The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1889-02-08
A FAIR 0UIXOTE.
..rrl.. relates tn. Fortunes Of. Social n.fsrmer.

who undertook q tilt with a son {
Eastern chivalry on the subject {
natures nobleman as opposed t
society's. The intrepid spirit of thi
female might have inspired an epic
treated in the Homeric style. Sh
was of the stuff of heroines. Sh
spent some time in New York, an
endeavor in that enervating atmos
qhere to keep untainted the vigorou
health of her views.
Her friends regarded her as bette
than an anarchist. An admirer sal,
to her once, when the welkin wa
ringing with her socialistic theories
"My dear Miss Brown. if you hat
lived in Russia, you would by thil
time have attempted to blow up tn,
Car with a bomb"
She said she thought it likely, anG
was quiet certain that she would
have been sent to Siberia. She. was
one of those people whose vie
latent in piping times of peace, al
the first chatting of opposite rise hot
to the surface. In the West the
germ OF her rampant republicanism
lay dormant in dry, peeling bulbs; in
the air of the East it shot up of a
sudden like Jacks ~bean-stack. She
was the champion of the socially
weak, the fashionably incompetent
Ifthere vas anybody-not mentally
incapable-upon whom society turned
its elegant back, she performed the
good Samaritan act, and crossed the
road to console and protect. Her
antagonism was furious aroused by
the easy, careless manner of the pro-
%cession, as it marched past the feeble
ones unable to keep up. One day in
speaking of this she said:
II want to keep myself unspotted
from this great, heartless selfish city.
It's a beautiful place and people lead
magnificent lives, but 1 never saw SO
many small prejudices, SO much mar
rowness and meanness. 1 suppose
the people here would be broad and
liberal"
So she set forth on a stormy career,
breaking lances right and left, and
showing the most undaunted valor,
Gin the face of fearful Odds" In Or
der to keep her republicanism green,
she collected quite a menagerie of So
infirm pets, to whose standard
she rallied at the cry for help. She
generally took up hopeless cases.
One of them. l remember, was a fam
of a mother, a father, and two
daughters; let u call them Smiths.
Like all enthusiasts she rather over
did it, and was always examining her
Smiths down the throats of her
friends. The Smiths were good, hon
est, noble-hearted people. Society
of them because they oil
talked through their noses, all talked
at once, and all, in cold blood, MUIR
aered the grammar-books, and dane
ed a war-dance on their mangled re-
mains. Mrs. Smith was in character
The strongest, in grammar the weak
est. She used torun a-muck through
Murray. She always alluded
10 her husband as "Pop Smith,"
This was her social eath-blow. The
charms of her kindly heart and gen
.rous disposition would have borne
her trium phantly over the rapids of
Of having ''seen him done it," or
nave plotted her through the shoals
'f "my daughter Polly amt n ofool,"
put upon the ignominjous and desc
rating "Pop Smith" she foundered.
The girls were not quite as unbri-
He'd in their passion for breaking the
spirit. They generously
that it had something on
is side. To besure, theywere known
o ''enjoy poor health" and similar
strange arrangements were showered
lpon them by prodigal nature. They
wen INDUCED in the pernicious habit
"taking rides on ferry-boats," and
t must be consequently presumed
hey not infrequently "took a sail on
or a "gallop on the ele-
7ated railway" One ofthem was ar
istic, and occasionally in bout with
he French pigments she was downed.
had a peculiar way of rendering
'Mauve," to which only the pen of a
,reat writer could do full justice. /
now that the terminal "e'' was not
lighted. And for many reckless and
lnthinking years she called the "Sal-
nagundi Club" the Solomon Grun-
~" a compliment to the gentleman
whose little life was rounded off in
me portentous week; but there have
'een more timely compliments.
overlooking these harmless, eccentric
lies, she was a charming girl.
This was thefamily the Western re-
ormer undertook to float on the
Eastern market. She could not do
Martin Luther, and Fox, and
alvin could not have done it. The
of the family were willing
nough, but the grammar was still
7eak. 1t had ricketts, of the most in
urable form. Whenever their pat
on and her friends had built alovely
Office in which the Smith family sat
in a photographically
'osed group, down upon it came
Pop Smith," and the whole was
mashed to atoms.
The reformer's second venture was
forlorn young man-Jones. Every
ody knew Jones, and most men liked