The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1874-01-23

out Of SKINNER, you've got to drink
quick.
"Taint as though 1 hadn't no paternal
affection for my own sisters son. It's just
because l have. A better woman than
your mother never lived. She KEEP me
pretty straight when l was lad, and al
ways tender like, too, and l say to myself
when think of her: David Sharp by the
grace Of God and your sister, you are what
you arer-not that l am any great shakes
myself, anyhow, but that don't make no
difference about the SKINNER. So when 1
think of your mother, my boy, feel han
kerin' to pay off that debt by givin' you
lift, for now that you've lost her-well,
there amt no one to say things to you'll
mean disagreeable things, that we are pref
ty apt to take like pills, if we have to take
'em at all, in crlrrant jelly, so We shan't
taste 'em.
''When your father left you all his money,
he thought he was doin' good thing, and
l guess he meant well enough, but you see
it makes difference whether you SOW seed
in the burrows after the earth has been
turned up Or just scatter it along on the
top of the ground, and to my thinkin',
young man, you wasn't ploughed deep
enough to hold it. Money buys lots of
things, fine broadcloth, and patent leather
boots, and blue neckties and yaller kid
gloves. 1t buys handkerchiefs, with big
letter down i'll the corner, and hair-oil, and
gold toothpick. 1t buys lots of other
things besides. 1t can git books and learn
ing, and travel, and chances for man to
make somethin' of himself. I've heard,
too, about lending it to the Lord and to
my thinkin' that is all investment that
pays pretty fair interest. There are riches
that take to themselves wings and fly away
all of a sudden, and there's riches that
melts like a snow-drift in April but what
don't run out of the rules ON one side will
ON the other, and SO you've got to drink
quick.
Then, if there was more n tw elye hours
in day, you might let few run through
and never miss 'em, but them robins that
was a singin' this mornin' got all through
by sunrise. The red and gold faded out of
the sky before you had peep at it, and
before you was out of bed. That's all
question of profit and loss, that amt fig
ured out in any arithmetic, but guess one
side of the account will be heaYier than
the other every time you try to work out
the sum. And you can't go over it the
second time and make it square. 1t won't
balance nohow; that's the wust of it.
There never is any extra time lying around
loose between sunrise and sunset. There
is only just SO many hours in a day, and
bime-by there won't be any more days
and when they go the chances go to. The
acorn that wanted to be an oak tree didn't
like to be covered up in the ground, be-
cause it was bright ard pleasant outside,
and so waited till the next day, and the
next month, till bime-by the sun and the
wind and the rain soaked it and split it and
rotted it, and the acorn was nothin' but an
acorn, and a poor specimen at that, when
some one kicked it out of the way for
what is an acorn good for if 'taint never
going to be a tree It's very easy to lie
around in the sun doin' nothin but seein'
how the trees are gittin' on, but there amt
no sun or wind to waste. What they don't
sprout they'll spoil so if you're goin' to
drink out of that ere skinner, you know
how you'll have to do it.
TOO much of a.good thing may be good
for nothin', but health amt one of them
things. A man don't generally have
more'n he wants, but 1T isn't hard to get
rid of it, provided he is overstocked. If
a man wants his bank robbed all he's got
to do is to leave the vaults unlocked, with
the doors and windows wide open only he
mustn't growl if, some day, when he wants
ready money there amt none there.
Sound lungs and good liver, and
stomach that knows the right sort of food
and how to take care OF it; strong mus
cles that viii carry one over the ground on
his two legs; strong aims that can lift
wagon out of ditch, if it's got stuck in
one; hands that know pitchfork or plow
from pipe or a pistol, and can manage
somethin' besides clothes and cards and
cane, are very convenient to have, but !
they're kind of property that wants con- !
siderable looking after. No mans lungs
are going to be cheated out of fresh air,
and pay hundred per cent. on what they
don't git. If you hang ropes and chains /
up in the wood-house, where they aim t no
sort of use to nobody, and let them hang
and hang, they'll rot and rust, and break !
when you pull on them but to my think !
in, there's more profit in them than a
mans muscles that haven't been stretched
n nd used for old iron is alluS worth somo-
thing"
THIs is a specimen of the peasant per-
sonal paragraphs which the western news /
papers are printing about the salary grab
bers ..Comingo, our Comingo, of salary
grab notoriety, has gone to Colorado with
his family to spend few weeks and por-
ton of his back pay. May every anticipa-
ed pleasure resolve itself into ghost of