The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1910-08-26

garden. built fence or put up build.
ing She has earned several hundred
dollars teaching school and working
for her father in the meantime She
has eaten, slept, worked and lived uu.
der her fathers roof not staying on
the claim more than one night in six
months or year. Not Cowtrack can
be seen on the place. She is holding
down a Kinkaid Gao acres, that can.
hay and pasture. The demands of the
kinkaid law are that the homestead.
er live upon his land. make il his home
and cultivate the soil. In sandy re.
giOns especial stress is laid upon full
filling the home claim, and great lati.
tude is given to the unmarried woman,
vino must earn her own living. She
can so away to teach or work by the
week, but she must improve her claim
with at least a part Of the money and
spend enough time to assure the gov
eminent Of her intent to maintain a
home. In brief, the author of the
law says, Home is where you eat
and sleep and get your washing done.
| II is the intent that governs all doubt.
full cases" The law makes exceptions
in the case of illness, fire, accidents
and storms destroying crops.
The Rustic Rockefeller.
A more serious offender Is the
| n CT u htit
thriving now and then in isolated re-
gions monopolist of the sandhills,
a Rockefeller of the prariries, who
preys off his kind, who knows the law,
and who uses his sharpened instincts
to keep out of the clutches of that law.
| He wants all the land and water and
trees and skies he can see or get an
option on. He bluffs his less knowing
neighbors into believing he owns the
earth. He gets hold of the lands by
no right or title, but by nefarious
methods, that if known would land
him in states prison. He leases land
that does not belong to him. He sells
hay that is not his to sell. He gets
! friends and relatives to file on land,
they never Intend to settle on. If
some honest settler brings a contest
and wins the suit, he begins a series
of petty prosecutions, calculated to
discourage, starve or drive the home
steader out of his dominion.
One rural monopolist was caught
turning his herd at night upon eighty
acres of ripened corn that belonged
TO his successful contestant. That
| field represented the settlers cash ac-
count for the year. He had left
few COWS Every now and then one
was missing. One of his horses got
| the habit of wandering away and was
! found with its neck broken in a gulch
among the hills. When the garden
was ready to yield its cash account
! in tomatoes and potatoes at 81 per
bushel, Rural Rockefeller's hogs would
be sure to swOop down upon the fence,
tear it down and deVour the product
of the homesteader's labor. BY the
third or fourth year, the settler is us
ually ready to sell or abandon his
right to Rustic r., for he has despair
ed of catching or Furnishing this vi
Cious offender, who often works
through middleman in such way as
to save himself from the law.
And just as the real Rockefeller
finds public opinion his friend and the
law his protector, this prairie magnate
is held in high esteem, and great fear
by his neighbors. Not man-even a
Victim-will complain publicly. But
all in private tell of his misdeeds and
depredations, and look in vain for
catspaw to pull their burning chest
nuts out of the fire. Life is the same
in the sand hills or in Ohio, the
birthplace of presidents and political
leaders. Human nature is the same
among the gulches of the Niobrara
and Wall street and the city hall in
Chicago. In the city protected monop-
olists defraud their brothers of mil
lions. In the sand hills, an intrench-
ed magnate steals a quarter of hay
holds claim illegally, butchers his
neighbors beef at night and hides it
in the sand, or when eggs are high,
puts in four rotten eggs to the dozen,
and mixes tallow with his butter.
Rosa Hudspeth