Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1909-1911, 1910-07-29
ONE CENTURY HENCE
THIS STORY MAY THEN MOTT
SOUND AT ALL FUNNY.
You Man In the City, Take This Timely
Tip. and Forthwith SkedaddIe
Right Back to tho
Farm.

1t is Paala's old-fashioned wnim that
makes us visit the old folks in the city
every FIVE or six years | think she
hates to leave the comforts of the farm
as much as l do. but she was born and
reared In the city, poor girl, and, per-
haps, even stupid, out-of-date Broad
way has faint memorial lure for her
Also she has a queer sentiment about
duty to ones parents, never having
been taught that parents are mere ac-
cidents, for which ono Is not respon-
sible.
Never again, though! I'm back among
my cows and conveniences, and never
more will | be dragged into the dinky,
dull, seedy, subway-ridden, poverty
stricken dump they call New York
Paula's folks can think, If they wants
to. that I'm sweiled up and look down
on them just because I'm farmer and
they mere common city folks. They
can come out here and cape at my pri-
vate monorail system, run my best
aeroplane into the hanging spinach
gardens and smash the wireless with
their chatter to Cousin RudOlph'S
folks in Mars. They're welcome any
time. But they can't reciprocate.
My father had some sense. He was a
good old Orty-niner-joined the Back
to-the-Land Rush Of 1849, you know
and I've stuck to his pay dirt. The
fools that stayed in the city can keep
staying there. II they can live on
$500 a year and enjoy clerking In a.
store at that pay, all right. But one
of my automatic hens earns more than
that in week.
I've tried to help 'em, too. Why, my
wife's dad. even at sixty-nve. If he'd
take my advice and buy little IA
story irrigation farm In Sahara, stock
1t with artificial dirt, raise flowers on
the ground floor. pigs on the second,
fruit on the third, and 30 on, would
have a decent nest-egg before he died
And he'd be within Ii minutes fly of
New York all the time.
The cost of living began going up
way back In my grandmother's time
1908 or something like that-and still
| a lot of those city dopes couldn't take
| hint-went on putting good money
into railroads with two rails.
However. it's no use ridicuhng the
| wife's folks. All say is that I won't
visit their foolish urban den any more.
| Why, the old man makes noises when
| he talks, as II the soundless speaker
| had never been invented. And he want
ed me to shave with a safety razor,
when one could see at a glance that
my vacuum puller had given me bald
face for life.
Then, when asked the butler to call
| up Aunt Jennie's spirit In the other
world on the spook telephone, Paulas
| mother Informed me that they DIDN'T
| talk with the dead, because 1t seemed
uncaanny to their old-fashioned miEds.
| Wouldn't that crumple you up?
But, of course, they're poor. l don't
| suppose the old mans got a million to
| his name. So I'll have to forgive them
| for running the sewing machine and
wash wringer with an electric battery,
| instead Of connecting the house with
! Halleys comet power, which runs
| everything on the farm except Paula.
Yes, l forgive 'em, but never again
| for me! Hey, Gus, switch the weather
| regulator for rain. | see by the long
| distance camera that the onions In the
| northeast corner of the seventy-third
| story are a bit dry. No, you can fill
| the New York order with the fourteen
| year-old eggs; l doubt II the thirteens
are ripe enough for the lay trade.
And shift the Burbank gage in the
| twenty-third level we'll raise pickles
on the strawberry vines this year
| Puck