746 
NOV. i 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
THE PIE HUNTERS’ PROFIT. 
A TALE OF PLUNDER. 
Being an account of the Farmers' Movement of 1890- 
1900, viewed from the standpoint of a citizen of 
America, A.D. 1930. 
( Continued .) 
“ The debtors became independent of the pie hunters, be¬ 
cause their labor was made more valuable and thus counted 
more evenly against the pie hunters’ capital. No one 
knows just what made the young fellow decide as he did : 
my wife says she knows it was because he asked himself 
what his sweetheart would say. At any rate he made his 
secret free.” 
“What a wonderful coincidence ” said Mr. Duncan. “ It 
is exactly like the trouble over that old patent system.” 
“ Well, the result of the whole thing was that the miners 
utilized the water. They were thus able to wash out gold 
faster than ever before. They paid their debts and began 
to save. There was no longer any particular use for the 
capital of the pie hunters, and in order to invest it these 
gentlemen were obliged to seek some new place where 
money was less plentiful. They went back to New England 
where they were looked upon as prosperous and successful 
men and were held up to the children of the community as 
model citizens. The others stayed in the valley until the 
gold gave out. By that time they had acquired a good 
deal of the precious metal—when divided, each got a very 
fair share. But they made the mistake of separating to 
spend it. The result was that many of them bought so 
many foolish things that there was little or nothing of their 
shares left. Had they made the same combination to 
spend that had served them so well in accumulating, they 
would all have been in fair circumstances.” 
THE FARMER’S MOVEMENT. 
As John ended his story he closed the old book and 
handed it to Mary. 
“ Better take it right back, my dear,” he said. “ it’s too 
valuable to be left about here.” 
Mary took the book and started back to her state-room 
to put it away. As she reached the stairs she turned aside 
to make room for two sailors who were pushing a small 
four-wheeled truck towards the bow of the ship. On it 
was placed a massive piece of iron shaped like an anvil and 
covered with a perfect network of small wires. As the 
sailors passed John a piece of wire dropped from the truck 
and trailed along the deck behind. 
“ Careful 1 careful 1 ” said John quickly, as he drew his 
chair away from the wire. “I have energy enough to-day, 
thank you, without caring for that charge.” 
The sailors stopped the truck at once and one of them 
took a pair of wooden tongs and put the wire back on the 
anvil. 
“That’s the great trouble with that force,” said John, 
“ it is too powerful to be put in the bands of careless men. 
It is almost impossible to conceive of the volume of power 
contained in that anvil, and when we think that a single 
touch of that wire would have sent my chair dashing all 
about this ship, you can imagine that those things will 
bear watching. Now you see what they are going to do. 
That truck will stand right up by the bows, where it will 
provide the power to propel 10 large boats each carry¬ 
ing a powerful electric light. When night comes, these 
boats will circle around and around the ship, making the 
sea for half a mile in every direction as light as day. 
The two men sat out and watched the sailors as they 
fastened the truck in place. Close by, almost touching 
the truck, stood a large, metal figure of a base-ball player. 
It was exceedingly life-like—admirable in every way, with 
bat in hand, body thrown back in the act of striking at a 
ball. It was on its way to a State in the interior of 
Africa, where it was expected to represent Justice at the 
top of the national capital. The citizens had discovered 
that scales frequently became rusty, particularly in bad 
weather, while base-ball bats were always the same. They 
had, therefore, decided to settle their differences on the 
ball field instead of in the jury box. 
“ I have been greatly interested in your story,” said Mr. 
Duncan, as they turned away from the truck at last, “it is 
indeed remarkable how closely history repeats itself. The 
history of this country for the 10 years after 1895 follows so 
closely that of this mining company that I am almost 
startled. Of course, you cannot remember much about 
that period.” 
“No, I am too young for that. I have heard my father 
speak of it, but he could see no hope for the country at all. 
He became thoroughly disgusted with the way things 
were going,and 20 years ago he left the country to its fate and 
emigrated to Africa, where he felt sure Americans could 
found a nation that could correct our national faults and 
cultivate our national virtues. I was pretty young then and 
my father left me with his sister, until his new nation 
could get fairly on its legs. Somehow, those legs are not 
fairly strong yet, and I am on my way to father’s home in 
the hope of inducing him to come back with me and spend 
his last days in America, which, after ail, is the best 
country the world has ever known.” 
Your father made a mistake in going away.” 
“I know he did. He should have stayed with us and 
helped in the changes that made history so rapidly. I 
wish I had lived in those days. Of course, I have read all 
about them, but, after all, one must actually live amid 
such scenes in order to really know them.” 
“Yes, indeed. Why I remember, as though it were yes¬ 
terday, the day my father came home to tell us that the 
Sub-Treasury bill had passed. We felt like celebrating 
then, I can tell you. My father was a very enthusiastic 
man. I am sure that he felt that this measure would re¬ 
lieve all our troubles, pay our debts and start us anew 
towards prosperity. We lived in a small farming town in 
Illinois. My grandfather was a pioneer. These pioneers 
were men of large ideas, who judged a farm more by its 
extent in acres than by its depth in soil. Whenever a crop 
began to fail in quantity, there was enough fresh land to 
take the place of the tired field. ‘ More laud !’ not ‘ Bitter 
land 1’ became their motto, and their sons inherited their 
ideas without the necessary laud on which to practice 
their theories. That was the trouble with my father. He 
wanted ‘More land 1 More laud!' just as his father did, 
but he was called upon to pay 50 times as much for fre3h 
land as his father had paid. He could not realize that an 
inch added to the depth of his old land was better than 
acres of surface of new land, and consequently he bought 
more than he could pay for and ran hopelessly in debt. 
Why hopelessly ? Because the money power of the coun¬ 
try, which almost exactly corresponded with that of the 
old pie hunters, controlled the currency, regulated interest 
and thus grew stronger and stronger as its capital in¬ 
creased. But, excuse me, I think your wife will win that 
prize if you are not careful!” 
John turned hastily, just in time to see Mary’s young 
man hurry into the telephone office. Through the window 
they could see him, after considerable listening and watch¬ 
ing, approach the telephone. This was too much for John. 
He sprang from his chair and hurried to the head of the 
stairs to find Mary and liberate his young man. But he 
stopped in amazement at the figure which confronted him. 
A man of gigantic size came rushing upon him, apparently 
flourishing a tremendous club. John had barely time to 
spring to one side when the object darted past him, strik¬ 
ing the cabin door a blow with its club that sent the 
splinters flying in all directions. In an instant all was 
commotion. The passengers and crew came rushing up 
from below to behold a remarkable spectacle. Ihe statue 
of the base-ball player was darting about the deck with 
up-lifted bat, plunging madly from side to side, thrusting 
and striking with almost incredible force, but without 
purpose or aim. The cause was quickly apparent. The 
statue had been mounted on wheels to render moving and 
unloading easier. A wire from the anvil mounted on the 
truck had accidentally fallen against it. In an instant the 
immense volume of power stored away in the anvil 
had been communicated to it, and it had started on its 
dangerous course about the ship. The captain rushed for 
an axe with which to cut the wire and thus to stop the 
supply of power, but as he turned the statute seemed to 
gather itself for one supreme effort. It whirled about 
until it faced directly towards the stern of the ship, and 
then started in a direct line at fullest speed. Jhe pas¬ 
sengers fled from its path in terror. Straight on on it 
darted like a flash, with the bat uplifted and the body bent 
back as if to strike. The bat seemed to reach up as it 
passed under the telephone reel which was rapidly un¬ 
winding as the ship sped through the water. One crash 
and the reel went flying far out over the water. A louder 
crash and the statue darted through the railing, leaped 
far out, and then fell into the boiling water to be seen no 
more. The ship was left without communication with the 
shore, while Mary’s young man had been unable to take 
advantage of his opportunity. 
It was some time before our friends could recover from 
this startling incident. 
John had become greatly interested in Mr. Duncan’s 
story, so he took occasion to hunt him up and ask him to 
continue. There being no danger of either young man 
using the telephone now, he concluded to let Mary seek 
her own amusement. Left to herself, that lady applied 
herself to the task of learning the secret of this mysterious 
young lady. 
“In 1893” said Mr. Duncan, “ American society presented 
a spectacle not unlike that described In your old miner’s 
diary. The vast proportion of the cash was stored in the 
hands of a comparatively small body of men. They repre¬ 
sented in numbers about the proportion that the pie hun¬ 
ters held to the rest of the miners. This money power con¬ 
trolled the prices of coal, light, oil and, in many cases, 
water and other natural products which God intended 
should be as free as air. They were even gaining control 
of the land itself—the former freeholders becoming tenants 
and workmen. They controlled passenger and freight 
traffic absolutely. It was this same system of interest and 
mortgage that enabled them to keep their capital growing. 
This capital, held in a compact mass, sucked the country 
dry and grew larger and larger the more it was turned 
over. It was a selfish age. The monied people grew more 
and more to look down upon and despise those whose right¬ 
ful share of wealth they had taken.” 
“But how about the ‘self-made men’ that we read 
about; one would suppose that they kept the two classes 
together.” 
“ Yes, there were so-called ‘ self-made men.’ They were 
generally strong, rugged, brainy fellows who had the 
strength and the will to devote themselves to one single 
idea. They fought their way up from one class to another 
by sheer pluck and forced the money power to admit them. 
But they always wore the marks of the battle. They 
fought so hard against the ways of the world, and spent so 
much strength in squeezing their share out of business 
that they forgot how to be anything but fighters.” 
“ But they could not lose their interest and sympathy 
for the poor ?” 
“ One would suppose not, and yet, in a sense, they did. 
They could not see why any boy should fail to do as they 
had done, and they found fault—not always openly, per¬ 
haps—with those who had not the strength either of mind 
or body to follow their course. They were too much in¬ 
clined to set themselves and their record up as models for 
other poor young men, forgetting that others had been 
bred through generations for poverty, while they were 
only good examples of atavism.” 
(To be continued.) 
IVomans Work. 
QUEER PEOPLE. 
W E have all seen them, haven’t we ? Once in a while 
we meet a person whom every one decides to be 
queer, yet not one can tell you in what that queerness 
consists. If we should analyze the matter, we should be 
quite likely to find that those whom the world calls queer 
are those who have originality enough to do things in 
their own way, instead of following the beaten “ sheep- 
path”—shall we call it ? An aged friend used to tell the 
story of an old Quaker who said to his wife in substance : 
“ Hannah, doesn’t thee think it strange there are so many 
queer people in the world ? Nearly every one seems to be 
queer except thee and me, and sometimes I think thee’s a 
little bit queer! ” If this old gentleman had not been a 
Quaker, and thus a little queer himself, he would have 
been an admirable type of the world at large, which thinks 
everything queer which differs from it. John Halifax and 
his beloved wife were “queer” because they spent them¬ 
selves for their poorer neighbors and for the right, and 
refused to know those who had wealth and name if these 
were coupled with vicious and evil lives. 
A most estimable lady who lives with her family in the 
midst of a rough foreign element, her home a bower ot 
beauty, and a very Eden to her husband and children, 
refined, loving, careful in every way to do the best for her 
dear ones, and to bring out their best, told us that she was 
voted queer in the neighborhood because she did not send 
her children to the public school, because her beautiful 
daughter of sixteen had never had a “ beau,”—did not 
know what it was—and even because she gave her family 
simple food instead of indigestible pastries and cakes. 
A friend who had been saved from imminent death 
through the skillful treatment of a noted sanitarium, 
aroused the sarcastic remarks and fliDgs of a whole neigh¬ 
borhood through her use of Graham gems and sauce un¬ 
limited, and through her “ lazily ” spending two hours or 
more eVery afternoon in her hammock under the blue 
skies and in the fresh air of heaven ; and when, through 
careful hygienic and rational treatment previous to its 
birth, her little one came to her almost without suffering, 
she was “ queerer ” than ever. 
A family, consisting of a mother and several girls, left 
alone on a farm, with little means of gaining a livelihood 
aside from it, were obliged to help at such outside work 
as they could do. They husked corn and picked apples ; 
they raised strawberries and sold them in the nearby vil¬ 
lage ; they taught school and studied French, German and 
geometry; they were courteous and refined; they made 
their own dresses and bonnets; they played and sang; 
they wrote for the papers; and they were looked down 
upon by the whole neighborhood because of their menial 
work and their “queerness,” and meanwhile were envied 
on all sides for their talents. Feeling at heart their own 
superiority, they yet winced under sneers and envious 
remarks, and it was not until they had left their girlhood 
home to live among more congenial people that they 
could hold up their heads freely, and feel that they 
had done well with their lives. 
And so we might multiply instances to show that many 
times people are dubbed “queer” or eccentric, merely 
because they differ from those who criticise them. Let us 
be a little careful how we bestow this dubious epithet on 
others, lest we ourselves be also found wanting. ‘ It’s a 
queer world.” _ 
Mrs. Terhune (Marion Harland), who has lately given 
up the editorship of The Home-Maker Magazine, now 
lends the prestige of her name to the Housekeeper’s Week¬ 
ly, a bright little periodical still in its first volume. 
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