OCR Text |
Show , ,m rYrsonnl KtMitlnlsconcf. ot liu'onslsliuvt Willi your policy '"e ethics of your vubllesxstion, j ntrinle upon your spuco for a rtmiiiacince of boyhood days ''lod old Mt 111ei,S!Ult' lh3 tlwn 1 ' r forgt'. ,vo1' ils glHl1 1,0!1-"e 1,0!1-"e ,v forgot me, but I never for- ,iy liwj I ilic'll' v this short sketch would be inflate in-flate with 1(9 11'n'lU,on or n,y ' alone, It. must necessarily include !' of some of the boys that lie nanus , elhen many years younger than 'ev are today. So, with pardonat 1 - .je i shall not hesitate to name ' , a little Inter on in this sketch idulgins tlie hope that Jf any 0t ,,m read this it may revive the long ".'o and almost forgotten pranks of if'eone time youngsters in the days since .parsed nd cone. "Keviving and review' the inputs in-puts that have la!f dormant forlo te-e many years, Is not an unpleas-,5t unpleas-,5t task for me at this ,sta.ge of my . In fact it rather fascinating !0 bring In panoramic review again of the happenings as they loom tefore my ga?e, and pass '.n refo-;nect, refo-;nect, reminding one ot his playful j'ranki In days passed and gone. I ST this is interesting to mie, while J, may not appeal to any reader of tonr piper, and may not attract a i-le reader who may chance to noi e ite head-line. But let me proceed T;tt, my story. Its true and no' !ailt on fiction. Sometime about fifty yearn ago the pas; summer, and the present Autum rilha few others presiding, and some Mowing it, I had to herd cows in he Summer time, and extending to ;ite in the Autum. in order to get tDOiigh money to buy clotlv'ng and ioes for winter, and perhaps have tienty cents lsft to pay for a dance ield occasionally in some private tome. The other ow-herdors 1 those days, who were situated in the arae condition f inancially as mysel ' nduded Peter Madsen, Will Frand-sa, Frand-sa, Jos. Madsen, M. G. Rolph. Andrew Pehrson, John Waldemar Asel "Waldemar, Sam Allen, and Am , fcovil. Our Summer herd ground 'as located up in the cedar hi 11-3 mie whetearmnd Dublin and adj-:nt adj-:nt ravines, with an abundance ot i tild wheat .grasy for dutr herd of eows We ft" I Jd our bottles with water rkiio the row herd likew'se quench- ;tg their thirst, at the Sanpitch - liver at the old BiU Z-a-briskie farm. Since there wm no water to drink up i ;n the cedar hills, we had to go pre f jared to quence our thirst during the i long hot summer days. On reaching our destination, the cow i were left to fill up on the luxuriant grass, or seek the shade ot Ike cedar trees, while we boy.s did a multitude of stunts, peculiar to the agencies of the occasion. When dinner tine came we had a sort of United Order established, rtereby the whole ang "mixed .rime.".". We had a terrific time to :et Andrew Pehrson to fall in with l mixing stunt. Andrew was a new comer from Sweden, and the Englis-' J, hirniage was rot much ot a hobby n lith him, and "mixing" dinner much its?. Finally we got Andrew "Broke :t and made him feel perfectly at tome of course some of the fellow; ,1 lad hette- .erub .than the rest of us lt utf you aught to have seen how we 0 made for the heat grill) in hte pile 8l md that looked the most tenvptiV md inviting. There it was spread 19 rat under the shade of some big tree. m sd the who'e crowd gathered aroim'1 t the unread. Most of the boy-3 of the as Standiavian crowd, had a generous d- !PTead ot 'bread and butter with n flier" thrown in. That was the :ib. Everybody was after "Pilser" er 1 tell you it tasted good, but it lg !i4 not last long enough. Then we -t- to fa back on the poorer ".grub" ,rt 'Jlt we, as a rule got filled up and ir '"'e Andrew "mix" every day he en with irs. er Tlie writer tried to talk Swedish to 'fdrew, and amone other things 'H him: "Herder du Dehlin's kon tin Me Sveden?" This literally tran-nd tran-nd !,e(l by myself meant, did he herd ,er 5,s In Sweden?. Of course Anderw on. '"'Jiclod not to understand it, be ev he thot it meant Dehlin's wife lathe wa, a-ked if he herded. But finally ,50t him to understand he ,eish. a-; I spoke it. nis Wllat eUe did we do up in the i a ;;lar'?. Rolled rocks down the hil' lis .d gmi and .piayed "leup frog". a3 ' hne fall, or autumn came, and c'lieat and oats were hauled ot icJ s '"e field we struck out for the jn- vw,a field, havint a straight trn'l Ql) hrrh. from th to-j-n to the , ' we did not ihnthT Ihe -nnd tu- e wanted one nr our own. nn' a- Nnrth field WM whpr3 we hnrl 'l;9 bully .good timci. Tlin willo-vs :l'e a kind of s,i,-a- in the late lA"n ai the sap oozed thru the , Tllls n'igar was what we were 'i?s aM there were a million ll,lstlng for the same thing. Wn tn bugs and hunters, I'll say the former was vl.-Urious, the hugs wore too miuiy for us, anJ we surrendered, and gave them the willows. When velKave ip the f:,ght against the buns, we had another stunt that they could not do, so we turned on, attention to smoking the pi.pe 0 of peace, this pipe consisted of a hi-pud, hi-pud, hollowed O'Ut, with a 'big .straw for the pipe 8tP.m and when a wag 'ot, and the bowl of th6 pipe was filled with the dry leaves of the Potato tops, cnrapled .p anc, mirtl. fnio, so that it would ignite ea?U and smoke rap fine. T.hon we fll) took turn. having a s noke. The bug-? could not do till, and we had our owa way in one thin,g even if they 1'eat of -i,e s,,,Tar whch we coveted so much. "' d : ; t into a-i" -c-vn"?" Ton n-.av want to a-'-k me that out-:.ir.n. We Vfl -rnra nVr, Peie Madsen va.? the champion fght-cr fght-cr when tli-y got on the war pvh. Will Pvandsen came next. The writer had from six to tea cows to herd. He charged two cents per day for each cnW. Hi", v.-nges amounted from 12c lo 2 0c' per day. When the herd'ng days were over, perhaps he Kot his pay and perhaps not, until the farmers sold hvs wheat for about fcrt.y cents per bushel. Some of the clher boys had mor,e cows to hen! '"d of course made more than T did. 'nit the he: ding rates were an nn-'form nn-'form in price per d'ay. Sam Allen was the champion rock thrower, he "ould throw swif'er and rtraightef, ar.l k'll mora rabbits than .a ay other "rPow, Rolnh was t'oe ctiaropion ran-"rr ran-"rr he could out mm. ow jump anv of ',he others. Am Sccvvl coul not. run t- inmp a lick, we could all skin him to death, Axel Waldemar was a gond .-ra'piior but he could not 1'ck Pete "ad ea the on'y tjmft c(vld out run p"te was w' 'i he wanted to liick me. T wn-. a fai ly good printer when he .;ot hi- dander up at me, when Pete ai c''y Marshel, he never molested me, so T can forgive him for his try-'n; try-'n; to cafch me wnen herding cows if anv of you fellows who are living to elaborate on this s-ket'-h r,o on and do it., it won't take much to out do It's hastily written skr-tch of dayi .-one by, if you will, I'll promise you T'!l be glad to read what yon. have to say. if not, some day I'll give you anoihe". on to chuckle over, un'il hen good bye. Chro ikler. |