Middletown transcript., 1903-02-28
Al MEASURE OF WHEAT
By EDGAR Z. HAMPTON

/ hO lOHCAo oCi Ca hlVn oOhO Shes
grin she had come a seeont
time, set her dainty little foo
down, and amid a storm of pas
sionsdeclared she just would go
And then, the great show o.
temerity suddenly forsaking her
she had tumbled into his arms
weeping and begging and kiss
ing, till he had rushed away in
CONSERVATION to the bank and
| drawn FIVE hundred dollars as
a starter.
The old man smiled to himself
at the thought of it. It did him
good to remember how the girl
had outdone him. After all, she
was his daughter-she ought to
beshrewd. She certainly got it
from no stranger. However,
he deeply deplored what he con-
sidered the undeniable evidence
of degeneracy in the race when
daughter of his, after all his
careful training, had developed,
at the tender age of fifteen, a
love for books, newspapers and
society stronger than that she
entertained for dishwashing and
the garden hoe.
Old man Keating was one
among the thousands whom the
Government Donation Land
Law of the sixties, which gave
to every man of family six hum
dred and forty acres of the free
rich loan of the Willamette Val
ley-hardly enough to repay the
imminent dangers of the journey
had enticed with OK teams
across the plains to Oregon.
John Keating's first business
deal had been put through then
and there when he laid his plan
before a certain young lady.
The young lady soon thereafter
became Mrs. John Heating. To
gether they had travelled the
long months, driving a few milch
cows before them, to settle in
the broad, open prarie, near
what afterward became the town
of Sheridan.
But that was near half q CEN
tury ago, when apples were fif-
teen dollars a box and ginghams
could not be had at any price.
But wheat-well, John Heating
began to raise dollar wheat.
With hundreds of others who
were first on the ground he made
a fortune out of dollar wheat.
He bought another section join
ing his first, and then began to
bank his money.
In the course of twenty-five
years came a new population,
and it was distinctive. An en-
ergetic, restless, business people.
in the East had received a tip,
and they came like a fight of
hungry locusts, increasing year
by year. Cities sprung up every
where, ships ran into every sea-
port and steamboats, plowed all
the rivers.
The new populace gobbled up
the remaining land running far
out into the fertile foothills; they
purchased everything available
for mill, factory and town sites;
they laid hold of the reins Of
government, to the very consid-
erable disgust of the first inhab-
itants.
Then the worlds market be-
came surfeited with wheat, prices
dropped, and the hard times that
will always be known as the
crisis of American farm life came
to Oregon. There was a short
age of crops in the Argentine
Republic, a large firm failed in
London, American currency was |
contracted, confidence became
shaken, investments were drawn
In, the United States issued bonds |
TO defray government expenses
in time of peace instead of levy
ing taxes, and within two years
the Willamette Valley farmer
was selling wheat at forty cents.
A year later those who were
forced to sold at thirty five cents
and the fall of 1897 found thirty
cents the prevailing price of
wheat throughout the country.
This is who old man Heating,
as he drove down the Willamina
road, looking complacently from
right to left upon his own focks
and herds grazing in the fields,
and his own lands stretching out
mile upon mile, corrugated with
fences, saw also, here and there,
as far as the smoky horizon on
either side, occasional red or
brown painted granaries, busting
with Oregon legal l-tendef. The