The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-09-18

with creetur like Dan it pears to me
that's a leetle reckless. Dan over
weighs Rad a matter of % pounds, the
very least
In the gulch things were as usual, to
all appearances. The little mountain
brook that dashed down the steep
rocks purled in the deep shade and sent
out diamond flashes where stray heckS
of sunlight dived into it. and the birds
in the redwood trees whistled away as
though there was no such unharmoni-
Gus and degraded thing as Arizona
Dan somewhere below, trying to con-
ceal his Decorating presence. The little
Reeds were at school, and such noises
as might have been heard by that
legendary and overworked creature,
the casual observer were sylvan and
we'll attuned. A critic in sight-har-
mony would also have found little to
perceptions had deemed the aspect of
Miss Boadicea Reed, who sat negli-
gently in a grapevine swing, too I'M
sylph-like for perfect accord.
Miss Boadicea-called "Dicey'' by her
immediate family and friends, a di-
minutive evolved from their original
and arbitrary pronunciation of her
name-sounded a note which may have
been a dissonance, but it had its true
/
of the wood AS she half reclined upon
the giant vine, her freshly-starched
white muslin cracked about a form
whose measurements faltered not an
| inch from the modern standard of per-
lection. Her glossy black hair was ar
ranged in the latest fashion shown in
the most recently arrived ladies' maya
zine in Lava canyon Her features
were cear-cut and regular; she had
| the eyes of MelpOmene. and the heart
of the ancient British queen whose
name she bore.
Miss Boadicea Reed also had a secret.
Being a woman, her dearest friends
/ had often heard it divulged. But, as it
was a secret. there needs must be
those to whom it was not impaired.
That portion of humanity was the one
denominated by Miss Reed as the gem
! tlemen." This awful secret was that
she had never, no, never, felt the
! slightest sensation of fear or abash-
ment at any person or thing since she
could remember. Miss Boadicea de-
spised and condemned all the little
| feminine weaknesses and terrorS of her
sex with all the prejudice of one who
did not understand them. Had she
been born with time and circumstances
in her favor she would have led the
overtuTning of a dynasty or two. cap
tured by force the crown of some social
queendom, or at least have gone up in
a balloon as the special female repre-
sentative of one of the several great
est newspapers on earth. Snakes, dogs,
spiders, gossip, lightning, men-the
partial list of the things regarded by
Miss Reed with serenity approaching
contumely win afford a slight concep-
ton of her intrepidity Of spirit. In the
presence of man, the lord of creation,
she felt no awe. Living in a frontier
mining town and possessing the at
fractions she cid, offers of marriage had
come years before but her suitors had
never awakened in her feeling softer
than comradeshiD. She had laughed at
most of them, pitched one out of the
window, and informed them all that
they made her tired" In fact there
was nothing in all creation, with or
without life. that had ever caused
her a cualm or a tremor. She
regarded robbers as vulgar persons
beneath notice, SerDentS, horned
taods, mice and ella monsters
as uninteresting and unterrify
ing Vernin too insignificant to dread.
Her secret ambition, cherished in good
faith until she was IS, had been to
dress in mans clothes and travel round
the world selling soap, or diamonds, or
patent quartz crushers = anything
would do. Since she was 20 her ideas
had toned down TO a firm resolve to
be prima donna of an opera troupe,
and the gulch had for many months
echoed daily warnings that for clear
nesS and volume if not righteousness,
surpassed easily any voice in Lava
canyon. The form within the crinkling
white muslin was a storage battery of
impetuous life and force that needed