Newspaper Page Text
■WHEN comes the ni«wt,
When comes the night.
Shall we accuse the sun,
Because the gloom oppresses most
The soul that glows with lustre lost?
And shall we shun
The memory of light?
When comes the ice,
Shall we condemn the rose,
That filled the field with royal bloom.
And scented hall and church and tomb,
When winter throws
Bis ermine round us thrice?
When sorrows come
Upon us unaware.
Shall we reproach the joy that shed
A glory where the feast was spread.
And in despair
Sit silent, sad and dumb?
W hen comes the grave,
Shall we the cradle curse,
The fatal day when daylight came.
Because the night of dreaded name,
A second nurse,
Comes stealing down the nave?
When comes the word
That blast in pain or wrath
Our early love or virgin hope,
Our hearts may listen, though we gropj
In unlit path,
To songs our ears have heard 1
Then brave the night,
Which cannot kill the sun,
And with undaunted courage greet
The angel’s cup, though life be sweet.
’Tis quickly done;
Come, drain the goblet quitel
And if a breath
Shall cut your love in twain,
With robe of tears enshroud the past,
And hurl defiance to the blast:
Beat down the pain,
Till beaten, thou, by Death!
—W. P. Preble, Jr., in Harper.
A WOMAN OF PLUCK.
HEN early in the
mt & spring fame Holy of of Creede, 1891, Moses the ol
the
* mine, and of the
riches to be found
/A in the mountains
round about was
AW spreading over the
State of Colorado
c* and attracting some
attention from pros¬
pectors and speculators, the story came
to a quiet little widow, Mrs. Reid Miller,
living in the town of Bedell. She was a
native of Vienna, but had been in Ameri¬
ca for thirteen years, of which time five
months had been passed in New York
City, and the rest in Pueblo, Alamosa,
and other towns of the Silver State. Mrs.
Miller had during much of this time sup¬
ported herself and her child, now a boy
of six, chiefly by cooking and house¬
work. She had heard over and over
again the marvellous stories of quickly
acquired wealth in the mining camps of
the mountain region, and had been wait¬
ing for some time to hear of another
strike that she might herself try her luck
along with the rest who always rush to
every new town where opportunities for
speculation offer. The story of the Holy
Moses eaine to her as did the signal to
the Oklahoma boomers. She was ready
to start instantly, regardless of her own
poverty os the future of the camp. With
sufficient bedding and camp kit for her¬
self and boy, and no more, she got on
the sled of a freighter with whom she
was acquainted who was bound up the
valley with goods to the new Eldorado.
She was obliged to run in debt for her
transportation, but no prospector ever
took a grub stake with a lighter heart or
more confidence of success than Mrs.
Miller in accepting this loan.
The outfit with Mrs. Miller reached
Creede on April 1st, 1891. Creede at
that time consisted of a few houses
crowded into the deep and narrow gulch
between Campbell and Mammoth Moun
tains. There was no street in the town
—simply a trail between the houses, wide
enough for a freight team to pass
through. The gulch was full of suow and
ice; one could tell that a stream was
there only by bearing the roar of the
water beneath a deep covering of mixed
snow and ice.
Mrs. Miller looked over the camp just
once—it took her about half an hour
only to decide that she did not want to
remain there. It was too crowded. If
the camp was to grow it could grew iu
but one direction—down stream. A few
hundred yards below the ruck of shanties,
the gulch suddenly expanded into a
widening valley that would afford ample
building space for a town. There were
indeed, two houses down there already.
Charles Born, a prospector, had built a
little log cabin there for headquarters,
and Loftus & Ilastiugs had opened a
saloou. Mrs. Miller determined to go
down there and see what she could do.
Luckily for her she met about this
time a carpenter named Mahouey, whom
she had known whea living in Bedell.
Mahoney asked her what she was going
to do, and she said she was goiug to
open a restaurant down below iu some
way. Straightway Mahouey offered to
build her a house for the busiucss.
“But I have no money,” she said.
“That’s ail right. Pay me whea you
get it.” Thereupon it was agreed that a
log house, 2(5x40 feet, should be erected
among the willows, not far from Pros¬
pector-Born's cabin,for the sum of $110,
to be paid whenever Mrs. Miller
&et it.
Mahoney began work the next
(April 2), and built the house as
and substantially as he would have
a Mifler flood mining camp house, and
was greatly pleased with it. It
taken three weeks to complete it.
hardly Ildr Y knows whether to laugh or
shed tears when hearing Mrs. Miller
how she began to run a restaurant
that cabin.
“My stove was very old and
For a table I had an old door,
up town. It was nailed on a short
of wood set on end in the middle of
room. For chairs I had empty
boxes and two or three blocks cut
a log. I had three plates, a tin cap
coffee, and enough knives and forks
go with the plates. I had one kettle
a frving pan, and that’s all. But
miners did not care. They said:
give us what you have and it is all right.’
They were very kind to me.”
Her provisions, including bread,
chased on credit, had to be brought
Del Norte, forty miles away, down
valley, at a cost of two cents a pound
freight. But she sold from seventy
one hundred meals a day fora good
weeks at fifty cents a meal, and she
gan to get ahead a little. The
bills were met promptly, and Mr. Ma¬
honey got the $110 for his work sooner
than he had anticipated.
Then a turn came in the tide.
prospectors who had floated in on
story of the Holy Moses floated
again. The much-talked-of railroed
not appear. It was told that the
would not be built at all. Times
hard at Creede iu midsummer, 1891,
but cheery Mrs. Miller never shed
tear.
“It was berry time, those days,” she
said: “raspberries, blackberries. I
not know how many. I took my
and went every day after berries and
made jam of them. I knew I could
that any time, but I didn’t sell it the
way I expected to. Before the
were all gone they began to buiid
railroad, and then came a rush such
you never saw'.”
Meantime, however, Mrs. Miller
had an eye for real estate
She had had four logs placed on
of four lots, on what is now
avenue, including the corner of
street. There was no town
ing but willows and creek bottom;
land had not then been surveyed out
a town, but Mrs. Miller guessed from
lay of the land that that would be
good parcel of land to tie to. The
logs on each lot were laid together as
foundations for log houses, and in
miniug camps such foundations are
spected as “improvements” sufficient
give title. Like improvements
made in the two lots adjoining
restaurant. Later in (July), having
little money to spare, she had each
the Creede avenue foundations raised
logs higher at a cost of $(52.50.
“They laughed at that little
woman,” as they called me, for
that, but I knew what 1 was about,”
says now.
Then came the fall rush, and Mrs.
Miller, having no money, promised to
pay $400 and get her four little log
ins finished. Then she rented her
taurant building to D. R. Smith, who
brought in a stock of general
dise about that time, and she moved
the little corner building, where
began taking boarders as well as selling
meals at all hours. She had a
outfit for the business by this time, but
the habitues of the restaurants
Madison square would have considered
the place rather crude, nevertheless.
place was neat, however, for a
camp, and Mrs. Miller kept herself and
boy looking well.
But although a prosperous business
was now opeuing for her, her real
troubles were at hand. Hitherto she
had to do the drudgery of a kitchen
from early morning until late at night,
but now she had to do that and fight
the rights she had acquired as well. The
novelists and some other mining
writers tell of the chivalry of
camp men, but in an examination
Creede history one finds that it took
mighty long time to develop the
alry. Mrs. Miller’s four cabins
built on a plot 125x125, which was
ularly surveyed out in November, 1S91,
uuder orders of the County Judge
Saguache County. There was a house
each lot, but between the corner house
and the corner was a plot about
tweuty-five feet square that was vacant.
While Mrs. Miller was still at work com¬
pleting her cabins, there came a
who hired a carpenter at $5 a day
build a foundatiom on Mrs. Miller’s
cant plot. Mrs. Miller ordered him away,
but be would uot go. Creede
tions in those days consisted of
timbers nailed together so as to
the space to be built ou, and
in some cases by blocks of wood.
of such foundations are still to be
Mrs. Miller watched with many
hensions the carpenter finish the
tion, but, though worried, she was
disheartened. In fact, she stood pat,
the vernacular of the town, waiting
turn to go a stack of chips better
would make him draw out in a hurry.
1 While the carpeuter sawed and
Mrs. Miller went to the
Brothers, builders, aud contracted
them to erect a shanty on this
foundation. The man had jumped
claim to the land, but she jumped
foundation.
“They only charged me $25 for
ing that shanty,” said Mrs. Miller, ‘ but
L™ my’oM Silding for pay.
by ™ e * her troubles , not .
Still were over, ev n
though cash became more plentiful, bne
accepted an offer of bio00 cash for o
of her lots—the one where D. R. Smith s
store is—and at once began work on a
foundation for a building that was
planned to be the best in town. The
railroad hai come in November, and
the right of way had taken part of her
claim. Then a street was laid out next
to the right of way, and thus Mrs. Mil¬
ler's plot was reduced to fifty feet in
depth. This had been a benefit, how¬
ever, for it made possible the building of
a structure facing three streets on what
were now plainly seen to be the most im¬
portant corners of the new city. The
growth of Creede at that time can be ap¬
preciated only by those who saw oil-well
towns spring up iu Pennsylvania, the
rush in Oklahoma, or some such enter¬
prise. People were coming into camp
by the hundred every day, aqd the rush
for lots to build on was indescribable.
No sooner did Mrs. Miller tear away
her cabins and set men to work building
a foundation for the new business block
than, a jumper, with a lawyer, came to
bluff her out of her property. To give
an idea of this woman’s character let it
be said that she asked the reporter not to
mention the jumper’s name.
“I beat him; that’s enough,”she said.
This is how she beat him:
The man with his shyster told her he
had purchased the lots of the town com¬
pany, and that she was only a squatter
and must vacate. She said she would do
nothing of the kind. She knew her
rights, and would stand by them. The
man said he would bring workmen, and
begin building. Mrs. Miller defied him.
He came, however, as he had said he
would, and the supreme moment of Mrs.
Miller's career in Creede was at hand.
As the man and his shyster and men with
picks and axes appeared, Mrs. Miller
walked out with her boy by her side,and
a revolver in her hand.
“I will blow the brains out of the first
man that puts a pick in that founda¬
tion,” she said in a voice heard a block
away. The shyster began to parley,and
the man ordered his workmen to begin
work. A great crowd, hundreds, gath¬
ered instantly, for it was a wild time in
Creede then, and a call tor trouble
brought the throng as if by magic.
As Mrs. Miller showed the revolver
the workmen hesitated, and for a brief
moment there was a pause, while men
of all social grades looked on in silence.
The workmen were again ordered to pro¬
ceed, and again they hesitated under the
muzzle of the revolver. Then came the
end. Some one in the crowd shouted
“Mrs. Miller has fed many a man
when he was broke.and never asked him
a cent. Let's duck the jumpers in the
creek.”
A howl of approval arose in answer,
and the jumpers made haste to slip
threugh ttie crowd and sneak away.
Mrs. Miller had an offer of $5000 cash
in February for two of the lots which
she had held to with the aid of her re¬
volver—there is no doubt about the aid
of the revolver; any man wao Looks into
her laughing gray eyes sees the will be¬
hind them when it is aroused—and she
sold them at once. She had now money
enough to go on with her building. The
work began the first week in March, and
on April 1st she began to draw $500 a
month in advance from the rentals.
The building is fifty feet square, and,
as said, fronts on three streets. It is a
neat frame structure, two stories high,
with lofty ceilings, large windows, two
large rooms on the first floor, and a
broad, easy stairway leading to the
second floor, where there is a wide hall
and nine large well-lighted offices. It is
much the best building in town at this
writing. The total cost was $4(KX).
Mrs. Reid Miller, on April 1, 1891,
reached Creede too poor to pay the
freighter who brought her here. In
exactly one year to a day she was in re¬
ceipt of an income of $500 a month aud
had a snug sum in bank. But the story
is not all told. She might have had a
greater income, but deliberately refused
it. As her building approached comple¬
tion, President McDonough of the First
National Bank offered her $150 a month
for the corner room on the first floor for
the use of the bank. While she con¬
sidered the offer a man came and offered
her $350 a month for the same room,
that he might open a gambling resort
there. Mrs. Miller refused the gambler’s
offer because she thought that a respect¬
able business would in the end prove the
most satisfactory.
This is not all of Mrs. Miller’s prop¬
erty. Along in February the State Land
Commissioners sold a half section of land
adjoining Creede Colorado on the south for the
benefit of the State School
Fund. The scenes at that sale were
wonderful to behold. More than 7000
men and some women attended and went
wild with excitement. Hundreds were
ruined by the prices they paid for unim¬
proved willow swamp land. Corner lots
brought from $2000 to $7000, according
to location, while the rest sold down in
the hundreds. Mrs. Miller attended the
, sale and bought a dry lot at the foot of
Mammoth Mountain for $145. One has
only to walk over the school sections, as
it is called, to see that the lot is well
chosen, and, considering the prices the
rest paid, very cheap. It should be said,
however, that there was no great dis¬
position shown at the sale to bid against
the women; but, on the other hand,
Mrs. Miller would have paid an extrava¬
gant price. Miller has built
On this lot Mrs. two
cottafles, front and rear, at an expence
of over $700. The front house is one
story high, has a bay window and two
verandas and tnree lar^e rooms, besides
smaller ones. There is no neater-looking
cottage in town. It is to be rented.
She will probably get fifty dollars a
month for it while the boom lasts, and
thereafter a good return on the money.
The rear cottage is made of rough lum¬
ber and contains two rooms, Mrs. Mil
ler rents the front room and lives in the
rear room with her boy. She will start
for Vienna in a short time to visit her
father, who is still living there, but she
intends to return to Creede very soon.—
New York Suu.
SELECT SIFTINGS.
There are said to be 20,000 kinds of
butterflies.
A gorilla is so rare in captivity that
one brings $20,000.
A North Carolina woman only learned
to write after she had passed the age of
eighty-two.
No chemical black ink has yet beer
made which will write black immediately
on exposure.
Patsy Sears, of Howard County, Ind.,
aged 108 years,; has been a chureh mem¬
ber a hundred years.
Except in cooking their scanty meals
the poor Italians seldom have a fire ever
in the severest winter weather.
A gentleman in Fort Smith, Ark., ha;
hanged eighty persons sentenced tc
death by the United States court.
Cornell University has opened a diary
school, where cheese and butter making
breeds and feeding are the subject for
study.
The agricultural society of Paris is ex¬
perimenting in the making of artificial
clouds (o preserve plants from the effects
of frost.
Wax came into use for caudles in the
twelfth century, and wax candles were
esteemed a luxury in 1300, being but
little used.
It would take forty yenrs for all the
water in the great lakes to pour over Ni¬
agara at the rate of one million cubic
feet a second.
A West Philadelphia clergyman re¬
cently received an envelope containing
an old fashioned copper penny as his fee
for performing a wedding ceremony.
Some of the African tribes pull their
fingers till the joints “crack” as a form
of salutation, and one tribe has the curi
ous fashion of showing friendship by
standing back to back.
Tne bones of Jumbo, Barnura's big
elephant, that was killed a few years ago
at St. Thomas, Canada, weighed even
2400 pounds. The total weight of the
body, bones and all, was six tons.
The lav of evolution works in lan
guages as well as in other things. Twen¬
ty thousand words have been added to
the Eugiish language in the department
of biology alone since Dai win's discover
ies.
A double-bodied lamb has made its
appearance in Pilot Knob, Ind., and is
owned by Alexander Riclitie. Its head
and neck are perfect; but attached to the
head are two perfect bodies, which have
two sets of legs.
The chemical inks of the present are
of too recent invention to determine
whether they wiil last, but it is quite
probable that most of them will be as
legible at the end of fifiy or seventy-five
as they are to-day.
G. Bonnier, Professor of Botany at
the Paris Sorbonne, disputes the preva
lent notion that the mistletoe is injurious
to the apple or other tree on which it
grows. lie maintains not only that this
is not the case, but that it is actually
beneficial to its host.
Not until the tenth day is the Zuni
child put into the cradle. The baby’s
arms are placed by its sides, and it is "so
strapped in its cradle that it cannot move
a hand. These cradles have hood
shaped tops, and over the whole thick
coverings are placed, and it ' a wonder
« ««*«•
iv I\., In ^Ii 1481, md riders ; n the on rei post-horses " a , of Edward went
stages of the distance of twenty miles
from eacn otner, in order to procure the
king the earliest intelligence of the
events that passed in the course of the
war that had arisen with the Scots, and
Richard III. improved the system of
couriers in 1483.
A cat bern in Germany with only two
legs (the hinder pair) is healthy, and
goes about easily, the body in the nor
mal condition. When startled or watch
ing anything, it raises itself to the attt
tude of a kangaroo, using its tail as a
support. It has twice borne kittens, in
bom cases two, one of which had four
aud the other only two feet.
A Pear.
Mr. Chap pel is said to be the most
successful pearl hunter in Connecticut.
He searches for these gems in the mouu
tam streams and meadow brooks of that
State, and yearly makes a haudsome
profit on his industry, working only two
months, April and May, if the winter
has been a mild one. The pearls are
found m fresh water clams, and are gen.
erally the size of a pea or larger.—Chi.
cago er a •
_
A man obtains his maximum height at
forty years of age, a woman at fifty years.
SCIENTIFIC AND
A child three Tears old
height it will ever reach. 15 ^ th
Tb , “ a “ a1
wheQ wa , h so
disappears be aca it ^
11 ‘ ' "
A tropical moth, oufij
has a wing spread
m color and flies by night Itis ^J
An electrical brush has w
to It kill destroys grass and every weeds alontV^ V* trac
touches. blade 01 grass ‘.
ft
Carbon is so good a
tricity that, in the form ? ctor °f elec,
used to make an earth ‘ cois e > il it
lightning * „ QE >ection .
rods.
seventy-fou^ per ceau*“cT° E
matter and woody fiber.
Every portion of soapstone .vavst^ Win
ting is utilized mother 4od=
in the dull color to rubber i* gi 1
paper to gain weight,
celleutartmie to use in making e i
fire . pr
A remarkable case is that of a
who was stabbed in the heart, That
gan was punctured, but he or
would have yet lived aad
recovered had he not u
come intoxicated before the wound
tirely healed. *
Experiments in ^
peat is a good material i Q wh ioh tl)
potatoes, turnips, onions and ofa-rsim
lar vegetables. Potatoes, after
months, were found in perfect coaiW
without ever having germinated.
Several of the higher apes share W
man the involutionary habit of blushin<r
Indeed, they seem to uossess it to 3 j
higher degree then we do, for the blush
of an ape extends over a larger portio
of the body than that of huuiaa a
a being.
It is claimed by scientists that all tbs
lime in the world has, at some time
been a portioa of some animal. T&e
same atom of lime has some time, no
doubt, been a portion of many different
animals, and possiljly of human btinn
also.
Heligoland is to be made a harbor ot
refuge for fishing vessels, and is being,
fortified heavily. The island is to be a
scientific station, the German Govern¬
ment the having study erected of marine laboratories tnenj nA
for zoology,
especially of the economic history J
food fishes.
The perpendicularity of a mourn*
is, although few may be aware of it,!
visibly affected by the rays of the sat
On every sunny day a tall monument
has a regular swing, leaning away fro*
the suu. This phenomenon is due to
the greater expansion of the side oi
which the rays of the sun fall.
In Germany, barrels and tubs are now
being made in a single piece by a new
system of cuttiug logs into boards and
veneers. The log is steamed and
softened, then placed in a machine and
rotated against a knife which shaves off
_ the
a continuous veneer, or board, till
log is consumed. Iu making barrels,a
strip is notched in each edge, and then
it can be rolled into cylindrical form,
ready for hoops and heads.
Speed of the Pulse.
The rate of pulsation depends entire!
on the movements of the heart, eac
representing a contraction of the lei
ventricle. The normal pulse of ti
adult male varies from sixty to eight]
beats in the minute; the range of ini
vidual variation is, however, very great
The range in females is even gwfl
some having a pulse rate of over eig <
others less than sixty, the majornys j
ing a higher rate than males. J
At In birth, children 123 to the 144; rate first is more year, iet Pj -'J
130; at sixteen years, ninety, »■!
a t ! § p e °* tbe bl Jp,° P uIse fte ? 1S . ^ill tween fifty in'’skd #»
s * xty rhe pU Ser ... • w je r
‘ varies so® 1
tbau ta ,, 1 persoa ?’ a ,q „i- ^ 0
w hat ™ th tbe iadeoendea
f meab aac * mov \ " f temo oD
tne , a
the forenoon, rising in .
£%££? fifty-six”and foity-sj x
low as low as w
b obse rved in healthy adults,
exceptions. We know o
they ' are rare d of healthy
no V^thLy-Brooklyn on recor a
lo Eagle.
Sail Ships Not Oat of i )ate '
comp iied by Lloyd;
: that
.9
— o - - - ,
the year 1891 tne £ ^ ere f 878,
United Kingdom till * 0
- ’•
B 53 tons,and 181 sailing ot
463 tons, or a total 0 " do t
1,130,816 tons. Tbese = ' the
include warships. Contrary
or less general opinion _ destmea m * ^
that steamships are sailing vessels.
pletely supersede ^
pr0 peUed by steam, is relatively .
f n o. year by year, and during tbe in tne " 6 p ’a,ber, ^
ve a r 'it is thoiight pronounced- that In T
be sti u mor per"cent, e of
1SS9, ten only ^
und er construction in
dom were “sailing;” in lb9 ’“ twenq -
cent and in 1891, no less build
^ 'This shows thd
five pe r cent . f . t set
■ steamships for the / a :i»
been over n an
vice has simply jj;
saih^ Boston A drer
cheaper P b vessels.—
riser.