MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 409 



He saw nurserymen doing well and planned a big operation for him- 

 self. It was easy to get the necessary seed, to plant them in the new 

 clean prairie soil, and to graft the roots with what he pleased. He did 

 graft them with three or four of the varieties that ne knew made the 

 largest and finest looking nursery trees. His stakes were numerous and 

 the inscriptions thereon sufificiently various to cover a large list of varie- 

 ties, and were chosen to satisfy even those who knew what apples they 

 wanted, but of course knew nothing from appearances of the young tree 

 as to what they were getting. I saw his nursery at its best, and I have 

 never seen finer looking trees. Diligent advertising brought him very 

 many customers, and the trees showed so finely, and did so well, that 

 they came again the next year and rtiany others came with them. For a 

 few years he had a heavy business, in fact became rich. In due time men's 

 orchards began to bear, and they found their apples mostly Big Roman- 



ites. But, had calculated on that and by that time was out of the 



business. 



Children were cheated out of the fine apples their parents had told them 

 to expect, and began early to lose faith in the human race. Patient, 

 toiling women who had waited through long years, were defrauded, and 

 strong men cursed the wretch who had done them a far greater wrong 

 than to merely steal their money. After all this I stopped once at 



's place. On that pleasant evening he was sitting with his wife 



and two or three of their smaller children on the porch of his large, 

 well-furnished house, all looking a picture of health and contentment. 

 A few rods away stood his great barn, and ail around, his pastures were 

 full of his horses and cattle, while his busy plows were held by other 

 hands than his own. As I rode on I asked, " Where is justice .-' " and 

 then occurred to me the words addressed to Tam O'Shantcr: 

 " Ah Tam, ah Tam, thou'lt get thy fairin. 

 In sheol they'll roast thee like a herrin'. " 



ONE MORE INSTANCE, 



and a still greater one, of a fraud that had for years such success as 

 what we speak of as a successful fraud may have. 



Not at all because that was his name, but because the word has a 

 classical, Greeky sound, I will call him Squeenicks. He was not a 

 literary character at all, but he filled the papers with fine-sounding adver- 

 tisements written for him by a brainy son of misfortune who worked in 

 his nursery for wages, and wrote for him at rates that were at least cheap. 



