Year: 1862

that will put me thro'. Why didn't you tmlre m
up, old brig-give your old ,hoss snotherpeck
of oatsl I tell ye, this fourteen hours in Chi
eager will knock all my calculations into the
middle Of next week"


avery sorry, sir-we've done our best but
as we are not clerks Of the weather, I hope,
you will not lay your misfortunes to our ac-
count Snowdrits and the thermometer six
teen degrees below zero, are enemies we can't
readily overcome"


"Thats fact" said the first speaker, with
broad emphasis, and a good natured, forgiv-
ing smile. q Fourteen hours IN ChicagerP' 3


The stentorian voice, sounding like trum-
pet, had aroused every sleeper from elysian
dreams into which he might have fallen after
his long, tedious, cold nights travel. Every
head was turned. every eye was fixed on the
man who had broken the silence. He was
standing by the stove warming his boots. To
have warmed his feet through such mass Of
cowhide and sole-leather would have been
fourteen hours operation. Six feet four or
! FIVE inches he stood in those boots, with shoul-
ders cased in a fur coat, that looked more like
bearing up a world than you will meet with
ordinarily in half lifetime His head Web
steran, his shaggy hair black as jet, his whis-
kers to match, his dark piercing eye, and his
jaws eternally rowing with a rousing quid be-
tween them, with smile Of good humor, not
withstanding his seeming impatience, attract
ed every ones attention.


"Fourteen hours in Chieager, eh? Wal, l
can stand It If the rest can; If twenty dollars
wont carry me through, III borrow of my
friends I've got the things that'll bring en- y


He thrust his hand, little less in size than
common spade, down into the csvernous
depths of his pocket; and brought it up full
as it could hold Of twenty dollar pieces.


"Don't you think can stand these ere
Chicagers for one fourteen hours2"


A nod of assent from three or tour, and a
smile of curiosity from the rest, answered his
question in the affirmative


You mus. have been in luck, stranger"
said an euvious looking little man. You
have more than your share Of gold.


81 have, Ell? WA, I reckon not I came
honestly by it. That's fact And there's
them living can remember thisehild when
he went round the prairies trapping prairie
hens and the like TO get him pair of shoes to
keep the massasugers from biting his toes;
I've hung myself up more nor one night in
The timber, to keep out of the way of the wild
varmints; best sleeping in the world, in the
crotch Of a tree topl Now, I reckon you
wouldn't believe it. but I've gone all winter
without single shoe on my foot, and lived
on wild game when could catch it. That's
fact" @


Didn't stunt your growth" said a voice
near.


"Not a bit off It brought me up right
These prairies are 50 wonderfully roomy. I
thought one spell I would let myself out en-
tirely, but me and mother held a corcus, and
decided that she was getting old and blind
like, and it tux too long and cost too much to
sew up the legs or trowsers; so I put a stop
to it; she concluded that six foot five would
do for feler that couldn't afford the expen-
sive luxury Of wife to make breeches for
him. It was only the love ofmy mother that
stopped my growth. IfTd had an idea of
sewing machine, there's no telling what I
might have done"


You have so many gold pieces in your
pocket, you can afford TO get your trowsers
made now. Why don't you and your mother
hold another caucus, and see what you could
do? If she would let you expand yourself,
you might sell out to Barnum and make for-
tune travelling with Tom Thumb, and take the
old woman along"


" stranger" said the rough, great man, and
his whole face doomed up with a mingled ex-
preston of pain and pride; stranger, I spoke
a word, here didn't mean to; a slightly
word, like, about my mother. I would give
all the gold in my pocket to bring her back
for one hour, to look upon this country as it
is now. She had her cabin here when Chi
eager was no where; here she raised her
boys-she couldn't give them larnin', but she
taught US better things than books can give:
to be honest, useful and industrious. She
taught us to be faithful and true; to stand by
friend, and be generous to an enemy. It's
thirty years, stranger, since we dug her grave
by the lake side with our own hands; and
with many a tear and sob turned ourselves
away from the cabin where we had been rails
ed-the Indians had killed our father long be-
fore, and we'd nothin' to keep us--and so we
went to seek our fortunes. Ny brother, he
took down there to Saint Louis, and got mar
ried down there som'ers; and I Just went
where the wind blowed, and when I'd scrn-
ped money enough together I came back and
bought few acres of land around nv molh-
er's old cabin, for the place where I had laid
her bones was sacred, like Wal, in the
course of time it turned right up in the mid
die of Chicager. I Icouldn't stand that-I low
ed my old mother too well to let the omni-
buses rattle over her grave. so I come back
about fifteen years ago, and quietly moved
her away to the buryin' ground; and then I
went back to Texas, and wrote to an agent
afterwards to sell nv land What cost a few
hundred to begin on, sold it for over forty
ibOusand-apd ifI'd a kent II till now. 'tvould