Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1906-06-03

cific last, and, Oh the difference now that
I go over It again! why, Chicago was
west, then, almost. Anyway you we're
in the west when you reached Omaha
This time 1 haven't seen a building in
Omaha that l know, and the Oldest house
In sight is decrepit veteran Of possibly
ten years. Omaha used to sit on a blum
and battle its feet in the Missouri, which
caused the water to take on its peculiar
color. Now it has moved the blum into
the Missouri and ceased to battle its feet.
People in Omaha not only wear eyeglasses.
but have parlor organs plush albums. pig
sticking festivals-all kinds Of progress
The perfect ladies in the railway restau-
rant who ought to dole out sinkers and
coffee to us in the morning, because on ac-
count OF the rush to Frisco we cannot get
into the dining car. unless we breakfast
at noon are as superior as the women
on Fifth avenue, and let us know that they
walt on us simply out OF good nature, and
not because they have to.
It's Different Vow.
When you left Omaha and lodged the
holdup men, you entered treeless. fence
less prairie, that lasted all the way across
Nebraska and kept getting more so till
you began the climb across the Rockies
where there was nothing but atmosphere
| and sage brush. Now you enter a farm
yard and, stay in till you reach the noun
tains. It's the same old earth, no doubt
but who is going 10 believe It when II is
covered with straw, manure stacks and
signs. plowed in burrows 800 miles long.
fenced with wire, decorated with telephone
poles and electric lights and dotted with
board homes whose owners protect them
with windbreaks of willow and cottonwood
/ no longer h,Yf For ri
made the physical, mental moral change
trees. When it was open country the bliz-
yards dashed. over II and the air was dry
and crisp. Now it is warm and soggy.
And isn't IL characteristic. OF us that while
we are planting these trees In the fats
we are chopping them down as fast az we
can get our axes into them in the hills
The prairies have their share Of rain. but
in the east, where IN summer we have to
rely more or less on the stored water Of our
springs, we are destroying the forest that
holds the water and changing the land into
desert. The prairie rivers continue TO he
unimpressive. I should think thew would
build dams over them, something. lust To
see the water move. Here is the Platte.
winch is hve miles wide in one place, they
claim, and six inches deep. Imagine living
with a river in the country and having no
the rivers, such as they are, and the rain
and dew belt is moving toward the Pacific
Some morning, when NE have DESTROYED
the last of the trees on the Allegbenies
we shall awake to a dryness of centuries
and shall use hard names to the lumber
companies that will have DESTROYED ON
farms, our factories our villages and ou
drinking water-for some people do drink
water. even in the west
Some Things Missing.
Most Of the wild animals are gone. ever
the gophers. Those herds of woollv horse,
that pranced across the plains in my geoR
raphy have disappeared with the antelop,
ana the buffalo. A fellow passenger re
ports one coyote, prowling dsconsolat,
within sight of the train, but 1 have =,
take his word for it. The larks are singing
bless them, but the milliner will be aIon,
presently, and then the larks will decorate
the heads of the Women's Club of Dea,
Horse Gulch-the name changed by tina
time to Smithville. And 1 suppose yo,
could wander over the buttes without meet
Ing as many rattlesnakes as used to swarm
there. People kill other things for food
but they kill snakes on principle, and al
though the rattlers do not make an ex
hibition Of themselves. as the deer and eli
and buffalo used to do. stones will see
them out, and l dare say you will no
encounter them half often as we use
to see them. When l went over this roa
a quarter of a century ago 1 shot a rattle
at the very top of a butte So steep tina
you had to climb it with your teeth, al
most and 1 wonder why he had to liy
up there.
Another missing item in the romance q
the west is the old-fashioned prairie FIRE
old-fashioned in books of travel and ou
Biographies. According to those ascIer
pictures the Indians used to touch of IN
grass TO rout up the game or scare off IN
white men; the fire swept like a tornad
in a vast wall, 100 feet high, with smok
enough Tor Pittsburg, and hunters and sci
tiers at a distance, seeing II cominJ
mounted their chargers and fed as II hadS
were yawning behind them. as indeed
was. have seen several prairie fires sine
they broke QUE Ia that school geograph,
with herds OF wild car horses flying n
riously before them. and have never Ina
the luck TO see one where the flames scare
more than four feet or so, or advance
faster than the average hobo will wal
And what took out the poetry was 10 5,
the farmers wandering in and out amor
them. swatting them with old coats. n
the prairie FIRE is not worth while any NOR
Poor LO MOdernIzed.
But saddest OF the proofs that the we
Is now the east is the Indian. When
last saw him in Nevada and around Their
he was wearing feathers and tin cans, ar
was the old. majestic creation on Fen
more Cooper-almost Now he wea
whiskers and sits on the grocery steps
did see one camp OF 400 sacs and Fox
near Tams, but Tama is In Iowa. where Il
table d'hote exists; still. these Indians we
wearing blankets, carrying their papoos
on their backs and living In wiekieuI
They own a reservation there, but ha
taken TO farming and stock raising al
every now and then they go down IN
their jeans and extract a hundred or 30 I
another acre 10 add 20 their holdings
| 49, H. I'm hanl.rr.. Irnr..niIaI -IaIna.