Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-07-10
LITTLE JIMMY" /"
The Pathetic History OF a Wom-
ans Stormy Life.

We were snow-bound on the Northern
Pacific. The first day was spent In making
complaints against the weather, in asking
foolish questions of the conductor, in idle
guesses as to how long we would be de-
layed, varied with expressions of contempt
for the foolhardness that had led US to at
tempt such journey at such time Of year
over such road.
The second day we resigned ourselves to
the situation with something more of grace,
and from making the hours a burden turned
our attention to tightening their tediousness.
So we found out that our party of storm
stayed travellers possessed a wealth OF re-
sources. Songs were sung, poems recited
and stories told. The elocutionist rolled his
eyes and his RS for the entertainment of his
appreciative audience, the conundrum fiend
rose to the occasion. Among the stories
told remember best the following one,
which l give as nearly as possible in the
language of the narrator:
II haven't thought of little Jinnyin many
a day, but there's pair of eyes in this car
that are as like what hers used to be as
ever / saw one pair OF eyes like another,
and I've beon haunted all day by memory.
In the first place she had miserable, drunk
en-, brutal wretch for father. She was half
starved and half-clOthed all her life. The
only things that she had plenty of were
blows and curses, and old Temple was free
as air with these. There never was time
when he didn't have them on hand and to
spare, but if they'd cost cent jimmy
wouldn't have known the sound of them.
This sort of treatment doesn't have
sanctifying effect, and it's moro than likely
that jimmy was rather wild; women folks
said 40, and though l don't take much stock
In what women say of each other, 1t may be
thoy were right in this; why notl The poor
child's mother died when she was born. It
wns said that the mother was very sweet,
gentle little woman-and in those early
Wild days it was every man and every wom-
an fer themselves in this case there
was no one to help, but many to hurt.
''But, anyway, when jimmy was about six
teen she ran off with Dick Thorne-and a
thorn he was, and no mistake, If there
ever was man meaner than the evil one,
no was the man. He was a coarse, rough
fellow, unattractive m every way. She
never cared much for him. but l suppose
she thought life couldn't be much worse
than 1t was, and here was chance, if
small one, of something better; so she took
it. Some folks seem born with faculty of
running on to snags, and jimmy was one of
these. She found before long that she'd
gone from bad 20 worse
Pretty! Yes, she was as pretty as
picture: blue eyes, like that bit of sky up
there, only they had something in them that
the sky lacks; hair the color of gold, that
waved and fuffed around her pretty white
forehead; complexion like blush rose,
and, though sin and iniquity had been her
food and drink, as one might say, she had
AZ expression like that I've seen in the faces
of pictured saints. 1t happens sometimes,
uicrn on ha ita
face of the water-lily of the mud and slime
IL came up out of, and often so 1t is with
human kind
well, she had a dogs life of it with
Thorpe; there was no kind of meanness that
he did not have hand in, and that he did
not try TO drag her into, but she clung to
him because he was her husband, and if
she left him she knew just about where
she'd 20. She knew what temptations stood
waiting for such as she always waiting;
and poor and ignorant and abused as she
was, she had leaning toward decency and
made brave fight for IT,
''But after ALI
''Yes, after all she went under; that is,
she ran away from him, just as she ought
to have done long before, and then another
devil OF different pattern stood in her path;
a nice, smooth-tongued, handsome devil,
heart and money in his pocket.
'Its curious thing, but in different
people meapness shows in different ways
Thorne abused her because he was mean
and selfish, and her father likewise, and
Elliott Gray was good to her for the same
reason. IL pleased him 10 see her look pret-
ty so he bought her silks and iaces and dia-
monds. How she loved him; he was the
hrst man she ever loved with all her heart
and soul and brain, and he was doubly loved,
for he loved himself first, last and all the
time.
Il don't know but II mans got to be
mean that the smiling, pleasant-mannered
ones are nou better than the rough, swear
ing sort. II a woman's got to have her
heart broken she is certainly little better
of not to have her head broken at the same
time; and do know that ali the happiness
that littis jimmy ever had that black-hearted
liar gave heT.
''Of course he got tired nf her, and equally,
Of course, she didn't get tired of him. You
see some men require woman To love him
Just when and how and rs much as he
wants and no more, and the foolish Great
ures don't seem to understand; they seem
70 think that they can't love man to the
very extent of his asking without loving
him too wei. 70 stop short whenever he says
so; and jimmy was that unreasonable that
she kept on caring for Elliott when there
was every reason that she should hate him
instead. he got on the down n-grade and
kept going. They went here and there
they were in Denver for awhile; her fine
clothes went for bread and shelter and to
keep him out Of the hands OF the law. Then
one day saw him on the strest in Dead
wood His clothes were sort o. shabby
yanteel hut he wore A silk nat and his boots
shone so you could have seen your face in
them, and he carried cane. He had the
same hard, cruel look on his mouth-you
may talk about reading man by his eyes,
but there's no feature like the mouth Tor
telling what a man Is in heart and hfe-the
same smile, that had no more warmth in 1t
than there is in the glitter CT a razor. he
didn't know me hut u was mar IF my nusi.
ness in those days to remember faces, and I
remembered his
- few days after that had been out in
the country locking after a thief that had
escaped us, ana was driving into town
when saw something in tho road a little
way ahead, aud queer outfit it appeared to
be. As drew near saw il was a woman.
She had tied one corner Of faded summer
shawl 70 an old sachel and was dragging
the load along on the ground. She was so
tired that she fairly staggered It was
plain that shR had no business to be walking
along that dry, hard highway under that
broiling sun. So / reined ul and said:
Wouldn't you like to ridef When she
iboked up and said, Yes, If you please /
saw that it was little jimmy, faded and
worn. and so tired-looking. She recognized