Kitty's Forty

It doesen't do men any good to live apart froni women and children. I never'knew a boy's school in whick thero was not a tendeucy to rowdyisni. Anc lumbormon, and sailors, fishernien, ani; all other men that live only with men, are proverbially a half-bearsort of people. Froutiersmen soften down when womjn and children come - but I forgot myself', it is the story you want. Burton and Jones livod in a shanty by themselves. Jones was a married man, but finding it hard to support his wife in a down East village, he had emigrated to Northern Minnesota, leaving his wife under her father's roof, until he should be able to "make a start." He and Burton had gone into partnership and had " pre-empted" a town site of three hundred and twenty acres. Thero were perhaps twenty families scattered sparsely over this town site at :he time my story begins and ends, for it ends in the same week in which it begins. The partners had disagreed, quarrelpd, and divided their interest. The land was all shared between them exeept one valuable forty-acre piece. Each of them claimed that piece of land, and the quarrel had grown so high between them that Iheir neighbors expected them to "shoot at sight." In f act, it was understood that Burton was on the forty-acre piece, determined to shoot Jones if he carne, and Jones had sworn to go out there and shoot Burton, when the fight was postponed by the unexpected arrival of Jones' wife and ehild. Jones' shanty was not fiuished, and he was forced to foregothe luxury of flghting his old partner, in his exertions to make wife and baby comfortable for the night, for the winter sun was surrounded by " sun-dogs. Instoad of one sun thor were four,n occurrence not uncommon in this latitude, but one which alway bodes a terrible storm. In his endeavor to care for his wife ant child, Jones was mollified a littlo, anc half regretted that ho liad been so violen about thc pieco of land. But he was doterminod not to be baoked dowD, and he would have to'shoot Burton or be shot himself. When he thought of the chance of being killed by his old partner, the prospect was not pleasant. Helooked wistfully at Kitty, his two years' old child, and dreaded that she would bo left fatherless. Nevertheless, he wouldn't be backed down. Ho would shoot or be shot While tho father was busy cutting wood, and the mother was busy othorwise, littlo Kitty managed to get the shanty door open. There was no latch as yet, and her prying little iiogers easily swung it back. A gust of cold air almost took away her breath, but she caught sight of the brown grass without, and tho new world seemed so big that the littlo feet wre fain to try and explore it. She pushed out through the door, caught her breath again, and started away down a path bordered by sere grass and thc dead stalks of the wild sunflower How often she had longed to escape 'roin restraint and paddie out into the vorld alone ! So out into the world she vent, rejoicing in her liberty, in the blue ky above and tho rusty prairie beneath. She would find out where the path went o, and what there was at the end of the voild ! What did she care if her nose was )lue with cold, and her chubby hands as ed as beets. Now and then she paused o turn her head away from a rude blast, foronmner of the storm : but having "asped a moment, she quickly renewed :er brave march in search of the great nknown. Tlie mother missed her, and supposed íiat Jones, who could not get enough of ie child's society, had taken the lrttle lot out with hirn. Jones, poor tellow, sure that the daring was safe within, chopped away until lat awful storm broke upon him, and at ast drove him, half smothered by snow nd half frozen with oold, into the house. irhen thero was nothing lelt but retreat, ie had seized an aruiful of wood and ried it into the house with him, to malte sure of having enough to keep his wife and Kitty froni freezing in the coming awfulness of the night, whichnow settled down upon the storm-bcaten and snowblinded world. It was the beginning of that horrible storm in which 80 many people were frozen to death, and Jones had fled none to soon. When once the wood was stacked by the stove, Jones looked around for Kitty. He had not more than inquired for her when father and mother each read in the other's face the fact that she was lost in tbis wild, dashiug storm of suow. So fast did the snow fall and so dark ',vas the night, that Jones could not seo threo feet ahead of him. He endeavored to follow the path, which he thought Kitty might have taken, but it was buried in snowdrifts, andhe soon lost himself. He stumbled through the drifts, cailing out to Kittj' in his distress, but notknowing whither ho went. After an hour of despairing, waudering and shouting, he carne upon a house, and having rapped on the door, he found himself face to face with his wife. Ho had returned to his own house in his bewilderment. When we remember that Jones had not slopt for two nights preceding this one, on account of his mortal quarrol with Burton, and he had now been beating against an arctic hurricane, and tramping through treacherous billows of snow for an hour, we cannot wondor that he feil over his own threshold in a state of extreme exhaustion. Happy for him that he did not fall bewildcred on tho prairie, as many another püor wayfarer did on that fatal night ! As it was, his wife must needs give up the vuin little searches she had been making in the neighborhood of the shanty. - Sho had now a sick husband, with frozen hands and feet and face to care for. Every minute the thermometer feil lower and lower, and all the heat the little, cookstove in Jones' shanty could give would hardly keep them frum freezing. Burton had stayed npon that fortj'-acre lot all day, waiting for a chance to shoot his old partner, Jones. He had notheard of the arrival of Jones' wife and so he concluded that his eneniy had proved a coward and left him in possession, or else that he mtant to play him some treacherous trick on his way home. So Burton resolved to keep a sharp lookotft. But he soon found that impossible, for the storm was upon him in all its blinding fury. He tiïed to follow the path but he could not flnd it. Had ho been loss of frontiersman he must have perished there, within a furlong ot his own house. But in endeavoring to keep the direclion of the path he heard a smothered cry, and then aaw soiiiothing riso up, covered with snow, and fall down again. He raised his gun to shoot it when the creatuto uttered an other wailing cry so human, that he put down his gun and went cautiously t'orward. It was a child! He did not remember that thero was such a child among all the settlers in Newton. Buc he dia not stop to ask questions. Ho must, without delay, get himself and the child to a place of safety, or both would soon be f'rozen. So he ;,took the linie thing up in his arms and startod through the drifts. And the child put its little icy fingers upon Burton's rougli cheek, and muttered "Papa !' And Burton held her closer, and fought tho storm more courageously than over. Ho found the shanty at last and rolled the ohild in a buffulo robe, whilo he made a firo. Then, when he had got the room a little warm', ho took tho little thing upon his knee, dipped her aching fingers in cold water, and askcd Jio what her name was. " Kitty," she said. " Kitty," ho said, " and what else ?" "Kitty," she answered, nor could he find out any more. " Whose Kitty aro you P" " Your Kitty," she said. She had known her father but one day, and now she believed that Button was he. Burton sat up all night and stuffed wood into his important littlo stove to keep the baby f rom freezing to death. - Never having had anything to do with children, he h'irnly believed that Kitty, sleeping snugly under the blanketS and buffalo robes, would freeze, if hu should let the firo subside in the least. As the storm prevailed with unabated rury the next day, and as ho dared neithr to take Kitty out nor leave her alone, ie stayed by her all day and stuffed the tove with wood, andlaughed atherdroll jaby talk, and fed hor on biscuit and ried bacon and coffee. On the morning of the second day the orm had subsided. It was forty degroes cold, but knowing somebody must be uiourning Kitty for dead, he wrapped her in skins, and with much difliculty reached the nearest neighbor's house, suffering only a frost bite on the nose by the way. " That child," said the woman to whose house ho had come, " is Jones'. I seed 'e m take her outen the wagon day before yesterday." Barton' looked at Kitty a moment in perplexity. Then he rolled her up again and started out, " traveling like mad," the woman said, as she watched him. When he reached Jones', he found dones and lus wife sitting in utter wretchedness by the fire. They wore both sick from grif, and unablo to move ot of tho house. Kitty they had givon up for buried s,live undorome snow uiound. They would find her when spring should come and melt the snow cover off. When tho exhausted Burton carne in with his bundie of buffalo skins, they looked at liim with amazement. But when he opened it and let out. little Kitty, and said - " Ilere Jov.es, is thisyer Kitten r " Mrs. Jones oouldn't think of anything better to do than scream. And Jones got up and took his old partner's hand and said, " Burton, old fellow !'" and then choked up and sat down, and cried helplessly And Burtou said, "Jones, old fellow, you raay havo that forty-acre patch. It como mighty nigh makia' uie the murderer of that little Kitty's father." "No ! you shall take it yourself," cried Jones, "if 1 have to go to law to make you." 9 And Jones actually deeded his interest n the forty acres to Burton. But Bur;on tiansferred it all to Kitty. That is why tlris part of Newton is