Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1909-06-09
RUSSIANS PITIABLE PLIGHT.
Exiled from Native Land, Finds Sor-
row i'm New World.
(Atlanta Journal, 3D.

ed his tear-wet face up to the young
June sky and shook mutely like
leaf in storm.
That was Tuesday morning at 10
O'Clock. The mans name was Petro
MyStraditch, Russian exile, who
had wandered to Georgia six weeks
ago. In the freshly broken earth
above which he half knelt, half stag
gered, lay a woman. He had met
her a little less than year ago,
when he first>set foot on the wharves
Of New York. His eyes were won
drously blue then and her hair was
full Of sun. Her words had been the
only words he had ever really under
stood in the strange land. A baby
"a boy with dark eyes like the
fathers, had come to them and then
had slipped back into the dark un-
known. And now---------. But
here is Petro's story, as he told it
to the priest and the ministering wo-
men of the Associated Charities. He
told 1t above the grave with sobs and
wild gestures for language.
Tile Cars Red Land.
Fleeing from the blood-red land
Of the car, Petro Mystreditch reach
ed America in the first flush of last
spring. Work was what he wanted
and the chance to work in peaceful
security. He made his way down to
the farm country of New Jersey.
There he met the woman who be-
came his wife. She was an English
woman, and though she could not
speak word of Russian, and he only
very few words of English, they
knew what each other meant. They
heard that far toward the South was
rich land called Georgia, where
peaches made the hillsides beautiful
and where men to tend the orchards
were wanted. .s.
They came together through an
employment bureaus agency to
peach orchard near Rome. They had
been there scarcely two nights, he
says, when a calf on the place fell
sick and died. Petro was accused of
having poisoned the animal
''He'll Kill YOU"
"The boss is going to kill you be-
cause the calf is dead" the other
laborers told him.
"Boss?" he stammered. He had
never heard the word before.
Master" some one interpreted,
and then picking up a hoe, initiated
the movement of a gun being fired
into mans heart.
AT this very moment the wife was
i'll in the little room where they
slept. The master seemed to be an
cry He had expected both husband
and woman to work. But now she
was useless. She was a dead eX-
pense with her confounded illness.
And so, they came and took her
away. he declares, and sent her to
Atlanta, where she was put in Grady
Hospital. Petro sever slept that
night. With the first dim touch of
sunrise he stole forth, gained the
highroad and sped southwark.
CrOuchcs i'm Prison.
Before <sunset he was arrested,
hurried back to the town and lodged
in Jail. There he lay two weeks,
wondering, fearing, crouched in a
corner of his prison.
In the meantime, the baby had
come and gone. The wife lay moan
ing in her loneliness. A strange dis
ease called pellagra seized upon her
blood. ....
'Petro, my man, Petro," she kept
calling through the darkness Of the
night and the days pitiless sunshine.
The Associated Charities. learned
OF the case, in fact they had secured
the mother place in the hospital,
and through their influence won the
Russians release and brought him to
atlanta. Pushing their efforts fur
Their, they got him employment on
the farm Of Dr.. Alex Keys, near Bat
tie Hill.
That was last Sunday morning.
The stranger was happy in the good
free air and the kind treatment Of
his employer and happier still when
Dr.. Keys told him that in the after
noon he should go to see his wife.
She lay very still and patient on the
white bed when ho entnred Tho n =
tendants left them alone and they
talked in choking whispers for long
time. The baby MaS gone hut thnn