The Press., 1894-09-06
A LONELY CHRISTIAN.

Grimes was his sname-''Old Grimes" he was called by the irreverent world, which knew him well, and which doubt less he knew too well, as @ man knows something that has not been pleasant to him, and the pain and wickedness and hollowness of which have been forced upon him by grim experience.
 Crimes name was the only thing about him that offered any poetic sug- gestion and was not lightly passed or for gotten by those who saw him every day The legend of that old man whose dirge has been sung these 60 years-whose coat was old and gray and buttoned down before in every version of that irrever- ent elegy-is the common inheritance of all the English speaking race wher- ever they wander. The ragged urchin twanged it endlessly in his ears from behind the corners of shanties whenever his bent figure came in sight. Even the grownup Texans who lounged, gambled and traded horses at the suffers store repeated it to him as a standing joke that could not be worn out. But he paid no attention or diverted the topic when he could and hobbled away slow 1y, ever muttering to himself something that nobody heard or needed.
 The residence of this song tormented old person was rough and canvas GOV cred shanty situated by a rambling path in the midst of a congregation of such, some better, some worse. The place was known by the denizens of the neighbor- ing post as Slabtown. The open and unfinished quadrangle and the square stone houses that had all home less and dreary look were some half mile away. Fort Concho was confessedly a hard place, all of it. Slabtown was its foster child, filled with stranded emigrants, cattle herders, gamblers and men who had no occupa- tion. Out toward the bleak northwest Llano Estacado stretched it's endless leagues of rock and cactus-the widest land beneath the flag, governed and owned by the Comanche and utterly useless and tenantless for all time, save for that Saxon savage almost as wild as he.
 But Slabtown, struggling up from the little rivers side, sat with it's shan ties under the lee of the post, fully con- fiding ill its military neighbor Here were privileged to. come and remain through the windy Texas winter all men, with due proportion of women, whose tastes or whose occupations led them to the far verge of civilization. Thither came the cattleman and watch ed his wild herds on the neighboring hills until returning greenness warned him off upon the California trail Thither returned the man who had ac- complished the wonderful journey, laden with fortunate gold. Bearded, broad brimmed and belted, here lounged a small army of guides and trailers, play ing shrewd games at cards, drinking San Antonio whiskey and at intervals shooting at each other. The gaunt and long footed Texas girl, chalky, yellow haired and awkward, minced from cabin to cabin with neighborly gossip and did her calico and green ribbon shopping at the pine counters of the traders stores. There were urchins many, coatless and shoeless from January to December, who were as the calves of this corral of hu manity. Here, too, was that pink of the border, the flashing stage driver, who for $40 per month every day ran the gantlet through 60 miles of Indian haunted desolation, and who at the end of his "trick" rewarded himself with two days of dalliance with the bellies of Slabtown, to whom indeed he was as the apple of their pale eyes.
 And among these people lived Father Grimes, and these were they who sang the ancient ditty to him as he passed by. What his occupation was nobody precisely knew or cared, but they "'lowed" he was "well heeled' and 'thad little tucked away somewhere. 7" In the particular. condition of society," or rather want of all society-that en- vironed him the inquiry into Grimes business would hardly have gone so far as that had it not been that his daugh- ter occupied conspicuous position as the prettiest girl at Concho and was famous alike for the bri1liancy of her cheeks and her dresses. She and Father Grimes lived alone, and it was scarcely thought of that at some former period a mother had been necessary ill the usual course of nature. ''Qld Grimes and his gal'' filled all the Grimes hori- zon.
 It would be entirely ill accordance with good taste if it were possible now to describe dutiful daughter, entirely devoted to her aged father and resenting the verbal indignities daily heaped upon