The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1879-04-17
BURDETTE AMONG THE FARMERS

bUhDEIIE AMUNG THE CAKMEKS
Mr.. Thistlepod's Early Spring Experiences.
Bob Burdette, of the Burlington
Haack-Eye, paints this pretty pastoral
picture:
It is spring, and the annual warfare
begins. EARLY in the morning the
jocund farmer HES him to the field, and
hunts around in the dead weeds and
grass for the pillow he left out there
| somewhere sometime last fall. When
he finds it, he takes it to the shop to
have it mended. When it is mended,
he goes back into the field with it. Half
way down the first furrow he lays, he
runs the pillow fairly into big live oak
root; the handles alternately break
rib on this side of him, and jab the
breath out of him on the other, and the
sturdy root, looking up out of the
ground with pleased smile of recogni-
ton, says cheerfully:
All, Mr.. Thistlepod, at it again,
eh?"
Fifty feet farther on he strikes a
stone that doubles up the pillow point
like a piece of lead, and, while the
amazed and breathless agriculturist
leans, limp heap of humanity, across
the pillow, the relic of the glacial period
remarks, sleepily:
"Ah ha; spring here already? Glad
you woke me up"
And then the granger sits down and
patiently tries to tie on that pillow point
with hickory withe, and while he pur-
sues this fruitless task the friendly crow
swoops down near enough to ask
| "Goin' to put this twenty in corn,
this year, Mr.. Thistlepod?"
And, before he has time to answer the
sable bird, tiny grasshopper, wriggling
out of a clod SO full of eggs that they
can't BE- counted, shouts briskly:
"Here we are again, Mr.. Thistlepod;
dinner for 500,000,000,00OOw
And then a slow-moving, but very
positive, potato bug crawls out into the
sunlight to see if the frost has faded his
stripes, and says:
"The old-fashioned peachblow pota-
| toes are the best for sure crop, but
the early rose should be planted for the
first market"
Then several new kinds of bugs who
haven't made any record yet, climb over
the fence, and come up to inquire
about the staple crops of the neighbor-
hood, and, before he can get through
with them, Prof. Tice sends him
circular stating that there won't be
drop of rain from the middle of May till
1 Tho 1ocf nf nn%o1,or Tl;c 81 81
him, but he is beginning to feel a little
resigned when dispatch is received
from the Department of Agriculture at
Washington, saying that all indications
point to summer of unprecedented,
almost incessant and long continued
rains and foods, and advising him to
plant no root crops at all. While he is
trying to find words to express his
emotion, neighbor drops in to tell
him that all the peach trees in
the country are winter-killed, and
that the hog cholera is raging fercely in
the northern part of the township.
Then his wife comes out to tell him the
dog has fallen into the well, and when
| the poor man gets to the door-yard his
children with much shouting and ex-
element meet him and tell him there
are couple of cats, of the pole denom-
nation, in the spring-house, and an
other under the barn. With tears and
groans he returns to the field, but by
that time it has begun to snow so hard
he can't see the horses when he stands
at the pillow. He is discouraged and
starts for the house with his team, when
| he meets man who bounces him for
using three-horse clevis he made him
self, and wrings ten reluctant dollars
out of him for it. When he reaches
the house the drive-wel man is waiting
for him, and while he is settling with
him a clock-peddler comes in, and
ightning-rod man, screened by the
storm, climbs up on the $40 smoke
house and fastens $65 worth of light
ning-rods on it, and before the poor
farmer can get his gun half loaded the
bailiff comes in to tell him that he has
been drawn on the jury. q