Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-01-26
The Native Mlchieander:

NJ Quad, In the Detroit Free Press
L have been studying him for 2
week. About seven O'Clock every ev.
ening he comes in from his farm and
takes a seat beside me on the veranda
OF the country hotel. No one intro
duced us. He came stumping along
the first evening, flung down his old
straw hat and exclaimed:
"Durn my hide if it isn't burned
hotp'
L had been roasting all day, and so ]
struck hands with him at once. He
has never asked whether 1 was the
Duke of Sutherland or a railroad
switchman, and 1 have never asked
why he didn't cut his hair, shave of
his matted whiskers and fix tin spout
in one corner of his mouth to accom-
modate the flow of tobacco Juice.
The native Michigander is a goo6
fellow at heart, but he has his eccen
tricities.
Eyes, 1 struck this state over fifty
years ago." he said to me the Other
evening, as he hunted in his hind
pocket for his plug tobacco. "I'vt
heard the wolves howl, the bars real
and the panthers scream"
"You have, eh?"
"You bet havel Yes, sir, and I've
lived all winter on acorns, slept al
summer in tree-top, and walked for
ty-two miles through the woods tC
prayer-meeting. Say, did you ever live
in the woods forty miles from thu
nearest human hyena, black or white p
"Never."
"Did you ever have to go barefoot
in snow four foot deep?"
"No."
ever shake with the ager right
along for 284 days, Sundays included p
"No."
"DOd rot your pampered counte
nance, of course you never did. What
did you ever do towards making Mich
igan the great and glorious state she
now is?"
"Well, I've run lawn-mower."
"Run a thunder to blazes! How
many acres of forest do you 'spose Pvt
cut downP"
1.-TWO"
"Twol Why, you onery hyena, my
old woman has slashed down over for.
ty herself, and she's left-handed, al
that. calkerlate, sir-I solemnly cal
kerlate that I've cleared off at least
three hundred acres of the toughest
kind of forest. Ahl sir, you petted
and pampered children of luxury little
dream Of what us old natives had ia
endure. How much tea do you sup.
pose had in my house the first ten
years of our pioneer lifeP"
twenty-five chests"
twenty-five, whatp he roared, as
he hunted for more plug. 1--WE had
just two drawings and no more"
Couldn't you get trusted at the cor
ner grocery"
"Get trustedl Corner grocery Why,
you Internal young lunatic, wasn't
located forty miles from the highest
grocery That's what I've been tell
ing you all long. Old pioneers couldn't
afford such luxuries as that. How
much do you 'spose our outfit cost us
for housekeepingT
perhaps $4,000 but that's accord.
ing to the style of your carpets, piano
and paintings. Did you have lace cur
tains hung on polesP"
He jumped up and down like a man
with piece of beefstake in his wind.
pipe, and / thought he was a goner
However, after higher jump than bis
crooked old legs seemed capable of he
blurted out:
"You internal burned fool, but we
didn't have nothing that we couldn't
carry on our backsl Do yCu 'spose we
was a-foolin' around with pianers out
there in the virgin wildernessl Lace
curtains hung on poles! Not much
If I'd had spare shirt on a pole I'd
have been perfectly satisfied. None
Of you spilled children of luxury kin
have any idea of how we had to get
along fn them old days"
81 presume not"
"One winter when the old woman
was sick 1 had nothing to feed her but
salt coon and corn dodgers"
"Oyster soup would have been
nice"
"Oyster thunderl Who knew any.
thing about oysters fifty years agOi
Don't keep telling you that 1 was
miles in the woods?"
"Yes, but why didn't you get out p
"Git outi What fur"
"Why, you might have got out and
lived on your mother-in-law and had a
trOtting horse, plug hat, a diamond
pin and high living. You were very
foolish to stay in the woods, where
they had no ward caucuses, or military
parades, or circus professions, or ginger
beer or banana puddings."
We generally end here. The old ma
tive chocks and gasps and jumps w
and down and kicks his hat into the
street and goes away saying:
Them burned pampered idiots Of
luxury wouldn't keer two cents if The
hull state was growed up to jackpine:
so thick that a rabbit couldn't get
through"
But next night he comes again t.
II