St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1899-02-15
The Sod Cabins of Colorado.

AS the traveller passes on to the west
and gets well into eastern Colorado he
gets a glimpse OF the class OF dwellings
which. in the SOS, sheltered thousands OF
families in western Kansas. Life in one
of these sod cabins is certainly getting
very close to nature; closer, perhaps,
than the Arab tribes of the desert, who.
on the whole, observe more laws, re-
lipious and secular and have less solitude
and social deprivation. 10 realize the
truth of this, one has only to consider he
state of man and wife in a sodhouse 10
miles from the nearest village in one of
the sparcely settled districts OF eastern
Colorado. For days, and in some sea-
sons TOR weeks, they see no human beings
outside OF their own household. Even
begging Indians and tramps are almost
unknown in the country remote from
railroads. Prairie dogs cast up their
mounds and found towns in the unmoles-
ted spots about the place; gophers and
field mice burrow through the sod walls
Of the house; not inlrequently snakes
swing down from the ratters inside or
crawl in at the door to get at the milk
pans.
At night coyotes and some of the gray
wolves come up and skulk about the poul-
try ward or close to the windows.
Through the day while the man is in the
fields, the herding usually falls to the wo-
mans lot, and each takes a noon unceon
wrapped up in a paper, to save the
trouble of coming back to the house un.
til night. What the sodhouse woman
thinks about all day long in her solitude
it is hard to say; probably about the NOR
gage on the farm, diseases among the
stock, the prospects OF the crops. the time
when they will be able to put up their
frame dwelling. Work is her sole law OF
existence. Perhaps she has memories oil
another time and other surroundings,
but they must seem vauge and tar away.
Even the weather in eastern Colorado
is monotonous. There is practically al
ways the coudless sky. the brilliant sun
the strong. dry wind, and il it be in mid
summer, it is so hot that it curls the
leaves OF the young corn and turns but
alo grass brown. Women, and men, too
become withered and prematurely old
Hair and skin take on the general tint o.
things about them. And there comes 6
certain Ieverish look in their eyes-a look
of intense expectation, slraining into the
future. They lose allthought oiappear
ances; such things get to mean vanity
rather than seli.respect to them. The
tragedies of city are unearthed ano
brought to light, but the silent tragedle:
of these desolate lives ere swallowed ut
and lost in the immensely of the prairie
wastes.
1t is a motley assortment of humanity
that takes the homesteads on the open
ing up of country like this-ex-cowboys
confirmed pioneers who move with thu
advance of civilization, people of refine
ment and reverses OF fortune, many Rus
sian and German immigrants, and {
sprlnkling OF all the other nations OF thu
earth. There is shifting process whicl
divides these people into classes after tn
country is settled, but during the frs
years there is no distinction in society
The sod-house levels all ranks, and at tn
rare intervals when any OF the people ar
brought together socially it is on term
ofequalty; They simply take one an
other for granted with no question G
antece who ardents or family history
They are people, starting life anew, an
liz ing on hopes of the future with forget
fu.ness of the past. A woman's lot
harder; she misses more things in such
lite than man does.- Kansas letter i
New York Sun.