Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1885-03-05
NUMBER 81
Old Times.

been no rain for sometime before we came
nor did it rain, but once, all that summer
enough to lay the dust; SO of course the corr
crop was very short, and vegetables wer.
out of the question. Wheat was very goo6
and few in the hill.
You may know the prospect for a living
was very small. Like all new w-comers from
| the Eastern States, we had to go through a
process of acelimation. Before the fall season
set in we had the real, old fashioned
/ ''shakes;" sometimes half the family were
shaking at once; it seemed as if the shingles
of the house fairly ratified in sympathy. II
there is any one disease that will reduce a
mans spunk and temper, it is one of those
same ''shakes," that, with nothing to eat,
is rather trying on a mans constitution.
| remember when father was taken with
the chills, he had an iron constitution; they
handled him very roughly; he was very sick
and homesick. One morning he called the
family together and asked, "Shal! we go back
home"'-we had not sold the home in New
England-''I can't stand this treatment" J"
we all answered, No. He said, "We will all
| VIZ wv Shdii stdi W. n UtlSHDOT 1dQ lOIQ
me of large flocks of wild turkies i'm Mr., Van
Dorn's stubble-feld-that field was what is
now Arcadia, south to the College. 1 took
my shotgun and went there; found a large
flock of old and young ones. l fired at the
flock, killed three and crippled half a dozen
more. | caught upthe dead ones and started
for home as fast as my shaking legs would
| carry me. As / came in sight of the house
my little sisters saw me coming and ran in
and said, "Oh, pa, Theodore has killed lot
of turkies!" When went to the room where
he was; he called to mother, .'Do go and
cook them and have one meal before YOU
| die;" then he broke down and cried like a
child.
The climate has changed wonderfully since
| then, as all countries will when cleared
up and brought under cultivation. To give
| he Young readers an idea of the loneliness
of the country, go with me, in Imagination,
| to the top of Pilot Knob before light,
seat yourself on the topmost rock, and look
off over the vast region of mountain forests
| not Il light to be seen nor sound to be heard
what IA feeling of lonliness and awe comes
! over you; inyoluntarily you uncover your
head and feel like removing your shoes from
your feet, for it seems like holy ground.
Those beautiful words,
"Nearer my God to thee,
Nearer to thee,"
come to your mind. The sensation becomes
really painful until it is suddenly broken by
the howl of wolf, or that most unearthly
scream of the panther. You arouse your
self to look around you, as the sun begins to
gild the horizon. You see, down in Arcadia
Valley Il small column of blue smoke from a
cabin, soon another, and another-you count
eleven in all the country south of Pilot Knob
you turn your head and look northward as
far as the eye can reach-only two smokes:
thirteen fires burning for breakfast; all else
IL wilderness. Note the difference now; the
vallies dotted with fine residences, stores,
| churches and schoohouses, flour mills where
many barrels of flour are made in day,
trains passing almost constantly, and in the
heart of the mountain the sound of sledge
and drill is heard. How changed can hardly
realize! Then, during the war, what num-
| bers OF men and horses, the yallies thickly
| dotted with the white tents lit all seems like
a dream. As the sun comes full into sight,
petite warns me it will be breakfast time
when we get home. Can you, young reader,
realize that it is so short time since the
changes have taken place? We who live in
the present century have seen more wonder
| full inventions and improvements in the arts
and sciences, in knowledge and religion,
| than in the thousand of years before.
| The second year we were mere was as
bountiful as the first was lean. The earth
seemed to make up for lost time: fields of
wheat, corn, potatoes, all kinds of vegetables
and fruits, grew in abundance. We regain
ed our usual health and strength; we lived
in ga land flowing with milk and honey,''
maple sugar and syrup. We now began TO
| think of building better houses. There was
but one sawmill in the yalley-where the
| Arcadia spring branch e.Spties into Stout's
Greek, by VIM. Fetcher's. The first time /
saw that mill running, the sawyer was stand
| ing on the log before the saw; when it went
| up he would put his shoulder under the top
of the saw-sash and help it up; when it went
down, he would pull down; that's no exag
Grafton! You see it was rather slow busi-
ness making lumber. What do you suppose
those men who have worked i'm mill that
saws ten thousand feet of lumber day,
| would say to such mill?
| We bought mill on Brewers creek, about
ten miles away. I kept "bach' ball" and ran
| the mill three winters-and didn't have
good times hunting and fishing when the
water was too low to saw-which was about
| half the time. In the summer we hauled our
| lumber home with OK teams and over such
roads. I'll tell you how we worked the
roads. The roadoverseer went out and no.
tilted all able-bodied men over eigteen to
meet at certain place to work out two days
work. This was done early in the spring
Some rode horseback, some walked: each
had an AK. The work began by walking as
fast as we could along the road; if we came
to fallen log aero the way it was cut out
/ If it was not too large or hard. When mud
hole was reached, if not cut round easily,
a few brush were laid across to let the tray-
| eler know there was mud hole and to drive
| carefully.
/ Notches cut in the trees, as high as one
could reach with the AK, plainly told the
Ipasser-by that the road had been worked
and was iE good repair. The idea seemed
to be that the tax was an imposition on the
people, one to be avoided If possible; and
/ there are many now, when notified to work
the road, &C. as though 1t was their privilege
to get over just as soon as possible, and VINO
do not know that they cheat but themselves.
NV experience as roadoyerseer was that
8 most men--all progressive meD--are willing
/ n1 do III 1v hI1f