Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1916-11-09

tive who remarked to me: "Ah. he |
who has once taken part at wild |
goose shooting will be slave of him |
forever!''
Until the brooks and ponds are COW
cred with ice the sport endures; then,
water no longer procurable. at given
| moment, as If by preconcerted signal,
in one immense mass the great birds
! spread their wings and are off to the
shores of the Lower Danube.
| suppose that In all lands there Is
an innate antagonism between the
! jewellers upon the plains and the ma
| tives of the rugged mountain land
witness the distrust, spoken or I'M
| spoken, of Celt for Sassenach and Sas-
| senach for Ceit. But In no other Eu-
ropean country is it so marked as in
Magyarland. Between the Lowlander
of the great Hungarian plain and the
Highlander of the mountains which
form it's boundary there is great
gulf fixed, across which the pairs of
| dark eyes glare into each other with
contempt unutterable. The Lowlander
calls the mountain land 1.-The crooked
| country" and makes no bones about
! stating that the ways of its inhab-
itants are as tortuous as their scenery.
He despises them for the poverty
which wrings a scanty subsistence
from the barren soil and compels them
to live on maize porridge and barley
bread. Above all, he scorns their po-
etical fancies and dreamy legends, for
to him poet and wastrel are synony-
nous terms.
In his turn. the Highlander loathes
the mOnotony of the plains; to him
the misty blue ridges and snow-capped
peaks. the narrow, pine-clad valleys
and roaring torrents are the ideal
home. He pours contempt upon the
heavy, dull-witted Lowlander. whose
mind, he says, is a blank, whose god
is his belly, and whose only joy is to
stuff himself with pork and wheaton
bread! But here the mOuntaineer
does something less than justice to his
lowland brother, for the greatest OF
Hungarian poets, Sander PetOfy, he
whose genius is so many-sided that ne
has been compared to Burns and BY
} ron, to Beranger and de Musset, to
Tennyson and Shakespeare, Is dwell
er upon the great plain.
Varied Phases Of the Great Plain.
One wonders at what season OF the
} year the allies will finally debouch
upon the Hortobagy. VIII they see
. il amid autumn floods, when rain de-
, sends In torrents, not for days or for
. weeks, but for months at a time
/ when. speaking of their weather, the
natives say: Here we ought to have
not one God but two, one who would
let ii rain and another to make it dry
again? Will they see the wild geese
roaming in countless thousands over
J the sodden grassland? Or will the
} hosts of our allies come In the depths
of the bitter winter, when the cattle
! have been driven home and silence
: regns over the empty, snow-covered
plain? A silence broken only by that
terrible wind of the Hortobagy. which
bowls and screams like pack Of In
sensate demons over the frozen waste.
Or will they come during the months
. of May and June, when 1t wears a
mantle of tenderest green, when the
fragrant breeze, exhilarating as cham
payne, blows softly over carpet OF
} fairest blossom whose Kaleidoscope
coloring extends as far as the eye can
, reach? Or will it be when the pitiless
sun beats down from sky of brass
, upon a parched and gasping land,
when the Fata Morgana, the mirage
, more wonderful here than on the great
t Sahara itself. will show them sheets
8 Of ripping water where, moment be-
g fore. was sun-baked plain; will show
them shady woods and nesting viii
lages and slender church spires and
7 cattle standing knee-deep In cool, dark
> pools?
Autumn, winter, spring, summer
t which season will see the coming OF
Q the deliverer? For to the Transylvan-
v ian fettered to the Magyar. to the
: Magyar bound with chains Of iron to
= the Austrian, he will be deliverer
: though bearing the outward semblaace
. of an invader. When will the deiiv'
s erer march In his millions across this
y Great Hungarian plain7
a prouoht Tohacco to Europe