MEDDLING WITH THE DEVIL.
A friend who lived a few miles in the country came to my house
in Medicine Lodge, threw her arms around my neck and said: "Oh,
Sister Nation, Matt has gone to Wichita for a bad purpose. I am almost
wild; can't you help me? She is in love with Will, and he does not care
for her but he has gotten her into trouble and does not intend to marry
her." She told me that Will wrote her a note to go to the Goodyear
Hotel. I wrote to Matt and told her if she became the murderer of her
child that a fearful judgement was in store for her. I also wrote to
Will and told him to marry Matt or I would expose him. Will's father
got the letter, as it was directed to Medicine Lodge. His father came
down to see me, weeping as if his heart would break; told me of the
trouble this boy had given him; said that he was preparing to marry
another girl and could not marry Matt; but that he had forwarded the
letter to Will, as he had gone to Wichita. Will and Matt got their letters
at the same time and were filled with terror. Both came back to
Medicine Lodge and in a few months poor Matt was the mother of a
little girl. Her mother, sent for me. I stayed until the little angel died.
From the time Matt looked on the face of the little one she loved it
with all the intensity of a true mother and grieved so when it died. In
a few hours I went to the grave-yard With the little coffin. This Will
or his father never spoke to me again. He married the other girl. In
a few years father and son were both killed. The sister of Will, who also
treated me coldly, wrote me a letter and told me to tell Matt it would
have been a blessing if he had married her. That he loved her the best
and that she felt quite differently towards me.
