Walker Lake bulletin. (Hawthorne, Nev.) 1883-1926, 1897-11-03

a SrduumOlner mouse on Int
Il - spring morning when he left the
State forever he wore his uniform and
carried the sword with which he after
wards led the charge at San Jacinto
He was tall man, broad shouldered
and well-knit with a certain graceful
stateliness which, though he had it by
nature, he had not left uncultiyated II
was held in those days to be mark OF
the person of quality, and from the
time when as boy of 10 he had lain
Oh the puncheon floor of his fathers
cabin spelling out Pope's Iliad by the
light Of pine knot, the Governor had
always felt himself a person of quality.
My grandmother was on the porch as
he passed and he bowed low to her,
tremendously dotfing his hat, as he al
ways did to ladies'. 1t was the last time
she ever saw him, and though she had
been his warmest friend, he kept his
own counsel with her as with every
one else.
To the day of his death, he never eX-
planned himself. Sir" he would say,
In response to every attempt to draw
him out, ''let us speak of something
else" And the bow With which he said
1t was conclusive. When he had just
reached the summit of what had been
his ambition; when he was Governor
Of what was then the pivotal State of
the Union, with the Presidency as a
possibility for him, and the United
States Senate for life a certainty, why
1t was that he chose to dress himself
wilderness beyond the Mississippi,
never to return, his biographers have
not been able to explain except in
vague generalities. How my grand
mother knew the story l cannot say,
further than that she was the friend
not only of the Governor himself, but
Of Virginia Frazer and of John Endi-
colt, the Governors private secretary,
who made the trouble between them.
''It Is true, my DEAR" said my grand
mother to me, ''that Endicott was n
Yankee and an impecunious school
teacher, but he was a Harvard grad
uate and a gentleman. The Endicotts
are an excellent family-almost as good
as our own, or as Virginia's. And the
Governor, you know, though one of the
best bred men l ever saw, lacked the
great advantage of descent from we'll
bred people"
Those who conclude from this that
my grandmother was something of n
Tory will not be wholly mistaken, but
II they had known the charming old
lady as well as they would forgive her
as easily as do, even though-which
Is not llkely-they are as radical in
their politics as / am thought to be by
some.
The Governors honeymoon was bare
ly over when he left the State. The
fact of his resignation, which he had
addressed in due form to the presiding
officer of the Senate, was not generally
known until he was 800 miles away,
sitting in r Cherokee cabin, smoking
an Indian pipe, as silent and impassive
as any other savage of those around
him. For that was undoubtedly his
idea at the time to renounce civilization
forever and live a barbarian among
barbarians.
Mrs. Frazer, Virglnia's mother, was a
famous matchmaker and one of the
Governors staunchest partisans. "If
he was born in n cabin" she said to
my grandfather few days before the
wedding. "he has more brains than any
other man in the State. expect to see
him President yet"
With visions of Virginia in the White
House and herself as the power behind
the throne, she was correspondingly
elated on the night of the wedding. 1t
is no part of my purpose to attempt to
describe her feelings when the catas
trophe came and she found herself
face to face with the climax of one OF
those tragedies which compel silence
in all who are incapable of resisna-
ton.
When Endicott first met Virginia
Frazer he was not more than %, very
handsome, and with an unassuming
self-possession which made amends for
his lack of the ceremonlous courtesy
habitual to the society into which he