Feliciana sentinel. [volume] (St. Francisville, La.) 1877-1892, 1891-12-26
ON A SALT MARSH.
Our Experience While Occupying
Government Land.

ouA cak0T1ouCo " uuo occupying
Government Land.
Some years ago my husband, baby
and were in one OF the far western
states living in a sort Of pioneer fash
ion while trying to make successful a
business newly started by himself.
We had lately come from New York,
where we had friends and good home
and lots OF comfort and many luxuries.
Eut Philip, my dear husband, wasn't
satisfied with our easy life there. He
was too proud to be merely a wcll-paid
clerk in my fathers thriving store, and
he even foolishly imagined that he
owed his position more to charity on
account of his marrying me than to the
real merits he possessed.
Besides he was am bilious to be rich
and his own master, SO neither he nor
myself took much pleasure in our hap
Ply circumstances. We wanted to jump
from the frying pan into the fire,
though we didn't think so, and soon,
after couple of years spent in discon-
tent as to our future, we determined to
''go west and grow up with the coun-
try.
was strong, brave and energetic
young woman when we reached the
wild western town where we located,
and looked upon the hardships we
were undergoing before we became
wealthy and great as very romantic
and delightful.
And SO did Philip. Although he was
ever careful not to make my burden
heavy he never spared himself in the
big undertaking before us.
But his business didn't grow fast
enough to suit his high aspirations and
he was continually looking out for
some new scheme for making money.
One night. after baby was asleep and
we sat cozily before the fire, he told me
OF some immense salt meadows still
further west which the government
was dividing into large tracts and Civ
ing them to settlers. Now" he said.
with Il beaming face, ''if we should To-
cate on one of these tracts before they
are taken and live there for n few
years, VIC could then be the owners of
property that will certainly become
very valuable in time, as the country
grows in its borhood. Then wc
with fortune"
II had discouraged the idea then I
know he would have dropped it.
But l was even more sanguine of the
results than he, and fell in with the
scheme at once, only advising that we
should hold on to our present bust
ness, too. and cndcavor to run both,
which he gladly agreed to-
In a months time he had his shanty
erected on our salt marsh tract. and
thither we went with the necessary
household effects in n prairie wagon,
baby and all.
The weather was warm and beau
tiful when our hopeful little family of
squattcrs arrived on our dominion,
which was to be our fortune. and the
rough and rather frail log cal bin look ed
like Il palace to my ambitious and ro-
mantle eyes.
Twas in the center of our big tract.
and the saline deposit, covering the
marsh for miles and miles. glistcned
and sparkled in the bright sunlight
lihc the first light fall OF snow used to
when on the green me adows about the
old homestead in our native eastern
state.
Not another domicile but our own
could we sec, nor hill. nor even Il bit
of woods. All was wide, dreary, dead
level-white mostly with salty scum and
black and bare in spots with what
looked like dried mud, such as the bot
tom of Il pond discloses when the water
is drawn off.
Not sign nor a sound of life save
the dismal croakings of the lonely frogs
was there to our knowledge for many
miles around.
We were in desert uninhabitable
apparently for man or beast. sure to
starvc if our supplies were not often
renewed: with no protection from the
deadly tornadoes in summer and the
forty de rce-be low-zero billiards in
the winter save our little mud plastercd
log shanty.
What "a place for woman and
baby.
But the prospective fortune we would
have to travel home with, and the
glory Of doing something heroic for
husband and babe, praced me up, and
with a merry shout ! took possess ion
as our new home in the saline desert
and commenced house keeping in a very
primitive styk~
/ was cheerful and made ne end of
fun over everything, IT., kT.e~s If L
showed tnv-svsite feather then Philip
wprlHd quickly have given up 1s'S tract
ssso tas4e- .s'e barl, TO civiiizssbtf. -
or tod IN