THE TIM BUNKER PAPERS. 93 



their own company and pursuits. Kier has got a notion 

 of drinking, the last few years, staying all night at the 

 tavern, driving fast horses, unhinging gates, girdling young 

 fruit trees, firing stacks, and turning cattle into corn fields. 

 He seems to think it is very smart to destroy property in 

 this way, and to make himself a nuisance in the neighbor 

 hood generally. He is caught now, and must walk up to 

 the captain s office and settle. The next worst thing to a 

 bad father is a bad public opinion that submits to vice 

 and rowdyism. I am Justice of the Peace, and if I was 

 not, I am a neighbor to Jake Frink, and bound to help 

 him keep his boys in their place. I have a very poor 

 opinion of that moral cowardice which gives up a civiliz 

 ed community to the depredations of a set of young 

 Arabs, like Kier Frink. What is the use of having law, 

 if you do not enforce it against the destroyers of property 

 and the disturbers of the peace ? If the young chaps want 

 to cut up, and have music, it is fair that they should pay 

 the fiddler. If they rob hen roosts, the hens should not 

 be left to do all the squawking. It will do them good to 

 look out of a roost, with iron grates to the windows. 



Now I hold, that a man is a poor farmer, as well as a 

 bad citizen, that raises such a boy as Kier Frink. The 

 farm exists for the sake of the family that works it, and its 

 chief end is to make smart, useful men and women. Your 

 great crops and fine stock all go for nothing, unless you 

 get the blossom of the farm man. What is an apple tree 

 good for, unless it raises apples ? The shade is no better 

 than that of any other tree, and the fire-wood does not 

 amount to much. So the farm is not worth much, unless 

 it blossoms out into good, nice housewives, and useful, up 

 right men. 



It is a good deal of a knack to raise a first-rate cow or 

 steer, even after they are born right. There is many a 

 full blood heifer, with first-rate milking qualities, spoiled 

 by bad treatment. Keep her on bog hay winters, and let 



