The Springdale news., 1907-01-04
Friends in the Hour of Need

What y got there, Sis:" inquired 1 Farmer Ryestraw as he kicked off his felt boots and set them carefully 1 behind the stove to dry. That's what l l thought It looked like, one of them there Chicago eatYlegS, though 1 l hain't seen one of them cl0St fer l quite d few years back. Me an your ma used to buy mighty nigh ever thing we used out CT them eatylogs when We first come to Kansas. Land sakes, l have to laugh now sometimes when l l think of the way we would get i ketched onet in while. They 'Se some cheap things n them eatYl0gS an then again they's lot t ain't so cheap. ' never ken tell tlil they come, an then It's too late to send 'em back. But as l was saYin', We ain't bought nothin' out of catylog fer a rig6t smart O years now, an the way it come about l had as well tell y cause 1 don't think y remember much about 1t.
 When we come to Kansas long in the first of the sos, we got along right well. We was able to pay cash for what We got, and We got the money for what we sold. We was payin' out on the place right along; crops was purty good, an we was d feelin' like I , f,f nn efforts and the happy home we dreamed about when we first got married was in sight.
 But they come change in kan- sas long in the last halt of the sos. Times got hard and kept a gttln tighter. Four straight years it was so dry y had to soak the hogs afore they'd hold swill--though 1 will say they was some extra reason 0n account of the swilI bein' 50 thin-wheat jest died In the ground fer want of rain, and the hot winds piled the everlastin' sap out of the corn They wasn't no pasture, no nothing. You can know we was feelln' purity blue about that time. but we was young aud strong, and thought with the chickens and hogs We could git through anyway.
 Then one day you got to complain in and lookin' so thin it worried us. Your ma Is a middlin good doctor, take 1t all around, but nothin' she could think of did you any good. Well you kep' gittln' pindlier and pindlier. till you got so'st v wouldn't do nothin but set in chair by the Kitchen stove wrapped in your mas old shawl and you looked so pitiful that We made up our minds to have the doctor, even If it took the last chicken on the place. We'll, he come an after he'd looked at you awhile an felt your pulse he shet his watch up with d snap an says, quiet ike, Better warm a place up fer her in the front room, don't have too much light, or any drafts to strike her. Then we kno@ed 1t wasn't no small sickness we had to fight, and when we got her fixed upin bed follered Doe cut on the porch an l says: Well, Doe, Sez 1, whats the matter with our little girl?9
 <" I don't want to skeer ye, Mr. Ryestraw, says be, but Pm afraid she is in for d siege of typhoid fever,
 Well, after he was gone 1 went out in the kitchen an told your ma, but she Sez, brave as can be, Well, Ezra if the Lord has seen lit to put that much more on our load we must bear up and fight it out and do our duty the best we kin leavin the rest to HIm, An thought so too. So we just kep' our hearts brave an done what seemed right to do.
 "The hardest thing to figure out, where to get tn medicine, an fruit an dainty things your sickness called for. We hadn't been tradin' with the stores much in Huston, buyin' mostly from the catylog folk and so we didn't have any credit there to speak of. But l went U Foster, tn druggist, an told him how things was. didn't have no money to pay for the things, an the prospect tor the next year was as poor or poorer than tn last.
 "W Thy cert nlee MT. Ryestraw, he says, jest let us know what you want
 "it Knocks the itch.'