Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1883-11-08
NUMBER 90.

4k2AASAl. many Oh the MODEST, the
best. the most honore,l of your citizens
have been given to yon-through the
Ofen doors of HESS forerunners of civil
ization. Aud now, in their old age ana
decay, madetO shelter porkers! And
ere many years mere-long before tina
heads of some now before me become
gray-these log-cabins will be reckoned
among the things of the past, and re-
inembsrsd ouiy in story or in song
/ know they were rough aud unseen
"; l know they were not beautiful to
look upon. They were not built to
'|adorn a landscape" or lslend enchant-
ment TO the view" They were not at
tractiye Yet, to the wayIarer ON the
prairie-cold, weary, and hungry, dark
ness around htm, and wolves bowling
in the distant tOrest-the dim light THAI
shone from their paper windows was
more talisman of shelter and rest,
thanif il lad beamed brig htly tom +
/ palace.
And rough and dreary as they looked
they we've your homes, built by your
own hands, made sacred by the hottest
of human affections, and consecrated
by the highest of human hopes and as
pirations- isInlthem alter many weary
days and weeks of travel, over land aud
wafer, through mud and dust wilder
ness and prairie
From Eastern hill or Southern plain,
You sought the Western home to gain.
With wagon, rifle, wife, and 'plunder.'
And big old Towser trotting umder-
you had at length found shelter. They
protected you and your families thu Ough
many winters storm. Beside their
broad blazing fires you have enjoyed
many happy hours. Over their rough
puncheon floors and beneath their clap
board roof you have many night slept
The sleep of the just. There your stall
wart sons and bloomIng daughters have
been reared From their creakimg
doors your boys have gone out ut night
On Lark, or after coons-and come
home with flea in their ear, and
wolves behind them. In the corners of
+ ose road hearths your girls have en-
4ertai ed their ''tellows," while you
have lain with one eye half awake. at
the far end, pretending to dream but
really weighing the chances for a flu
ture'' son-in-law. And when chanticleer
in the oak tree outside proclaimed the
midnight hour-for Seth Thomas clocks
had, not then reached the prairies-the
''fe1low," like the Arab, silently stole
away, the girl crept softly up the ladder
to bed, and darkness and stiffness relgn-
ed. At times, however, your slumbers
would be broken by the owl hooting on
the chimney top, the wolf bowling
around the door, or the panther crying
in the edge Of the wood.
1t was in one OF these primitive rude
log structures, also, that your children
were huddled together for three months
in summer at dollar apiece, and under
the wholesome discipline of hazel switch
and ferule, taught their \ Ii C's and the
rudiments of the three 4Reading,
Riting, and Rithmatic''- seminary Of
learning in IFS first stage.
Those log cabins, too, have witnessed
scenes of sorrow and suffering. In
them Al. times whole families have been
''down with fever'n ager;" no neighbor
near to help, and no "sappington's
! Pulls, > or ''Peruvian Bark'' III the house
a condition OF pioneer lite most undesir-
able.
And there, within those walls Of IN
hewn logs your children have been born
-as many may be, as mOurned al the
stake of the nlaftyred Rogers. And
from those groaning doors, often-ah,
how often! have those children, one by
one, been borne away to lie at rest
among the hazeIs and beneath the stars!
Log-cabins, brick houses, aud brown
stone edifices are alike visited by the
messenger of death and rendered desc
late by the loss of loved ones. Many
little mounds thus planted all about the
country, now obliterated by the plow
and unknown but not forgotten, once
attested where those yet mourned little
ones we're laid away to sleep.
And those cabin doors! those heavy,
creaky, wooden-hiDged, wooden-iatched
puucheon doors! They never knew a
key; their hpckskin latch strings were
seldom pulled in; and they were always
open wide at the voice of distress or the
knock of the stranger. We shall never
never, hear their musical creakIngs any
more! Aud those dear old buildings
those friendly and shelteriag Oaks-tus
copses of hazel round 4bouts- the
graves, ali! those little gravesl all, ali
have disappeared. And shall there be