New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1905-02-01
DESERT SHEEP HERDERS.
Their Lonely. sDreary Life Tends to
Drive Them Crazy

Drive Them Crazy
Do you realize what it means to
watch 5000 sheep alone in the desert?
You have read weird. grewsome stories
of the horror of the solitary lighthouse
keepers life. but compared to the days
OF the Mexican shepherd those of the
average keeper of the light are filled
with gayety and noise. Even with
their one or two dogs the shepherds
often go insane, and were it not for the
company of their shaggy collies the
lunacy among them would rise to an
almost incredible percentage. if we are
to believe those who have followed the
sheep in the desert and therefore may
be supposed to know
| Once in old Santa Fe N NJ, met a
/ man who for twelve years had follow
ed the sheep. His work was done All
day long he sat in chair in the rear
/ of a little dobe store. crouched over
gibbering to himself. bleating-an idiot
He still saw his sheep swaying like
great white wave among the sage
brush, and ever in his ears sounded the
killing monotone of their beats. One
boy. though fifteen years of age, is
mentally no further advanced than the
average child of five. His father is
shepherd. his mother died when he was
four years old, and his father took him
out upon the range. All his life has
been spent among the sheep. He is one
with them today
How is it possible. then you ask, that
i men are to be found willing to watch
them? 1t is very easy. Sheep herding
is a lazy job at best, and the 4'greaser'
is the LATEST creature on earth. For $40
a month he is willing to sit in the sand
and listen to the never ending bleating
until the little mind he has gives way
and they fetch him in from the range
j insane He is glad to take the chance
for $40 month
The greaser is not the only shepherd
in the west. On the vast ranges of Ne
vada and Wyoming you may run across
an occasional college man tending the
sheep. Once, indeed. a college professor.
ill of consumption, undertook to follow
i 5000 bleaters for the summer. In au-
tumn they found him insane, on his
hands and knees among the sheep.
bleating with them. Day after day his
eyes behold only brilliant turquoise
sky. in which hangs sun of brass; an
i ocean sweep of sage fecked sand and
/ a slowly moving, compact mass of
sheep. His ears hear no sound save the
steady "Baa, baav' day and night, af-
i fecting him as the Chinese criminal of
| ancient days was affected by the regu-
lar tap, tap of hidden drum.
And yet so long as the desert contin-
ues to provide food for the "bleaters"
so long will shepherds go mad among
the focks. and for ten years the deserts
greatest value to man has been the
/ food it has offered the sheep. nor yet is
the store depleted
| The Wickedness of Growing Old.
/ Here are the three deadly symptoms
Of old age: Selfshness. stagnation. in
tolerance.
If we find them in ourselves we may
know. we are growing old, even if we
are OH the merry side of thirty. But
happily, we have three defenses. which
are inv1llnerable. If we use them we
shall die young if we live to be hun
q dred. They are: Sympathy progress
tolerance
/ The first is the hardest to most of
us. because our own little prison of
the actual is so Immensely important to
i us. There is no denying the fact that
when you have a toothache yourself it
is hard to have to consider other peo-
/ pies aches. But it can be done, though
it generally involves physical effort, for
we must bestir ourselves and act. The
mere feeling Of sympathy expressed by
action is poor useless thing. but the
soul, determined not to grow old. can
force the body to such physical effort.
though there is no denying that it is
hard Work.-Harper's Bazaar
n ia