The Olneyville tribune. (Providence, R.I.) 1893-189?, 1893-11-04
An Old Roman Of maTipOSa.
BY FLORENCE FIECH-KELLY.


Mariposa is a wreck Of the gold fever.
The merest skeleton Of its former self,
its lies there in the gulch between the
chaparral- covered foothills and remcm-
bers the time when it was lusty and Wig
orous. in the full flesh OF feverish youth,
and had a murder every morning for
breakfast.
All around it the gashed and scanned
and SCARED and furrowed earth bears
testimony to the labors Of those stirring
times when men dug fortune from the
ground in day, and spent it in the town
at night.
The people live in the past The first
man with whom you talk will make you
hear the sound OF barroom fights and pis-
tol shots down the street, and the rolling
chorus of "Forty-rine, " and make vivid
for your eyes the piles of gold dust upon
the gaming tables, the hundreds of gold
weighted miners that came trooping into
town on Saturday night, and the placer
mines down the bed of the creek, as pop
ulous then as city street, though
utterly deserted now. And every man and
woman above middle age with whom you
talk will do the same for YOU with new
characters and incidents, until your stay
in the town becomes rolling panorama
OF the gold days and you feel as if you
were yourself living through their excite
ments and had gotten their deliriums in
your veins.
At least that was what was happening
to me as | sat on bench in front of a
little house whose narrow porch was
flush with the sidewalk of the main
street. My hostess, herself an old timer,
the first woman in the town, began the
entertainment as we sat there in the
early afternoon, shellng peas for dinner
and breathing deep draughts of tho
honey scented air that blew down the
hills from thousands of pink -howered
manzanita bushes. She told how she
and her sister had alighted from the
stage in Mariposa that evening so many
years ago, when they were both "just
slips of girls" the very first women in
that region for miles and miles around :;
and how the men, hundreds Of them,
who had no. seen the form of woman
for months, save Indian squaws, came at
the news that two women were in town
and begged her father to be allowed just
to look at them; and how the two of
them, hand IN hand, came shyly out and
the men crowded around with looks of
respectful alteration and then passed on
to let others look, though one stopped
long enough to fall ON his knees and kiss
the hem of her dress; and how the whole
great crowd of men suddenly started up,
as if by one impulse, the hymn, "Nearcr,
My God, 10 Thee"
Then along came newspaper man
a bit of the present mingled with the
past. He was there reporting murder
trial for his San Francisco paper.
Better come to this afternoons ses-
sion of the trial, he said. "The priso-
ner isn't much, but his father is the
most interesting old chap I've run across
since I've been on the Coast. III tell
you about him as we walk over
Its brutal, CHASTITY case" the news
paper man said, "and to my mnd the
only mystery about is the prisoners
father. He is fine-looking old man,
With the manner and head of an old
Roman. He has the reputation of being
the straightest and squarest man in the
county, and how he ever came to be the
father OF such good for nothing scum
OF the earth as the prisoner can explain
only in the supposition that he isn't.
1.-The old man is one of the pioneers in
Mariposa and they tell me tlat he was
one Of the nervicst men that ever drew a
gun in this town. He killed his man in
those days, jurt as lots of other good
men did, but II was in self-defence and
everybody was glad that the town was
rid Of the man he dropped and so moth
ing was said about il. There was n
Coroner's jury, which gave verdict of
suicide, and explained their finding on
the ground that it was suicidal for any
man to draw on Dan Hopkins and then
give Dan the chance TO shoot first.
The old man was universally known
to be 30 honest and square in all his
dealings and so upright and honorable
in every way that the sons depravity
seemed al the blacker by contrast. lie
has stood by the young fellow from the
6rst Of his wickedness, SO everybody