Frostburg mining journal. [volume] (Frostburg, Md.) 1871-1913, 1891-07-04

Little woman, can yer read ?" asked.
mo, mister; but pappy can, was the
answer. An Tn goin' ter learn how
soon's ever go East ter my grammar. !"
But pose we want yer to stay here ?"
"Then I'll stay if pap says so, cause
like you uns real well. "
May be we'll all go, little woman.
It's time yer pap were here now with
them rabbits"
I'm goin' out to s'prise him, said the
child, wipin' the flour from her hands
and snatchin' her sunbonnet from its
nail.
l heerd a shot after that, but strange
to say, neither Taggart nor little woman
showed up.
When the boys came in the pork was
fryin' for the rabbit pie, and the crus'
were baked an in the dish, but that were
all
what were the shot heerd? ?" asked
Jim Menden, an Ohio boy, who was one
of us.
THAT were Taggart out in the bush
after rabbits"
What gun did ye give him-mine?"
YES Green give it to him cause il
were loaded with bird shot.
1T weren't. 1t had bullet for ante.
lope."
Then that was the shot we heerd,
said Green. 81 hope he amt shot his
own foolish head off.
He had hardly got the words out of his
mouth before every man-himself among
them--had left the cabin on the run.
cussed the lameness that kept me from
going.
warn't surprised when l heard them
coming back, after such a long time,
with slow and measured steps, carryin'
some burden 'atween them. | knew it
must be Taggart had hurt himself.
They came to the cabin door, and
every man had his hat off, an what they
carried was small.
Little woman!" cried out the word.
"Where's Taggart's little woman?"
Some one turned the coat from the
sweet face and I saw her just as her
father spoke up, with more dignity
than ever saw him hev before.
There air Lynch law for murderers, :"
he said, with his head dropping, "an
there air plenty here to see it done.
Gentlemen, l don't keer to wait. I'm
murderer in deed but not in intent Oh,
my little woman! Her pap as wouldn't
have harmed ha'r O her head-he did
the deed, an he will die for it like a
man"
But Taggart's dying would not have
brought her back. We went to Miners
Town and he'd the authorities come out
to investigated, an we give little woman
such funeral as princess might envy,
for we dug her grave with our own
hands and blubbered over it.
But that was lonely home coming
when we left her for the last time out in
the hills, and went back into the cabin
where she had shed such light, an saw
her father sittin' there, bowed with his
own trouble, which, after all, couldn't
have been much worse than ourn. Only
it was his stupid bungling that had killed
her, when she went creeping along on
her hands and knees in the brush to
'sprise him, and he had mistaken her for
a rabbit.
We couldn't like the man before this,
an now it was hard not to hate him but
for one fact-he was her father, the
"pappy" that Taggart's little woman had
loved. So we did our best fur him, but
it wasn't fur long. One day we missed
him, and looked for him at our general
roundup-little woman's grave. Yes, he
was there, but stretched out, cold and still,
an whether he died of broken heart or
an overdose Of his drug we never knowed.
There we buried him.
Green himself carved these words on
the board at the head: