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.
Some say the hand of fate guides our destinies and it was so to be, but
I am at a loss to understand why it should so be. I have lived clean, I
have always met my obligations with the strictest honor, no marks of
dissipation, inwardly or otherwise, have scarred my form and thank God
he nor any other can find any danger signals that can isolate me from a
free transport to the narrow path. I have been economical, conservative
and kind and I think I have done my very best. I have treated every one
with the closest application that can be unravelled from the ten
commandments and the additional commandment established through Christ.
All through my married life I have been attentive to my wife and in any
room of our mortgaged home you can see many tokens of affection that she
has received. I have endeavored to lighten her domestic burden and
almost every Monday morning for the past twelve years I have been the
propeller at the washing machine. Hundred of times I have arisen between
the hours of three and four and wended my way to the family kitchen and
waded in on the soiled linen. I never sneaked out the back way to avoid
using the tea towel on waiting dishes. I can use the broom, duster and
make the beds. I can scrub, polish the stove, cook the steak, and
perform almost the entire category of domestic needs; but when it comes
to baking I would rather face the cannon's mouth (a silent one like in
the city park in Denver) and die like a martyr. I have often acted as
maid. I recall once when I was a maid my wife was bed fast for three
weeks. We lived in a strong church town, somewhere near eighty per cent,
it seemed nearly all were Christians but during dearie's sickness there
was not a single Christian woman or suffragist came to see her, offered
her services, or was in any way interested. I am sorry this happened in
this broad land of boasted Christianity and civilization. Some of these
same Christian ladies never failed to appear when the dues for foreign
missions were bordering on delinquency or when some rations were needed
for a church spread.
I believe in doing good and giving cheer. You can always notice a gleam
of pleasure in your wife's face when you give her a box of candy, a
dress, a dish, or some little token, and how she clings to the missiles
of love that you may have penned on scraps of paper, chunks of wood and
other things. They always speak for something I think meritable. I think
the pathway of dearie can be made more cheerful if she is remembered
daily and not all in one chunk at Christmas time, and then let her wait
for another twelve months. I never feared I would kiss my wife too much.
I kiss her more now than when I courted her and they are just as sweet
as ever. It helps to keep the love light in her eye.
I have three fine children. I am not conceited about them; other people
say they are good. I have done my best to raise them well. Two of them
are in the County High School, the eldest a girl of sweet sixteen and
the other a noisy boy of fourteen. The remaining one is a baby of two
and one-half years. I must leave these three children and dearie and
look for employment. You can realize how pleasant it is to be separated
from them. How sad it is to kiss dearie and the others good bye and have
the many cute sayings of a strongly attached baby ringing in your ears,
not only through the dreary, lonesome days but long after the shadows
fall.
Such is life with its pains and sorrows. They come to us all and while I
may think my road is rougher than is allotted the ordinary individual I
suppose others think the same. The one great consolation I have is that
dearie is almost a strong, well woman, and that is worth all I have
passed through and I would gladly undergo it again for her. I must be
getting ready, the colonists reduced rates of our liberal hearted
"S-T-E-E-L" railroads is near the finis of the twelve-day limit. The
parting is at hand. I kiss the loved ones good bye, cling tenaciously to
my second-class ticket, guard well my pneumatic pocket book with its
ragged puncture and try again in pretty California among the salty ocean
breezes, the cheerful flowers, the fragrant orange blossoms and the
shady pepper trees to find work and health for those I love. GOOD BYE.