Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1888-08-09
The Good Old Times.

4
Farmer Blewitt was little, dried
up, irascible man, and he used to
wear a red comforter around his
neck and red flannel ear lappers on
his plug hat when he went to meet
ing in the winter He was always
ready to argue that these modern
times We're awfully bad, and that the
good old times of a hundred years
ago were just right. He would decry
invention and improvement and say
thet the world would be better with
out them. He took newspaper on
purpose to count the murders re-
corded in it and tell how bad the
world had grown. He would stand
for hours on corner in the village
and retail his deductions on the pres
entan his regrets for the past.
One day he had whipped the minis
ter in argument, and as he had had
his dinner and the minister had gone
away mad and the women were at
work in the kitchen, he tipped back
in his chair, drew red silk handker-
chief over his head to keep off the
flies and went to sleep. He had not
slept over five minutes before his son
John came i'm and said:
Come, father, we must get at that
piece of wheat and cut it,
Blewitt got up and yawned and fol-
lowed his son TO the barnyard, where
his two sons sat on log filing a
couple of sickles.
What in the nation are you doing
with those old sickles?" said Blewitt.
One of the boys looked astonished
and said. "Doin'? Why, weare get
ting ready to cut the wheat"
Blewitt stared moment and then
said, "Why in thunder don't you
hitch on to that reaper and stop fool
in with them sickles?'
The boys looked at each other in
surprise, but said nothing Blewitt
ran to the shed, but there was no
reaper there. He came back. The
boys had got over the fence and were
on their kness reaping the wheat and
carrying it in gavels.
Boys said Blewitt, "what do YOU
mean by this foolishness? Where is
that reaper?"
Charley, the second boy, looked at
his father pityingly, and then tapped
his forhead and looked over to John,
who nodded and looked sad.
"Why, darn it, said Blewitt, "you
can never run them bundles through
q threshin' machine"
"Threshin' machine" said Charley;
why, you know as well as do that
shall have to fail this wheat out
mornings and nights while going to
school this winter, What ails you,
| father"
Blewitt, as we said, got mad easily,
and now he just hoped up and
down and said.
''Frail it outl 1t must be threshed
ready to ship on the cars next
month";"
Cars, cars" said John, "don't
know what ails you, father, or what
you mean. know Ishall have to team
this wheat down to Albany and sell
it for what it will bring. Here you
come out talkin' about reapers and
cars and threshin' machines, and
darned if / don't believe you are
crazy, so now"
Blewitt pinched himself to see if he
was awake and STROBE angrily to the
house. AS he approached the heard
a rumbling and roaring like wind,
and he looked into the kitchen and
there was his wife spinning Who-o-o
wen6 the big wheel and Blewitt sank
into a chair and yelled.
Now, Maria, what under the can
opy are you doin'?"
"Doin'?" said his wife; "why, spin
min, of course. | must get out forty
yards of tull cloth for you and the
boys, and twenty yards of pressed
flannel for me and the gals"
Blewitt looked down at his legs and
saw them incased in full cloth OF
coarse texture, and the seat of his
trousers he felt reached clear up to
his shoulder blades, and the legs were
as wide as two bushel sacks.
well, I'll bedarned," was all he
| said.
Dreamily he sauntered out again
to the wheat field, and John hailed
him.
Father, if you amt goin' to help
cut the wheat, suppose you yoke the
oxen and go up to the woods and
draw draft or two of logs for
wood?"
Blewitt was composed, but he said:
81 had intended to burn coal in the
sitting room and parlor, and not
cut much wood"
Goal, COAL" said John, angrily;
"now see here, father, l don't want
any more of this foolish talk. / am
goin' to git doctor"
Blewitt began to think he needed
one himself. Here his boys had never
heard of a reaper or a threshing ma
chine or ears. File felt of his full cloth
pants and groaned. On the lounge
at the house he laid himself down
and tried to calmly think things
over When the doctor came he
called for pail and barred Blewitt's
arm. He took out his lance, and
then Blewitt groaned again.
Il must take a gallon of blood"
said the doctor, "and then he will
calm down and be all right.
Don't you know bleedin' was
played out fifty years ago." said
Blewitt.
GLOW he wanders." said the doc
tor, and plunged in his lancet. Bile
witt tainted. When he came to him.
self he heard one of the girls talking
about an artist down in the village
who took profile pictures with a
spindle as natural as life.
"What do you want ofsueh blamed
pictures as that?" said Blewitt from
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