Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-06-03

seph B. Bowles.)
Concerts were on Saturdays, gen.
orally, and commenced in the after
noon and wound up about nine o'clock
In the evening. Selections from the
latest classic ragtime were mostly in
demand, and while the music was not
at all intricate, some of it was played
very we'll, and with invariable earnest
ness.
Saturday afternoon at the county
seat was always the social clearing
house for the entire county; for if you
owed anyone call, and did not have
time to 90 over and see him, you
could count on It as almost q sure
thing that you could find him in town
Saturday some time, and usually in
the afternoon. So the streets and
corners were lined with men, and the
stores were crowded with women who
were not only doing their weekly shop
ping, but were meeting friends and
nefghbors and exchanging news and
gossip of their respective neighbor-
hoods.
In the summertime, too, the local
baseball club held it's celebrations, in
the way of doughty contests with the
nine of some nearby town; and the ex-
>cftement was always intense among
the adherents of the respective cham
pions. AS there were no street cars
in this particular county seat, and no
means of transportation to the scene
of the fray except by one small "bus'
the spectators generally went in bug
gies, or even by foot. There was just
as much interest displayed as at a
metropolitan game, and excitement
was always at a white heat until the
games terminated The county seat
papers had elaborate accounts of the
games and the playing of this or that
local favorite was gone over with the
same attention to detail and the identi-
cal phraseology used as the dailies in
the great cities used in their columns.
Shopping at the county seat was a
great institution on Saturdays, es-
pecially in the afternoons; the farm
ers driving in from miles around to
make their purchases. Most of the
stores were general stores, with mer-
chandise of all sorts, but there were
some that stuck closely to one line of
goods. recollect being in one gen.
eral store where they sold among 9TH
er things stoves and carpets and hear
ing a farmer and his wife who had
just bought stove, discussing the
buying of a covering for the floor on
which the stove was to be placed. The
wife wanted oil cloth, and the store
keeper, either to please her, or to get
rid of the oil cloth, talked long and
enthusiastically on the beauty and de-
STABILITY of oil cloth for the room.
But the farmer was obdurately in
favor of a rag carpet. To the remon-
strances of the storekeeper and the
protests of his wife he retorted with
the remark, We'll, by gum, l amt
goin' to step around barefoot on no
oil cloth with the thermometer pintin'
to IS degrees below zero, and make
fires ever mornin' an git out ashes
I tried that one winter, an want a
carpet, so'st l can make fires bare
foot, an climb back in bed till the old
woman gifts coffee ready" They CON-
promised on rag carpet to please the
old man.
In the summertime there are the
horse races occasionally, and there is
just as much juggling, and working
in ringers" at county horse race,
as there ever was at a big race track.
l don't know of any easier way in the
world to lose money than to bet it on
country horse race; unless it is to
play poker with total strangers. There
was good track at our county seat,
and the best way to enjoy it was to 20
out and see the horses run, and let
the other fellows do the betting.
When the county fair came, there
were all the old and tme-honored in
situations of the side show, the prize
bull, the largest pumpkin, the three
card monte man and the little pea
that held the shell where you always
guessed it wasn't. Here was pink
lemonade and the harmless, neces-
sary peanut; here were the proud and
naughty stations and curly-necked
bulls. Here at any time you could
hear the lowing of the herds. the
Growing of ROSTERS and the baaing of
silly sheep. Here the farmers leaned
over the pens and stalls, over the
stys and boxes that held the cattle.
hogs, poultry and various parapher-
MALTA of the exhibits, and talked.
gesticulated and affirmed loudly about
the merits and dement's of different
breeds and crosses.
And here the inevitable girl and her
fellow" promenaded, with balls of
pop corn and bags of peanuts in their
hands, happy in their ignorance of
responsibility, basking in the 'fool-
ishy' time between freedom and mat
rimony.
In the evenings, the band, now &C.
cupylng position of local prom
nence, discoursed from their instru-
ments the wild and fluctuating notes
OF various misfit strains, and the
bearded lady and the headless wonder
divided honors with the enormous
python and the beautiful albino of the
side tents.
"Barkers," blatant of voice and
brazen of demeanor, tore off strips of
verbal dissonance in praise of their
wares or exhibits, and many hard