The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1894-12-25
NYE IN THE GROIX.
HE DWELLS ON THE ADVANCE
OF CIVILIZATION THERE.

atomy, and of His Leg, That Was Laid
Up in a Glass Case for Repairs.
Copyright, 1894, by Edgar w. Nye.1
In THE ST, CRoIX VALLEY DURING THE
INDIAN SUMNER OF THE PRESENT YEAR
1t seems almost incredible now, look
ing over this most beautiful and pros
porous country, which pours a flood of
wealth into the Golfers of the New Eng
land farm mortgages, that where we
now stand the rank thistle once nodded
in the wind and the wild fox or the
woodchuck dug his hole unsecured.
Here, where the shrek of the locomo-
tive on half a dozen Chicago lines en-
tering st. Paul and Minneapolis echoes
up and down the beautiful lake, and
where once the goddess barbarian rose
from his couch unblest and uncivilized,
there now stands a penitentiary with
a seating capacity of 300 and turning
away business every day.
Where now is the bronze maiden
with. the chapped feetf
Echo answers, "Heap gone, all same
woodbine!'
Here, where cultivation has reached
the very apex of Norwegian refinement,
and where the other evening I disap-
pointed a large audience as a substi-
tute for Ca-nute Nelson, known and
beloved here in the northwest as the
Little Short Necked Norwegian, once
the dusky warrior had his home, and
in the crisp spring weather his fiancee
strained the golden maplesirup through
her blanket, yet warm from her bronze
shoulders.
"What changes have come hereI" as
one of my Pop friends said last even
ing. Forty two years ago I came to
this country and found it the very
slough of barbarism. Indians without
suitable underclothing for this rigorous
climate roamed up and down the st.
Croix and violated the game law with
impunity. No white mans life was
safe. 1t has taken me over 40 of the
best years of my life to bring about a
change, but in that same valley there
are now a thousand schoolhouses, one
nominal school in this congregational
district, as my Pop friend says, and
$50 churches that are almost self sup,
porting.
One can hardly believe that here
now we sit surrounded by all that can
go to exalt and embellish life, a few
brief years ago the nasty Indian
camped out and lived joyous and jag
less. He did not know that by sin
death came into the world. He knows
it now; also that pneumonia comes
with Lighthouses and steam heat, late
hours and a crock full of Saltwater
wassail.
Since then we have come through all
the various periods and strata that go
to build the geological abutments upon
which rest civilization and appendi-
citis, No one had appendicitis when I
came here on the stern deck of a horse
in 1852. We had no comforts, no pare
sis, no esoteric research. no acute gas
tritis, no cratic poetry outside the lUm-
Der camps, and 1 was baptized by the
same man who shod my steers. Those
were grand old days, and no one hest
tated about being immersed by a man
who could stagger a stag with one
blow or hold the hind leg of a clay bank
mule till the ornery brute ruptured
himself with suppressed wrath.
I tell you these pioneer expounders
of the Scriptures never drowned any
body. I've seen a 300, pound man i'm
mersed in the Kinnic Kinnick, and
after playing with him a few moments
the preacher landed him on the bank,
jumped up out of the water, cracked
his heels together and called for an
other. 1t was March, and ever and
anon a % pound cake of ice would hit
the parson in the back, but the rosy
old apostle liked it, and we often had
to go into the river and pull him out
by force, he liked it so well.
Then came the vast appetite for real
estate, when every one was excited,
and sven the preacher said n day in
an absent minded way as he opened the
Bible, Brothers and sisters, to day,
you will ind my text in the N. W. t OF
the s. w. + of section 9, township SO,
range IS, west"
The little upper Mississippi steam
boats came up the river after the ice
went out, and one long toot of the
whistle would empty a church in eight
minutes. Some of these little boats
were like the Georgia steamer with the
n horsepower engine and II horse
~ r.-..hnm littln hnnf With