OCR Text |
Show THE ROLLING STONtl WHEN Erwin was twenty-four he married and his father settled him on a little farm, reasonably well-stocked, well-stocked, and started him out In what seemed to be a prosperous career. The boy had a good mind and a strong, healthy body ; he was somewhat better educated than the fellows of his acquaintance, he was not afraid of work and he was absolutely honest and dependable. The girl whom he married was capable, Intelligent and loyal to him In the extreme. But Erwin was not satisfied. He wanted a bigger place, so he sold his farm shortly for less than it was worth and moved to Texas. The soil was gummy, his crops burned up, his two children were malarial, and he came back within a year or so, richer in experience ex-perience but poorer in pocket. He decided to give up farming and bought a little store in the village near which he had lived. He soo-n saw, however, that he was no storekeeper. He had been brought up on the farm and farming was the only game he knew, so he disposed of the store and rented a large farm which he was to manage on shares. Disaster pursued him, his stock died, the place was more than he could manage, and Just as he was getting things In hnnd to make a little money he decided to move back to town and run a grain elevator and sell fanning Implements. This was not a bad venture. He had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, acquaint-ances, he was a practical machinist and he soon began to prosper. But his boys were growing up, there was little for them to do, the responsibilities of the new business weighed on him tremendously. tre-mendously. He sold out and bought a farm In Minnesota, only to find that his boys did not care for farming. That was twenty years ago, when he was past fifty. He has tried a dozen ventures since then always working hard, always hopeful, always changing at a loss with the expectation that the next move would put him on his feet and make his fortune. Now, at seventy-four, his strength gone, his ambitions ambi-tions cooled, he Is poorer than he wns-fifty wns-fifty years ago. The farm that he sold at that time Is worth today ten times more than he received for It. It takes courage to stick to a task that is difficult and uncongenial, no matter what it is; adjacent pastures often seem greener than our own; the other man's Job has Its deceitful attractions, at-tractions, but whoever gets anywhere must stick wth persistence to the road, even when It leads him through muddy j swamps and over tedious hills. ' |