Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 August 1873 — A Young Heroine. [ARTICLE]

A Young Heroine.

Thomas Velfe and wife, with a family of smalLchildren, settled in this county something more than a year ago, and, being poor, they, after many hardships, erected a small dwelling and cleared a few acres of land, but they were in the wilderness, ten miles from neighbors. A few weeks ago the father and mother lett their family, consisting of a girl aged twelve years, one aged nine years, and two other children, aged respectively three years and thirteen months, on a trip to the settlement to get a cow and bring in some potatoes to plant. After the parents haa been gone a few hours the house took fire, and the oldest girl immediately rushed to the roof with water, but not being able to remove the shingles she could do nothing to stay the flames, which gained rapidly, spreading on the inside of the roof, until, bursting through, they drove her from her work. The heroic girl now turned her attention to saving her brothers and sisters. Coming to the door of the building, she found that the child next to her own age had got out of the house, bringing the baby with her, but the little three-year-ola had crouched under a shaving-horse in the further corner of the room. There being no chamber floor, the fire was dropping from the burning roof between the child and the door, and when asked to come out it refused to do so, saying, “I am safe here—the fire don’t drop here.” Our little heroine hesitated only a moment, but rushing through the falling embers brought the little one to a safe place, both having their clothes somewhat burnt. But now comes the hardest part of the task before her. Scantily clothed and with no foo<L she took the babe in her arms and with the'other children started upon the trail for the settlement. After geing a few miles, she encountered a rapid stream, swollen by the spring rains, so that in fording it the water came up to her arm pits. She first carried the babe across, and then-tire little three-year-old, an(J lastly, half led and half carried her older sister through the water to the other bank. Three times during the remainder of the day, she struggled across the swollen streams in her way until night set in, the deep forest surrounding her. -Cold, wet and hungry, she sought a place to camp, and by good fortune found an old camp, left ov the Indians, upon which about one-half of the roof still remained. Upon this she placed her little flock and collected pine boughs and made a rude bed. Placing the little one in the middle, the heroic girl stripped off her dress and spread it over tire children, then covered them with boughs to keep them from the chilly night air, and sat down beside them, to watch through that long, cold night, comforting the little one when it cried, and speaking words of cheer to the elder one. The long, dreaiy hours of night dragged slowly by, and at the first peep of day she resumed her toilsome march, and had nearly reached the settler when she met her parents returning. Anelder and a wiser head might have found an easier way out of mis dilemma, but we feei certain that no one could have acted braver, or have endured more than the little daughter of Thomas Velfe.— Witcontin Piter Pilot. Nothing can be more beautiful than a loving household. There is no garden, there is no beauty in the heavens, nor upon the'fearth in the fairest days of the most favored seasons, that for one moment can .compare with the beauty of a loving household. Parents with theii children, interlocked in love, screened from the outward world, housed and har bored and imparadised; few sights an more beautiful, and few experiences an more delightful. We do hot know hov happy we are while the happiness is pass ing. With all the cares, the anxieties, th' watchings, the labors, the sickness, tin memory witnesses that there was, afle all, no period of life when there wa so much of so varied enjoyment as in th' early days of the family, while the chil dren were yet young, were entirely unde the parental control, and were simple am loving. B , —Report will have it that Henry Clew* I the banker, is to marry Miss Worthington niece of Secretaiy Belknap.

THE RENSSELAER UNION. August 14, 1873.