Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1899-09-24
THE RICHMOND DIsPATCH--sUNDAY. SEPTEMBER e. 1872
HIS PA is In TOWN.
OILERS UNsOPHIsTICATED HANo-
YER PARENT AGAIN VISITS HIM.
CITY PEOPLE ARE 50 HEAR1LESS.
The Old Gentleman Registers Ills
Usual Kick About the Mnitreat-
ment of Farmers, Goes to the Cir
Gus. and Gets a Free Ride Home.
nent of Fai

Pa Is down from Hanover visiting me
again Last winter he struck town with
the big blizzard and devoted his entire
time to swearing that the storm wasn't
in IL with the winter of IS. When he re-
turned home, however, he took with him
Richmond's entire stock Of chilblains,
and for weeks afterwards rheumatism
made him below like a bull But ii takes
q heap to down the old man. Spring, as
usual, found him on the soap-box at the
crossroads store, cussn' his congress-
man for not sending him garden seed
and bitterly lamenting the fact that
farmers don't stand together in poll
ties. I'm afraid Pa is pessimistic, any
how. The older he gets-and he's most
q hundred-the more he finds to kick
against. Hes born Populist, and
thinks silver dollars sixteen times as
large as those we now need should be
distributed free among agricul lrists. He
ecesn't know exactly why the circulating
medium should be so literally bestow-
ed upon farmers, but he does know that
people of his class have been brutally
maltrcated by the city folks. You
couldn't chisel this idea out Of his era
mum, for he's that bull-headed that n
thirteen-inch projectile couldn't make
HIM waive a single point. This is agra
vatin'-very aggravatin'-and when Pa
hits Richmond feel as miserable as the
man who attached a circus elephant for
- ln.1
repairing the breakage caused by little
burst of temper on the part of the ele-
plant. There amt any way TO get at
Pa when he comes TO town he's sus-
picious and wary and Guerulous and
imagines that the whole city is con-
spring TO sell him q gold brick or 10
cheat MIN out Of the eggs he leaves az
his commission merchants. The burden
of his sOng-and by the way, ii is an
awful burden-is that the farmer is
everywhere oppressed and down-trodden'
and that people laugh at country folks
and rldicule them most maliciously
VI hen / buy vegetables from Pa / pay
the highest market prices. yet he con-
t.nually hints at the parsimony Of ms
son, and says one should at least expect
fair treatment from his own child. II
wish he'd come forward and let me give
him the glad hand. The old gentleman
is as close as bark TO a tree, and up in
hanover they say he's so stingy that he
won't have a fire in his house for fear
the smoke viii wear out the chimncys
The only way they keep warm is by hay
ing the whole place covered with mort
cages, though even then an occasiona
draft blows in on them. EXcusn' TN,
fact that the old gentleman really has
got some strong traits Of character
particularly bull-headedness-I am con-
strained to remark coniidentially. and no
for publication, that 1 believe he'd Skin
a flea for his hide and tallow.
Just as one feels neuralgia in the face
Immediately before the thermometer
falls. so one may expect TO see PA in
town when a circus is advertised. Ue
always swears his simultaneous appear
ance with that of the show is due TO a
| coincidence and that business brings him
here, but he has tried the trick too often
to fool me. Years ago, when Richmond
abandoned her annual agricultural fairs.
Pa cussed out the whole place and sWore
we would soon be obliterated from the
map. On that occasion he reminded me
Of Regulus foretellng the fail Of Garth
|
proud city, thou art doomed" Pa con-
strues the fact that this city still pros
pers-or, rather exisis-as a personal in
suit to himself. You couldn't get him
to admit that it prospers; he sees dis
| Indignation everywhere, and as ] have
indicated, he invariably drops in 10 look
at our decay about the time the circus
gets here. Such is the old gentleman $
contempt for modern progress that he
| eschews railroads cars and comes 70
| Richmond via the Brook turnpike I'm a
| canvas-covered wagon. His appearance
at our house is regarded by the Com
mander-in-Chief as a domestic calamity.
but her back-handed thrusts are like
water on a ducks back TO him. After
| the old gentleman has exchanged the
usual greetings with me and commented
| on the fact that the towns loOkirg
kinder slow" he suddenly and invari-
ably says: "Hi, 1 understand there s
a show here to-day Guess I'll have 10
take the children. won't II" To this
| coldly reply: mo, they're at school. you
| know" but that doesn't bother him.
| What he's after is a free ticket, but
take pains to fail to grasp his point. by
and by. after he has nosed around the
| house for a little while expectorated
freely and uproariously in our porlor and
| chuckled over them gimcracks and do
| funnes on the mantepiece." he sneaks
out on the street That means he's COINS
| out TO get a squnt at the parade, though
| he swears he's got 'to see a feler down
| town"
Pa is a great man for being on time.
| If the circus is TO parade at ii a. NJ. he