Evening star., 1895-10-24
VISIT TO A 'DUGOUT'
Romance Of a Career That Was Begun il
This City.
A Story of WOmnn's Life - Amid
Hart1shipS and PrivntiOns She
Struggled BraveIy On.



HAMBURG, Kans., October II, 1885,
All my life 1 have heard of "dugouts"
being used as houses, but never saw one
until yesterday The friend whom I am
visiting wanted pair of quilting frames
on which to knot some ccmfortables be-
fore 1t is necessary to put up stoves, as
her rooms are too small to stretch the
frames when the stoves are once up, so
she asked me to accompany her to a farm
few miles distant, where she was owing
visit and where she could get the
frames.
You know Mrs. Williams lives in a
dugout." observed Marian, as We drew
near to some well cultivated fields, with
flower beds just beyond the alfalfa, over
which ! exclaimed. wondering who would
plant flowers in such symmetrical fashion
so far from habitation. THE house is
just around the point of the hill, where it
will face TO the east. Marian went on 1t
is an ideal house. cool in summer, warm
In winter, and she keeps 1t like band
box l rather wilted at that explanation
l thought like great many others that
no good could come out of a dugout.
Suddenly the ponies swept around the
point of the hill and the dugout was be-
fore us. The front of it looked very much
as any one-story house would look. having
two wide and deep windows with deep
stood invitingly open to the morning sun.
For a space of six feet back the dugout
was built of sod the walls all of six feet
through. Back of that the hill was hol-
lowed out for an extension of the house.
making a room about sixteen by twenty,
which was covered over with a good shin
gle roof. 1t looked odd. but nothing OF
the Scarecrow that 1 had imagined, and
all around the front gently sloping to the
dry creek below were beds of geraniuna
and phlox, fall roses, china asters and mis-
nonette.
Only One Room.
The room was all in one necessarily,
since the only light came from the front,
but it did not seem at all dark. One cor
ner in the back, screened off by pretty
chintz curtains. was evidently the kitchen.
from the sounds that came from thence.
and the Other corner was the bed room.
for the curtains, chintz again. were looped
back so that 1 could see the neat home
made bedstead, with it's snowy draperies.
The walls of the room were cemented with
a smooth plaster of the clay soil and
whtewashed in a soft yellowish tint that
was wonderfully pleasing to the eye. As a
frieze, artistic hands had made twelve
irch border of bright sumack leaves,
caught with punches of ampolopsis ber-
ries and arbor vitae at frequent intervals
You can have no idea how beautiful 1t
looked over those yellow walls. There
were several pretty pictures. some were
copies in steel Of celebrated etchings and
Others were simple colored pictures, and
they were all framed in ivory and gold.
some with sprays of flowers thrown across
the white and others with grasses. The
| windows were hung with cream whlte
cheese cloth. and l noticed that some
beautiful tides in drawn work done on
cheese cloth decorated the two easy chairs.
lust as Mrs. Williams came back to us
with two cups of fragrant tea and some
cookies.
made INV debut in society there in the first
year of the war;" said my hostess, as sim
Div as though she might be telling me of
her last weeks washing "My father was
a close friend of Secretary Stanton. and he
honored my coming-out party with his pres
ence. There have been sad changes since
then" she said, with a gentle smile, which
was at the same time full of tears. Il have
not seen the country of my nativity since
1869, and l think you are the first woman
I I have seen from there in nearly thirty
years.
Reads Like a Romance.
"And none of your friends remain there?"
| 1 asked her.
Not one," was the sad reply. "I do not
know that person ever knew in or about
| Washington is alive today, and have not
| a single blood kin living. Except my son. I
am alone in the world"
| 1 told her as well as could of some of
the changes. and her eager questions guided
me quite often. She seemed so hungry for
news, and yet when 1 told her how some of
| the old landmarks had disappeared and of
| the destruction of some of the once noted
| homes famous for the brilliancy of their
| social gatherings, l could see that 1t panied
l. her.
| 1 did not learn it from her, but Marian
| told me that she was born in one of the old
| mansions down near the octagon house.
Her father was interested in some army
| entirely honest in his transactions. bring
| ing disgrace upon an honored name. The
shame killed her mother, and her father
| had to leave Washington. He buried him.
self in the wilds of Missouri, and the daugh-
| ter married a young army officer. who was
ordered to the frontier, and was there killed
| in fight with the Kiowas close to old Fort
| Larned.
'Her life reads like romance" Marian
| said after we got away, "a romance with a
| sorry ending. She was devoted to her
| young husband. anG, as he was buried at
| the fort, near where he was killed, she pre-
| ferred to settle near where his body lay
| So she took the claim upon which she lives
| today, an older brother running it for her.
| They made a good deal off of it the first
| few years, and then her Scapegrace brother
| ran away, taking every dollar she had in
| the world and leaving her with a baby boy
| only three years old, born after the death
| of his father.
| Since then she has gone on by herself.
| hiring help as it seemed necessary. but
often doing the hard work of the farm her
| self. She educated her son for college her
self, and now he has completed his college
education and has come back to the farm to
help his mother. They have been poor,
very poor. but their fortunes are mending,
and 1 think 1t will not be long till Mrs
| Williams will leave the farm, and, l i'm
! agine, she will go back to the home of her
| girlhood for G visit. It will be almost like
looking down into the sepulcher of her dead
youth. won't 1t? Just think! She has never
| been away from that farm over twenty
| miles in thirty years.
A kiplinK story.
| Saturdays Star will contain a capital
story, eamplsts, with characteristic Illus
! trations. from the pen Of Rudyard kipling.