The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1899-08-04
NO 81
THE PASSING OF THE OK.
HE HAS HAD HIS DAY EXCEPT WHERE
CONDITIONS ARE STILL PRIMATIVE

CONDITIONS ARE STILL PRIMATIvE.
Notwithstanding the ubiquity of the
bicycle, and the more tardy develop
ment of the automobile, there is no
evidence that the horse is loosing
ground in our social and domestic
economy. On the contrary, there has
been an increase of about 40 per cent.
in horse flesh since 1882 and of about
twelve per cent, in the number of
mules, while that dear, quaint and
faithful servant of man, the patient OK,
has barely held his own in the last SIX
teen years. This is perhaps one of the
inevitable results of the quickened life
of the county. His star is in the de-
scehdent. While the country may be
congratulated upon the increased push
which demands greater speed and
power in our modern activities, sigh
of regret will nevertheless follow the
vanishing OK, just as it did the old
stage coach when the locomotive forced
it off the road
The OK is such good fellow his
companion will he missed. He is the
philosopher among beasts of burden.
He belongs by birthright to the "Don't
Worry Club" He chews the cud of
content even while he tolls and turns
upon his human companion, eyes so
full and soft and liquid that the great
Homer used them as the most express
sive smile occurring even to his almost
infinite invention to apply to the di-
vine Hera. So there is poetry in the
fine old beast as we'll as philosophy.
Huge and solemn but sweet-breathed
and amiable, he performs his tasks
with steady dignity that definite
value, even if small one, on each
passing minute and then ceases to bur-
den his soul with the fight Of time.
The gradual passing away of the OK
as beast of burden has the pathos
that attaches to the extinction of one
of the early families. They came to-
to the country together, and together
they took a pioneer part in its devel-
opment. They felled and drew off the
trees, they tore up the stumps, they
scanned and mellowed the rooty soil,
making it richly responsive to the
needs of man. They pulled out the
great stones that fretted the face of
nature and made garden spots Of the
rugged hillside and plain. The OK
was a factor Of every enterprise. He
was on the farm, at the wharf and the
mill. and when in those early days of
expensive and adventurous ideas, the
old places seemed too contracted for
the settler he bundled into prairie
schooner while his faithful oxen drag
CRED the ponderous wagon SIX
month journey toward the setting sun,
accomplishing distance which we
may now be whirled between the twi-
light and the dawn, browsing cheerily
as they wended their toilsome way
along, and boarding themselves when
the time for the nightly camping ar
rived.
But the old fellow has had his day ex.
cept where the conditions are still prim-
tive. Once he was the steady reliance
of every farmer, but now one hardly
sees yoke in the harvest field or the
plow lot. His place cannot be read
justed to the quickstep Of the modern
ideas and inventions, and the utilita-
rianism has no use for the poetic or
the picturesque. More and more his
destination is coming to the shambles.
This makes his life shorter and we
might say merrier, but merrim.nt in
an OK is inconceivable.