The record-union., 1897-08-15

| rose a little The men who worked
for the lumber companies at $50 a
month last year were now promised
that they should have $40 by and by.
There We're few difficulties, of
course. No great reform was ever
accomplished without difficulties. The
man who complained first was Peter
| Tulliver. Peter was in jail that year
for breaking the game law. The coun-
/ ty allowed the Sheriff So a week for
| Peters board. Under the gold stan
dard Peter had Jared sumptuously on
bread and ham and potatoes, but when
potatoes went to a dollar apiece and
| ham to So a pound, the Sheriff felt it
/ his duty not to exceed the appropria-
ton, and Peter Tulliver grew SO thin
that they had to let him have his gun
and fish-pole and the key of the jail
and tell him that if he would sleep
there nights it would be all right.
Mrs. Wilks was the next to complain.
When old man Wilks died, she had sold
her rights in the property to her step
son for fifteen dollars month as long
as she lived. Now her allowance would
not keep her in tobacco and when she
applied for admission to the poor-house
she found that the poor tax would only
support one pauper.
/ Willie Davis and Sam Smith caught
wolf in q trap over west of Long
Lake and had to go to Wells to draw
| the bounty-S30; but although they
walked both ways they spent S4S along
the road, and yet had Only one square
meal and one good drink apiece.
Then the County Judge resigned, for
his salary would no longer supply him
with postage stamps. The women
who did washing fer the lumbermen
and the boarders ct the hotels at sew
enty-five cents q dozen were the next
to suffer, and the families Of the men
who worked for days wages found
that, however fast wages might go up,
| they never could get in sight Of the
prices of clothing and provisions. The
| schools were closed because the school
tax would not buy pencils and stove
wood, which was lucky for the teach
ers, who would otherwise have had to
fulfill their contracts and work for sal
aries that would not pay quarter of
their board. It seemed strange that
when the county was so prosperous
and everybody had plenty of work SO
many people were hungry and ragged.
Yet there was always a chance for a
| smart man. For example, there Ws
| Hen Cole. Hen had steady job of
| chopping all through June and July
for the Black River Lumber Com
pany, and a steady job of guiding all
| through August. Hen had a tomato
can full of brass dollars and concluded
to get married. His father had never
| finished off but half his house. so Hen
ry got some clapboards and patched
up the unfinished end and plastered it
! himself, and got married and went
down to Johnstown to buy some furni-
ture and things. The furniture man
was glad to sell to him, and Henry
| found things so reasonable compared
with home prices that he bought a ta-
/ BILE and three common chairs and a
patent rocking chair and a bedstead
and a stove and some carpet and nice
brass kettle. But when he offered a
handful of Hamilton County dollars in
payment, the shopman's face changed.
'If I'd known you were from up the
river I wouldn't have spent so much
time on you," he said. 1--WE can't take
those things
Hen was indignant. They're Just as
good money as ever was" he said. You
fellows must be a lot of gold bugs
Now look here, my young friend, .
said the furniture man, where did this
money come from?'
Il earned it, said Hen, ''by guidin'
at So day, and 1 worked hard for it
too''
''All right" said the man. where
did the man get it that you guided?"
well, he was a feller from Amster-
dam, and he brought up an old brass
teakettle and had it coined"
And you worked for him how long?'
''Three weeks
''Wel," said the furniture man, eff
you'd worked three weeks for good
money you could have paid me easy,
but I'm not going to give you new
kettle for an old one and throw in a bed
wanted an old kettle there's one out in
the back yard"
Hen was astonished as he had never
been astOnished before.
You see,' said the Johnstown man,
you can't make thing what it isn't by
putting label on it. There wasn't any
more property in the world after your
blacksmith chopped that kettle into
pieces and marked the pieces than while
it remained kettle. You can't get
milk from a hedgehog by calling it a
cow"
Hen went out in front of the store
and sat on the stone horse-block for half
an hour in deep thought. Then he
walked into the furniture mans back
yard, picked up the old kettle that lay
there and started for the mint. The
next week he was back with a sheep
which he had bought from a man in
Morehouse. He sold the sheep and
bought all the brass hinges he could
carry. A fortnight later he was in
Johnstown again. He had a nice pair
of horses and big wagon this time,
and the wagon was full of country pro-
duce, of knit stockings, and legs of NUT
! ton, and rolls of butter, and fresh killed
partridges, and all the nice things that
the up-river country sends down to
market Hen took back a load of pig
brass and bought a. roadside hotel with
a f1ourishing trade in it's bar But he
displayed in his sales of drinks a prefer
ence for foreign money, and every week
/ his wagon went down to the railroad.
and when it came lack Hen bought a
few cows or somebody's farm, or hired
a gang of men to put him up a new
barn
Everybody else had experienced the
same difficulty in paying for things out
side of the county, so that they used
their United States money for their for
eign trade and the brass money for do
mestic transactions. AS the Boy Orator
| exnlainnd 70 some n11zzled cifiznnr