Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1886-02-18
MISS HANDEE ON A FARM.

Young school teacher OF Nllllsca, Iowa,
finding that her health was giving
away under the close confinement of
the school-room, brayely resorted to
the most heroic out-of-door treatment.
She went on the farm of Bartholomew
Lomax for the summer, drove har-
vester and horse-rake, cut eighty
acres of wheat and raked seventy-five
acres OF pririric hay, helped load it on
the wagon, and drove the team that
hauled it to the stack-yard. Here is
the girl you are looking for, young
man. Such woman as Miss Handee
is a scathing rebuke to the butterflies
of fashion who ilutter away meaning
less, lifeless existence in fashionable
dissipation and listless dawdling."
Now, what | want to say: | am
Bartholomew Lomacks, on whose farm
the beautiful young school-teacher rec
reated her fallen health, and destroyed
nigh about everything else in which
she came in contact. Just allow 4
plain, practical tiller of the soil 20 run
a furrow through this attractive para
graft.
Miss Handee came to my farm, three
miles out of Villisca, about hay harvest,
in a state of fallin' health an unim-
paired appetite. Nice, rosy faced,
lively sort of a girl an we enjoyed
havin' her around the place. Wanted
to 90 everywhere and do everything.
Second day OF haydn she coaxed my
boy Joe-made q perfect fool of Joe
before wheat was ready to QUITO let
her drive the horse-rake. My little
Alice, nine year old last Christmas,
usually drives horse-rake for us when
we're busy, and we never thought of
putin it in the paper, but she want
very well this summer. So Miss Fan
dee got on the horse-rake, screamed
and fell off Joe helped her on the
seat again an she screamed and fell
off Lost about three-quarters of an
hour gettin' her to sit on and stay on.
Then she started off driyin' like mad,
right down through the standin' grass,
tearin', snappin', slashin along, beatin'
down the grass till we couldn't cut il
with a sheep-shcars. Finally the boss
run into a fence and stopped. Got her
headed right and away she went again.
Couldn't lift the rake, you know, got
it clogged up with nigh ton of hay,
run one wheel over the only stump on
$50 acres of land, an for the first and
only time in my life saw Il horse-rake
upset. I'd bet the whole farm it
couldn't have been done, but that girl
done it. Rake broke to everlastin'
smash, too. Lost n whole day right in
the middle OF haydn with . rain settin'
in the west, gcttiu it mended.
Next day she wanted to drive the
rick to the barn Had to send . man
clear to the house for ladder so's't
she could get up OH the load, an then
every blame man in the field had to
come in an get on the other side of the
load aforc she'd climb up. Bout an
hours time wasted. Then she drove
right straight through the orchard, be-
cause it WAS SO shady, she said, and
scraped herself and about nine hun
dved pounds of hay right off under the
first tree, OF course. Had to take two
men out of the barn to load up. Then
she tried to drive into the barn and
tore oil one of the big doors. Then all
the men had to 90 out of the barn till
she climbed up into tine NOW. She got
wandering round and walked into the
well and shot down twenty eight feet
into the constable, and lit right on
the back of a Jersey calf that was
worth $500 of any mans money.
Knocked the girl senseless Tor while
and she was in bed two days. An you
can't sell a broken-back calf for more'n
its hide will bring, l don't care what
the breed IS.
Wen, come wheat-haryest, she had
TO be tied and strapped on the seat OF
the reaper. Good thing she was tied,
for The first round of the knives cut of
black-snake's head, and Miss Ethel
tainted dead away Two men hau 70
carry her to the house. She didn't &c
near the wheat field again all sum
mer.
One day she carried her arms full OF
roastin' ears to q Morgan colt | was
trainn' for the fair, and foundered
him so bad that I'll trot any COW on
the farm against him. Went out one
day along in August. and fetched in q
beautiful spray" she called il, "of
trailing crimson" 1t was poison-oa6,
an she didn't see out of one eye for
ten days. When she got well she
went out and poked down a hornets
nest, ''for her Kindergarten cabinet "
This time both eyes went on a strike,
and her Kindergarten will have to get
along with description of hornets
nest this winter.
One day in hayin' she took one of
the work horses that l Just couldn't
get along without and went to town.
She was gone all day, and came back
with about twenty yards OF blue and
white ribbon. An | hope to die un-
der mortgage if that girl didn' want
the men to tie punches of ribbon on
their rakes and hats, and wear white
shirts and low-neck shoes, and march
out to the bayfield, in procession. with
her at the head, all singing a chorus
from The Haymakers. She saw it
done that way once Mt a theatre. an
said she thought it was always done
that way on farm. Why, she rugged
me up in that way / wouldn't of been
seen in the dark like it, and my wife
laughed an laughed till the tears run
down her wrinkled old checks ooh
Bart, Bart she said, Il wish you
could see v0urselfiN Why. wouldn't