"Our first religious service was in '61, by a M.E. minister from Beatrice. Our first doctor in '63. We received our mail once a week from Nebraska City, 150 miles away. The postmaster received two dollars a year salary, but the mail was all kept in a cigar box, and everybody went and got their own mail. It afterward was carried from Mission Creek, 12 miles away, by a boy that was hired to go every Sunday morning. The U.P.R.R. was built in '80. "My wife and I visited our friends in Eastern Pennsylvania, and surprised them with our genteel appearance. They thought, from the life we led, we would be little better than the savages. My brothers wanted me to remain east, but I felt penned up in the city where I couldn't see farther than across the street, and I told them: 'You can run out to New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and around in a few hours, but how much of this great country do you see? No, I will go back to my home on the Blue.' I am the only one of the old settlers left, and everybody calls me 'Pap Tyler.'" I prolonged my visit until the 5th of July that I might see what the Fourth of '83 would be in Blue Springs. It was ushered in with the boom of guns and ringing of bells, and instead of the 150 of '59, there were about 4,000 gathered with the bright morning. Of course there were old ladies with bonnets, aside, and rude men smoking, but there was not that lack of intelligence and refinement one might expect to find in a country yet so comparatively new. I thought, as I looked over the people, could our eastern towns do better? And only one intoxicated man. I marked him--fifth drunken man I have seen since entering the state. The programme of the day was as follows: SONG--_The Red, White, and Blue_. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE--Recited by Minnie Marsham, a miss of twelve years. SONG--_Night Before the Battle_. TOAST--_Our Schools_. Responded to by J. C. Burch. TOAST--_Our Railroads_. Rev. J. M. Pryse. MUSIC--By the band. TOAST--_Our Neighbors_. Rev. E. H. Burrington. Rev. H. W. Warner closed the toasting with, "How, When, and Why," and with the song, "The Flag Without a Stain," all adjourned for their dinners. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler invited me to go with them, but I preferred to eat my dinner under the flag with a stain--a rebel flag of eleven stars and three stripes--a captured relic of the late war that hung at half mast. In afternoon they gathered again to listen to "Pap Tyler" and Pete Tom tell of the early days. But the usual 4th of July storm scattered the celebrators and spoiled the evening display of fire-works. WYMORE