Nothing would have done me more good and brought a keener satisfaction than to have had a nice remuneration from some investment that I have made. My wife called me what the bible says she shouldn’t so many times that it seems to look like I am really a bigger one than she said I was, and if I could have changed her mind by laying before her eyes a nice portly check for $5,000.00 or $10,000.00 it would have been such an agreeable surprise not only to her but to myself that we both would have enjoyed it, and especially myself if I could have pulled it over. But if hope don’t come again I will have to let that excellent pleasure be like Mathewson’s speedy one and fade away.
A lad of the average type at twenty-one has a great deal of stored up energy; he has the muscle bank and the brain bank from which to get his necessary resources, and a great many lads think Dad is a back number and he sees where the old gentleman was short on gray matter, and all advice is lost on this sort of boys. I was never conceited this way, in fact I think somebody else got nearly all the gall that should have been mine. If a fellow holds his own in these days, no matter what party is in power, Democratic or Republican, you need your full allowance of gall. The lad that thinks that the governor’s gray matter is not as profuse as it should be, but he, through some unknown force, grabbed all that was coming to him and part of dad’s might read the following verse and the conclusive portion of this chapter and apply it from a stand point of ordinary horse sense:
| When Johnnie Jones was twenty-one He said my farming life is done, I’ll pack my duds and say Good Bye And to the city I will hie. I’ll show the ones who think they’re it That Johnnie Jones has got the grit To make a name that will be felt Like Astor, Gould or Roosevelt. |
It makes the pain come home when you look back from fifty and realize that a man at twenty-one is a darn big fool, at thirty still a fool, at thirty-five a little foolish, and at forty he still has some, at forty-five wisdom breaks in gently, and at fifty he stands on the threshold of learning ready to apply and absorb, and at sixty he’s a valuable asset to his community and country.
THE WEARY TRAVELER.
Something has been gained and our life has not been futile if we can say we owe no man and there is no obligation through which we have passed, financial or otherwise, of which we are ashamed. We may not have acquired honor, wealth or position but if we have lived up to the teachings of the plumb and the square, we have a record that will stand the closest investigation when we knock for entrance at the pearly gates. If we can stand with our whole soul bared before our maker and he sees that chastity and the sweet purity of any girl or woman has never been trespassed upon we have acquired something that brings smiles to angels’ faces. If we have stood firm when temptations surged and tossed and clamored and we met them and conquered, we have through our moral force a better right to the precious gems of God’s kingdom than those saved in the eleventh hour. If we have never repeated unwholesome stories or spoken slightingly of another’s character or said disrespectfully something that we knew untrue, then we have lived well. Each day’s battles must be fought alone and leave tomorrow’s till they come. Never tear down character, it is the choicest gift in the universe and constitutes life’s work. Remember a pure woman or a pure man is the noblest work of God. Don’t let your footsteps slip from the path of virtue but plant them firm and deep in the path of righteousness. Keep away from people whose thoughts are degrading, and never harbor foul and indecent language. Make it your most earnest desire to avoid using profanity and vile utterances, an immoral epithet has a clinging effect which takes years to erase, and those that emulate and make us better takes determination and purity.
I am now approaching the half-century mark. I can look ahead a few years and see the fiftieth mile post. In all the years that have past and gone I can recall none where my conditions and prospects are so alarming, serious and discouraging as at the present time. I have a peculiar ailment in my left side that has baffled the medical fraternity and caused extreme anxiety to myself. I have endeavored with courage and determination to exterminate it. I have tried assiduously physical culture, osteopathy, dietics, Christian science and medicine. I have consulted freely and often the great physician and all so far have failed. With treatment at Hot Springs thrown in as good measure. The surgeons say an operation is the only hope through which they can discover the cause and eliminate it. I dread operations like I do “Good Wills” and “Bonuses.” My wife had one and the doctor in charge said she would be a well woman in three weeks, but those three weeks were worse than that two weeks’ loan. They stretched into six long, bitter years and were the direct cause of an outlay of money in excess of three thousand dollars. Glad again of the early use of that harrow, for there was surely a gross violation of the truth on the part of the surgeon. On account of dearie’s precarious health I was forced to try a lower altitude, and this not being sufficient it was necessary to try the balmy, sunny air of California and sojourn there among the orange blossoms and the singing birds for seven long months. This caused me to give up my position of clerk that netted me in my four years’ labor the tidy sum of ten thousand dollars.
Today as I stand looking at that fiftieth mile post I realize in the vernacular of the day “I am up against it.” My money is gone, my ailment bothers me, I have a family to provide for, and the wolf stands on the threshold with his mouth open and his long, gaunt body in readiness to make the jump. In some way I must appease five empty stomachs from consuming five back bones. My investments were bad. I tied up thirty-five hundred dollars in a partnership lumber business, fifteen hundred dollars in a home to shelter my loved ones, and the rest went for food and clothing. I struck a highly modern town with all the up-to-date conveniences, property depreciated fifty per cent, business was stagnant, interest kept gnawing, and taxes went skyward. The two sad mistakes I made was: first, to visit the office of the County Treasurer and learn about the taxes; and the second was to stay out of business unless we had enough money to pay for it and keep to the leeward of that ten per cent interest, but I didn’t and so much more for experience, the grandma of teachers.
I do not lack courage and determination but knowing and being able to see that fiftieth mile post causes a shudder and slight touches of despondency. I think my training is more than is alloted the average man. I have been a day laborer on the farm, railroad and hay field. I have worked for a large number of task masters and I failed to remember when I was ever criticised for not keeping up my end. I have held a good many positions of trust such as census enumerator, section foreman, extra gang foreman, county clerk, clerk of the district court, abstractor, town trustee, and member of the school board.
The first time I was a candidate for county clerk I ran on the Republican ticket. I am not telling this in any spirit of the braggart but as a sample of confidence. In my old home precinct I received one hundred and twenty votes out of one hundred and thirty-two, and in the precinct where I worked as section foreman I received forty votes out of forty-eight, and this had always been a strong Democratic precinct. My opponent was a strong candidate and entirely familiar with political tactics, an old scholar in the school. But when the votes were counted I received the certificate of election and laid down the tamping bar and took up the pen. I could have established a precedent and been elected again but dearie’s health would not permit and I declined to run.