Evening Round Up Part 19

As I write these lines I am riding on a slow train through Oklahoma.

Purposely I am in the day coach smoker for that's the place to study local color, and see the natives.

The atmosphere around is oil and gas, the talk is "bringing in a gusher," "tanks," "rigs," "leases," "wild cat sales," "offsets,"

"selling stock," and the like; all the phrases, all the talk is striking it rich, getting money.

Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, college boys in surveying crews and speculators form a hodge podge. Men from all parts of the states are here seeking dollars.

I have been around these oil and gas fields in autos and by teams. I've been observing life, character, pa.s.sions and habits.

I've seen brave women here with nursing babies living in tents or patchwork shacks. Some of these women dream at night of silks and satins and mansions and position.

By day these poor women work and mend and cook and sew, doing their part to help things along. Many of the husbands are earning five to eight dollars a day and spending most of it on foolishness. The poor wives get only enough for bare necessities, and yet they patiently work and mend and cook and sew.

Talk about patience; talk about devotion; talk about grit; talk about courage; just come down to the oil fields and see these poor pioneer women.

Talk about selfishness; talk about cowardice; talk about brutality; talk about debas.e.m.e.nt; come down and see some of these men making $25 to $50 a week and never a cent in their pockets Monday morning.

Woman is called weak--that means the rich woman--the poor woman possesses strength that psychology cannot explain. Men can be a.n.a.lyzed, but you are at a loss to understand woman. Poor women grow into a sweet replica of their mothers, the most unselfish, patient, generous, forgiving, lovable, adorable creatures on earth.

Man grows away from his mother; he roughens and cools and grows selfish and expects and demands the woman shall love him with all these faults, and generally she does.

The poor woman makes an idol of her husband and in her love thinks he is ideal.

Let him spend his money, she sticks to him; let poverty and want come to the home, she sticks. Let ill treatment be her portion, she sticks; and withal there are smiles on her lips most of the time.

I'm sorry for the poor woman in the oil fields, and the only glimmer of compensation I can find is that she doesn't have nervous prostration like her wealthy society sister has.

Those little husky children I see over there in the yard playing Indian will likely know the worth of a dollar later on. I peep into the future and predict that those boys will get on in the world, and Mother who is chopping wood for supper I see some day with a nice black grosgrain silk dress and a ball of knitting in her silk hand bag.

I see her from necessity knitting stockings for her children. In the future some day, far beyond want, for her sons will be successful men, she still is knitting and mending and helping, a smile on her lips and a soft light in her eye.

Plump, round and well fed, she sits there knitting with pleasure and dreaming of the pioneer days she spent in the Oklahoma cabin. Yes, that's the picture of the future.

The train is pulling into a city; I don't want the picture of the poor, hard-working, unselfish, sacrificing woman and her worthless husband to remain in my memory.

The sons will come out all right; they always do when they have a s.h.i.+ftless dad and a good mother. And somehow in this great open splendid Western country there is opportunity for such boys.

The big men here were all poor a short time ago. Their grandfathers were rich, their fathers spent their inheritance, they suffered poverty and want and their extremity was the son's spur to ambitious activity.

In the car are four young sports coming home from college on a vacation.

Their daddies are all oil kings, and these youngsters will inherit fortunes.

Those youngsters who were playing Indian will get on in the world; these four young millionaire kids will go broke; their heads are not shaped right; their jaws slant back; it isn't in them. I know something of character.

Bye-bye, Mamma, with your little cabin and your boys; some day you will have peace and plenty.

Those four oil Johnnies will marry girls who have plenty and some day those girls will have to do the family was.h.i.+ng.

The wheel turns, it's the history of the past. From s.h.i.+rt sleeves to s.h.i.+rt sleeves in three generations.

Lincolns, Garfields, and Edisons came from just such little cabins and just such rough, hard, bare life as I have been seeing this afternoon.

ANGER

It's a Temporary Mental Derangement

Anger and acts of revenge are great pull-backs to health.

Anger makes the blood rush to the head, weakens the body, and distorts the vision.

When a woman gets angry, she quarrels with her lover, her husband or her children. Any one of these things is a calamity.

When a man gets angry he is a wild man, his eyes glitter, his mouth is cruel, his fists clinch, his body trembles, his blood veins strain and he does more harm in five minutes' anger than nature can repair in a day.

Anger makes weak stomachs, dizzy heads, poor judgment, lost friends, despair, sickness and likely the confirmed habit will lead to apoplexy.

When two men have differences, watch the cool man finish victor, the angry man always loses.

Keep your head; let the other fellow fret and fume.

He will tie himself up in a knot and finish loser.

Serenity is a G.o.d's blessing and fortunate is the man who can hold his serenity.

When you get a letter that stirs you to anger, don't answer that letter for forty-eight hours, then write a moderately vitriolic letter,--and then tear it up.

I know you are tempted, goaded and your limit of endurance is sometimes exhausted.

I know revenge is sweet only in antic.i.p.ation. I know that revenge by anger and by the cruel "eye for an eye" measure is never, never sweet.

I have had imposition, ingrat.i.tude, insincerity and advantages taken of me because I kept my poise and serenity.

I have been called easy, and soft, and friends have shown me where I was imposed upon, but I was stooping to conquer. I kept my reserve, my resistance and my power ready until time, place, and preparedness let me spring my coup and then I cashed in beautifully in princ.i.p.al and interest for those acts and hurts.

I have power now in my hands to make others suffer, keenly and deeply, for wrongs they have done me. Yet I do not exercise that power to revenge.

I have been misjudged and misunderstood because cowardly persons have lied and villified me and accused me of motives and acts of which I was innocent.

I am well hated now by one person in particular who blames me for things another is guilty of. A word from me would clear me, but it would bring gloom and despair to that person and would not make me any less cognizant of my innocence.

Time somehow will bring out the truth; the cowardly, guilty individual who basks in the favor of the one who is angry at me will surely pay for his wrong.

This I know and I am satisfied with the ultimate result.