ROCKY MOUNTAIN KATE

Dunstan Times, Issue 2482, 24 May 1909, Page 3

ROCKY MOUNTAIN KATE

For ten years one of the peculiar characters found in Leadville was Rocky Mountain Kate. No one seems to know hernamc, and if she ever gave people to understand that she oossessed any other name than Rocky Mountain Kate they have long since forgotten it. Rocky Mountain Kate is sometimes called Puss in Boots, because she incases tier pedal extremities in cowhide boots many sizes too large for her. She has amassed a fortune, and her rents in Leadville alone bring her an income of one thousand dollars per month, besides a large amount of real estate in Denver, which is of great value. She is very frugal, indeed miserly, in her manner of living ; she seldom buys any food or clothing, but her meals are the remains from the tables of her neighbours, and her clothing the cast-off garments of charitable Leadville ladies.

Rocky Mountain Kate's occupation is working by the day—house-cleaning and the like— it is needless to say that her already large fortune is not decreasing. The report at present in Leadville is that Rocky Mountain Kate contemplates perpetuating her name by using her fortune to build a church. So" far she has used none of her hard-earned money for charitable enter--prise, but doubtless with the endowment of her church she will allow her conscience to remain at peace with all the world. Rocky Mountain Kate is a queer looking individual, with her garments which show plainly that they were made for somebody else, and her old" gingham sun bonnet and her cowhide bools.

HOW SHE MADE HIM PROPOSE. Softly shone the subdued light of the solitary gas jet in the dining room, and soft was the voice of the abashed young Erasmus Shackelford, who sat on the edge of the chair mopping his heated face, and smiled with a kind of papier-mache smile at ;he entrancing young woman in the dazzling aureole of whose auburn hair he had fluttered in agonising captivity for months and months.

" Miss Viola," he said, clearing his throat, and speaking with every inflection of a man about to say something, " you will not be surprised, I presume, if I —if I express the feeling, the—the opinion, as it were, that—that it’s pretty hot this evening ?" Erasmus gave his face another frenzied swipe with his pocket handkerchief and subsided into palpitating silence. *'No," replied Miss Viola, with a smile that brought a large and ecstatic lump of something or other up into his throat, " I am not surprised, Mr. Shackelford ; you made the same observation earlier in the evening." “ Y-ycs," he gasped, “ I believe I did. It —is not an entirely new remark. In fact, it was a kind of a—of a chestnut, I suppose."

The agitated youth made another effort to crush down the lump in his throat. And I—l feel, Miss Jon— Viola—as if I were a—a kind of--of observation myself that was getting tiresome. Haven't I been observed here a little too often ? Do 1 seem t0 b e a—a chestnut ?"—and as he moved his handkerchief over his glowing face in tremulous jabs, his voice took on a despairing sound—" a sort of—of roasted chestnut ?”

"No, Erasmus,” slowly answered the maiden. "When a chestnut is roasted it pops.” The conscientious historian is bound to •ecord the fact that at this point Erasmus immediately popped.

ORIGIN OF A FAMILIAR QUOTATION. James Connor Roach, the Irish cornelian, who was for many years a popular ictor in Australia, gives the following as the jrigin of the quotation, " He left his country [or his country's good” : ” In a little graveyard, close beside a town railed Parramatta, in Australia, rest the mortal remains of George Barrington, the once notorious London pickpocket. He might have been called the veritable king of the craft, and his deeds of thievery were for a long time the talk ot London, until finally the strong arm of the law was laid upon him. He was transported from England about one hundred years ago, and after having served a term of years was released _jii a ticket-of-leave and became chief con- . able of the town, where he now sleeps the ieep that has given him a ticket-of-leave ir ever. " It is evident that the love of the metroilis hovered around him, and when he ,ecame a comparatively free man he seems 0 have remembered the hours he spent in ■lie theatre during the reckless days of 1 ,-mdon life. In fact, he was the first to >rganise a theatrical entertainment in the land of the kangaroo.* His company was '■. imposed of men like himself; they were all ir.ket-of-leave men, but, from the accounts ;hat have been handed down, they seem to have been more than clever actors. " The prologue, written by himself, and spoken at the first performance, has passed ,\ to the history of the Australian stage, and mtains the disputed quotation. It ran as Hows: — " Ladies and gentlemen ; , 0111 distant climes o’er widespread seas we come. 'ho' not with much eclat or beat of drum — rue patriots, for be it understood, d left our country for our country’s good. ,o privite views disposed our generous zeal, Vhat urged our hearts was our country’s weal. 1 without further fear of turnkey’s lockets, , y in an honest way, we’ll pick your pockets."

■Rock-a-by, baby!" began the new iurse. " Desist!” exclaimed the infant, mperionsly. "I am aware that the vioration of the’ atmosphere will cause a cradlfl suspended in a tree top to oscillate. *

You can't weigh grams with a grammar. Nor sugar-cure hams with a hammer ; Set sums with a summer, Stew plums with a plumber, Nor shear an old ram with a rammer.