
come second Leadville. Two or three
promising strikes had been made, and
Willy spectators got up a carefully
planned boom solely in their own in-
terests. In one summer nearly three
thousand people came to Camp Para
disc. Most of them went away again
before the year was out.
Old Mrs. Dill came wearily up the
steep and narrow track one day, walk
ing slowly behind an aged and dlminu-
tive burro, which carried her worldly
all on ita back. She began her Camp
Paradise career as laundress. Some
of the miners had known her in other
camps, and q number of them got to-
getheF one day and built her a little
cabin, and atterward gave her their
rough garments TO wash and mend.
They paid her well and her wants were
few.
When nearly all the other other
cabins in the gulch were deserted, and
when all the little white tents had been
folded up and gone away with their
owners, Mrs. Dill stayed on. The men
rather liked her for doing so. 1t
showed certain loyalty to the 'old
camp and faith in it that pleased
them, for those who stayed were firm in
the conviction that there were great
treasures hidden away in the secret
depths OF the granite mountain tower
ing above the little town.
And they were determined to find
those treasures; so about twenty-five of
them made common property Of their
few worldly possessions and moved into
a long, low, rambling house of logs.
that had once been a hotel, for the
winter. They did more, they gave old
Mrs. Dill a home with them.
There was at one end of the building
a little room for which the men had no
special use, and this they made very
comfortable for old Mother DILL as
many of them called her. In return
Mrs. Din kept their rough garments in
order, assisted about the cooking and
made herself useful in other ways,
There was not another woman within
twenty-five miles Of Camp Paradise,
but Mrs. Dill dia not care for that.
I'm used to it., she said.
The winter set In early In Camp
Paradise. There was snow on the
ground in October. and early IN Nov
ember the mountain slopes and gulohes
were covered under a foot or moro of
snow that only the suns of the coming
June would melt,
The men could do little prospecting,