The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1900-07-19
Written for The Prison Mirror.

Written for The Prison Mirror.
Patchs, the strangest little conglom-
Grafton of odds and ends you ever
beheld- -sut-begrimed, his ears filled
with cinders, red-eyed and one mess of
dirtiness generally, had arrived in
Jacksonville, Florida, from exactly
where Omnipresence only knows, he
could not have told you himself.
His wanderings had begun in Chi
cago and after wonderful adventures
he had reached New York, from thence
to Philadelphia, then to Baltimore and
then wonders of wonders on special
train filled with hightOned members of
the Masonic fraternity, into Washing
ton on the morning OF Benjamin Har-
rison's election day.
That day was an epoch in his little
life never to be forgotten. Washing
ton was all in gala dress, filled with
hundreds of fraternities, parading in
their gorgeous uniforms and brass
bands galore. A vision to his eyes
that made stories from Arabian
knights and Grims' Fairy Tales to
fade into obscurity in comparison.
He had watched the parades on the
magnificent avenues until his little
head was all a-swim with bewilder-
ment. Then he visited the park where
Father Washington's grand memorial
monument rises 555 feet and stupifed
himself gazing at it, after which be
took look at an eagle in its cage, a
buffalo, survivor of noble race of
animals that was slowly dying in cap
tivity-for the buffalo, like the Indian,
will not be enslaved, but withers and
wastes away under bondage, until a
kind providence relieves it in death
from enthrallment-andl last of all the
pretty, nimble looking deer.
But Patchs had heard of a more
beautiful land to the south. He had
solemnly been told of the land of Flor
ida, where a man had nothing to do
but just lay down and dream life away
amidst waving groves of oranges and
bananas and plantations of pine ap-
Piles, all abOunding with rock candy
mines, lemonade springs, soda water
fountains and bread fruit and cigar
ette trees and all to be served by the
most beautiful of black houris without
so much as the exertion of having to
order the things, as the houris would
anticipate your every wish.
So without waiting to even see the
great spectacular displays in the gay
capitol at night, he boarded a train
going south. After that his miEd was
all blank, hardly taking cognizance
of the changing forms of vegetable
growth as he passed from cooler
climates into the clear skies and balmy
weather of the south. If he noticed it.,
it was only strengthening his belief in
the happy land whittier he was travel
ing to, as he was passing from the
autumnal north into the fertile sunny
southern lands of Gulf.
At last after many weary hardships
and riding night and day, only stop
ping long enough to fill his belly with
a"hand-out" once in while and slake
his thirst at some convenient water
tank, he landed right side up little
bruised, after an all nights ride on the
top of freight train, in Jacksonville.
Since reaching the confines of Florida
he had begun to be disgusted by the
crude railroad train he had to beat.
From the elegant swift trains in the
north he had been in the habit of rid
ing, he was reduced to ride on slow
polk freights, with smoky little wood
burning scrap-iron machines pulling
them, with great big smokestacks all
out of proportion to their size, and
instead of beautiful black houris, he
found big black jumbo negro breakies
who carried heavy clubs to assist them
in putting on brakes and were quick
to use them on the seat of patchs'