El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1899-10-10
The fire at SimmS'.

fowls crowded together in the old hen
house, and if a CLINT of sunlight shot
across the pen the old hens fought to
stand in it. The rooster sank into him
self until his hackles looked like an Eliz-
abethan ruff; when he crowed, it sounded
raucous and cold, and the hens shook
their heads at each crow, as hens have
done since time began. They stood on
alternate feet and seemed to envy Mrs.
Sims her coarse shoes.
She, poor woman, was on her way out
to the barn to milk 40 cows before SUD-
light should fail. The dull, fiat, hopeless.
dreary, dismal, bitter, sour, doleful, hard,
inevitable, disheartening condition of life
on a Garland county farm was imaged
in the bleak landscape and in her weary,
haggard face.
She walked as if she had several cob
blestones in the toes Of each shoe, and
she wished that she had milestone about
her neck. Jim, her husband, was drunk
again, which meant that until he returned
from town she must sack LOCO bushels
Of buckwheat day, feed and water 700
stupid fowls and provide meals for seven
pairs of vicious, Quarrelsome twins of her
own raising.
She entered the low doorway of the
hideous barn and seated herself on her
launches beside the first of the 40 scrag
gly, half frozen cows. She was an expe-
rienced mixer, but the deftest fingers in
the world cannot guard against a sudden
bovine flank movement, and she saw 33
pals of steaming milk overturned by 33
suffering and fractions beasts.
Something like an oath issued from be-
tween her thin, bloodless lips, and she
audibly wished that the day that saw her
birth might be blotted from the calendar.
IL OBJ A.
pairs of twins shooting at each other
and throwing kerosene lamps about and
slaughtering the cat; but she did not care
q bit. Time had been when pretty Eliza
BimmS would have cared a good deal,
but that was a score of years ago, before
the twins began to come so frequently.
eff the house burns up I won't have no
more meals to get"
Poor woman, she did not realize that
another house would take its place and
the eternal round of ill cooked, greasy,
1ninteresting, indiSestible meals would
continue before. She had lost the fac
uity of thinking, like all farmers wives
In Garland county.
A couple of odd twins came out to her
next to the youngest.
Jake has set the house afire again."
Eaid Buck.
He would have kissed her if he had
been some sons and she some mothers,
but the very name was unknown in the
Simms family A kick and a cuss they
knew too we'll, but the union of the two
sounds meant nothing.
Belle has killed the cat again, and
Luce has torn your weddin stifkit to
smithereens," said Jen, with a malicious
grin.
A grim smile sank into the tough, leath- |
cry face of the respondent toiler, and
she MIXED two vicious streams into the
girls eye. Jen did not know whether to
laugh or cry, but the cracking Of the
flames turned the thoughts of all three in |
to another direction.
"Ain't yeh go'n ter put out the fierrr?
The insurance ran out last week. heered |
pap say So"
Mrs. Simms rose to her feet. 1t was
true. She must save the house if it took |
the rest of the milk.
Its wonder your pa can't stay to
hum when the house is liable to burn
down any day with them youngest
twins"
1t was the third time in two weeks that
they had set the place afre, and milk was
high that year. OF course the pumps
were frozen hard.
you bring a couple of pals apiece"
said she, taking a pail in each hand and
balancing another her head, but the
fight in the hay.
She toiled toward the house, over
weighted and cold. The flames were
pouring out of every window, and the
sun was just setting, a red ball that
looked if the jewellers beyond the
patch of pines on the horizon could warm
their hands on its glowing surface.
The squawks and squeaks of the fowls,
fighting for the warmest place on the
roost, broke the frosty stiffness of the
air, and the dull black smoke of the
burning house fioated in long, trailing
streamers to where the upland was
crowned with an orchard of young peach
trees. 1t was all beautiful if she had
but known, but this sordid woman was
bent only on putting out the miserable
IRE that had attacked the house.
What do farmers in Garland county
know of beauty? From their birth on
ward the grindstOne whets their noses
Town to the bone, and look as they may,
here is nothing but whirring grind be-
lore their eyes.
a creaking farm wagon toiled along
he road, the wheels making crankling
music in the frozen ruts. Jim was COM
ng home from his seven day jag, singing
n a raucous voice that Jared harshly on
he winter quiet of the night. He saw
he flames of the burning building, but
lie did not hasten his pace.
Il never saw the thing that Liz
ouldnt down from me to a spread oak. =
The twins has ben at it again.
And they were still at it. The flames
lad driven them out of the house, but
hey had all gone into the barn to quar-
Ell, leaving their mother to fight the fire
ingle handed. As Jim drove into the
the flames succumbed to her
forts and the watery milk. She came
ut to the side door and looked at him
nder singed eyebrows.
What yeh got fer superb he asked
Smoked beef an billed milk" said She
wish I'd "a burnt up" she added in a