The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1880-06-19

young man, resembling his predecessors
as much as they resembled each other,
entered through the same door, and was
introduced as "Mr. Decker"
Immediately behind came fourth
young man, who bowed and scraped his
foot when he was also mentioned as "Mr.
Decker"
Then a mere lad with his hair pasted
to his forehead and bright but uncom-
Portable expression, entered-lke a
bumblebee out of an exhaustless nest
and was introduced with the same
solemnity as Mr.. Decker"
1t seemed the woods were full OF Mr..
Deckers. The farmers wife struggled
with herself and assented to the first
Mr.. Decker's remark that "there was a
right smart lot folks to meetin' this
mornin': he see some there from as fur
off as Ash Grove" But again the same
door opened and the tan-blond eldest
son entered, and laughed good-natur-
edly without seeing any joke, as did all
the family, when he acknowledged the
final presentation as ." Mr.. Decker"
All the settlers were not so primitive.
One or two grandees, hailing from the
Eastern States or Chicago, set this raw
civilization all agog by their advanced
manner of living. They had comforta-
BILE residences with well-kept grounds,
carriages-of heavy build for wrestling
with bottomless neutrality-suspicious.,
cooks, pianos, modern furniture. They
were landed proprietors over thousands
of acres, and had accomplished guests
+bav,, x.yaaEo Of tip,o ", tho
festival-like summer weather. They es-
capped from the monotony and winter
desolation on long trips. To be called
on by these families was distinction, to
be on intimate terms with them was
eminence; and such settlers as were not
intimate got even with them by call
ing them by their first names-behind
their backs. Not that this was an I'M
common liberty, but when taken with a
proud, stuck-up person it seemed to
bring him down to the speakers level
at once, and to prove that he was no
better than any body else. However,
half the year there were long muddy
miles between these arks of civilization
and the aspiring settlers bum-boats,
which seemed to be forever riding huge
tranced swells of the prairie.
After the farmers crop was in he
burnt off his land. In autumn the plain
was a mass of finder; down to the dry
ing slews' hearts wire-grass and reeds
grew rank; and every cracking weed
was full of larvae, left there to mature by
the most singing and uncomfortable of
flies. The farmer therefore protected
himself and his stock when he carefully
set brand to the grass himself, and
kept the flying fire out of his fences. He
burned prairie at night, though all day
long a caravan of smoky phantoms
trooped along the horizon. With net
work of consultations drawn down so
close to his head that it seemed with lit
tie effort he could pluck each star out
of the sky, and that glowing furnace
or lake of fire spreading at his feet, the
farmer may have felt sublime emotions
in intervals of beating down leaping
flames.
But there were winter nights when the
house shut itself like an ark, the doors
creaking remonstrance if you opened
them few inches-when fires devoured
coal and corncobs like engines in that
mid-ocean of snow. On such nights the
farmer planned his future sheeprsheds
and came in from feeding stock, muf-
fled to the nose, to spend long even
ing with Sophocles or in interviewing
the gentle Plato. Those we're DAYS
when the papers and magazines came
month late over blockaded roads, and
book-shelves were drawn upon for the
noble Iltad, Shakespeare, and even
If1strana Shandy. Outside, a shoreless
river of wind rushed through space.
Its roar was terrible to inexperienced
ears. But in time the farmers wife and
sister became so stepped in this
constant flow, teasing in summer,
sweeping and icy in winter, that
they received a rich meerschaum tint,
which the ague diligently infused with
saffron.
The farmer hauled his fuel at con-
venient seasons from coal-felds to the
southwark, twenty-seven miles distant.
He and his man started before day.
break, and were two days going and
returning; they had sloughs and I'M
bridged streams to ford; they
lodged along the road or stayed over
night in the county-seat, dipping once
more into the excitements of civiliza-
ton and the spectacle of a passing
show at the town-hall. In the same
laborious way the farmer disposed of
his products.
Monotonous years set their marks on
the family. That medallion-like clear
ness of profile which the farmer brought
to his work became blunted, and the
enthusiasm of his gaze turned to
shrewdness. His fingers formed
natural glove of horny tan. He con-
strued living markets to the neglect of
dead languages, and as the hard-earned
coin rolled toward him he buried it in
spreading acres. The greed of the soil
possessed him, and he was actually proud
of being "land poor" He looked for
ward to the time when civilization
would run to meet him and his dollars
burst their loamy Golfer. He now had
huge barns and extensive sheep-sheds;
he was becoming master in the science
of stock-farming. His fences begin
ming to fail, he had substituted Usage
orange hedge, guiding and trimming it
until now it bounded and subdivided
his possessions with lines of living
green; and his neighbors began to
plant hedge-fence also. The feasibility
of making an artesian bore also beSan