The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1886-10-22
A GLIMPSE OF THE PATHETIC.
An Old Mans Experience In the Wilder.

An Old Mans Experience In the Wilder.
ness-His HOme-Sickness.
had glimpse of the pathetic the other
day. Riding out from a town, whose
chances of being city are fully equal to
her dreams, we took dinner at an oasis in
a desert of speculative claims. We had
to navigate-another tender foot was with
me--to reach our dinner. For miles we
drove over prairie sod as tough and un-
subdued as ever rose unmarked by the
hoofs of buffalo in early spring. In some
places spring fires had moved off the dry
grass and left the sod to spring up in
green after-growth. Buffalo wallows and
their counterfeits, "burn- outs" were nu-
merous. Houses, straw-stacks and fall
ing claim shanties built of sod dotted the
horizon and furnished headlands by
which to steer. Braking, grown up to
weeds or lying in fiat ribbons as far as
the eye could reach, served to indicate
sections and center lines, and so after
lacking and putting about several times
we reached our destination, sixteen miles
northwest of town. We had passed sew
eral comfortable homes and thriving
fields of wheat and oats In the first miles
of the trip, but in the latter portion
thrift and enterprise had yielded to weeds
and speculation. The land was not SO
good, but, quite good enough for non
resident traffickers in the toll and perse-
verence Of actual settlers
We were cordially received, unhar-
messed and fed by q white aired man Of
60, who, with his son, were struggling
with nature and comparative solitude.
He cooked good dinner, and over it told
no oh 10 to- so ~ rl xxysl
derness. He had pioneered in Illinois and
and Wisconsin for thirty years II can
stand this 'batchin' it," said he. Il can
stand working hard and living as did in
the woods of Wisconsin on simple fare
Work is about the same everywhere, and
there's something about this climate that
will make lazy man want to work; but,
sir, this solitude is wearing on me- Pm q
man of social habits Every sane man
wants to be among his fellow-men, and
here, except Small, who lost his wife
after bringing her here half dead from
Michigan, we haven't neighbor within
three miles. I'll tell you what I'll do
and he looked out of the window on to
sixty acres of as fine wheat as the the 1st
Of June found anywhere-if / can trade
this half section for some small farm
somewhere in the east where there are
farm houses, churches, school houses,
town meetin's and such like, I'll do it and
let the big farm CO." He spoke with a
fervor such as breathes in those lines:
20, solitude where are the charms that
sages have seen in thy face2"
The silence and suspension of appetite
that followed gave way to the pathetic
and then a heated debate between father
and son ensued. "Give 1t up? Trade for
a side-hill farm2 Not much You've
rustled too hard for three years, father, to
go to blowing kitchen garden burrows
again." said the son, and then the old man
lifted his head, picked up his fork, smiled
and remarked: at will be fun, John,
when we get reaper into that wheat"
This is where the humorous crowded
the pathetic and the compensation of
misunderstanding it" and looking for
neighbors-came in and we left the old
man, who is almost tired of pioneering, in
a cheerful frame of mind.-Dakota Cor.
Philadelphia Times.