The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1922-04-26
ON SECOND THOUGHT
BY JAY E. HOUSE
(Trom Philadelphia Public Ledger.1

We gather from the turmoil going
! on between the Boston Transcript and
F@ P. A. that somebody is trying to
make out it was William Dawes, and
news to the -eznbattled farmers along
the road to Concord and lexington.
| The identity of the chap never SEEM
| ed important~tO us. The fact that
he rode twenty-four miles on horse
| back was the impressive thing.
We have always regarded that feat
| of Craftsmanship as the indescribable
hardship of the Revolutionary war
Our reflections on the art of eques-
trianism, we shall add, are not those
of a tyro. There was a time, if We
turesque tongue of the great wide
open spaces, when we could ride any,
thing that wore hair. In the neigh
borhood in which we lived as a boy
breaking the wild bronchos driven in
from the tablelandS of the southwest
to saddle and harness was the ma
tional game. We played at it nearly
every Sunday afternoon.
The procedure of breaking a
"bronc" to saddle was a simple thing.
The wild, undismayed creature first
was lariated and tied fast to the corral
fence. From the eminence of the
fence a saddle was dropped upon its
back and cinched tight and bit was
forced into it unwilling mouth. Two
ropes. twenty feet or more in length,
were then attached to its neck. The
ropes were manned by men and boys
in sufficient number to hold the ami
NAL and it was led out into the open
ground of a plowed field. There a
boy mounted its back and permitted
it to pitch" it's head off. If the boy
were thrown, and he usually was
thrown, he remounted- After this
playful procedure had been followed
ten or fifteen times it usually was pos
sible to ride the Nbronc" without OBJ
serving the precaution of attaching an
anchor to it, but it never became en-
tirely safe to do so.
Breaking the "bronc" to harness.
was a more elaborate proceeding, and
one requiring more patience. We set
out to storm the citadels of pleasure
ana entertainment one spring with
a perfectly matched pair of wild
'broncs," a new sidebar top buggy, a
new set of light harness and a beauti
full whalebone whip. Financially
speaking, it had been an easy trans
action. We had merely obligated our
self to pay for the outfit after the
wheat crop had been threshed and
marketed. Come autumn the only
thing left of the buggy was coupling
pole. Everything else had been kicked
to pieces or spilled to the four winds
in a hundred runaways. OF the har-
The Whalebone whip had been worn
to a stub. One "bronc'' survived. The !
other had impaled itself upon
barbed-wire fence in the white heat |
of a burst of freedom, and had died |
with its boots on.
Harvest was late that year. The |
last sheaves of wheat were not placed I
in shock until the afternoon of July 2. |
But the promise was magnificent His
torianS differ as to the exact hour, /
but our recollection is that the rain
began to descend at about O'Clock |
in the evening of July 2. When those
who lived alongside them arose the
next morning, the valley lands were
awash to a depth of four feet and
every sheaf of the wheat was floating
down the river. Not grain of it was
ever saiYaged.
We trust readers of the column win
pardon the lamentations OF an elderly
gentleman upon whom the years are
crowding, but them was the days, and
we love to recur to them.
We don't know how you feel about
it, but we don't intend to empty our
cartridge belt until we are shown a
fresh supply of ammunition.
The origin of the wheeze, "One
swallow, to be sure, does not make
summer; but too many swallows make
I fall" has been traced to George d.
Prentice. The authority who looked
It up designates the Louisville journal
rs its medium of projection and the
late as some time in the forties. II
And we shall add that, now that we
know who wrote it, we think as little
IF it as we did before. We could
make our bed on a carpet of wheezes
such as the one indicated and sleep
;oundly. !;
On the other hand, we realize per-
ectly well that, could we pull them,
he people would laugh their heads
IF in reading this column.
The phrase, "as timid as a rabbit
s no reflection on that modest and :
etiring animal. It's a rabbits bust :
less to be timid.
Well. the rent is paid to May is.
he next installment on the portable {
typewriter does not fall due until May
s. Adelaide has had her housekeep-
ng allowance for the week. We have '
lenty of tobacco and five boxes of G
matches. T
So why should we bother to write e
mother paragraph?
- AZ ~