Letters of a Dakota Divorcee.

by Jane Burr.

NOTE.

This little volume will soon a.s.sume the proportions of an invaluable reference book as the Divorcee is gradually becoming extinct in South Dakota.

Species may thrive in a given lat.i.tude and longitude for ages. Suddenly the atmospheric, climatic, or diatetic conditions become so altered as to preclude the further development of the species--yes even the further survival of the animal. The result may be either of two alternatives:

1st. The animal finding the habitat no longer conducive to its well being may migrate singly or in bunches to another environment. In this case scientists have noted that the animal undergoes a considerable morphological and physiological change.

2nd. In an environment unfavorable to its existence an animal may become extinct.

In the case of the South Dakota Divorcee the former alternative would seem to be the course followed, for up to date the animal has shown itself to be quite too resourceful to lapse into that most archaic condition--extinctness.

Time was when it roamed the prairies and hills of the State in vast herds, but owing to the removal of the protective underbrush in the form of the Referendum (which decrees that one year is necessary for its complete development), it has gone in great droves to Nevada and Oklahoma, which promise to be a more suitable environment for it.

There are a few rare species left, but they are disconsolate and hang-jawed and by no means representative of the species. In former years the Divorcee reached maturity in three short months, and was so tame that it built its lair near the city limits and some even ventured quite into the hearts of the villages and attempted to live there. But these were half tamed individuals and by no means indicative of the genus as a whole. Then peculiar to relate, the environmental influences caused them to grow less rapidly and six whole months pa.s.sed before a single specimen could call itself full fledged. The other Dakota animals sported around with the Divorcee and received it _a bras ouverts_, but the latter developed a slight _degage_ mannerism and the other beasts grew alarmed and crawled within their dens.

Now they have almost died out entirely as the atmosphere grew not only unfriendly, but owing to the sudden cool change their development was intensely slow. The animal originally migrated from New York and thus anything slow would naturally unnerve its intuitively high strung temperament.

And if in some future sociological period of the earth's history some antiquarian of the post-aviatorian age, prying into the _modus vivendi_ of the men of pre-air-shippian times can learn "a thing or two" about that delicate gazelle-like mammal so as to show his contemporaries how "fierce" living was before the age of trial marriages and legitimate affinities, the dessicated author will rattle what is left of her teeth in a contended mummified smile.

Duckie Lorna:

Sip a mint julip--slowly, gently, through a long dry straw, then before it dies in you, read my P. O. mark--Sioux Falls, South Dakota,--Yes, I've bolted!

Don't dare to tell anyone where I am for if my husband should find out, he might make me go where I could get a divorce more quickly--You know I'm here for his health. I would splash round in orange blossoms, and this is the result.

My boarding house is a love, furnished with prizes got with soap--"Buy ten bars of our Fluffy Ruffles soap, and we will mail you, prepaid, one of our large size solid mahogany library tables."

Would you believe dear, that these Sioux Fallians have already complained because I bathe my dear, s.h.a.ggy Oth.e.l.lo in the bath tub. And there isn't a human being here with a pedigree as long as his.

If you hear any talk about my being seen in a Staten Island beer garden with Bern Cameron, don't believe one word of it--we didn't go in at all, the place was too smelly. And that fib about his giving me a diamond ring,--deny it please, as I have never shown it to a soul--So you can see how people manufacture gossip.

I walk to the Penitentiary for recreation, as I may have to visit there some day and I never like to be surprised at anything. It isn't refined.

My Attorney is thoroughly picturesque. He wears a coat in his office that his wife must have made. His collar came from Noah's grab bag, and, if you remember, there was no washing machine on the ark. A heavy gold chain meanders down his shirt front to protect his watch from improbable theft. On Sunday he pa.s.ses the contribution box and is considered a philanthropic pest. I asked how much the fee would be and he said, "One hundred if you furnish witnesses, two hundred if we do."

You can hire a man for five dollars out here to swear that he killed you.

When my attorney talks, he sits on his haunches, showing his teeth that would do credit to a shark, and fancies he's smiling when he permits his cracked purple lips to slide back. I wouldn't trust my case to him, only he could not lose if he tried.

Every time I look at him I wonder if there could be a face behind that nose and those whiskers, which give his head the appearance of a fern dish. He wears an old silk hat whose nap is attacked with a skin disease. They say he belongs to one of the first families of this town--first on the way coming up from the station I suppose. He was married years ago, but isn't working at it now. I am so unstrung after our seances that I feel like crawling right out under a bush and eating sage. If I weren't afraid of him I'd raise my umbrella while he talks--his conversation is so showery. In my ingrown heart I hate him so there is no danger for me, tho' I've heard that he's a perfect fusser with the women.

I telephoned the livery stable yesterday and asked if any of the hea.r.s.e horses were idle, as I'd like to take a ride. The fellow said he'd send me a winner, so I togged up in my bloomers, boots and spurs and stood on the veranda waiting. A young boy galloped up with something dragging behind him. I said: "Do you call that insect a horse?" he answered; "No, but it used to be, m'am." The poor creature was all bones and only waiting for a nudge to push him into the grave. I mounted the broncho, which kept "bronking," but after an encouraging tclk-tclk, I made a detour of the block, then sent the nag to the stable.

There were two children and a dog drowned here yesterday--it almost makes one afraid to go near the tub.

The man who sits on my right at the table, says he's here for nervousness. First time I ever heard a divorce called that, but anyway we all know that he gets out of jail on December, and I will be glad, for the way he plays the anvil chorus with his soup makes me get out of my skin backwards. Hope some day that the Devil will play dominoes with his bones.

The lady on the other end, chews with her lips and of course I'm always excited for fear her dinner will fall overboard. The way she juggles food would get her a job in the vaudeville game any day. She sits up as tho' she'd been impaled, and the shaft broken off in her body.

Long ago--a being, desirous of unhitchment could come here, rent a room, hang her pajamas in the closet and fade away back to Broadway, but times are changed, and you must serve six months or the Judge's wife will not let you have a divorce. The Judge's house is next to mine and the way I look demure when I pa.s.s, is a heathenism hypocrisy. But he is under petticoat tyranny and I dread ruffling the petticoat.

Formerly the law was three months, but the Cataract Hotel had the Legislature change it as they could not make enough money.

We had chicken last night and asparagus tips--did you ever notice what a lot of skin a boarding house chicken has? And the tips just missed by one, being tip. The meals are an unsatisfactory subst.i.tute for something to eat, and I find myself filling up on bread to keep my stomach and backbone apart.

I am up against old timers that are always to be met at boarding houses--the dear old soldier and the lady "too heavy for light amus.e.m.e.nts, and not old enough to sit in the corner and knit," as George Ade puts it. She is simply ubiquitous; she is everywhere; she does not gossip! Oh no! Still she wonders if they really are married, you know, and if that strange man is her brother or not? Oh you know the whole tribe! Dear old parasites on the body politic! I have also had sudden paralysis of the jaw from looking into a country mirror and was not again convinced, until consulting my own hand gla.s.s during the night that one of my eyes had not slipped down below my nose. I can get along very well if my hair is not parted at all, but I insist upon my features remaining in the same locations.

I am copying down some of the stories that I hear as they are well worth it, and may come in handy some day. I have the advantage of coming upon them suddenly for the first time, with an absolute unbiased mind, which like the Bellman's chart in "The Hunting of the Snark" is "a perfect and absolute blank."

I know I shall go mad before the six months are up, for after ten days, I am down-down deep in a bog of melancholy, and so bored that I feel like the president of the gimlet club.

My stomach like nature abhors a vacuum, so me to the strangled eggs and baked spuds which are our unfailing morning diet.

In the name of Charity, send me messages from the world I love.

Devotedly, MARIANNE.

Dearest Lorna:

There's an old maid here (Heaven knows she's out of place) who wears her hair in one of those "tied for life knots," and she comes tip-toeing to my room each night to ask me if I think she'll ever get a man. Because I've had one, and am making something that resembles a trousseau, she thinks that I have a recipe for cornering the male market. Her dental arch is like the porte-cochere of the new Belmont Hotel, and last night a precocious four-year-old said, "Miss Mandy, why don't you tuck your teeth in?"--Miss Mandy would if she could but she can't. She is the sort who would stop her own funeral to sew up a hole in her shroud.

The moonlight nights here are a perfect irritation, and I really think this moon isn't half as calloused to demonstration as our dear old New York moon. There are so few men here that the female congregation is getting terribly out of practice.

I have found out lately that our attorneys out here rob us of everything and politely allow us to keep the balance.

My abode of virtue is filled with furniture from the vintage of the early forties and I sit in it alone and am so pathetically good, that I am beginning to suspect myself.

You know I was born when I was very young and have been desperately tidy about my morals ever since, but for fear of stumbling just because I'm so bored I have entrenched myself behind a maddening routine. Six months here ought to put ballast into the brain of the silliest.

I think that marriage has become a social atrophy, and I never want to be guilty of irrevocably skewering two hearts together.

I fear myself only when I'm bored. Eve never would have flirted with the snake if Adam hadn't got on her nerves. I always could resist everything but temptation.

Bern once told me that every married man ought to be made to run after his wife. And I told him he'd be out of breath most of the time if he tied up with me.

I went to church Sunday and the funny man at the head of the table said he was going round to view the ruins in the afternoon. Father Time, who sits opposite me and mows down the food said, "Every stylish woman I see, I know she's getting a divorce and I can't understand it, as most of them are good looking." I answered "You didn't see the other half."

I am not going to correspond with Bern as our mail might be intercepted.