Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1902 — AN ABANDONED FARM. [ARTICLE]

AN ABANDONED FARM.

It Surely Was Hard and Stony Land, and No Exaggeration. She was on the witness stand in her own behalf, being also defendant In the action. She was a sturdy widow, hard working, shrewd in a deal and garrulous. A landlord was suing for back rent on a little farm she had abandoned. "You say that the land was-hard and sour and sterile?" suggested the attorney for the plaintiff. “That's what I said, only I wasn’t so peranlffity about it, and I’ll say more”— "Just a moment, please. We want evidence, not opiniow. Did you raise anything on this land of oura?" “Land of oura!” with a sniff. "You never owned a thimbleful of it Yea, I did raise things on It. It took two hills to raise a bean and a whole row of corn to raise a nubbin. I raised a cabin, I raised a pigpen, and I tried to raise a goat, but It starved to death, poor thing! That ground wouldn’t raise dog fennel or even Canada thistles.” "Don’t exaggerate, please. You say the soll was sour?” ' “I couldn’t exaggerate about that ground if I was a lawyer. In the morning when the dew was steaming off in the sunshine you’d think you was living next door to a pickle factory. I kept my sugar In an airtight jar.” “Pshaw! That’s ridiculous. I suppose the ground was so bard you could not blast It?” "Nuthing of the kind. I’m here to tell the truth. But I’ll tell you how hard that ground was. I had to crop my set onions out with a hatchet, and a big gander I bought broke his neck trying to pull a tuft of spear grass.” The landlord did not recover.—Detroit Free Press.