The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1881-08-19

BILL ARP'S LETTER. IN WHICH HE
DISCUSSES MATTERS OF
INTEREST,".
If the rain fell upon the just and the
unjust there's something wrong with
Us at my house, for it don't come.
Maybe we don't pray enough, or
havn't got faith enough, or there is a
Jonas in the ship, or something,
don't know what. l met preacher
yesterday and he said they had been
mighty dry up in his neighborhood,
and tho brethren We're alarmed and
discouraged, and last Sunday they
asked him to pray for rain, and he did
so with faith and importantly, and
while he was preaching tho clouds
gathered, and the thunders pealed, and
tho rain came down, and he closed
his sermon and thought it the best time
in the world to send aronud the hat, for
the brethren We're feeling good and
thankful, and the hat came back with
only three dollars in it, and the rain
quit all of a sudden before they had
half enough he did not wonder at it
for he thought shurely they would
have raised fifty, and after dinner they
held a church court and turned out
three of the bretheren for conjugal
loosness and three more for habitual
tightness and several for lying and
cheating, and about the time they got
through the rain began again and they
had a splendid season. Nevertheless
we will make little corn at my house
and q power of fodder if we can save
it, and we are going to press it and
bale it as fast as it is cured and store it
away in the barn for hard times, which
I reckon are sure to come.
The time is coming when every far
mer must bale his forage in the field,
and if he can't buy a Deadrick press
he must join in with two or three
neighbors and get one, and then he can
pack it away in small compass and
haul it to town and ship it anywhere
the price suits him. We've gotten
through the board business at last, and
they are all piled and weighted down,
and feel like me and the boys ought
to have a diploma or a medal or a
degree of some sort like they give to
the college boys when they make 'em
master Of arts before they know an art
at all. Pm not much ON epitaphs, but
then would just as leave have mine
to be VIM. Arp, the board glitter, as to
have q double L.. d. that WASN'T
deserved. Mr.. Lincoln was rail
splitter and Joe Brown plowed a male
oxen to their credit, and Grant broke
hides in a tan yard, which was honora
BILE to him, and I have thought that il
he had kept at it it would have beer
better for the country and him too
wouldent it?
If a man is going to run farm III
must have experience in every brancl
of business and work with his hand
AS well rs his head. Labor is not only
honest but it is healthy. The mau
and wedge is better medicine thar
Simmons liver regulator. It's the bcs
appetizer, and the best digester ant
aperient in tho world, and those pat
ent mcdiciens would soon perish out i
they had to depend upon the laborins
men for patronage. Judge Henderson
asked me how many rails I could cut
about 200 in fair timber, and he said i
wasent so much in strength or in th'
kind Of timber, but in the sleight o
hand, for he knoed Il man who cit
three railcuts Off OF a blackgum ant
stuck his wedge in the small end 0
the upper cut and with one lick of tn
maui sent the wedge through all thre
of EN- and stuck in the stump. Wei
that beats me, for + have split black
guns crossways but l never could spill
en- lengthways in my life.
But hope the time is at hand wheI
splitting rails will be one of the los
arts, for timber is getting too scarce il
this country to pile it up in fences +
rot down again. The United States
paying a premium to settlers in tn
West for every acre planted out in tim
ber, while our people are cutting
down and wasting it like it were
nuisance. The stock law will force il
self upon our;people before long, for
is bound to come. We can afford t
fence in our cattle, but can't afford t
fence out everybody else's. ] had
good talk with Mr.. Smith, of Ogle
trope, the chairman not the committe
on agriculture. lie is farmer, and
= man Of sense and judgment, and II
told me they would Recommend LAY
that would let us take a vote on
twice year if we wanted to, and nc
body was to vote but freeholders, an
4 :.,t. :oN nd, fnv,r