The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-01-14
ON SECOND THOUGHT
By JAZZ e. HOUSE
Iron Philadelphia Public Ledssr.)
Ambrotypes of the Middle west-n

Uncle Adam and Aunt Libbie live
in a backwater of the countryside five
miles west OF Grigsby City. Uncle
Adam started with nothing forty-five
years ago. he still has it. In a ma
terial way he has prospered. He owns
three or four farms. has flocks and
herds, corn in the crib, wheat in the
bin, little bank stock and a few gilt
edged securities. AS the community
measures wealth he is passing rich. But
except for the fact that comparative
wealth has accorded him little more
leisure, life has given him nothing in
the way of comfort, a deeper knewl-
edge or a broadened outlook The
mortgage no longer chases him. He
outran that incumbrance in early mid
die manhood. Unpaid doctors bills
have ceased to menace his mental
quiet. But he lives as uncomfortably
as were those to which he took his
wife and brood of young children
when he moved on the wilderness and
began it's subjugation.
am fond of Uncle Adam and Aunt
Libbie. The tie of blood binds me to
them and they are, besides, very
kindly and generous folk who have
been my staunch friends since boy
hood. They would take it much to
heart should I, when I am in the
vicinity Of Grigsby City. fail to visit
L,
Of unwritten law that shall spend the
night with them. In way it is a good
deal of a trial to me. 1 am accus-
toned to the comforts and conven-
fences. The transition to the hard
ships of Uncle Adams mode of life is
too harsh and abrupt to be entirely
| pleasing; but whatever my feelings.
am too good a sport to quit Uncle
Adam and Aunt Lbbie cold. And so,
on a recent visit to Grigsby City, /
n q mn ricif a f1ln II of
nothing, that depreSseS me more than
| the sight of their ugly, dilapidated
| farmstead. 1t might be beauty spot;
there is superb view. But, for me,
| the unkempt yard in which the grass
never is cut, dead and rotting trees
| leaning against those that still live
and the clutter of stovewood. fence
posts, barbed wire, decrepit and aban-
| doned farm machinery obscure it and
| 1 am unable to realize that it is there
| Uncle Adam is a very upright and
| religious man. He has the unbounded
respect and esteem of his community.
His is one household in which the in
stitution of family prayer survives.
But I noted one thing; the ceremony
has been considerably shortened with
the passing of the years. Formerly
family prayer at Uncle Adams was,
| morning and night, an intermina BILE
obeisance to the Maker. 1t began
with a long reading of the Scriptures
and ended with an equally long
prayer. Upon occasion 1 have fidgeted
upon my marrow bones for full twenty
minutes while Uncle Adam delivered
| his supplication to the throne of grace.
Uncle Adam no longer reads from the
Scriptures. and his morning and even
ing prayer have become models of
brevity, lasting not more than three or
i four minutes. In other respects the
habits, customs and paraphernalia of
] the household have remained un-
| changed in forty-five years. Uncle
| Adam and Aunt Libbie still sit in
| the uncomfortable wooden rockers
with which they went to housek eeping,
and the same old-fashioned and I'M
comfortable lounge occupies a corner
| of the sitting room. From time to
| time Uncle Adam fed a dirty grade
of bituminous coal into barrel stove
which had smoked the ancient wall
paper and all of the surrounding arti-
c1es. of of virtu to a rusty blackness.
! We had eaten a cherries supper in
a dark, bare and depressing dining
| room. Afterward we found much to
talk about, but around O'Clock no
| ticed. despite my never-ceasing flow
of bright and chatty conversation, that
| the eyelids of Uncle Adam and Aunt
Libbie were as those long deprived of
needed rest and that they We're yawn-
ing in the face of my discourse. 1
| apologized for my thoughtlessnesS in
keeping them up beyond their Gus
tomary hour for retiring and went to
my fitful slum Der in the guest room
| the one off the parlor downstairs. 1t
was an unheated. unventilated room,
and the cold. dead air chilled me
and penetrated my bones. All night
tossed upon feather bed and between
| two blankets, and in the morning 1
arose and Iaved my face and hands
| in a tin basin which sat on a bench
| in the kitchen and dried them on a
roller towel which, as is the COM
rnunity custom, had been hung the
/ preceding Sunday morning.
found Uncle Adam not much per-
turbed about the state of the nation.
| Uncle Adam doesn't know much about
| the state of the nation and frankly adj