The Press., 1916-07-06
: How the Town of Ladybird Was Depopulated
 An Episode of May Day
By E. A. MITCHELL

What we nov call the middle west was settled up in spots by very differ ent peoples, and these spots, now cities or towns, show the differences to this day. One place will have been settled by refined people, and their descend- ants are refined; another will have been settled by rough class, and its population will be rough today
 When one of these spots was in em- bryo-we will call 1t Eaglebird-its in- habitants were not naturally rough, but they were all men, and men with out women will in time degenerate into wild beasts. No woman would go to Eaglebird because there were no wo- men there. One or two of the men went east at different times to marry a sweetheart, but came back alone. When the girls learned that Eaglebird was exclusively man town they invaria- bly declined to exchange refined sur roundings for a den.
 There was a town not far distant from Eaglebird that we will call Lady
 
 latter had been a town for two dec ades. True, the Ladybirdians had run out the Indians, but they had all come to the region, men and women tOgeth- CT, from Connecticut, where there was a college, and there was not poorly educated person among them. But Ladybird had not been favorably To- cated for trade, and its young men when grown sought buster fields of la- bor, while their sisters remained where they were. Instead of manufactures. there were libraries, and the old folks and the girls were very intellectual.
 Eaglebird had been settled for land speculation. Ten men with money had purchased a tract for song and se- cured others to join them in settling it by offering a share in the property. In this way some forty men, mostly young and all unmarried, were secured as emigrants for the enterprise. They built town, but no more men came. there were no children.
 O'Brien, who was the originator of the scheme, one day called meeting in the town hall, building 12 by 1S used principally for poker parties, and thus addressed the gathering:
 Gentlemen, If we can't get some wo- men for wives we'll have to give up this scheme and go somewhere else I've proposition to make. There are more than fifty single women in Lady bird. Efforts have been made to in duce some of them to marry our fel- lows. but they have turned up their noses at us. What do you say to sweeping down on lem and carrying 'em off?"
 The idea took like wildfire. Natu rally. the youngest men were the most enthusiastic. Thirty men agreed to join the abductOrs, and no one of them was over thirty years old, while the great majority were not twenty-five. This looked well for the scheme, for the girls they were to run off had nearly all been born since the settlement O1 Ladybird and were therefore young.
 The very next day after the proposal of the abduction scheme lady and hel husband who were driving through the country with view to establishing ar emigration scheme stopped at Eagle bird and asked for entertainment fol the night. They were accommodated and so long had it been since the men had seen a woman that they treated the lady as though she were a queen Every man in the town offered to serve her. In the evening they asked if she would not talk to them. It didn't mat ter what she said; they only wished tt listen to the sweet, soft voice of q woman. She consented, and all ad journed to the town hall, where the lady was given seat on platform al one end of the room. This is what she said to them:
 Gentlemen. don't wonder you wisl to listen to d woman's voice. You are all refined men. roughened by living without woman's quieting influence What you need is wives''-
 There was a howl of response to this s,1 fho