St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1898-07-09
At last. just at night fall Of the So

puu udt we TedcuSO d pldce WHICH,
suited our location. My sister and I
chose adjoining quarter-sections, my
claim being mostly marsh land and
| hers river bottom. The settlers had
| told us that river bottom raised the
larger crops at first, but was more
| while the crops were not good at first,
yielded better returns each year it was
cultivated.
| We cut down several trees, carved
| our names on four logs and laid them
on each claim IN the shape of square.
| These were the first of the improve
| ments required by law. l became so
enthusiastic that with my own hands.
cut down ten trees as large around as
myself. / know how large they were
for. having nothing else to measure
with. took off my belt and it exactly
| fitted those trees.
As we looked over that wild forest
and thought of ii as soon to be our own,
homely castles in the air fioated before
us; forest and jungle and marsh disap-
peared. and gardens, filed with mon
s;rous cabbages and potatoes and ruta-
bagas, appeared; chickens. a COW.
horse and little cottage embowered in
roses came before the minds eye.
But these things were all i'm the fu-
ture and the stern reality of that rough
journey home now lay before us.
Two days after that. the people in the
little settlement of Hoquiam beheld
emerging from the woods tattered
man and two forlorn looking women.
bruised and scratched. red rags tied
around their heads. their blue skirts
hanging in fringes from their wrists
as sorry-looking specimens as you
could find in a long days journey. We
had no trouble in finding the way home
for bits of red and blue rags decorated
the bushes all the way.
In six months we returned to hold
down our claims. During that time
rough trail ha.i been made: our claims
had been blazed out. a little space
cleared and a one-room shack built on
each of them. We took no pianos nor
plate glass mirrors witt us. 1t was all
pony could do to travel that trail and
we were thankful to get the bare neceS-
sites of life.
Our shanties were only short dis
tance apart, though hidden from each
| other by the trees. There was soon a
| well-worn trail between. them. / had a
ditch run through portion of my land
to drain it, and my sister hired man
to of hot
tom.
We put in crops wherever there was
a cleared spot and waited with great
hopes for our gardens to produce. And
they did produce, for we had more veg
etables than we could use. With our
own hands we cleared good deal of
land that summer.
Once l went around my claim. and q
rough trip it was, too. Then fully un
derstood what blazing out" a claim
meant. When the survey of the town
ship is made the surveyor marks the
boundaries with three strokes of the AK
and by carving the name of the town
claim marked the boundaries with one
blaze instead of three and carved my
name on each corner.
Take it altogether. it was a very
pleasant summer. We had plenty of
|company. Pretty little squirrels and
chipmunks came boldly up for scraps.
sometimes venturing into the house in
search of dainty morsels. Hosts Of blue
bottle flies rendered life miserable in
the spring and early summer. Flocks
of gaudy. harsh-voiced bluejays made
raids OH our gardens, utterly regard
less of the formidable scarecrows we
erected. Several times when we were
salmon berrying big black bear.
rudely disturbed in his feast, numbered
clumsily away into the bushes. Occa-
sionally we heard the whistle of an elk.
the scream of a cougar or the howl of
timber wolf. None of these animals
ever disturbed us. however. At night
skunks. minks and wild cats visited us
with alarming regularity, and woe be-
tide any unlucky fowl not safely housed
away in the hennery.
Two families lived in the settlement
four miles away, but the road was too
rough for frequent visits. We were
not very lonesome, however. for we
were busy all the time out in the fresh,
pure air, and sometimes a hunter or
claim-holder came that way. More
than once settler who had not seen
civilization for months came by-iust
to see woman again.
Yes, it was a very pleasant summer:
but summer does not last. and all too
soon winter was upon us with its short,
dark days. its long, dreary nights and
its steady down-pouring rain. The
gloomy. impenetrable forest closed
around us like the mighty walls of a
great prison wall. As an old rancher
said, "the only way to see out was to
lie down on yonr back and look up."
When storms came up the crashing of
great trees falling all around us made
us feel thankful that our clearing was
large enough 70 prevent their reaching
us.
Right gladly did we welcome spring
ater that long winter-the longest we
had ever spent-for that spring
brought us neighbors. and at the end
OF the five years, when the patents from
the government enabled us to say we
had homes of our own, civilization had
SO far crept around us that we actually
had use for curling irons and fashion
papers!-Midland Monthly.
Approaching q Duke.
Dukes seem 10 be regarded in Scot
land as little less than sacred, saws a
correspondent. The other day the
Presbytery Of Dunkeld wished to have
access to a charter said to be in the pos
session of the duke of Atholl, in virtue
of which he holds the Cathedral church