The Minute Man on the FrontierPuddefoot, William George
History
The Minute Man on the Frontier
Puddefoot, William George
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Missions -- West (U.S.)
Here is a brawny man who does not like the church. He hates the name
of preacher, and threatens that he had better not call at his house.
Scarlet fever takes his children down. The despised preacher, armed
with a basket of good things, raps at the door. Pat opens it.
"Good-morning, Pat. I heard your little ones were sick, and my wife
thought your wife would have her hands full, and she has sent a few
little things--not much, but they will help a little, I hope."
The tears are in Pat's eyes. "Come in, Elder, if you are not afraid,
for we have scarlet fever here."
"That is the very reason I came, my boy;" and Pat is won. The very man
that swore the hardest because the elder was near, now says, "Don't
swear, boys; there's the elder."
Yes; and when men have heard that the new preacher has helped in the
house stricken with small-pox or typhoid, he has the freedom of the
village, or the camp, and is respected. And so the village missionary
does some good in the mill-town. But what is one man among so many?
See this little place with less than five hundred population. Two
thousand men come there for their mail, and the average distance to
the next church is over twenty miles; and one man is totally
inadequate to the great work before him.
These villages and camps ought to have good libraries, a hall well
lighted, innocent amusements, lectures, and entertainments, and in
addition to this, an army of men carrying good books and visiting all
the camps; and there is nothing to hinder but the lack of money, and
the lack of will to use it in those who have abundance. I lately
passed through a lumber-town of seven thousand inhabitants. Four or
five millionnaires lived there. One had put up an $80,000
training-school, another a memorial building costing $160,000. This
is the other extreme. But up to date the lumber-regions have been
shamefully neglected, and thousands of boys and girls are growing up
to drift to our great cities and form the dangerous classes, fitted
for it by their training. It is better to clear the water-sheds than
to buy filters, and the cheapest policeman of the city is the
missionary in the waste places of our land.
XXVI.
TWO KINDS OF FRONTIER.
Some years ago it is said that a man lost his pig, and in searching
for it he found it by hearing its squealing. The pig had fallen in a
hole; and in getting it out, the man saw the rich copper ore which led
to the opening of the Calumet and Hecla mines, and more recently the
Tamarack. More ore per ton goes into the lake from the washing than
comes out of most mines. So rich is this ore that very few fine
mineral specimens are found in the mines. Millions of money have been
expended in developing them, and millions more have come out of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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