The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1889-02-22
SELECT STORY.
OLD MRS. DILL.


she often said, San I've lived in the
mountings ever sepce, an it amt the
fust time I've been left the only wo.
man they was in mlnin' camp. I've
lived long es year 'thout seein' the
face of no woman 'ceptin' my own
when looked in bit of lookin' glass.
I was the fust woman in Camp Para
disc, an | reckon I'll be the last to
leave 'er."
Her many years of life in the
'mountings" had told on Mrs. Dill.
She was bent and gaunt, with leath-
cry, wrinkled face and bony, calloused
hand. Her face and voice-her whole
manner-was masculine. The few
graces that old age vouohsafes its
chosen ones had not been given Mrs.
Dill. She was uncouth and repelling
in appearance, the result of years and
years of struggling against adverse
fates amid the demoralizing influences
of mining camp life.
"They amt no kind oroughing it
that amt used to-" she often said.
Lord! if l amt roughed it l don't
know who has. They amt gulch
in this part O the nountings / 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 years. Dill he never
once struck it rich in all that time, and
he died 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 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 a body might say,
an we've never got it out ag'in. Talk
bout hard times and roughin' it, good
Lord! you might say so if you'd went
through all have!'
Mr.. Dill had been dead six years,
leaving bis 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 if she cared to go, but she had
declined the offer.
"I've lived in the mountlngs too
long to live any place else now," she
said; sand, anyhow, l hain't got no
friends to 60 to. I'll stay here aud
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 be-
come a second Leadville. Two or
three promising strikes had been made,
and willy spectators had got up a
carefully planned "boom" solely in
their own interests. In one GUNNER
nearly three thousand people came to
Camp Paradise. 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 dimi-
nutive burro, which carried her world
ly all on its back. She began 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 to wash and
mend. They paid her we'll and her
wants were few.
When nearly all the other cabins
in the gulch were deserted, and when
all the little white tents had been fold
ed up and gone away with their own,
ers, Mrs. Dill stayed on. The men
rather liked her for doing 80. 1t
showed certain loyalty to the sold
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 NOV
ed into long, low, rambling house of
logs, that had once been a hotel, for
the winter. They did more, they gave
old Mrs. Dill home with them.
There was at one end of the build
ing 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 Dill kept their rough garments in
order, assisted about the cooking anil
made herself useful in other ways.
There was not another woman within
twenty five miles of Camp Paradise,
but Mrs. Dill did not care for that.
"l'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 No
vember the mountain slopes and
gulches were covered under foot or
more of snow that only the suns of the
coming June would melt.
The men could do little prospecting,
and nothing toward developing the
claims they had slaked out during the
summer. They spent most of their
time in hunting and visiting the ad-
joining camps, none OF which were
more prosperous than Camp Paradise
The men were idle 10 all of them, and
Tue natural consequence was that they
spent much of their time in gambling
and drinking and in the oarousals
common to mining camps.
1t was a stormy night in December
that all the 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 at the end of the cabin, and the
men were enjoying the rollicking
songs most miners know. Some of
them were playing poker, an uptmned
barrel serving for table. The wind
blew cold and fierce, and fine, hard
dashes of snow bt at against the little
windows on either side the door.
AS early as o'clock some of the
men began to talk about turning in
for the night. Several of them were
shaking up the blankets aud skins on
their rude hunks when, without knock
or other sound, the door opened sud.
denly and a man came in. The men
around the fireplace turned their faces
nnicklv tawards tho yisito. ,,J 80 al