Philip weekly review. [volume] (Philip, Stanley County, S.D.) 1907-1912, 1911-04-06
FARMING IN 2O11
VIII This State of Affairs Exist 100
Years Hence

that make us VlSlt the old folks IN
the city every five or six years.
| think she hates to leave the COM
forts of the farm as much as | do.
but she was born and reared in the
city, poor girl, and perhaps, even
stupid, out of-date Broadway has
faint memorial lure for her.
Also she has queer sentiment
about duty to ones parents, never
having been taught that parents
are mere accidents, for which one
is not responsible.
Never again, thp pugh! I'm back
among my COWS and conveniences,
and nevermore will | be dragged
into the dinky, dull, seedy, sub
way ridden, poverty stricken dump
they call New York. Paula's folks
can think, if they want to, that
I'm swelled up and look down on
them just because I'm farmer
and they are mere common city
folks. They can come out here
and cape at my private 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 Rorty-niner-join-
ed the Back-to the Land Rush of
l949, you know-and I've stuck to
his pay dirt. The fools that stayed
in the city can keep staying there.
If they can live on $4,000 a year
and enjoy clerking in a store at
that pay, all right. But one of
my automatic hens earns more than
that in a week.
I've tried to help 'em too. Why
my wife's dad, even at sixty-fve,
if he'd take my advice and buy a
little 4story irrigation farm in
the Sahara, stock it with artificial
dirt, raise flowers ON the ground
floor, pigs on the second, fruit on
third, and SO on, would have a
decent nest egg before he died.
And he'd be within Is 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 lot of those city dopes
couldn't take hlnt-went on put
ting good money into railroads
with two rails.
However, it's no use ridiculing
the wife's folks. All / say is !
won't visit their foolish urban den
any more. Why, the old man
makes noises when he talks, as if
the soundless speaker had never
been invented. And he wanted
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,
Paula's mother informed me that
they didn't talk with the dead, be-
cause it seemed uncanny to their
old d-fashioned minds. Wouldn't
that crurnple 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 wringsr
with an electric battery, instead of
connecting the house with Halley's
comet power, which runs every
thing on the farm except Paula.
Yes, / forgive em, but neve,
again for me! Hey, Gus, switch
the weather regular for rain. l
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 four
teen year-old eggs: / doubt if the
thirteens are ripe enough for the
lay trade. And shift the Barbank
gage in the twenty-third level;
we'll raise nickles on the straw