The new Northwest. [volume], September 30, 1880, Image 1

About The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887

Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR

                
V
FltKK Sl'KKCH, FltEE PllESS, FllEE PEOPLE.
VOLUME X. NO. 3.
PORTLAND, OREGON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1SS0.
PER YEAR S3 00.
FAIRY QUEEN'S HOMESTEAD.
BY ABIGAIL SCOTT DUJfnVAY.
Fairy Queen wiis not petite, as her Christian
cognomen would indicate, nor was she of royal
blood, as her surname would seem to signify. On
the contrary, she was large, rubicund and fleshy,
and belonged to a family removed in the remotest
possible degree from all semblance of royalty.
Nor was the prospect of her title to high position
as a ruler of the commonwealth one whit en
hanced when she became the prospective bride of
Titus King, called Tite for short, and appropri
ately, too, for another reason for be it known
that there was nor is no tighter man in money
matters than the lucky swain who won the heart
of Fairy Queen, whose wise step-father rejoiced in
the patronymic of Smith John Smith while her
mother bore the equally euphonious appellation of
Nancy Jane.
John Smith and his wife Nancy Jane had found
it so hard to make a living on the Missouri bar
rens, over in Pike, that they struck a bargain for
a change with Titus King, Senior, who brought
them to Oregon in an early day, while Fairy
Queen, whose father had left her as a posthumous
contribution to the charities of the world, was yet
an infant of tender age, with quite a school of lit
tle Smiths for company.
The incidents of their journey across the conti
nent with teams of oxen need not be repeated
here. Suflice it to say that when they came, the
available lands in the valleys of the Willamette,
Yamhill, Rogue, Umpqua, Santiam, La Creole
ami Clackamas Rivers were all taken by previous
settlers, and Titus King, Senior, resolved to go to
Eastern Oregon and follow the cattle business, re
taining in his employ the step-father of my hero
ine and his patient, plodding, industrious servant,
Nancy Jane. The -land5 they chose were broad,
treeless and hilly, rich in waving bunch-grass, and
well watered through the middle by a winding,
willow-lordered stream.
The family of John Smith and Nancy Jane in
creased in the ratio peculiar to sjiarsely settled
regions, and Fairy Queen became foster-mother to
the clamorous brood, who, during her mother's
frequent season of Indisposition, looked to her as
their raaid-of-all-work, and was also the chief i
spoke in the hecl of agricultural enterprise that !
fed" the little Smiths the ever lucrative dairy and
poultry business. i
'trfl jiray you, imagine for a minute that
h rojne'was overworked. Save your sympa
'b;es, I igfqjr the overtaxed and failing wife
'he gi ri'8j$5od, easy-going, good-for-nothing
drone of a "step-father, whose comprehension
largely rosc'altove the occupation of drones in
geaefal.
Fairy QqPen'was none of your' sighing, lacka
daisical girls, ither. She read dime novels only
to curl Iht lip with disdain over the follies they
portrayed, and gathered practical knowledge from
the weekly newspapers that taught her the mys
tery f s.ieces in managing cows and chickens.
She had he good Bense to be acquisitive, too ; and
when ay theage of eighteen, she informed her
step-father that she was entitled to the profits of
hef own earnings henceforth, and he consented to
her proposal to remain an inmate of his shabby
home a iul take care of his family for her" board,
upon the condition that she should In permitted
to enter largely into the poultry and dairy busi
ueS OD her own aecount, she accepted her lot and
was happy. "
Fairy Queen prospered. Her hens laid honest
eggs' fend hatched .thrifty chickens, and the
knighted lords of her diffcruiil harems crowed as
lustily and vujted as pompously as though they
ha been JiurhaSi.bengs of the masculine persua
sion engapexf tu-making laws to regulate the taxa
tion of their totting wives and mothers.
John Smith was proud of his step-daughter, and
often sounded her praise at the precinct meetings;
and marry were the spurred and leggined suitors
who cam to .his house for a Sunday dinner, only
to go away, with loaded stomachs and disappointed
hopes, after receiving Fairy Queen's prompt re
fusal of their proffered protection and support.
But Titus- King, Senior, was wiser by far than
the young men of his neighborhood. Had he
been a widower, it is possible that he would have
married Fatry Queen himself. But he was a kind
husband and good provider, and his happy wife
was in excellent health, and therefore he was not
in the market But with his son, Titus Junior, It
was different He waiitd a wife. And, when
ever he returned from a visit to John Smith's
house, after haying been regaled by one of Fairy
. Queen's atmerb dinners, and sought the shades of
his baehelor cabin on his own homestead, he
sighed from utter loneliness, much aggravated by
the incipient dysjHjHia arising from theindigesti
7'Je cookery of lus own incapable hands.
iv . But Tims Junior was bashful far too bashful to
do any responsible courting on his own account
and my story would have been spoiled right here
but for Titus Senior, who suggested to Fairy
Queen, after the years had rolled on and he knew
that she had saved a few hundred dollars out of
her poultry and dairy business, that she should
avail herself of the right, granted by Congress to
every single man or woman above the age of
twenty-one years, to file upon and improve a
homestead "as the law directs."
Fairy Queen was far too sensible a girl to fail to
see the benefit of th'o senior King's proposition;
so she visited the Land OfHec, and filed her notifi
cation, and paid her fees, and built a house, and
fenced a Held, and spent all of her poultry money
in such improvements, except the required sum of
5200, which she reserved to pay the preemption
claim of the Government, with $20 added for
clerks' fees. With this sum, when she wis ready,
she entered the Lund OHice one day, and soon
emerged with receipts properly acknowledged anil
canceled, and enjoying all the independent happi
ness of a prosperous landlord.
Fairy Queen, like all good girls, was disposed to
fall in love with somebody, and had often thought
seriously of getting married, whenever, as she
expressed it, she "should be able to support a hus
band handsomely." And among all her suitors
none had ever pleased her fancy except Titns
King, Junior, who seemed least disposed of any in
the lot to declare himself.
But Titus Senior was equal to the emergency, if
Titus Junior was not. He made the young man
write a "love letter," and with his own hands lie
carried it over to Fairy Queen's shingle-sided
cabin. He found the Fairy out among her chick
ens, engaged in stuffing black jiepper-eorns down
the throats of some tiny Brahmas afflicted with
pees.
"Uood-mornin'," said Titus King, Senior. i
"Good-morning," replied Fairy Queen. j
"You seem to lie prosperin' ?" said the senior ;
King.
"Middling," replied the Fairy Queen.
"Ain't you lonesome like?" asked the modem
messenger from the new Miles Standish.
"Sorter."
Fairy Queen waa not educated lieyond the three
It's "Readin', 'Ritin' rfnd Rithmetic."
"Wouldn't you like to get married ?"
The Fairy blushed and bent low over the peei
ing chickens and plied them nervously with
added pepj.er-eonis. She was thinking of Tite.
So was her visitor.
"I have a letter for ye, honey. Tite wrote it
hisself."
One of the chicken choked on a pepper-corn
and silently breathed its last.
"Poor ehiekey!" said Fair' Queen.
"Chickens will die once in a while, honey.
Them that has, must lose. The egg wouldn't a
bronsrht but three cents If you hadn't let it hatch.
No use grievin' over spilt milk. Won't you read
Tite's letter? He's awfully in earnest."
"So am 1," thought Fairy Queen.
She turned her hack upon her waitinir messen
ger and sat down upon a hen-coop.
Will yu hav me?
Trrrs Kix;.
That was all.
The world spun round and round for a little
while before my heroine's swimming eyes, and
then took on a radiant glow that she had never
seen before, while her heart la-at a wild tattoo
against the alder splints in her home-made corset
"Dear Tite!" she whlsjtcred, while her ruddy
face shrunk involuntarily behind the friendly
shade of her great sunhouuet, that, like a-wagon-cover
much too big for its load, overshadowed her
eyes.
"What shall I tell him, honey?" asked the
senior King, advancing toward her and taking
her hands, one of which grasjed the letter and the
other the dead chicken and the pcpier-corii8.
"Tell him to come here like a man and ask his
own questions, shan't bite him !"
Titus King, Senior, was encouraged. He had
fared even better than he had dared to hope. lie
returned to his waiting son hearing glad tidings.
"You've a fortune in the gal, Titus a reg'lar
fortune! There ain't a better quarter-section o'
land than hem on Hog's Buck, nor no prettier
mill-site on all Currant Creek than the nat'ral one
on the corner o' her claim. An' the cream o' the
joke is, the preemption money's paid fee and all
every cent of it Sieli a gal as she is, too, with
chickens! You'll be belter oil when you git hec
than if you'd hired a man an' garnisheed his
wages for a hull lifetime."
I wasn't there when young Titus went, "like a
man," to see Fairy Queen, but I know she kept
her word, for he never gave evidence that she had
so changed her mind as to bite him. But you
will think that she was bitten when you hear tho
sequel to this true tale that Fairy Queen, when
married, being known no longer among mortals
as Fairy Queen, and having ceased to exist as an
individual, was defunct dc jure, though not de
facto. Therefore, when the letters-patent came
back from Washington, entitling Fairy Queen to
full possession of her homestead and a full title to
the same in fee simple, there was no do jure
Fairy Queen to receive it. And, as Titus King
was not Fairy Queen, and could not represent her,
ami as Mrs. Titus Kins was not "nominated in
the bond," the law-makers who claim to represent
women were in a quandary. There being no
longer any such person on the face of the earth as
Fairy Queen, it would have seemed right and
proper that her estate should go to her mother,
Mrs. John Smith, who would have inherited the
same if she had died. But, though uon est, she
was not missing; though defunct, she was not
dead. She was only married; and, as Mrs. Titus
King, she was lost to herself, her heirs and tho
world as Fairy Queen.
Then there was trouble in the Oregon Land
Office. Fairy Queen being neither doad nor liv
ing, there was nobody to receive her letters-patent,
not even her husband, who, however legally he
wa supposed to represent Mrs. Titus King, held no
power to represent Miss Fairy Queen. And the
conclusion of the whole matter was that Fairy
Queen lost her homestead.
Bat 'lit us Junior hail a cousin lelonging to the
sex which suffers none of the disability called
"coverture" throngh marriage, and that cousin
"Jumped the claim" that was no longer owned by
Fairy Queen, since she had ceased to be.
Then Mrs. Titus King endeavored to gel back
her preemption money through the Land Office,
wltn clerks' rees ailueu. Hut tne oiuce Knew no
Mrs. Titus King as a free-holder. No such person
had paid fit the preemption money, ami no such
tierson was entitled to it. It was the same with
the improvements on the confiscated homestead
Fairy Queen being legally defunct and Mrs. Titns
King being lawfully nolmdy, but only her hus
band's shadow, according to the law, there was no
redress for her. And she grew disappointed and
fretful and ill, and they do say that she is now de
termined to procure a divorce from her husband,
in -rder that -he may legally get lmckher maiden
name ami become on -e more an individual.
. Mn and Im thren, you who read this sketehand
feel rtijMied to cavil at it, let me refer you to the
( 'oiifrt ionftl I'xftrd of a few months since in
prtwif of the lci;al foundation for the strong points
of my story. Then- you will find the publication
of a fact which was telegraphed to the Associated
Press of the State, informing the world that
lady who, a.- Miss Phebe Ijirkin, preempted
homestead, ami, Itecoming Mrs. Michael Rany,
failed to secure her letters-patent. And you wil
also learn that -he failed, for reasons as above
given, to recover her purchase money. T have
not learned that Mrs. Rany is seeking a divorce,
but 1 do know of many married women who are
seeking pretext- tor divorces solely because of the
one-sided laws that refuse them the recognition of
their inalienable right to individuality when
I married. One of the grievances complained of by
j our Revolutionary Father was "for inciting do
niestie insurrection among us." "Will you not
help us to put down -neb insurrections in the fu
ture by granting to married women the inalien
able right to the ballot that alone can raise them
for their sake and your own, above the condition
of Hrpetual minority? Do you not see that
woman's cause is jour cause? And is it not quite
time that the Fairy Queens of fact become only
tho Fairy Queens of history?
The ministers throughout the country are under
deep obligation to Robert G. fngersoll for furnish
ing them subjects f.r sermons. When he visits a
city every one of them feels called upon to an
acr his arguments ard questions ; but, from some
'cause, they fail to -make the infidel see their
ndints. His thunderings arouse them tothe
necessity of furnishing animated and interest
iag discourses instead of prolix and prosy "barre
sermons." On last Sunday, in Chicago, twelve
of them preached in answer to his recent
lecture on "What Shall I Do to be Saved?" As
Chicago is notoriously "a fast city of fast young
men and fast young women," it is feared the
bold "Bob" will not take much stock in the
twelve apostles' knowledge of the methods of sal
vation.
Mayor Harrison, of Chicago, has had the bai
taste or dull stupidity to go before a convention of
lifjuor dealers and express interest in the success
and prosperity of their business. The ministers
and temperance people are after him for endorsiiu
Ujo whisky trallic, to which may bo traced, di
ractly or indirectly, four-fifths of all crime.
Phn anti-Mnrmonites havo nominated A. CI
Campbell for Delegate to Congress from Utah, in
Opposition to George Q. Cannon. He is a Demo
crat, but Avill be supported by Republicans anil
Democrats alike.
CALIFORNIA'S LADY LAWYER
FORTIFIES HRR STATEMENT THAT TUB "REPITB-
MCAX PAKTY SAVED THE XATION" "IT
IS NOT A PARTY OF HATK."
Sax Francisco, September 21, JS31
To tub Eiiiroa op tub Xbw Xoktjiwkst:
I see, by your issue of tho 2d instant, tianVrjiie
A. S. Hughes has taken if upon himself to xeply
to my letter of the 19th ultimo. I have read his
remarks with interest, and say deliberately that
for sublimit- of cheek for downright extent and
expansiveness of facial area I think he lias not
an equal on the Pacific Coast Hear him :
There were mope followers of Rell and Douela that re
sponded to the call for troops than of the Republicans.
That is his answer to me. It certainly i? bold
enough, but it just as certainly lacks the element
of truth. Every soldier in the army, every man
at the North, and every school-boy in history-
knows better. I do not desire to insult the intel
ligence of the readers of the New Northwest,
but I must present a few facts for Mr. HugheS
benefit
First The army was permitted to vote, and,
notwithstanding that one of the Northern Gen
erals, Geo. B. McClellan, was put up on the Demo
cratic ticket, the army vote was overwhelmingly
Republican.
Second Casting out the Southern States, the
Border States, ami the States of the Pacific Coast,
we have left the Northern States from which the.
Federal army was drawn. In 1S60, those State
gave a Republican majority of 212,910 votes. Then
the soldiers went away, and in 1864, without the .
soldiers, those States had their Republican major
ity reduced to 97,74!) votes. Then the remnants of
the army returned, and the majority immediately
went up to 151,47, and then to 332,529. AVheatha
soldiers went away, the majority went down mesa
than one-half. "When they came back, the itiajw- .
ity nearly doubled.
In the light of these facts, I am justified rn say
ing that the Republican party saved the nation.
At the very best, the Democracy were not half
loyal ; and the "biggest half," the disloyal halt;
used and does use the loyal half. Mr. Hughes says:
The writer erfdently Intends to convey the Idea tlrit tha
Democratic party wa In spirit in rebellion.
Does the man mean that anything but the De
mocracy was in rebellion ? Sir, memory has not
faded, nor lias history all been burned, and because
they have not I say boldly that the Democratic
party the body, the controlling power, the head,
the brains, the party in fact tea in rebellion, and
it is tM early yet to deny it without insulting the
intelligence of every man ami woman in America
ami outraging the feeliifgs of the widows and le
reaved parents that yearly bring their floral offer
ings to the little mounds all over our land.
Mr. Hughes says the Republican party "was
conceived and brought forth in hatred," and that
"hatred still constitutes its vitality." That, sir, is
a libel on the grandest party ever known. That
party wps the offspring of the nobler moral senti
ment that hriS'been growing up for more than two
centitriesTwas the child of the spirit of Freedom.
It embraced 'all the nobler thoughts ami all the
grander sentiments of the age. It is not a party
of ltate. Other Powers when they conquer wreak
vengeance on the foe. The Israelites put them to
the sword; Rome sold the Jews Into captivity,
and Cato before had thundered the decree, "Car
thage must be destroyed ;" Germany demands in
demnity ; England always makes the enemy pay
the costs of the war ; France hangs, guillotines or
lMiuishes her traitors; and Russia put- Iters in
the mines of Siberia. In the armed n-liellion of
the South that fought against our na;- nal exist
ence, there were millions of people; but only 14,000
were ever put under disfranchisement, and to-day
less than 200 are with political disabilities. Not a
single one that ever asked to be relieved was re
fusednot one. There never was a single execu
tion, nor a banishment, nor a confiscation. At the
close of the rebellion, the Southerners said they
were poor and suffering. The robe of American
citizenship was again accorded them; they were
invited to the board fraternally and wtriotically
and asked to share a common destiny in the fu
ture; and Jefferson Davis, who came from the
Cabinet of Franklin Pierce and swore before Al
mighty God to supjiort tho Constitution, and then
plotted treason in the very halls of Congress, and
waged war against the Union, walks free and ia
peace over all this fair land. The assertion Ihat
the Republican party is a jMirty of hate, is au in
famous libel. It is the verdict of the world hat
tho greatest magnanimity ever known in the his
tory of nations was shown at the close of the war.
I have studied somewhat closely the history of
our country, and I think the more we become ac
quainted with oursyatem of government, the more
are we inspired with love for the Union, reverence
for the Constitution, and faith in our country's
destiny. Yours sincerely, Cumia S. Foi.t
V