Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1900 — FEEDING THE WOLF. [ARTICLE]

FEEDING THE WOLF.

Avarice Ruined Their Bsja* Life and Killed Their Mother. “There stood on the kitchen shelf In the old farmhouse where I was born,” said a New York business man, in the Youth’s Companion, “a stone wolf with a slot in its back. Into this slot went the savings of the family, cent by cent. Once a month my father unscrewed the wolf’s back and took out the money. It all went to bny land to add to our farm. He had an ambition to be known as a large landholder, and everything was sacrificed to that. “The milk, the ‘ vegetables and the beef which the farm produced were sold, and we children were fed upon the refuse. We grew up pale, weak and sickly, and the money saved went Into the wolf’s stomach. “My father had a good Income, but my mother did all the work without help. At 40 she was an old woman. Ones or twice she asked for a week’s holiday or a little trip to the city. Father would consent, and then he would, col. ince her of the extravagance of the plan. She begged that we might be sent to college, but father talked so much about the expense that she dropped the matter. She used to long for a magazine or book to read, for a chance to hear music, for some escape from the deadly barrenness of our life, but it was never given to her. The cost always had to be reckoned first, and the wolf got the money. “The home life, which might have been wholesome and attractive, was hard, greedy and cruel. My mother died, worn out with working to feed that hungry wolf. By and by a railroad was built which helped other parts of the country at the expense of our own neighborhood. The value of the farm decreased, and father was left with a lot of worthless land on his bands. We had sacrificed all that was best in Ilfs for It and we got no return.” There are few American families In which petty avarice la a marked characteristic, but there are many in whicb thrift Is misdirected, and what should be only a means is allowed to become an end. The frugality which looks toward a realisation of nobler aims and the attainment of a broader and richer life Is worth every effort and self-sac-rifice, but the hoarding which starves body and soul merely to add acre to acre, or to pile one useless dollar upon another, Is a pinnacle of folly to which no creature but man has ever arisen.