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By Root 1613 0

had the murderous intent that we allowed in the Missourians, that’s what I would have done—but there had been no incidents, and so I let Frank go. In general, I had let Frank fall away from all civilizing influences, I had to admit. He could have gone to school—a man in Lawrence, I heard, ran a school whenever he had the wood to keep his schoolhouse warm—but Frank never even saw the place. He could have more frequently gone to church, but what with the war and the cold and sickness and the overall alarms and difficulties of K.T. life, there weren’t all that many services for any of us to go to. He could have kept company with Louisa and me, and we might have improved him as the company of women is widely said to improve men and boys, but with all the friendliness in the world, he managed to slip away. K.T. was a boy’s adventure, that was for sure.

By the end of January, I had now written two letters to my sisters since Frank’s arrival, in which I was careful to portray my care of him as responsible. My conscience smote me a bit. Only Frank and I considered my handling of him remotely responsible. Thomas thought he should be in school, and Louisa thought he should be gainfully employed. That he made a few dollars each week with his trades didn’t impress her. She said, "My dear, it’s a fact that merchants are a cancer upon the honest labor of those who actually produce a beautiful or useful object by the skill of their hands. We must vow between ourselves whenever possible to honor men’s or women’s labor by meeting them face-to-face and giving them our money ourselves, or better still, offering them the fruits of our own labor in barter. K.T. will be a true paradise when none of these goods in the stores that come from the east are available and all have been replaced by objects of Kansas manufacture, objects that we may thank their creators for personally!" She was vociferous in her urging that I steer Frank toward smithing or milling of some sort, "before his course is set." But Frank’s was a boat not easily steered, small though it was, and I had just begun my third letter to my sisters, and to Roland, with news of Frank:

My dearest sisters,

I write to inform you that all here are surviving the cold weather as well as might be expected. My husband got the frostbite twice, and I have gotten it only once in a toe and once in my nose, but we are fully recovered. My nephew Frank has avoided the frostbite altogether, though he is outdoors and active all the day long. You may be sure that he is a good boy—he is supporting himself and bringing home some money to me, and is respectful at all times. He told me to tell you, brother Roland, that he has traded his old rifle for a Sharps carbine and he likes it very much. He advises you to get one for yourself as soon as possible, and asks me to tell you particularly that they are manufactured in Connecticut, in case you want to know that. Let me say here that the school has stopped running because of the cold,

I had no actual personal knowledge of the school or the schoolmaster.

but I fully intend to send him there as soon as it resumes. You have perhaps read in the papers about our troubles here. I won’t say that things have been easy

and here I left off for a day or two.

It was just that day, a Sunday, that Frank showed us that he had gotten further out of hand than I imagined. The night had not been one of the very coldest ones, and so Frank had slept downstairs. Sometimes in the mornings when he got up early and had some money, he went over to the Cincinnati House or the Free State Hotel for something to eat. When he didn’t show up for breakfast, I thought little of it. Thomas ate his corncakes and drank his tea and went off himself, to ride with Charles to Leavenworth. Though they didn’t expect the mail to be there, they were obliged to go for it, as every man and woman in Lawrence was obliged to stay as far as possible out of the wrong. But soon after leaving, Thomas returned. For once, he banged open the door and shouted my name. As soon as he did so, I could hear Louisa