The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1917-11-17
A Mining Story of
the Early Days
By ELIAS KILLIAN
CcOpyrisht. 1917. western Newspaper Union

A party of young people stepped into
the dingy rooms Of a fortune teller OF
San Francisco and asked her to tell
their fortunes.
'Tm tired of this business" she said
"but l would like to make a little
none for my present needs. ! will
tell you the fortune of a couple whose
life is more strange than that of
anyone whose fortune / have ever
told"
All agreed to hear the story, and,
finding whatever seats they were able,
they settled down to listen. The old
woman began:
"In the early days Of Virginia City
there lived there a teamster with his
wife, q Scotchwoman, who took In
washing and kept a miners boarding
house. Neither of the two had ever
had any education, and neither could
read or write. They were just a
plain teamster and a plain washer
woman.
"One day some men came to the
teamster and told him they wished to
buy a claim of a few hundred feet on
Gold hill, but they hadn't quite enough
money to pay for it. Had he any
savings, and would he, II he had, like
to go In with them7 The teamster
talked the matter over with his wife,
and after a long discussion they
agreed that they might as well put
what they had In the claim since they
knew of no way to invest 1t to get an
interest from 1t. That was a time
when no one knew what great wealth
there was in the ground Whereabouts
and whatever the couple bought could
be bought for very little money. So
they got out their stocking and dump
ed the bills and gold and silver and
copper coins on the table, counted 1t
and took Ii to the men who were 60
ing to buy the claim and paid for their
share In 1t.
"By and by the owners began to take
gold out of the mine, and the more
they took out the more, II seemed. was
there to take out. Suddenly the team
ster and his wife found themselves so
rich that they didn't know what to do
their money.
"'What's the first thing to do. wifeT
asked the teamster.
"'Give a big blowout she answered.
$50 they gave a big blowout at the
International hotel, asking everybody
they knew and everybody they didn't
know, and told the landlord not to pay
any attention whatever to what any
thing cost.
"Then they went away to Europe to
see all the sights there. They enjoyed
the Alps pretty well, for they are
much finer than the Rockies. But In
Rome and Florence and Naples they
a lot of old buildings not so much
use as an adobe shanty and miles Of
paintings Of men and women without
any clothes on, and they got tired of
1t. Then they went to Egypt, where
nothing but sand and obellsks
and mummies, and to Greece, where
a big stone house on a high
hill, with the wind blowing through II.
They call 1t the Acropolis, or some
thing like that, but they didn't see any
comfort In It, so they went away.
"Next they went to Paris and rode
up and down the boulevards and the
Champs Elias and saw shows such
as never was seen In a dance house In
a mining town and walked through
of pictures. In the galleries and
past indecent statues. From Paris
they went to London, where they saw
a lot of sights of old piles Of stones
and castles hundreds Of years old. But
In London they found the first thing
to really amuse them while they were
gone. That was riding on the buses.
They rode all day and some time late
into the night, but they got tired even
of this and came home thinking that,
all, there was no place like Ne
vady.
"On the shore Of Washoe lake they
built a big mansion. The site was a
beautiful one, with the wall of snow
Sierras behind II and water in
front. Money was no object In its
building. 1t was built Of quarried
stone and furnished with the costliest
San Francisco could supply. A library
of books with the name on every vol
ume was one of the furnishings. The
door handles were silver, the table
furnishings the finest to be had at
that place at that time.
"The house was big enough for q
hundred families, but they didn't have
even a single chick of their own, so
they adopted a little girl they named
But the child sickened. They
loved her dearly-so dearly that they
would have gladly given all their
wealth to save her. but the Lord
wouldn't take 1t In exchange. and Per-
sia died, and that left no n in the
big house but themselves.
"Next the teamster died and was
under the shadow Of the
Sierras, and after her husbands death
avarvthfno seemed to go against