|IN justice to ourself we desire to state that the Cheyenne _Sun_ has
villified us and placed us in a false position before the public. It has
stated that while at Rock Creek station, in the early part of the week,
we were taken for a peanutter, and otherwise ill-treated at the railroad
eating corral and omelette emporium, and that in consequence of such
treatment we shed great scalding tears as large as watermelons. This is
not true. We did shed the tears as above set forth, but not because of
ill-treatment on the part of the eating-house proprietor.
It was the presence of death that broke our heart and opened the
fountains of our great deep, so to speak. When we poured the glucose
syrup on our pancakes, the stiff and cold remains of a large beetle and
two cunning little twin cockroaches fell out into our plate, and lay
there hushed in an eternal repose.
Death to us is all powerful. The King of Terrors is to us the mighty
sovereign before whom we must all bow, from the mighty emperor down
to the meanest slave, from the railroad superintendent, riding in his
special car, down to the humblest humorist, all alike must some day curl
up and die. This saddens us at all times, but more peculiarly so when
Death, with his relentless lawn mower, has gathered in the young and
innocent. This was the case where two little twin cockroaches, whose
lives had been unspotted, and whose years had been unclouded by wrong
and selfishness, were called upon to meet death together. In the
stillness of the night, when others slept, these affectionate little
twins crept into the glucose syrup and died.
We hope no one will misrepresent this matter. We did weep, and we are
not ashamed to own it. We sat there and sobbed until the tablecloth was
wet for four feet, and the venerable ham was floating around in tears.
It was not for ourself, however, that we wept. No unkindness on the part
of an eating-house ever provoked such a tornado of woe. We just weep
when we see death and are brought in close contact with it. And we were
not the only one that shed tears. Dickinson and Warren wept, strong
men as they were. Even the butter wept. Strong as it was it could not
control its emotions.
We don't very often answer a newspaper attack, but when we are accused
of weeping till people have to take off their boots and wring out their
socks, we want the public to know what it is for.