The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-04-15
IN WINTER.
Bare Legged and Bare Throated
Youngsters Like the Cold.
Nomadn Exist Through the Gold SEM
SON In "a Manner That Would
Give an Esquimau the shiv-
ers-An Interview.

A bare-legged tot, scarcely more
than three or four years of age, with q
hopelessly tangled mop Of hair and big,
blue eyes, toddled out of a tent in
Malott park one day in December, made
it's uncertain way toward Fall creek,
and standing on the s-now-covered bank
gravely contemplated the cold water.
Then, with a judicial air, il tottered
back to the tent and disappeared
through the flap, says the indianapolis
News.
There were others in the tent-al-
most enough to populate a small town
just an ordinary Gypsy family. In
one corner the father was sprawled
with comfortable abandon on a pile of
disreputable bedding, pulling at a pipe
hat had probably been handed down
through many generations, and he
was apparently without a car in the
world. Hei is an old patron OF the camp
inggrounds aoou the city, Gus Stanley
by name, and as genial and hospitable
a man as one would care to meet. The
mother, a plethorie% creature, but with
traces still of a certain type of Gypsy
beauty, was busily engaged in an APP
parently interminable effort to wash
the dye out of a bit of red cloth.
The odd corners of the establish
ment were filled in by a Heterogeneous
collection of camp odds end ends and
young Gypsies. No matter where the
eye turned it rested on a member of
the family, and an effort to count them
only ended in bewilderment, One, a
girl probably eight years of age, was
busy forming circular slabs of dough
by the simple e%xpedient Of slapping
them between her hands, which, by
this time, were clean. and then cooking
them in a grease-filled skillet ON the
stove.
1t was a glorious stove, a humble
looking affair, made of sheet iron and
with a real fire in it-no d~riveling little
gas blaze, but a general confgration of
wood hat threw out heat in joyous
wealth and made the tent as warm as
any home in the city and far warmer
than the most of them. And yet there
are persons in the city, and many of
them, who have thankfully huddled
about their wretchedly cold stoves,
with the gas playing tag between the
coal and the mixer, and have thought
of those same Gypsies with compass
sion-thought how they must be suf-
fering from the cold, and not under
standing why they did not evade these
cold months by treking to the south.
"Cold?" echoed Stanley, adroitly
balancing a coal on the apex of the
heritage in his pipe. "Well, l guess not.
Sit down and get warm. Not much
danger of getting cold as long as the
wood lasts, and the whole outside is
our woodpile," and he gave a compre-
hensive of his hand toward the
woods hat surround the camp.
"We tried going south several years
ago, but the ome folks got sick, and
we've staid in the north for The last
three winters. No trouble about keep
ing the tent warm, and even if there
was, we're pretty well hardened, so we
feel it much. Look at jim
there" Jim, an urchin, scarcely old
enough to attract the notice of the
truant officers, bashfully followed his
NNN0 AANO IN WIN III was AAIA IL |
spected. Without gloves, ~overcoator
bobs," with thin shirt open at
the throat, one stocking halfway
and shoes unlaced-James was a
spectacle to give an Eskimo si-yers,
but he seemed not in the least uncom-
himself. And the rest of the
children seemed equally lightly clad
all with their waists or shirts open at
throat and some even ba~refooted.
Now we spend our winters in the
continued Stanley, either in
Ohio, Indiana or Illinois. Indiana is
best state, though and a quick
smile from his wife c~orroborated the
statement, partly on account of the
better roads in the state and partly
business reasons with a porten-
look, cause people in the state
Ieem to like to have their fortunes e
old, and that's where we make most q
# our money, especially in the winter 7
-nothin' doing in horse Trading then. J
many children have 70" :
The question seemed to be some /
hing of a poser, for he turned to his 9
wife with a puzzled look, and, after |
conversation in Hungarian, an b
wered; Twelve and two married v
ons. There are five families, each one
With a tent, and &c people altogether !
n this crowd. The other people down !
here got here about a month ago, two =
three days before we did. There are !
hree families-one for each tent-and !
s people. All the girls in the camp are s
'ow atown now telling fortunes, and S
nost of the men are out somewhere.
III
An Auto Hothouse.
An nnAnrnnhal hn4ln-