Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1893-01-19
LooUAcIous soUATTEas.
Queer Folks One Meets While Travelling
Owe: Stretches OF Prairie

Oye;- Stretches of Prairie
Journeying across the prairie IN which
ever way the road runs, we at length
overtake the strangest looking cavalcade
1naginable-a dilapidated wagon with
dirty. ragged cover. drawn by an Ill as
sorted team of a very small horse and an
diversified mule long since fit subjects for
the boneyard. The driver is dirt be-
grimed, tobacco stained. low visaged
man. while his wife and family. which
last is much too numerous for even a
wealthy man. are if anything more
dirtv, more ragged and more disheveled
than himself On a tall, gaunt mule
rides the eldest son and heir q, driving
before him herd of two cows, calf,
one sheep. goat and an old. blind, lame
horse. while two NANCY, mongrel ours
trot in the rear as if only too fully aware
of their miserable existence. Occasion
ally the jaded team essays to move out
of walk, but as quickly relapses into
the pace which for many weary months
has been its accustomed gait.
As we rode up the following dialogue
ensued:
''Howdy."
''Howdy."
"Traveling?"
"Travelin rite smart"
"Come far"
Come from the bottom lands of old
Missoury."
At which point there is lull in the
conversation, during which each surveys
the other Suddenly the knight of the
tobacco quid turns interrogaTer:
Say. Stranger. what might yer name
be-
At this an insane desire takes posses
sion of us to reply like the schoolboy.
lit might be Jones. but it amt, but we
tell him our name, after which the way
is open for an endless string of inquiries
the first of which are invariably:
What might your business beS
Where be you goin?
"Where'd you come FROM
"How's crops there?"
This sort of thing is bad enough to go
through once. but when one passes a
dozen such each day in the week, with
each of whom he is expected to go
through the same performance, it be-
comes terror by day and a nightmare
in our dreams. Moreover. one is ex-
pected to stop and go through it, and |
have more than once heard myself char
acterized as "too high toned to talk to
common folks" and merely because
had no time to stop and talk with them.
The absurdity of this is at once apparent
to those here in the east, where to mind
ones own business is the universal Gus
tom. As matter of fact, a live, ener-
getic man has no time to talk or fool
with people by the way. 1t matters not
a picayune whom be meets, what their
business is. where they are going or any
thing else concerning them.
At night we camp at the only water
hole we have seen during the day and
are soon joined by three bands of NOV
ers. Presently as many fires are burning
and as the darkness gathers the scene is
by no means unpicturesque. Children
are playing about. women are cooking,
the men are tending the horses and stalk
ing them out for the night. while the
Pickering of the campfres, the harsh
talk and coarse laughter of the men lend
q certain something hard to describe
If everything we possess is not borrowed
by our neighbors we are lucky. even to
provisions, which last Of course are
borrowed with the mental understand
ing on both sides that they are not to be
returned. Supper over. the siege begins
Visitors pour in from all sides, mostly
from the male element. and for hours
we are entertained with complete his
tory of each. We cannot ask them 10
go. for. are they not gentlemen" and
as good as we? So there we sit, until
finally one by one they drop off and
leave us to ourselves.
This is fair sample of a ride over
Texas roads, and the same may be re-
peated every day in the year. In fact it
was during my stay until hated the
sight of wagon on the same road
Washington Post