Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1889-04-05
OLD MRS. DILL.

When all the other women in Camp Para
disc went away old Mrs Dill stayed on.
II come to the mountings in 80" she often
said, San I've lived in the mountings ever
sence, am it amt the fust time I've been left
the only woman they was in mimi camp.
I've lived long es year thout seem the face
of no woman 'ceptin' my own when looked
in bit Of lookin' glass. l was the fust
woman in Camp Paradise, an reckon I Il be
the last to leave err
Her many years of life in the ''mountingsH
had told on Mrs. Dill. She was bent and
gaunt, with leathery, wrinkled face and
bony, calloused hands, Her face and voice
her whole manner-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 appearance, the re-
suit Of years and years of struggling against
adverse fates amid the demoralizng influences
of mining camp life.
''They amt no kind O roughing it that ]
amt used to-" she often said. Lord! if ]
amt roughed it don't know who has. They
amt gulch in this part O. the mountings !
amt been in Or trail amt been over. I've
lived in tents and log cabins and sometimes
under nothin' but the trees, for most thirty
year. Dill he never once struck it rich in all
that time, and he die poorer n he was when
we come out here from old Missouri
"We'd a good farm back there, but Dill he
got the gold mimi craze, an we sold out an
come out here with an OK team an put our
farm into a hole in the ground, ez a body
might say, an we've never got it out gin.
Talk bout hard times and roughin' it, good
Lord! you might say so if you'd went through
all have!n
Mr. Dill had been dead six years, leaving
his widow homeless and Pennies. Some OF
the miners in the camp in which old man
Dill died offered to raise fund to send her
back to her friends if she cared to go, but she
had declined the offer.
GIVE lived in the mountings too long to
live any place else now," she said; land, any
how, l haint got no friends to go to- I'll
stay here and rough it out to the end"
She had been among the first corners to
Camp Paradise in the days of that camps
short lived prosperity. 1t was supposed then
that the camp would become a second Lead
Vile Two or three promising strikes had
been made, and willy spectators got up
carefully planned boom" solely in their own
interests. In one summer nearly three thou
sand people came to Camp Paradise. Most
of them went away again before the year
was out.
Old Mrs. Dill came YEARLY up the STEEP
and narrow track one day, walking slowly
behind an aged and diminutive burro, which
carried her worldly all 6n its back. She be
gan her Camp Paradise career as laundress
Some of the miners had known her in other
camps, and number of them got together
one day and built her a little cabin, and
afterward gave her their rough garments tc
wash and mend. They paid her well and heI
wants were few.
When nearly all the 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. Il
showed a certain loyalty to the sold camp
and faith in it that pleased them, for thoss
who stayed were firm in the conviction that
there were great treasures hidden away in
the secret depths of the granite mountain
towering 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 pos
sessions and moved into long, low, rambling
house Of logs, that had once been hotel, fol
the winter. They did more, they gave old
Mrs. Dill a home with them.
There was at one end of the building @
little room for which the men had no specia
use, and this they made very comfortable fol
ssold Mother Dill, as many of them called
her. In return Mrs. Dill kept their rough
garments in order, assisted about the cooking
and made herself useful in other ways There
was not another woman within twenty-fi
miles of Camp Paradise, but Mrs. Dill did
not care for that
ttI'm used to it, she said.
Tbs winter set in early in Camp Paradise.
There was snow on the ground i'll October,
and carly in November the mountain slopes
and gulches were covered Under foot OF
more of snow that only the suns of the com
ing June would melt.
The men could do little prospecting, ant
nothing toward developing the claims they
had staked out during the summer. They
spent most of their time in hunting and visit
ing the adjoining camps, none of which were
more prosperous than Camp Paradise. The
men were idle in ali Of them, and the natura
consequence was that they spent much Of
the carousals common to mining camps.
1t was stormy night in December that al
tho men in Camp Paradise sat around the
great fire of pine knots in the broad fireplace
at one end of the cabin.
Old Mrs. Dill had gone to her little room al
the end of the cabin, and the men were en-
loving the rollicking songs most miners know
Some of them were playing poker, an up
turned barrel serving for a table. The wine
blew cold and fierce, and fine, hard dashes O.
snow beat against the little windows on eithel
side the door.
AS early as 8 o'clock some of the men began
t, talk about turning in" for the night
Several Of them were shaking up the blanket
and skins on their rude hunks when. withou
knock or other sound, the door opened sud
denly and u man came in. The men aroune
the fireplace turned their faces quickly to
waris.s the visitor, and one Of them said:
swell, Jack Downey, what in thunder
brings YOU clean from down in Camp Fair
view away up to old Prosperity on such 1
night as this2 Come to the fire an thaw out
man. an give an account O yersef."
The man, tall and sallow and grizzled
laughed gri1nly as he causs forward,
Come to invite you to little party down
to Fa,rytew-Jed Judson's deadl'
"Naw!''
"Jed Judson?'
''Ye don't mean its"
ssWhat?"
"Jed-Judson-dead
The speakers all spoke at once, the poker
players dropped their cards, some of the mer
rose hastily to their feet.
"VVhatever aided Jedg'
",vhet aided him?" repeated the man from
Camp Fairview; be was well an hearty a:
you and I be three hours ago. when an orn
cry cuss from Poverty Gulch that Jed caught
cheatin' at cards, and told him of it, put