THE writer has lived in Illinois more than three score and ten years, and in that time we have seen great changes. We have seen the change from the ox-team to the steam engine; we have seen the change from the wooden mold-board plow to the steam plow; we have seen the change from the reap-hook to the self-binder, and from the lizzard to the automobile; from the bull-tongue corn plow to the two-horse riding cultivator. We have witnessed the change from the business being carried on through the medium of trade and traffic to the time when most men have money in the bank. During the first half of our seventy years, Illinois was yet in its infancy and grew very slowly, but during the last half she has developed very rapidly, and has made rapid stride in the way of improvement, and other great changes are to come yet, and they will come pretty rapidly. The spirit of enterprise is on the wing and moving swiftly, and the outlook is flattering. The people are learning; they are laying down their party prejudice, and looking at the situation more wisely. We have had an era of extreme corruption, but that has nearly had its day, for the voters see that their prejudice is the only thing which made that corruption possible. We think we can see reasons to believe that the corruption and lawlessness will have to go; and the drunkenness will have to go. The few party leaders have kept the voters blinded as long as they can, and when the people get their eyes wide open they are mighty and the law-breakers and corruptionists will have to take a back seat.
[The School in the Cabin.]
IN early days there was an empty cabin in our neighborhood at one time, and a man came along and wanted to teach school, if he could get fifteen scholars he would teach three months for one dollar and fifty cents per scholar, and would take his pay in corn, wheat, pork, beans, honey, beeswax, or anything, and he boarded around among the families who sent pupils. All right; and the men went into the woods and cut some “linn” (linden) trees and split them open and hewed some of the worst splinters off the flat side and bored holes and put legs in the round side and made us some good benches; we took the oxen and hauled up some wood and Mr. Anderson set in to teach. He did not know much more than a goat, but that made no difference. Brady Phelps’ children would fetch their little, speckled, bench-legged “fiste”, and he would stay in the house, under their bench, and when we would stick our feet back under the bench and touch him he would bite us on the heel. Frank Perryman was just about my age and just about as mean; at the noon hour he and I would get a wild grape-vine, and one take hold of either end and get outside the door, then send a boy in to run him out, and when he jumped to go over the grape-vine we would fetch a yank and throw that dog twenty feet high; when we had sent him up a few times he quit the school of his own free will and accord.