Life and adventures of Frank and Jesse James, the noted western outlaws

by J. A. Dacus

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.