The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1882-06-02
A New York Boy Mt the West.

| We make the following extract from
/ Mr.. Charles L. Braces article, entitled
Wolf-reared Children" in st. Nicholas.
Pickety" is New York street arab
who has been induced to leave the Bows
Lodging House and go Vest:
/ Pickety at first thought he might be
sent where bears would hunt him, or
Indians catch him, and that he would
earn very little and would lose all the
sights and fun of New York, so he was
almost afraid to 90; but, on hearing all
about it, and seeing that he would new
er come to much in the city. and espe-
cially hoping to get more education in
the West, and by and by to own bit of
land for himself, he resolved to join
party under one of the western agents
of the Children's Aid Society and 90 to
Kansas.
We have not time nor space to follow
his fortunes there: everything was
strange to him, and he made queer
work of his duties in farmers house;
but the strangest thing OF all to him
was to be in a kind, Christian family.
He wondered what made them all so
good, and he began to think he would
like to be as they were, and most of all
like the One he had heard of in the
Lodging House meeting.
He was careful to write to his New
York friends about his new home, and
here is one of the letters received from
him. after he had been in the West few
months:
mr. MAcY-Dear Sir: i write YOU these
few lines hoping you are in good h 'alth ut
present, and not forgetting the rest of the gen
tlemen that remember in the Children'S Aid
Society. am getting on splendid with my
studies at school, and send you my monthly
report, but please return it, as want to keep
my home, and am glad l came.
- The first time rode horse bareback, he
slnng me Off over his head and made me sick
for a week. also had diphtheria but am all
right again and in good health, and can ride or
galop Il horse as fast rs any man in town.
When summer comes will learn to pillow and
wages out here. 1t is nice country. for there
is no Indians. or bears, or other wild animals
-.cept prarie-wolves, and you can scare them
with anything.
If any boy-wants good home. he can come
here and have plenty OF fun. l have fun with
the mules, horses, pigs and dogs. No pegging
tramps in the Bowery or City Hall Park. -
"Iell .Banty' send him my best respects.
Tell him it is from 'Pickety,' and he will know
me.
"Yours truly, --"
He learned his farm work fast and
soon made himself very useful; the next
winter he went to school again. and be-
came very good scholar. He knew
how to make money, too: when the iar-
mer gave him calf, or a lamb, or a
sheep, he took good care of it. and by
and by sold it, and bought other stock
with the proceeds, and in this way,
after few years, he had saved a con-
siderable sum. With this he bought
some Government land" on which he
built shanty; and so he began to be a
"landed proprietor
He was no longer Sc Pickety," but had
a Christian name, and for his last name
took that of the kind people to whom
he felt like son. He had acquired a
fair education, too; and the neighbors
liked and respected the "New York
orphan" as they called him. He had
quite lost his wOlfish nature by this
time, and now had a new one, which
had come to him from the Good Being
he had heard of in the lodging house,
through the civilizing, Christian influ-
ences that had been thrown around
him. And here we will leave him-a
thriving farmer on his own land.