The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-02-02
THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS.
Full Of Misery, Hardship, Isolation,
Grasshoppers and Republic
cans.

4
Manson Democrat: The good oil
days have been with US the pas
i week-the good old days OF the bliz
card and the snow blockades and the
trainiess. mailless stretch when We
are marooned from the rest of the
world by snowdrifts as unrelenting as
adamant- The frozen and bursted wa
/ terpipes shut off the hot and cold wa
ter apparatus and We take the old
fashioned wash dish and put in on the
back of the kitchen stove for our
morning additions. It's TOO cold for
the dog to sleep outdoors and he is al
lowed to bunk in the cellar. The
burrows we use through the snow.
drifts at night are all nicely filled in
with snow in the morning, and life is
just one snow shoveling experience
after another OF course, we doh
have to burn hay or corn like We
used to in the good old days, but We
burn up a lot of good money feeding
ethe furnace. While we don't have to
dig trench Eve hundred feet long to
get from the house to the barn to feed
a wobbly-legged calf a couple of
quarts of hot milk, with a thermonie-
ter cavorting around thirty below, we
could and did wear warm felt boots
then and style forbids us to do that
now. We have often wondered why
some English or eastern dude didn't
demoralize himself by wearing felt
boots during the winter season and
thereby make them fashionable All
the farmers wore long whiskers and
dropping mustaches in the good old
days because the ice formed on them
so much in the winter that it pulled
them out and down The effect was
to accentuate their usual sad express
sion of countenance when they came
away from the money-Iender's in the
spring with the information that he
could not extend their note without
increasing the rate of interest to
eighteen per cent. One of the reasons
why they could not raise good crops
in the good old days was that the
farmers were always so tired out in
the spring from failing up" the cat
tie through the winter that they were
unable to do the heavy work neces-
sary in putting in the crop in prop
er manner. Instead of spreading it on
thick at farmers institutes and smok-
ing ten-cent cigars and occupying
sweets of rooms in the headquar-
tiers hotel at the state convention of
for y-c, oil al Il h,
honest tiller of the soil in the good old
days got busy about this time of the
year and made a trip to the coal
banks. He arose from his couch at
two o'clock in the morning and began
the journey about three, full of hope,
Johnny cake and fried salt pork, ar
irving at the bank at eyentide, when
he loaded up his wagon and laid him
down to grab what little sleep he
could before daylight the next morn
ing, when the long, cold, cherries
journey back home was begun. If
he got to three spelling-schools. help
ed couple of neighbors butcher a
shoat apiece and attended the revival
meetings at the Center school five
miles away, he thought his winters
entertainment well provided for and
was considerable factor in the social
swim. In the good old days when the
waterworks froze up it didn't do any
good to call plumber. There was
none. All that could be done was to
heat some water and pour 1t down the
pump and if that wouldn't do the cat
tie were taken to slough, and
hole chopped in the ice for them to
drink out of. The good old days are
gone, thank goodness, and may the
good Lord never permit them to re-
turn. They were full of misery and
hardships, mail once a week and
sometimes once month. isolation.
grasshoppers, mosquitoes, frogs and
muskrats and Overwhelming Republi-
can majorities on everything from
President to road boss.