The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-11-13
The u. S. Govt Reports
show Royal Baking Powder
superior to ali Others.
CAN SLEEP IN BEDS.
Sad story of Two Children Found
Living Wild In the Colorado
Mountains.

Denver Republican: The yardmen
agreed that it was cold and the Of
ficers in long blue coats admitted the
air was pretty sharp" Even the gate
man, who stands out in all kinds Of
weather, said, as he slapped his palms
together, that it was right peart; "
and then he blew a whiff of breath as
white as the exhaust of the big Rio
Grande engine on track No. 8.
Travellers, with the collars of their
listers turned up, came and went hur-
rying. The boards underfoot cracked
frostily and a wintry snap sounded in
the shutting of the iron gates.
There was frost, etched crudely by
the finger-nails of passengers, on the
windows of the Gulf train from Clear
Creek when it pulled into the Union
depot. Half a hundred passengers
alighted, buttoning their coats and
jackets, and FASTENED toward the de-
pot entrance. Almost all had gone out
and two sisters in the somber garb of
the convent were just about to turn
away from the gate when the con-
ductor of the Gulf train emerged from
the shadows leading by their hands
two little girls.
There they are" said one of the sis
tiers, quietly, and both stepped through
the gate to meet them. The girls were
very insignificant little girls. They
were almost naked, having on the rem
nants of a woman's light calico wrap
per, divided between them. Under
meath these thin, ridiculously made
quate fragments they wore nothing
not a shred of under-garments, not
strip of muslin even. On their feet
were cast-off mems shoes, many sizes
too large for them, out of which their
slender legs stuck, quite bare of stock
ings. They wore old, dropping straw
hats, from beneath which unkempt
yellow hair struggled over tanned and
solemn faces. Timid and shrinking,
glaring about them more like hunted
beasts than children, they trailed be-
hind the conductor till the sisters met
them.
Say, en- us sleep in a bed?" asked
the older of the two children, 10 years
of age, as one of the sisters clasped
her thin little hand in her own.
why, bless your heart! of course
you may
The girl turned to her sister with
slow look of appreciation and nudged
the little one with her sharp elbow.
PA said's could"
An expression of establishment and
of vague surmise travelled half way
over the lineaments of the smaller
girl and then was lost somewhere.
Haven't you ever slept in bed?"
queried one of the sisters, softly.
The elder girl slolwy Shook her head
and looked blankly into the swimming
eyes of HE woman.
Where did you sleep, then?"
I'm skins" This in a kind of sur
prise, as if half the world slept in skins.
'Skinsl What skins?'
Bears and lions replied the child.
PA shoots EN-
By this time the two children were in
the warm waiting room, being bundled
up for the journey to the house of 'the
good shepherd. The sisters asked Them
many questions and tried to learn what
strange manner of life they had led in
the mountains. That it had been a
cherries, hard life was evident. Where,
within three hours ride OF warm,
clothed Denver could be found such
barbara poverty? Two liptle tender
girls coming out of the nlontainS
dressed in strips CT calico-no1gling
more, though wintsr had settled down.
From the girls, ard from what they
mad learned before, the sisters gath
cred part of their story, this much:
Their father is a prospsctor and trap
per- living in the wi1ds around Gray's
peak. Into that rugged solitude he took
his wife years ago. From the Door
comforts Of a mining town, where there
was at least company, she went to rhe
But she went willingly, as women do go
for men. That was years ago. A child
came, and the little girl helped to make
the cold cornpanionship of the peak less
forbidding. The husband and father
was away from home all the long days
and some times the nights. Month after
month the deSOlatiOn settled upon the
woman'S soul and srnOthered her heart
and pressed upon her brain. After THAT
her reason left her and the cabin of
the prospectOr held a poor, moaning,
demented woman.
A second child came soon after that
and the mother died. Life became worse
than desOlate and sorrier than sad for
these waits. They grew up like the
mountain Hons, naked and proving,
coming. late and meagerly into speech
and human ways. For clothing in sum-
mer they had the fragments of their
mothers few faded dresses; for clothing
in winter they had no more. They slept
in bear and lion skins on the floor. They
ate what they could get, and there was
in their cheeks, from the day of their
of the chabbiness of babies. Now they
are and 10 years old
Some chance traveller saw the chill
dren in their wild and pitiable state and
and told the father he should send
them TO a. place where they could be
cared or. He told the children OF places
where people slept in bees and told
them what beds are And so the first
thing the children asked last night was
whether they could really sleep in
bed. They slept; in a bed last night in
the House of the Good Shepherd There
they will be cared for.