The Worthington advance., 1900-12-21
MOTHER" TUBBS
BY J. L. Harbour.

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Copyright, l'oo. the Authors syndcate:)
mother TUBBs and I were the
vl only passengers in the heavy, old
stage coach AZ it slowly crept up the
steep and rocky ascent of Golden pass.
1t was o raw cold November day or
we would have ridden outside with
Shorty, the driver, but as there was a
line. chilling mist in the air, we were
glad to wrap ourselves up we'll on
the back seat of the inside of the
coach. Mother Tubbs was already in
the coach when entered it at Silver
Gap camp. She greeted me quite as
II were Al. old friend, although I had
never seen her until that moment.
She was q large, motherly, comfor-
table looking woman of about IS
years, and she was loquacious to the
last degree.
my man he says that my tongue is
loose at both ends," she said, merrily,
soon after had seated myself by her
side in the coach. I had thought that
she might prefer to have the back
seat to herself, and was about to
take the front seat when she said:
YOU'D better set here by me, for
it's more comfortable riding forwards
than backwards, and then there amt
but just this one robe in the stage,
and we can both use it if you set here.
Much as I've trailed round in stage
coaches in the last Is years, it makes
me dead sick to ride backwards"
"Have you lived here in the Rockies
rs years?"
"1ndeed, have, my son: And amt
ever been out O. sight of 'em in all
that time, either. Oh, I'm an old-tim-
er, am, N.Y. land! the booms I've
lived through, and the camps I've seen
60 up and down in that time! went
all through the Leadville boom, and
the Gunnison county bcoms, and
here I am on my way to another one
over here in Poverty gulch, where I
reckon you are bound for. Some O.
the boys they say boom wouldn't
be with anything If Mother Tubbs
want in 1t. That's what they call me
Mother Tubbs. And land knows I
have mothered enough of 'em to have
earned the title"
We had ridden about ten miles, and
Mother Tubbs' tongue had run inces-
sanity in very entertaining way.
Presently we rode down into a narrow
gulch, where five or six log cabins
with sunken roofs and fallen doors in
dicated the existence of a little min
ing camp in days long past. Mother
Tubbs glanced out of the window in
the door of the coach, and said, with
little sigh:
"Dear me! Here's all there is left
Of old Camp Fancy, and when them
cabins was built it was thought it
would be the biggest minin' camp in
the country. That's what the miners
think about "ev'ry new mimi camp.
There was as many as a thousand
miners in this gulch one summer, and
there we're tents and cabins all up and
down the gulch. Then the min'ral
veins all petered out. You see that
cabin mp by that big bowlder?'
Eyes; I see it,"
'Well, KEEP a lodgin' house there
20 years ago, and sometimes l KEEP 30
people over night in the three little
rooms that cabin had. never think
of them days without calm to mind
something that happened one night
along the first O. the boom, when
there want great many folks in the
gulch yet. III tell you about it if you
say So"
D1oo on Ao ~
"Well, it wasone real cold and stormy
day in November when the stage come
along and dropped single passenger
at my house, and I'd never had such
a passenger dropped there before.
She was yaller-haired, blue-eyed, in
nocent lookin' young thing of about
10, whose pa and ma had no bizness to
let her be trav'lin' round alone, even
if she was on her way to marry the
fellow she was engaged to. But it
was like this: The girl was inclined
to be weak-lunged, and the doctors
in her home back east had said that
the thing for her to do was to git out
to the mountains as soon as she could
Well, it so happened that she was en-.
gagged to be married to young feller
who had come from her home out here
to seek his fortune. He had got the
minin' fever, and had come to this
gulch, thinkin' '+here was to be a big
boom here. He had little money, so
when the girl writ him what the doc
tors had said about her, he sent word
for her to come right out here, and
they would be married. He was full
O. hope about the future, and he knew
they'd git along all right. Well, she'd
got here a day or two ahead O. time,
so he want here to meet her. He
was back ON the hills prospectin', so
just mothered her, and ,tolC her to
make herself right at home there at
my house, and they could be married
\ there if they had mind to when her
beau showed up. She: was such an in
3 nercent lamb that took right to her,
/ and she was head over heels in love
= with this fellow. She showed me his
photograph before she had been three
hours in the house, and I, reconized it
as the face of a young chap who had
stayed day or two at my house a
few weeks before. HIS. name was
Harvey Briggs. ~ ......... .....,....,
swell. the girl was all played out
after bein on the stage all dny. and
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