Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-09-25

The country roads wind among the hills
and through the valleys. called here, divides
and draws, hard and smooth, winter and
summer.
Distance does not much count. Footmen
along these roads are almost unknown. IL
is the land of the saddle, the buggy and the
light wagon. Nothing is thought or little
boys and girls riding ponies each day to
school and distance a little greater or less
does not matter in the least
Already this country is extensively crossed
by railroads and on these roads stand the
pretty little country towns. Here are
schools, often one of them a high school,
established under the Nebraska law. In
the case OF county seat there Is usually
court house, better than the average one in
eastern states. feature regarding the
depot is an extensive stock yard and cattle
chute
AS a rule, there is, nothing about these
western Nebraska towns that is sordid, de-
cayed and tumble-down. Paint and thing
are used without stint As one approaches
them by train, it is curious at night to
see twinking far away on the hor1zGA the
rows of electric lights.
In summer this wide slope is green, starred
with yellow; in winter 1t is brown, some
times flecked with white snow patches.
In early autumn brown cumps that are
stacks OF hay dot the same for miles. The
striking feature to a stranger, is the scat
tered groups OF grazing cattle that even
in mid-winter dot the landscape. This
grass would not TO the same stranger seem
of much value II he saw It in midsummer.
1t was not thick on the ground and was
browner than It was green, yet here II is
the winter choice OF beasts who usually
understand their own appetite.
There is a charm In this plains life and.
besides, the country is a health resort al
most If not quite, unequalled. 1t is not ad-
yertised as such. People there are not
keeping summer hotel and printing analysis
OF mineral springs yet It is known fact
that the asthmatic and the prospective con-
sumptive can find no better place.
One OF the first questions that ever arose
here was the question of water. When in
the early times of the frelghters, the Pixies
Peak emigrants and forty-niners did not
find running streams for each days march
they called the country names. There are
streams In considerable numbers streams
frequent enough TO supply hosts OF Duftalo
in the olden times, but there are not enough
TO supply all the nearby water the profit
seeking modern cattle man wants. "A
remedy was found-a better one than ma
ture can furnish by herself. The country
is so dotted with windmills now that 10 the
passerby they are a feature OF the land
scape They stand over inexhaustible wells.
Sometimes there are only twenty-five feet
deepLoften they are more than a hundred.
but they do not fail aud the southwestern
Nebraska breeze does not remain idle an
hour in the twenty-four. The tanks get
fun and run over. small lakes are formed
and still the windmill grinds on. There
seems TO be no. reason for turning II Off.
except that It will all the sooner wear out
The cattle know all about It. They rejoice
in the invention OF the windmill and the
tank and would not go to the creek II they
could. This means OF watering stock Is
one OF the reasons for the thrift and free
dom OF diseases of all domestic animals, OF
these plain cattle.