FAIR ANNIE RALSTON, THE OUTLAW'S BRIDE.
"The loves and hopes of youthful hours,
Though buried in oblivion deep,
Like hidden threads in woven flowers,
Upon life's web will start from sleep.
And one loved face we sometimes find
Pictured there with memories rife--
A part of that mysterious mind
Which forms the endless warp of life."
There are many people about the old town of Independence who
cherish pleasant memories of fair Annie Ralston. There are many
who knew and loved her long ago, who will not soon forget the
beautiful face of the outlaw's bride. And long after those who knew
her in the halcyon days of her innocent girlhood shall have passed
to the quiet repose beneath the sod in "the silent cities of the
dead," her story will be repeated. Many a romance has been based on
incidents in lives far less dramatic than has fallen to the fortune
or the fate of Annie Ralston. The years which have rolled their
cycles round to swell the measure of the greedy past, have not been
so many that they have swallowed up the memories which cluster
around the name of the gentle Annie, and bring sighs to the lips of
those who but a few short winters ago conned with her the lessons
of the sages from the dreary pages of text books when they were
schoolmates.
People are not all ossified--brain, sense and heart, because
God's Commentary on his written Revelation was given first--was
handed down from a thousand Sinais, and strewed in green, and
golden shadowy lines through all the ages. It yet lives, and is,
from under His own hand, above, around, beneath us; and by it we
may understand that holy mystery--how God is Love, and Love is
God-like. And we feel, and know, that never again to us from out
the shade of the years, can ministers of grace or glad ideals come,
except through such sweet enchantment. Who, then, will condemn
gentle Annie Ralston, the pet of the class, the warm friend, the
glad-hearted girl, if she proved at last to be--like all her
sisters--human? What circumstances conspired to induce her to
become an outlaw's bride? If we could answer all the questions
which might be asked concerning the emotions of the heart, the
freaks of the mind, and other phenomena of human nature, and the
structure of society, then might we be able to answer why fair
Annie Ralston became the wife of Frank James, the proscribed enemy
of society. But we cannot engage in such an undertaking. Her story
is brief, but full of interest.
Before the period of blighting war, which swept like a destructive
tornado over the fairest portions of Western Missouri, Annie's
father, Mr. Ralston, was a wealthy man, and his home was one of
the most pleasant to be found in the vicinity of Independence. He
was a gentleman of culture and refinement, and his wealth gave him
leisure to cultivate all the social graces. His hospitality was
unbounded, and no man was more esteemed than Samuel Ralston.
Annie was a "wee girl" when the thunder peal of war burst in all
its lurid terrors all around and about her. It was no period of
sentimental dreaming, and she was early accustomed to see and hear
of bloodshed and devastation. She must necessarily have grown
familiar with scenes which, under ordinary circumstances, would
have excited her terror, and she had learned to look unmoved on the
bloody corpse of the battle's victim. But no storm can continue
forever; after the convulsion comes quiet; after the night dawns
the day--so, at last, the war-cloud rolled away. Then commenced the
work of collecting fragments of wrecked fortunes and rebuilding
waste places. But some wrecks were complete, and no fragments
remained. In a large measure this was the case with the life-barque
in which Mr. Ralston sailed down the river of time.
Annie grew with the passing years, and stood, as it were, "with
reluctant feet on the boundary where childhood and womanhood meet."
The residence of Mr. Ralston was convenient to the Independence
Female College, and Annie became a student in that institution.
She possessed excellent intellectual gifts, and in her course of
study she led her classes. In due time the prescribed course of
mental training was completed, and "at commencement," fair Annie
carried away the highest honors of her class. She was now a young
lady, accomplished in "all the learning of the school." She sang
delightfully, and could touch and cause to thrill with deepest
harmony, the chords of the harp and other instruments. She was a
favorite in society at once.
And Annie Ralston was handsome--almost beautiful. Her complexion
was fair and soft, her features regular and pleasing, her eyes
were large and azure blue, and these soulful orbs looked out from
curtains of long silken lashes of deep brown, that lent a charm
to their expression, and her long brown tresses well completed
this charming picture. And she possessed a symmetry of form and a
gracefulness of carriage which might well attract the admiration of
those who knew her.
But there came a time when a shadow fell athwart her pathway, and
eclipsed this star in the social firmament. Annie's father had
been ardent in his attachment to the Southern cause, and all who
had contended in behalf of that cause were ever welcome to the
hospitality of his home. He had suffered much from the consequences
of the war, and perhaps more from the genial convivialities in
which he indulged, and which had extended beyond the bounds of
propriety. Frank and Jesse James, with their confederates, became
frequent visitors at the Ralston home. People saw them there often,
and it was whispered softly at first, but shouted aloud later,
that pretty Annie Ralston was an attraction for the outlaws,
and received from them, without rebuke, their openly-expressed
admiration, and then her social star paled, and finally went out.
Frank James became to her a hero worthy of her love--nay, her
heart's deep adoration. She waited with impatience his coming, and
when he was away, and she thought of the hazards which he might
make, and the destruction which might overtake him, she grew faint
through apprehension. To her, he was assiduous and gentle and kind,
whatever might be his disposition toward others, and she gave her
heart to him long before an opportunity was presented to her to
yield to him her hand.
One bright day, in 1875, some friends who had known pretty Annie
Ralston from the days of her childhood, met her at the Union Depot,
Kansas City, with many valises and travelling bags in charge.
"Would she go up in town? Could they render her any service?" were
questions which were asked. No, at another time she would go up
town, there was nothing they could do for her. Soon she was joined
by her outlawed lover. Together they took a train and proceeded to
Leavenworth, Kansas, where the vows which they had made to each
other were renewed and sealed by legal authority, and fair Annie
Ralston became the outlaw's bride, and with him she journeyed
toward the yellow Southern sea, where the sunlight is warm and the
breezes balmy.
It was a sacrifice to thus banish herself from that society in
which she was so well fitted to shine as one of its brightest
ornaments; it was a trial to surrender up the friends and
associates of her girlhood; to bid adieu to those who were near and
dear to her; it was heroic to cast herself upon the care of the man
she loved. On the altar of her affection, therefore, she placed all
the idols of her youth; and in her devotion she proceeded to dig a
wide, deep grave in which to bury forever the images which she had
cherished. And so Annie Ralston became an outlaw's wife.