The pioneer-review. [volume] (Philip, Haakon County, S.D.) 1920-current, 1920-08-12
HAAKON COUNTY TYPES.
tThe Wife Who Loved Her Mother)

HIS lace SET Towards the GOlQen
West, he suddenly concludes that
he isn't cut out for the tasks of
pioneering; so he quits the game,
cashes in his checks, and bids the
House an abrupt farewell. He
comes to town arranges the neces-
lsary preliminaries with his bank,
! hires an auctioneer, borrows two
bushel sack of tin cups and scay.
ters several hundred bills hither
and yon over the county advertis-
ling. public sale.
/ On the day of the sale, the auc-
tioneer proclaims that his friend
who is likewise friend of all pros
iDective bidders, is about TO remove
to Missouri. Everybody wonders
why Jones is going to Missouri,
but no one knows. He has plenty
of land, plenty of cattle, plenty of
alfalfa, and plenty Of nerve. Just
why man thus endowed should
want to live in Missouri is rot
clear.
But while the austioneer extolls
the merits of the pedrigreed pigs,
the women of the neighborhood
in the temporary absence of Mrs.
Jones, hold a battle-axe conclave
on the back porch. That lady is
there and then picked to pieces,
lsinged until her pin-feathers are
| gone, and roasted to a crisp brown
and after all that it appears just
why the Jones are leaving Haakon
county.
The heart Of Alvira Jones is
breaking for a glimpse of hes
mother. She will never be happy
again until the soil of Old Missou-
ri is again beneath her feet, and
her head is pillowed on the mater
nal breast. Oh, what a home-com-
| ing that will be when Alvira and
| her mother clinch. Jones will be
fthers, and honest Haakon kids,
some of whom "have never seen
Grandma" will fill the background
lof the scene but Mrs. Jones and
her mother will hold the center of
the stage.
What matters it if Jones is some
thing of a pathetic figure? What
does it matter if he is sold out at
the very threshold Of his success,
just as he was beginning to feel
the solid earth beneath his feet,
just as he was beginning to ac-
cumulate enough property so as
to find it necessary each July to
make an annual pilgrimage to
Philip to complain to the county
commissioners concerning the as.
sessment of his cattle? Why should
he worry because the auctioneer,
the bank, the keen bidders, and
railroad fares have taken a large
share of his accumulated savings,
making it necessary that he be-
gin all over again as renter IN
the Ozarks? Is not Alvira home?
Is she not locked in her mothers
ample embrace? What else matters
if mother and daughter can be re-
united?
Mrs. Jones loves her mother, and
the mother just adores the daugh-
ter. They feel they cannot live
without each other. In fact, the
mother has helped not little to
throw the monkeyrwrench into the
calculations Of the Haakon county
pioneer. She could never be recon
ciled when Jones married her dau-
ghter and took her off to South
Dakota. She visited them just once
on the ranch. That ended it. For
that ranch looked to the Old Lady
like little section of hell up
ended in the midst Of the most un-
favorable surroundings Alvira's
mother was no pioneer. Her feet
were so tender clear up to her
knees that she couldn't wear gar
ters. We blush to tell these things
on the Old Lady, but they are nec-
eSsary to complete our story. One
day while she was at the Jones
ranch. hay-hand killed a rattle
snake. Mother promptly tainted,
and was revived only when they
forced spoonful of whiskey be-
tween her clenched teeth. After
that she made haste to use up her
return coupon to the Ozarks, where
she worked the union schedule A.
busing South Dakota and spent
her spare time telling the neigh
bors what hardened wretch Jones
was for carrying her Alvia of to
such land Of disappointment and
poisonous reptiles.
So Jones mother-in-law failed
him il his hour Of need, just as
many another mother-in-law has
/ failed mary another Haakon coun-
+, ty man. She gave Mrs. Jones her
sympathy. when she should have
eiyen her generous application