An Honest Woman [pp. 288-305]

An Honest Woman.
ness, and privation, a hopeful outlook, and
the confident expectation of seeing their children's children's smiling faces clustered round
their aged knees in the gloaming of life.
And they will prove desirable additions to
our population. No factious political plotters are they. They are actuated by no
rooted antipathy to any race, creed, or class;
but are strong, faithful, and industrious, if
they only had Hope's benign influence to
bring out the latent spirit of their nature.
We have heard a great deal about the undesirable class of people drafted into this
country as "assisted emigrants," and have
been told (and believe) that paupers, broken
not only financially but physically, were being dumped from Ireland on our shores. The
Skye crofters and their families are indeed
poor and broken down in spirit, but in them
will be found the making of the most desirable
class of citizens in the world. When the palllike influence of their straitened life is lifted
from off them, and they see what it is to deal
with a prolific soil and a kindlyclimate, and are
enabled to realize the possibility of attaining
to comfort and independence in the world,
then there will be found a change in them
no less striking than the change in their location; and it will be seen that it would well
repay the government of this country to "assist" any number of such "emigrants" to
come and settle up our country. Let our
statesmen think the matter over. It will be
found worth their while, in the very near future, to find bone and sinew of the Celtic
kind growing up and thriving under the favorable conditions of the free western life, and
to find them, in the shape of citizens, zealous for the safety and prosperity of the country, and eminently law-abiding and peaceable.
In this latter respect, it may be as well,
however, to note that there are "Celts and
Celts."
4ymar Gordon.
AN HONEST WOMAN.
"EMIGRANTS a'ready! I swan, I didn't
think they'd smell out this yer valley fur
awhile; but thar's a load on'em, Alick," and
Mr. Wilkes scowled as he descried an approaching wagon, in which sat a woman and
two children. The lean yoke of oxen were
driven by a feeble-looking man; at his side
walked a bare-footed girl of fourteen, who,
though weary and dusty, trod the earth with
an elasticity of step that betokened a buoyant nature. Behind the vehicle plodded two
lads, some sixteen and twelve years old.
The single glance cast at Mr. Wilkes's
premises by the family collectively exhibited
no curiosity; indeed, despite apparent poverty and travel-soil, they carried themselves
with an air of much self respect.
When the jaded cattle had labored past
with the covered wagon, Alick looked up
from the riata he was braiding, to remark:
"I wish they'd a camped out yer fur the
night; thet thar was a mighty peert-looking
grl."
"Alick Royce, you're the biggest fool
about women folks I ever seed!" returned
his employer. "I hate'em like pison.
They're as tricky as the ole boy hisself; and
the purtier and more innocenter they look,
the more meanness they've got into'em!"
"Your mother-" reproachfully began the
listener.
"Ye needn't throw that thar into my
teeth; I never axed her to be my mammy;
besides, I reckon them old-timney creturs was
honest; but now-a-days women is up to all
kinds of shenanigan. I knowed a feller in
Oregon that had a half section of land, and
he tuk in a emigrant family jest across the
plains and plumb starvin. They had a yaller-haired girl, and she jest laid fur the fool.
She made him b'leeve she fa'rly doted on
him, an' he kep' the whole outfit fur a year,
and bought her four silk dresses. Blamed
if her father didn't enter the feller's claim
right out from under him, and the girl
married a man that she was promised to
[March,
288