The Oskaloosa herald., 1904-05-26
LIFE AS YOU FIND IT.
Pointed Panegyric to the Penn Pic
ure Peddlers.

ture CRATER with a joyless woe about
the size Of conyalescent COW pump
kin. One Of those dismal, Disagree
able Respondent days when one can
only stay in his den and draw maps,
until he runs out of names to put on
them, and then write to everybody
he knows under the cerulean dome OF
heaven, to kill time.
Well, it's your turn next, but as the
day is fast fading into the shank Of
the evening, and the gas in the $500
per week Waldorf-Astoria where +
am stopping, doesn't turn on very
readily, you may as well prepare to
control your grief and suppress the
scalding tear when this comes to a
surprising and premature end.
Gettysburg is beautiful little VII
lage out here on the broad plains of
South Dakota 1t has three churches
and a high school and was canvassed
by the G. P.'s last fall. Surrounding
the town are many thousands of acres
of beautiful prairie land with nothing
on it but buffalo grass. Buffalo
grass is sort of a vegetable inn
provement on shredded wheat bis
cult. The houses in the country here
are so distressingly seldom that one
has to load up with bologna sausage
and oats and chewing gum and axle
grease and whiskey and other porta-
BILE pieces Of cold subsistence to avoid
J,ofn h.
tween PAGES.
The first day / was here rode my
wheel out on slight elevation to
the south of town and canvassed ev-
cry house in four townships at a
scanning CLEAN of the eye. I am not
a, professional scanner, either. The
next day I got a team and drove out
about twelve miles to a ridge of hills
beyond which I was told there was
a settlement. When I got to the top
looked away into the gulch below
and expected to see horde of griz-
zled tree chalmers" with their arms
full of photograph albums, fairly
climbing up one another's backs in a
mad rush to get to me with their pic
lures; but when I noticed the abrupt
and startling manner in which they
we're so exceedingly not there, felt
surprised and grieved.
The next day was still and cool. I
mounted my bike and taking my
magnifying glass, rode away into
grassy distance to see if l could To-
cate a house. After a while did.
There was not enough of it above
ground, however, to do me any good,
tso /. vert around and, lifting up my
voice to an elevation of about $4,000
feet above the level of the sea, ''hol-
Tered" down the baItIements. Pres
emily the grizzled phreno1ogy of an
old Russian appeared out of a hole
in the ground and told him my bus
mess. He said he didn't have any
place to hang it. told him I would
take his word for it and waive the for
mality of going down to see. Then
rode on for about II miles and finally
found a house, Here | secured a.
crayon. Then I came out and strad-
ding my wheel majestically, rode
away, gloating over my eternal tri-
ump for about 16 miles more.
AS a general rule ! do not gloat for
16 miles; but in this case did. There
was nothing else to do. l have hired
a young college boy who lives on a
farm up here to help me out in the
gloating business, a little. pay him
70 cents a gloat and he furnishes his
own expense money.
There is nothing particularly ex-
citing around here now. Monday
night we had speaking at the school
house"-it being the last day-and
last night the ladies had the annual
rummage sale at the town hall, for
the benefit of the preacher and gen.
eral advancement of Zion. During
an intermission in the sale, ice cream
and cake and other articles of frigid
sustenance were circulated.
On the way out here was in two
different towns where hospitals are
in running order. For want of time
did not go in and examine these
0AANkIAAAIlObC SIlGuLIOllo dSt l. SllOuIu
like to have done, but from casual
view of the exterior as / walked along
/ became more confirmed in my opin-
ion that Oskaloosa VIII never build a
hospital and flourish as a surgicaI
metropolis off the proceeds of the an
nual rummage sale. The rummags
sale is good thing in its way, but it
should not be oyerworked. 1t is all
right to depend upon the cast Off
clothing and respondent rags Of the
town to pay OFF the preacher, but
when it comes to examining the rick
ETY. upholstered furniture, the infrm
and prehistoric mattress and the rus
ty, decrepit cook stove with a cork
leg and unmanageable breathing APP
paratus into the foundation Of a sue
cessful hospital, it is my opinion that
the man who is sitting up nights with
an invalid stomach on his hands, or a
torpid liver in his system, waiting