Fergus County Democrat., 1907-04-23
Wrecked at Sea.

1T was at the close OF not august
day in the spring of 1856. Two
armies met on the field Of battle. The
next morning there was 100000
dead men on, the field Not one of
either army escaped to tell the taie
Of disaster. The reader will please
pardon any appearance of haste in
dealing with these minor events
which are really preliminary to real
cute love story.
Gepevieve Morarity lived in vine
clad cottage on the slope Of the Alps.
She was a beautiful girl with red
air end rather large but shapely
feet which she frequently washed in
the spring. She also fetched water
from the spring to boil the kettle
for her own and her mothers frugal
meal of cold pie and shreaded wheat
biscuit, with bit of Sweitzer kase
and some goat meat AS he went
to the spring on the morning after
the battle she noticed a coyote eat
ing something in the valley below
her. By the aid of her opera glasses
she discovered it was the remains of
the two armies Filling her pail at
the spring she strolled leisurely back
to the house and told her mother.
Being of practical turn of mind the
old lady decided the armies ought to
be buried before they killed the grass
and spoiled her goat range.
After breakfast the old lady and
her daughter set out with a garden
fork and an old fire shovel to bury
the dead All day they worked and
at dusk had the 100000 soldiers
under the sod as they supposed. On
closer inspection, however, they
found that one soldier had crawled
from his grave and was trying to
sneak away into the gloom and hazel
brush. The old lady was in favor Of
batting him on the head with the
garden fork but the daughter pur-
suaded her to take him home and
nurse him back to health-which they
did, In the fall he stole the old
lady's only horse and went away. He
was a Spaniard. After he left the
girl lost interest in life and pined
from six o'clock in the morning till
eleven thirty at night. At first her
propensity for pining was attributed
to the fact that she lived in the pine
regions, but it turned out that the
Spaniard had promised to come back
and marry her as soon as he got
ime and his delay made her sad.
Days wore on. Spring gave way
to summer-summer merged into fall
three years in succession. Once on
April Fools day the old lady re-
ceived from Spain what she thought
was a draft covering the value OF the
horse, but when she decided to cash
it she discovered it was only a
breeze. 1t was a cruel April Fool
joke and the old lady went back
home heartbroken.
Selling her goats for 100000 she
started to travel for her daughters
health-which she didn't have any.
When far out at sea the ship blew
up and the old lady sank. The girl,
being more athletic, swan 1900 miles
to deserted island she had read
about in the Youths Companion
She was washed up on shore and lay
there exhausted for three weeks
Then she got up and went to look
for a job. AS there was no human
beings on the island she took a job
cracking cocoanuts for the monkeys
at fifteen dollars month and board
The only lumber yard on the island
burned up and she lost her board.
One Sunday while out looking for
edelweiss she went up on mountain
nine miles high Below her on the
other side of the island glacier
sloped away ten miles to the sea-
Some how or other her feet slipped
and she slid down the glacier seven
miles. Her clothes were worn thread
bare and she was longing for rest
when she came to a fissure in the
ice and fell l002 feet. When she lit