The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-19

IRENE of using fertilizers on the wheat /
land and eating bread. Old women and /
young men Old enough TO vote considered /
IT a remarkable experience TO eat with the |
Ohio folks and taste bread for the first |
time after a life spent in making and eat /
ing hot biscuits three times a day. But /
such invitations did not add 20 the popu-
Iarity of the Ohio folks in the minds OF
the people from Perry county and Ken
lucky
Thirty years after, there was a war in
another continent because a satisfied peo-
pie objected to the Innovations of people
who thought themselves more advanced
The same war was waged in another way
for twenty years in Davis county. Illinois,
and when the radicals won, a decade ago,
the country sprang up like the blackberry
bushes which hid all its fences, and bore
luscious fruit of schools, turnpikes. cleo
trio lights and a new courthouse, almost
in day.
But ii was long before that when old
Sammy Shacklett, who had been sheriff for
five terms, died Then the people were
simple in their ideas and satisfied with
their lives The old women smoked en-
the other side, through the winter even
ings; there was not a buggy in the county
except one owned by the rich miller; on
gala occasions, the Fourth of July and the
week of the county fair, families went to
,, town in farm wagons with spring seats and
green wagon beds that made Pullman
pale in the intricacies of decoration. The
women and children picked blackberries
in, in no
mer; the men went to town, court week
in February and August, and then the
courthouse yard was the clearing house
| for the whole county, and for all sorts Of
transactions from trading farms to gossip
The young people quit school as socn as
| they grew large enough to do much work
at home. and apple cuttings in the sum-
mer and parties in the winter furnished
| amusement and opportunities for court
| ship. The parties were monotonously alike
and always new, for each was a continual
succession of games in which kisses were
as plentiful as revolutions in the waltzes
are plentiful at a society ball elsewhere
| and in another age. 'Weevilly Wheat"
was the favorite game, for it afforded the
| greatest opportunity for kisses-and it
must be said, in justice that some noted
modern opponents of the art of kissing
the stage and in the Microscopes could
| learn something from those young people
| into whose circle of life Noel Shacklett
was born-a circle with short radius. yet
Enclosing much TO be had nowhere else.
OF course, kisses make trouble. and there
was trouble there often enough. 1t began
with the weakening of diplomatic relations
| between two young men, advanced to the
stage of unfriendly remarks; went on to
| the casus belli; reached the point of the
| ultimatum; and finally attained to actual
| hostilities. The fighting not always
short and sometimes not furious Gener-
ally it began with a blow from a muscular
arm against a head that was immovable
on a strong neck and shoulders; then there
| was the cyclonic mix-up; many times the
! moonlight glinted from the polished brass
| knuckles or the flashing. long-bladed pock-
| ct knife; less often there was the awkward
! and slow drawing of a revolver out of re-
| pair which sometimes went off when the
| barrel was in line with the adversary, but
| in most instances was taken away from
its owner by one of his friends before the
cartridge was exploded. In any event the
victor got the spoils-the right to sit up
until midnight or an hour later on Sunday
night with the girl who caused it all; and
the vanquished knew when he sup
pressed and sought the smiles of another
girl who was "going with a fellow he
himself could whip.
The conversation among the women was
gossip; the talk of the men was about
farm work. local politics. and the intricate
relationships which resulted from intermar-
riages and fixed boundaries of intercourse.
Business was done upon the basis of caveat
emptor and the minister did not hesitate
to say at the dinner table that he did not
think it a sin 10 lie in a horse trade, for
the man on the other side the horse was
not deceived, and the owner of the horse
knew he would not be fooled All their
philosophy and ethics was as simple as
this. Caveat emptor and THUS far shalt
thou CO. set the pace and the limits of
their morals-and the "thus-far" line war
drawn where fraud shades into larceny
and where assault with intent to kill is
divided from homicide. On the inside OF
: this line of demarcation success was Chi
J valrously applauded; on its farther side
it was only a contest between the prose
cutting attorney and the lawyer for the
defense in which the people took the same
! interest that below the Rio Grande was
given to bull fights.