The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-23

We're serene in the faith that the books
and the printed articles they had read
were SO accurate in the details of the
certain profits of American ranches,
especially cooperative ones, that they
never begrudged the checks they gave
on their Los Angeles bank account
! There was ill-luck Tor the colony from
| the first day until it hopelessly aban-
! doned all BY the spring of 1873 none
| OF the common capital remained and
the colonists had to undertake manual
labor on the ranch. Notwithstanding
all The books and magazine articles
they had read to the contrary, they
found cooperative ranch life beset
| with trouble and subject to daily losses.
| me ldylllc existence that had been
among the Sierras. The men and their
wives, who had been accustomed to
studios and to libraries, We're disguised
with the work of following horse and
cultivator among the orchard trees for
hours and of cutting alfalfa and of
plouShing and narrowing soil for fire.
quent irrigation of the young orchards.
DIDN'T MIND THEIR MISFORTUNE
Some amusing stories are told by peo-
pie in Los Angeles Of the philosophic,
easy, Bohemian way with which nearly
all Polish litterateurs, artists and mu-
slclans viewed the plight into which
their misfortunes and hopes had been
cast. Ordinary American farmers
would have been disheartened or
alarmed. Not so the Poles. They roll
ed cigarettes in the shade of the trees
and assumed cheerfulness if they did
not feel it. One person in Los Angeles
relates how, one day in early 1878, when
the last work mule and COW on the
place had died from some improper
feeding by the theoretical colonists,
and troubles of scores of varieties were
coming thick and fast, she found a
dozen of the young men having the
happiest kind of morning in their
upstairs assembly room in practicing
the latest Wagner music for an or
chestral concert that evening. At an
other time, when the dearly bought
water right had almost dried up and the
years crop of. alfalfa was fast with
ering in the midsummer sun, the Poles
gave no heed and had an elaborate
amateur dramatic performance, in
Which every one in the colony had to
perform some part.
The colony dsintegrated fast in the |
early summer of 1873. Money had been
raised by mortgaging the property and
When the interest became due disaster |
followed disaster in rapid succession |
All but Nine. MojeslSa and the Count
Bozenta went good-naturedly back to |
Poland and Paris. Sienkiewicz went to !
Los Angeles and lived in cheap rooms in
the old Pico house for four or five !
months. He wrote hard and by the |
sale of his American sketches in Cra-
cow and St Petersburg he got enough |
together to return to his native home
Nine. Modjeska and her family are the
only ones who remained in America
when the Polish colony collapsed. Count |
Bozenta is a citizen of California, and |
he and his famous wife have beautiful
ranch home among the mountains at
the head of Santiago canyon, in Orange
county where they spend several /
months in rest every summer.
SIENKIEWICZS FRIEND.
Among the southern California peo-
pie who knew the colony best is Bur-
ton A. Edwards of Los Angeles. He
lived on a ranch adjoining the Polish
colony's lands twenty years ago. "Qh,
yes, l knew Mr.. Sienkiewicz we'll" Said
he the other day. ~ W. an amateur
fisherman and we became great friends
because of our common fondness for
angling in the mountain trout streams.
Neither of us could communicate with
the other except by monosyllables and