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Story of a Woman in the West The wagon hit a deep rut, probably created by previous westward-bound travelers, and it flipped into the air. Lizzie's mother was catapulted to the ground and killed instantly, and the wagon landed on her father with a sickening thud. Lizzie was thrown clear of the wreckage, unhurt, and ran to help her father, but the wagon was too heavy for her to lift off of him. After three days in the relentless July sun she watched her father die, and she curled up to die, too. But a passing Calastoga wagon with a family of six had seen the runaway horses, still tethered to their yoke, grazing peacefully in the distance and had detoured to the wrecked Nicholas wagon to offer aid. The man and his wife took Lizzie with them to Kansas City and placed her in an orphanage where she stayed for exactly one month before running away. She ached for her mother and father and could not bear the loneliness of sleeping with sixty orphaned strangers.
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For weeks Lizzie lived like an animal in the Kansas City streets scavenging for food and sleeping under wagons and in the occasional barn. Some of the Merchants along Mainstreet were kind and gave her scraps of food and water. One barkeep even took pity and handed her a blanket since September was coming to a close and the nights were getting chilly. Then one afternoon as Lizzie was searching through a promising-looking garbage container behind a particularly noisy bar room, a woman stepped out into the alley from across the way and stared at the dirty child nearly upside down in the trash can. "You there! What are you doing?" she asked loudly.
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of the can and squinted at the woman, not quite believing what she was
seeing. The woman wore a short blue dress that revealed not only
her ankles but her legs and even her knees. Her breasts were
very large and nearly spilling out of the flimsy-looking lace top she
wore. Her face had colors on it, especially on her lips and
eyes, and her hair was an orange color that Lizzie had never seen before
on a human being. Lizzie stared intently as she studied this
strange creature.
"I said, what are you doing there?" the woman repeated. "I'm looking for some food," Lizzie replied. "Food? In there?" the woman asked. "Why, you poor child." And that was the beginning of Lizzie's twelve year stay at the Miss Millie's, Kansas City's finest house of ill-repute. Page 1 Page 3 Copyright © 2007. Webwerxx, Inc., 2770 S. Elmira St., Denver, Colorado 80231. All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reprinted or reused in any manner whatsoever without written permission of Webwerxx, Inc. 12/2/07 |
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