The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1913-10-30

urSt she %had ever nearQ.
She clapped her little brown hands.
Done come! Michigan, / reckon. we
found some of them states and coun.
tries with the music names. We-all
come to the land o'joyi"
CHAPTER II.
WHEN 1 WAS A KID.
In September, looking from the our
house square of Rome, n sees the
ripening corn like a bronz shield on
the hills which close every street emu
beyond HI arcbing sugar trees. Inc
bottoms, too, are choked by the lusl OIL
the corn, and the church spires and the
ragged sycamores along the roadsides
rise out of this opulent sea from the
river to the bluffs as If drowning IN
the perfume OF the tassels. These
west bluffs alone seem to eyade the
conquest; one sees q road wlndlng u q
red gap among groves of oak. ckory
walnut; with the crimson suraac anu
alders showing a lighter soil, the up
land groupings of Shale, clay ana STONY
ridges. Here one has glimpses OF
clover and oat stubb!e, unded stacks,
and wire fences about shaded pastures.
But beyond, the triumphant sea of the
corn stretches north and west across
the Iowa midlands, for there Is no trace
of the virgin soil, the shor grass as the
Indians rode 1t when the settlers OF tue
~forties came.
1t is a Ian fat to bursting with
numberless rich and complacent little
cities. The county annals show you
that the people never have hungered,
every man had his bag of silver
under the %puncheop floor of his cabin
and went forth to buy the acres as the
! Sacs and Foxes moved away. The sec
ond year they ate their own corn with
the venison and prairie chicken; their
schools and churches We're built before
! the oak in their own cabin homes was
dry; and the first grand jury Of this
Iowa county sat in the u~ntrodden grass
| of what is now Rome's main street and
indicted a territorial commissioners TOT
m~alfeasance. 1t was significant; the
first Midlanders were insurgents OF
| conscience and not hunger rebellious,
for v had they felt want OF known
sacrifice. :
The Indians called it, 1.-THE Land OF
| Beautiful Rivers and lew towns there
are which nave not a stream lettering
near, over clear pebbly bars and along
blue stem margins, where the WHO
rem autumn long. Through, Rome
| therefore flows Sinsinawa creek, sleep
| ing the summer in leaf lined, sweet
smelling pools, along the shady streets
! where the boys fish for sinners with
their hats; and where. in October. the
1 water uaNlQS uIlSO, w Ia A1N
leaves drift deep SO that. by Halloween
all the town is filled with the pungent
smell of the smoke.
Rome is in a continual grandmother
Iy quarrel with Sinsinawa creek; new
er has it been able to reason sobrlety
into the laughing Jade, which tHmbles
its June freshets down from the bluffs,
| fills every hollow of h wandering
streets and vacant lots, plays mischief
with fences and walks and goes It's way
to the Mississippi across he bottoms.
leaving its mirrored pools to taunt the
sicient dame of a town with It's VIII
fitness. Yet Rome so loves the want
on that when Earlville wanted to d.
vert it's waters in the uplands, to run a
factory for that aggressive metropolis
of the county, the protest that went up
echoed for years in local politics. Earl
Williams called it Sin Creek" or Skunk
Creek" but what could one expect Of
Earlville?
In Rome when a tree interferes with
a sidewalk the walk is not built; In
Earlville the tree is cut down and the
cement laid. That is why Earlville has
the railroad, the furniture factory and
the Elks' club, while Rome has only its
memories, it's rusty fences and its best
families. And the county court house.
The court house offices and the best
families were a tradition as venerably
intertwined as the ivy and bricks Of the
walls Rome knew it's position. 1t
would have sat with dignity or its
hills, only Skunk creek-I beg pardon
Sinsinawa! kept pushing it off.
Yet none in Rome more than mildly
censured Sinsinawa. Not even Wiley
T. Curran, Of the Rome News. who
was always bothering the town board
about street improvements. He ought
ing county BUSINESS had to come to
Rome. If one didn't like the streets
one could go to-Earlville.
Wiley T. Curran used to retort that a
good many had Rome contained not
nearly SO many people as it did when
the war closed. Earlville. then. was
merely one of Thaddeus Tanners COW
pastures. Earlville welcomed any one
who would hustle" as the Boosters
club put it. Rome did not care to have
people about whose families nothing
was known. Every one there had lived
in Rome since 1850 at least. Even the
obnoxious Mr.. Curran's progenitors;
and some of the old families tolerated
the News solely because Pat Curran
founded it before the court house was
built. But those families were few
for Pat Curran had been one OF the
fighting a~bolitionists. n southern
Iowa was noticeably in the stream OF
the Kentucky n Virginia migrations
during the secession prelude. To this
day these lower counties are known as
The Reserve" and have ever stood
aloof from the rampant republicanism
Of the militant north and west. In
Rome still exist dim traditions of Tul-
ly's raid and the copperheadism that
was smothered in the triumph Of the
northern arms. 1t lends a political
conservatism and a best family air
to society. ana for the tum-
BILE down fences, unpaved streets and
Arcadian corner lots. 1t also furnished
Curran. Of the News. with editorials
But no one who was any one minded
Curran. In Rome everybody who was
anybody had money. In these rich and
mature days, having the static orde,
of the east and a stationary population
more than a generation of young mer
had gone off from the priceless corr
lands of the county to the cheaper
acres Of the Canadas, or the irrigated
valleys Of California and New M2xico
or to the cities. Retired farmers, NOV
ing into town for the schools and free
dom from stock feeding. did not com
pensate for the drain of younger blood
Curran l2mented this. But Curran him
self had one off to swing the circle Of
the west for a decade and come bach
a beggar to take up the News on his