The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1913-11-06

from the land, II properly TILED, Will
pay for it. During the time you are
paying for it you enjoy all the COM
forts of a king. Every convenience of
the twentieth century is at your door.
You wear good clothes, your children
enjoy good school privileges and your
family lives as we'll as the wealthiest
people SO far as wholesome food is
concerned. You have paid a good
price for the land, but nothing like the
price the homesteader paid forty-ive
years ago.
Forty-five years ago the settler who
came to Iowa and took up land on the
prairie literally took his life and that
of his family into his hands. Many
times the land he took up was miles
from a neighbor and the distance to
town was often from fifteen to forty
miles. The first year he probably at
tempted to raise a little sod corn, but
the chances are that he did not sue
coed. If the squirrels and blackbirds
did not get it, the grasshoppers did.
When fall came his entire crop would
not support the average family of to-
day for a week. If he was fortunate
enough to own a gun, he could get
fresh meat for the table by hunting
ducks and geese. When winter anne
on he divided his time between trap
ping and hauling coal from some dis
tant coal mine. On these long jour-
neys he would be gone from two to
four days. There were no roads and
he returned by the track he made on
the trip out if there had not been a
storm to blind the trail. Sometimes
he did not return. That was N price
paid for eighty acres of Iowa land
forty-fve years ago.
The more fortunate ones reached
home with their loads of coal and,
many h%ardships, weathered the
winter and made a second attempt to
raise a crop on their new land. If the
grasshoppers did not come, which was
seldom, he might manage to harvest
a small crop Of grain. If he was for
it was possible that he would
have more than he needed to feed his
team and seed for the coming year.
What of his surplus? 1t was forty
miles to a railroad market and no
roads Or bridges. Nothing but OK
teams could make the journey and get
through the slOughs and it took four
days of hard driving to make the
round trip with twenty bushels of
wheat. There was not much left to
apply on the household expenses after
the cost Of the trip was taken out, vas
there?
Sometimes sickness came, the wife
of children were stricken with some
wasteful disease. You could not leave
them alone on the prairie while you
went for a doctor and medicine, which
might take a week. The best you
could do was to try and reach some
neighbor who would be going soon and
have him send out something for the
sick one. Many a time the settler was
compelled to stand at the bedside of
a dear one, helpless to alleviate their
suffering, and watch them slowly pass
away, and later was compelled to dig
the grave with his own hands. This
too, is what some paid for eighty acres
of Iowa land.
To all this should be added some
thing that money or land can never
pay for. That is, the days and weeks
and months when the wives and mo-
theirs endured those hardships that
neither tongue o pen a ever de-
scribe. That inconsistencies and long
ing for human companionship which
comes to those who are shut in by vast
s%olitudes, where the face of other men
and ome seldom appear. The men
who were busy with their out of doors
work did not feel this as did the wives
and mothers, who, when their simple
duties were over, had nothing to divert
their minds from day to day, but to
wait and welcome night as a prisoner
behind the bars welcomes it as mark
ing of one day on his long sentence.
Not that night brought relief, but it
brought the time one day never to
something they did not know, and hop
ed would be something for the better.
Months went by when the women of
a settlers family saw no one but the
members of the family, and the won.
der is that the insane asylum did not
claim more of these pioneer
This inconsistencies is something that
cannot be put in words, but the victim
suffers more acutely than those who
suffer from bodily ills, and no medi-
cine will bring relief. The victim
either dies, goes insane or RECEIVERS,
and the suffering which he endures
would melt the hardest heart. In con
sulting the cost do not leave out this
item.