Show V ERY BRIGHT TRIO I They Are Interesting Examples Young Americans MRS SOPHIA BRAEUNLICH A Girl Who Shot an Indian and Saved a Camp is Commissioner Seattles Secretary New YORK Feb 27 1891 Special correspondence cor-respondence of THE HERALD One day I beard of a woman up town who believed she had made a discovery The Evening Suns Woman about Town said she is not a woman she sic is a man l The man has studied women and he knows how they think and how things look to them but he has one failing every now and then he gets drunk and goes on a spree The person addressed inquired with all gravity from what the lady drew her inferences in-ferences Well returned she Ill tell you He runs along with squibs critiques and one thing and another the most interesting paragraphs in the paper day after day until un-til suddenly you miss him For one afternoon after-noon or possibly two he doesnt write a line and when he begins again hes brilliant but sometimes or I imagine it a little mixed The second day he pulls himself together and comes out with a wonderfully sparkling column He keeps it up getting more and more delightfully clever for about five or six weeks and then hes gone again againAm Am J not right now The person with a show of reluctance wickedly allowed that she was Now I wish if you know him you would go to him and tell him there is a lady who is deeply interested in him and who begs so earnestly that he will reform The person went and the woman sent a return message promising that the interest I and sympathy of her his unknown friend should rouse her him to most earnest efforts ef-forts to abstain from alcohol There were no breaks in the column for a long period and the anxious watcher up town sent many a note of congratulation The watcher was only one of a wide circle cir-cle of readers whose curiosity has been piqued by the cleareyed comment of the merry keen yet tender woman Looking tonight into the fireglow I remember a letter let-ter tbat came to me one evening a little more than a year ago It promised a visit from a friend who would bring with her a young woman who bad just taken charge of a column of the Evening Sun I read the note in mild wonder recalling certain emphatic declarations of Amos J Cummings as to the violent things he would do before a desk in that office should be given to anybody feminine hr 1 1 h 1 1 HELEN WATTERSOX But Cummings had gone to Congressand a week later there was ushered into the flickering fire light a grayeyed girl with one of those frank sensitive responsive faces that a reader of human nature would interpret as belonging to minds thoroughly in touch with their fellows She was new to the city a little tired with the rush of experiences She had read much had uncommon keenness of observation observa-tion warm sympathies and a refreshingly straightforward way of looking at things She was well balanced would be a force I recognized most of these things I think that evening In a few weeks i began to hear people ask Who writes The Woman About Town In a few more weeks I began to notice on horse cars and elevated trains that three out of every four Evening Sun readers turned first to the woman The grayeyed girl had struck a fresh note and stranger as she was much as belDame bel-Dame belied her who had not been about town at all her wit everyday philosophy unusual in a woman most unusual in a young woman was cosmopolitan She was a success from the beginning Probably most of you know by this time that the womans name is Helen Watterson and that she is a college girl from Wooster university The future looks very fair before be-fore her for she has a quick insight into human nature strong common sense and a sweet wholesome humor to help her to other successes sure to be won as her present pres-ent repute has been by legitimate nonsen sational means The mayors committee who have been helping Commissioner Beattie to solve the problem of cleaning New Yorks dirty streets refer all their mathematical calculations calcu-lations to a tall browneyed young woman who fills a place on which many politicians look with envious eyes and who has a most unusual history When she went west a few weeks ago Denver greeted her as the Colorado girl With her father a wellknown geologist and expert miner she journeyed up and down when little more than a baby till she knew the passes and peaks of the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to the Canada line She was taught to cling to the mane of a scrubby pony almost before she could walk she was a good shot before she could read though her father paid 25 for the scrap of a primer from which she learned her A B Cs For months she saw no woman no children child-ren but little Indians for other months she lived on snow shoes high up among the mountains She was a brave child and the story is kept of how once she trudged after a woman wo-man who had strayed a bit from the emigrant emi-grant wagons with which they were traveling trav-eling As the two passed out of sight over the rise of a little knoll there started up i close at the womans side an Indian with hand stretched for the scalp lock and tomahawk toma-hawk lifted Before the blow could fall pop went the little girls revolver anti there was a live woman and a dead Indian At another time the camp was hemmed in by savages There was one chance of life it lay in getting word to a body of soldiers sol-diers beyond the lines of the Indians The red men had not yet guessed at what a disadvantage dis-advantage they had the party they were besieging but at any hour the discovery might come As a forlorn hope it was suggested sug-gested that the child of the camp might save it if she would risk dying sooner the death that else would < < come soon The Indians In-dians were used to seeing the little white girl scurring this way and that on her pony after strayed horses the Indian children who had played with her had a soft spot in their hearts for her and it might be if she rode for the soldiers no savage would guess her purpose while if a man stirred he would be shot and the attack on the camp precipitated So the stouthearted child mounted and circled as if she meant only to drive in horses and in the end she won through the danger county and brought quick rescue She learned to swing the lariat and in her solitude she had an odd power of calling the birds and squirrels to her and when she would come into the camp with the feathery and furry creatures in her hands and on her shoulders the miners who would have given their lives for her shook their 1 1 t 111 a leads and asked one another if so strange a child would not die She had no mother and her father took tier wherever his geologic investigations and his work as an expert miner carried him When he had a day or a week in town he left her at the school house door ana so with his teaching and much poring over books at odd times she fitted for the state university Her last years tuition she paid herself with the price of her mavericks for it was one of her pleasures to ride to the roundups round-ups and when the cowboys saw her coming they would cheer her as Our Girl and each would give her one of the unbranded cattle They branded her calves too for her and the cattle men took her herd and the price helped her graduate in 18SO s wy f t IiE YVr SIN CYNTHIA TVESTOVER From the university she went into a commercial com-mercial college for four years and one vacation va-cation she showed her restless activity by applying at a tent factory in Denver to learn the trade She began by pullingbast ings but in three mouths when school opened she was on the point of becoming the coHcerns responsible bookkeeper She tried teaching also taking charge of the truants delinquepts and rough characters for Denver had then no reform school Then she came east to study music and in New York her voice was tried and she found she could sing She did sing in opera for charity at Cleveland and in other cities She became soprano of the church of St Michaels under the Monseigneur in Jersey Jer-sey City Emma Abbott offered her a place in her company and encouraged her to believe be-lieve she could in no long time organize a company of her own The girl had a genius for experiment She learned Italian in characteristic fashion fash-ion going into an Italian family to live and binding herself to pay a cent for every English Eng-lish word spoken Her first days lapses cost her 250 but after that the fines diminished di-minished rapidly French she learned in the same way Spanish she had already picked up on the Mexican border Still experimenting she took the civil service examination for custom house in spectresses rather to find out what it was like than with any serious purpose She received an appointment under Collector Magone took it with some hesitationmade about the best inspectress the department over had and was retained under Republican Republi-can administration She learned German and Danish and a little Chinese and her business training led to her being detailed for responsible clerical duty Last June Commissioner Beattie appointed ap-pointed her his private secretary considerably consider-ably to the vexation of many who thought such a post should not be wasted on a woman wo-man Thu first day in her new position she heard some words she did not understand she went home bought books sat up until after midnight studying The second day she made a second list of unfamiliar terms and kept about her plodding until now when the question is put to her How many cubic feet of earth does it take to load a scow as I heard her very modestly put it one day Fortunately I know When the mayors committee asked the other day what was the plant of the street cleaning department what did it cost and what would it sell for it vas out of her notebook that many of the important facts came She managed her department most efficiently during an illness of the rnmmic sioner and her native enthusiasm has led her to study the street cleaning methods of I all the great American cities The last J time I saw her she was running over with admiration of the broad avenues of Salt Lake city Her gift of tongues makes her invaluable in dealing with the 1500 laborers labor-ers of the department and the Italians in particular insist on explaining their troubles troub-les to her personally though sometimes they try to put up jobs on her as when an Italian woman appeared the other day with ten children exactly of a size who were she said all her own and whose hungry mouths made it imperative that work be given to their father There is talk 1 believe on account of her mathematical cleverness of proposing her as a member of the Institute of Accountants Account-ants Is not this a range of experience that could have been had nowhere but in America Amer-ica by a graceful brownhaired vigorous looking young woman Her name is Cynthia Westover daughter of Mr 0 S Westover Salt Lake city These are two types of young American womanhood You will find a third type in in the office of the Engineering and Mining Journal Some years ago there walked up the stairs leading to the office of this influential influ-ential technical and trade paper a young woman looking for a typewriters and stenographers position She was rather dismayed by the desks piled high with dusty books and papers and withdrew her application appli-cation The next day came another a slip of a girl with brown eyes and excessively quiet ways who must have seemed particularly partic-ularly out of place among the learned M E and C Es who write articles about the lixivation of silver ores with hyposul phito solutions and the worlds visible supply sup-ply of copper lu days since I have seen this young woman sit modestly silent with the incessant chatterof feminine talk going on all about her and blush pink and speak six words all sensible ones when her opinion opin-ion was called for yet among the M Es and the HC Es she persevered and became not only secretary to Editor Roth well but spent Tier leisure studying the exchange ex-change bundle and culling scraps of mining news until little by little the whole mining news department with the task of editing the original matter toning down the extravagant ex-travagant reports of correspondents enthusiastic enthu-siastic over bonanzas and making the Journal Jour-nal felt among minors as a storehouse of reliable facts about their business fell into her efficient hands d i drte Il MRS SOPHIA BRAEONLICH She developed at the same time a gift for management was put in responsible charge of the officeand the staff employed In it became be-came treasurer of the Scientific Publishing company which gets out the Journal and a little more than a year ago became business manager I have felt an especial appreciation of her as a practical woman because from her I learned how to get across the Brooklyn bridge comfortably I would bee her in a rush hour take her stand at a particular point of the platform glancing to right and left critically and later I would see her K I Jo l calm unruffled in the tumult andseated One day I asked her how she managed it and then she taught me the trick of observing observ-ing the track lanterns that show how one may stand by for a car door She seems to be about as fond of birds as Mrs Henry Ward Beecher for there is always where she ways a canary in her office keeps three or four typewriters busy attends at-tends to all the business correspondence makes payments and receives them superintends super-intends the advertising solicitors and makeup make-up from thirty to sixty pages of advertisements advertise-ments weekly She has visited nearly every mine of any consequence in the country coun-try and knows its condition and prospects from personal observation From a tour through the west last summer she brought home interesting experiences and added to her collection of mineralogical specimens and pueblo pottery She is Mrs Sophia Braeunlich and the is big office of the Journal is said to be under her management the best ordered in New York Are not the three of whom I have spoken interesting examples of bright young American women 1 ELIZA PUTNAM HEATOJT |