Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1891-02-12
A TRAGEDY.

One That Was Brought About by q Mis-
sent Message of Love.
am morally certain that there never
| had been an excitement over Valen-
tines day in the Cubero section house
| before. There was no reason why
there should be. Away out on the At
| lantic G. Pacific railroad, seventy miles
from Albuquerque, with nothing in
sight but the igneous mesas, the scant
valley dotted with few Indi an farms,
| and the tapering ladder of rails
that seemed to come from nowhere and
go to nothing-it was the last place in
| the world for the little and brittle god
! to waste any time on so busy day.
There were no neighbors to send val
entines; nor jewellers in the ugly brown
house to send them to, save the senior
Mulcaheys and their five scions (the
eldest aged six) and four very frowsy
Mexican laborers. AS for Petra. the
Indian dish-contester, she slept'at home
in Casa Blanca, and was not counted as
one of the house at all.
But when No. 8 went snuffiing west
ward that morning, and the worn
russell pouch came tumbling across the
snow, a valentine had certainly arrived
letter for .'Mrs Kate Mulcahey, Cubero
Section-house, N. NJ" and it ran thus: !
ALBUQUERQUE NJ NJ, Feb. 10, 1sss.-Ny Dear.
est Kate: This is the day Of hearts and arrows,
but shall send you other valentine except
this little message. We need wait no longer
to be happy. / have money enough saved up
now. Let us fly from this dreary land and
make our nest in some more congenial cline.
Never mind the children-let some one else
look out for the little heathens. can not bear
to have you wasting your time with them.
Come to me, sweetheart. Yours devotedly,
ROBERT.
To say that Mrs. Mulcahey was
dumfounded, outraged, paralyzed,
by this unexpected valentine, would
be an inadequacy so utter as to be
criminal or wilful fiction. Language
would fail to Craze the cuticle of her
sensations. When articulate speech
came back, two window-panes yielded
to the exuberance of her:
''Dinnis! DINNIs! An is it hittin' the
bed yees are, phwile the faceliss
divils insoolts the mother av yer child
her? Bang! "a chair hits the bedroom
door,. Come out, ye lowafer! Here's
blaggar-rd writes me his dearest
Ka-ate, an wull Oh fol wild i'm! An
niver moind the CHILDBIRTH some wan
ilse tind the haythen brats! Hip!
Mur-r-dher!'
But let us draw vail. There are
some scenes too painful to be contem-
plated.
The same morning Miss Kate Mullen,
mission teacher of a school of ragged
Mexican children at San Rafael, trudged
to the post-office before school.
Il know Robert will send me a nice
valentine" she was saying to herself.
''He wrote me not long ago that he
hoped soon to be able to leave Spicer Sc
Sanders-he hates bookkeeping
set up for himself. And then and
she blushed softly and walked the faster.
One letter for Miss Mullen-yes, from
Robert She walked down the road a
bit and tore it open shyly. And then
she gave little scream, flung the letter
to the ground, and ran into the house,
sobbing: 1.-THE horrid brute! / necer
will marry him.
Out in the road the mischievous bit of
paper lay till / CHANGED along and picked
it up. 1t was only this:
sPICER g. SANDERS, GRoCERs.
ALBUQUERQUE, N NJ, 2, 13
DEAR GADAM:
with you until your account is settled. We
have to pay cash, and so will you.
Yours truly, SPIcER g. SANDERS.
I myself think Robert must have
dropped a stitch somewhere.-C. +.
Lummis, in Time.
Tender Valentine.
Bessie hate to write to George with
this bad pen.