The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-02-23
IN THE GOLDFIELDS.

We were all sad that New Years eve
in the Australian goldields in the year
1853. The day before we numbered 20
Americans and Englishmen, who had
come in search of wealth, and now three
of our number had just been laid away
forever on the hillside, buried in one deep
grave, their lives crushed out by fall
of earth.
That night, while the II of us who
were left sat around the campfire, young
Ross said:
boys" eve were all friends and never
yet had used among ourselves the ordi-
nary digger appellation of mate), ''this
is a sad ending Of our first Australian
New Years day. Maybe it will cheer
US up some if I tell you of one which in
Canada two years ago turned out more
happily"
There was a general cry Of fDo, Fred,
do" and the boy began:
Some of you know that my home is
in a backwoods township, about 80
from Georgian bay My father, who
was formerly a captain in regiment
of British cavalry, sold his commission
he bought 600 acre, partially cleared,
farm, wishing to give his five boys and
four girls better chance in life than a
family in moderate circumstances can
have in the old country. was only 8
years of age then, and my baby sister
not half as many months.
"My mother q wish I could convey
an idea Of how tenderly Fred spoke that
word whenever occurring in his story,
Though tiny little thing, who wears
a No. 2 boot and 81 glove. is as
brave as an Indian princess, and she
and my father are just like lovers yet.
So we were very happy family and
got on splendidly.
every year big patch Of bush was
cleared up, and when left home there
were more than 400 acres of the farm
under some sort of cultivation. Father
and my three elder brothers sometimes
worked as hard as the hired men, and
they all liked it, but Hugh and I, the
two youngest boys, were, we thought,
awfully abused by being sent to school,
and afterward to Upper Canada college
at Toronto. We made up for it all,
though, in the summer and Christmas
holidays, as there was any quantity of
fishing and hunting everywhere around
our home
about six miles from our place lives
Colonel Warwick, a half pay officer,
whose family is of exactly the same size
as ours, and ever since coming to Can
ada we had dined and spent the evening
with them on Christmas day, and they
with US on New Years day, and we al
ways had great fun.
1.-TWO years ago today, Jan. 1, 1851,
the Warwicks-father, mother and nine
children, big and 1ittle-came to us as
usual, but when we sat down to dinner
our total number was only 81, instead
of %. The place at my mothers right
hand was vacant, and she herself,
though doing the honors gracefully,
wore troubled anxiety, which she
could not wholly conceal, and which
was more or less reflected by each face
in our own family.
Had one Of your brothers or sisters
died, then, Fred?" asked one of the men.
''No-that is, we hoped not. The
| trouble was that IS months before, in
July, 1649, my eldest brother, Donald,
! longing for adventure and excited by
wonderful reports from newly discover
ed goldfelds, had left home, bound for
California and not word from or of
him had yet reached US beyond the
mere information that he was to leave
! New York for Colon on the 18th day of
the month as passenger on a sailing
ship, the name of which he did not give.
From Colon-now Aspinwall-he in
tended to cross the deadly isthmus to
! Panama, and thence take ship on the
Pacific for San Francisco.
''On the New Years day Of 1850 his
! absence had thrown but a slight cloud
on our jollity, as in those days there
was no Panama railway, and six or even
nine months might well pass away
without letters from him But now an
other whole year had gone by, and even
my bravely hopeful father had begun to
feel alarmed, for it was not like true
hearted Donald to neglect his own peo-
pie, and yet, if still alive, how was his
long silence to be accounted for? We
feared that, like so many hundreds of
other geld seekers, he might have per-
ished in fever stricken Panama, as he
would, we thought, have certainly writ
ten if he had safely reached San Fran
cisco.
1.-THE grizzled old soldier, Colonel
Warwick, tried hard to cheer us by his
own "reminiscences of mysterious lost
and happily rebound comrades in India
and elsewhere and by truthfully re-
minding rs of the many viciss;tudes tt
which letters from California were ther
exposed. Why, he said, the boy ha:
probably written half dozen times.
but either in crossing the isthmus
passing round Cape Horn or coming by