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 SENT POSTPAID TO ANY ADDRESS ON RECEIPT OF PRICE. 
 
UNCLE JONAS. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS, 
 
 BY / 
 
 JONAH COOK, 
 
 KDITOR HARPER SENTINEL. 
 
 ti 
 
 ;F cowans 
 4 1891 J) ' 
 
 HARPER, KANSAS. 
 
 HARPER SENTINEL, PUBLISHER. 
 
 1 89I. 
 
?3 \S7% 
 
 Copyright, 1891, 
 
 BY 
 
 JONAS COOK. 
 
TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 The articles contained in this little volume 
 appeared in the Harper Sentinel during 
 the fall and winter of 1890 and '91. They 
 were received with such favor that their 
 author concluded to put them in book form. 
 
 In the hope that those who read this little 
 book may find some thoughts worthy of 
 attention the author gives it to the public. 
 
 Jonas Cook. 
 Harper, Kansas, May 10, 1891. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 
 Opposition, . 
 
 i 
 
 Gone to Seed, .... 
 
 3 
 
 Who are Patriots? ... 
 
 6 
 
 How, ..... 
 
 9 
 
 Rashness of the Month, 
 
 1 3 
 
 Will it Pay? .... 
 
 *7 
 
 Keep Off the Grass, . 
 
 22 
 
 Buzzard and Humming Bird, 
 
 27 
 
 Good People, .... 
 
 3 r 
 
 Studying Human Nature, 
 
 35 
 
 Where Are They? 
 
 4i 
 
 Stray Thoughts, 
 
 46 
 
 If, 
 
 49 
 
 Drag the Rake, Boys, 
 
 53 
 
 Growing Apart, 
 
 57 
 
 Public Speaking and Public Speakers 
 
 62 
 
 Seeing, . . . . 
 
 ■ 67 
 
 What Man Can Do, . . 
 
 7i 
 
 Conversation, .... 
 
 74 
 
 Resolutions, .... 
 
 79 
 
 Formers and Reformers, 
 
 82 
 
 Home Over Here, 
 
 87 
 
OPPOSITION. 
 
 Opposition, my dear friends, is not the 
 worst thing that can come to a man. In 
 fact, it is more frequently a benefit than an 
 injur}'. It is too often the case that the very 
 things we want and the very principles we 
 advocate would be the worst for us if we 
 should get them. 
 
 The little child that tries to grasp the burn- 
 ing lamp would be badly injured, were it not 
 for the mother's opposition. The boy's kite 
 would fall to the ground were it not for the 
 opposition of the wind. 
 
 Had the English government not opposed 
 the colonists, America might be to-day feed- 
 ing the British lion and trembling at his roar. 
 Had not Jefferson Davis opposed the terms of 
 Lincoln's emancipation proclamation, the 
 auction block with all its horrors and the 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 cruel lash upon the back of the slave, might 
 be things of the present instead of the past. 
 
 Opposition shows a man his weak points, 
 and if he is made of good material, he will 
 seek to strengthen his weakness and rise 
 above obstacles thrown in his way. 
 
 Opposition awakens thought, stimulates 
 ambition and leads onward and upward. 
 
 Do not, my dear friends, confound persecu- 
 tion and oppression with opposition. They 
 are very different things. Opposition may be 
 void of both malice and injustice. 
 
 The fond mother who holds the nose of her 
 child while she forces it to take medicine in 
 opposition to its wishes, is not prompted by 
 any malicious or unjust feeling toward it, but 
 she knows she must oppose the child's wishes 
 in order to accomplish its greatest good. 
 
 Just so in life, if we will but look beyond 
 our feelings into our reason and judgment, 
 we will find that opposition is more frequently 
 a benefit than an injury. 
 
GONE TO SEED. 
 
 My Dear Friends: Yon, no doubt, have 
 heard and used the expression "gone to seed" 
 in reference to the vegetables in your garden. 
 Did you ever think what it means? When a 
 plant has gone to seed, it simply means 
 it has ceased to grow, and all that is left of it 
 are the germs or seeds of reproduction. In 
 fact, the plant has finished its mission here, 
 and will soon return to nourish mother earth 
 whence it came. 
 
 Have you ever observed that there are a 
 great many people in this world who are like 
 the plants — they have gone to seed? 
 
 In fact, the world is full of men and women 
 who have ceased to grow, socially, morally, 
 or intellectually, and it may be justly said of 
 them, they have gone to seed. 
 
 In your mind's eye, my dear friends, look 
 across the barbed-wire fence into the field 
 known as school teaching, and see how many 
 of your acquaintances in that vocation have 
 gone to seed. Do you not find men and 
 women there who do not seem to have im- 
 proved one iota by long years in the school 
 room? Do you not even find that they know 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 no more now than they did when yon first 
 formed their acquaintance? 
 
 Well, these folks are done growing-. The 
 vital sap has ceased to circulate, and they 
 have gone to seed, and ought to be removed 
 from the school room. 
 
 Now, cast your eye around you and see 
 how many lawyers there are who belong to 
 that class who have gone to seed. Do you 
 not see them on all sides? Do yon not ob- 
 serve that a majority of them have settled 
 clown to a kind of routine business which re- 
 quires no effort that will cause them to reach 
 out in their profession? Well, these fellows 
 have gone to seed, and are of but little use to 
 society — except as consumers of agricultural 
 products, and swellers of the census. If dying 
 naturally was an act of the will, they could 
 benefit society by performing that act. 
 
 Now, my dear friends, meander with your 
 Uncle Jonas in the theological garden for a 
 few minutes, and let us look around and see 
 how many plants are there that have gone to 
 seed. Don't you see a great many who have 
 ceased to receive nourishment from the fertile 
 soil of the Sermon on the Mount, and have 
 gone to seed on creed? Yea, verily, it has 
 ever been thus. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 But, my dear friends, let us leave this gar- 
 den and go into the political field. There is 
 no place where so many human plants who 
 have gone to seed can be found as in politics. 
 In fact, they have shot to seed so quickly that 
 the seed is not even sound, and but few of 
 them in the pod; and the pod often gaps open, 
 and as the wind whistles through it, nothing 
 is heard save the sound of emptiness. The 
 average human plant grows but little politi- 
 cally. It may be on account of the soil in 
 which it is planted — but be that as it may, 
 you will observe that this field is full of human 
 plants that have gone to seed. 
 
 Yes, my dear friends, you will find in all 
 the gardens of life a great many plants that 
 have gone to seed, and many of them have 
 become so old that they rattle in the pod. 
 
 There is no need of so many people ceasing 
 to grow intellectually as there are. There is 
 enough food for thought to keep them grow- 
 ing, were it not for pure, unadulterated mental 
 laziness. 
 
 Your Uncle Jonas advises you not to go to 
 seed too early in life. 
 
WHO ARE PATRIOTS ? 
 
 My Dear Friends: There seems to be an 
 opinion in this fair land of ours that war and 
 gunpowder, shot and shell, sword and bayo- 
 net, grapeshot and canister, blood and carnage 
 must, in some way, be connected with a 
 man's history before he is entitled to the 
 crown of a patriot. 
 
 There seems to be an idea that in times of 
 peace, patriots do not exist, and that a man 
 must smell gunpowder on the field of battle, 
 or cool coffee around a camp-fire if he would 
 deserve to be called a patriot. 
 
 Your Uncle is aware that the man who goes 
 forth to defend his country when it is threat- 
 ened by an enemy deserves praise and honor, 
 and he generally gets it if he has to give it to 
 himself. 
 
 But, you, no doubt, have observed that 
 there are a great many men who want to own 
 the country they have defended in time of 
 war, and by their actions and conduct after 
 peace has been declared, are doing but little 
 to preserve in peace what they won in battle. 
 
 Yes, my dear friends, it was patriotic for 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 men to face the cannon's mouth in order that 
 u cur country should be kept upon the map of 
 the world and our flag floating in the breezes of 
 heaven.' 1 It was a duty they owed to their 
 homes and the generations to follow, — but it 
 is not patriotism for any class of men to ask 
 too much for doing their duty. 
 
 No nation under the broad canopy of heaven 
 has been as grateful to her soldiers as this 
 nation has been and is at the present day. 
 
 Your Uncle desires to see every man who 
 was disabled while defending his country, 
 cared for proper!}', — but he has little respect 
 for that man who spends his pension mone)' 
 for beer and liquor and transforms his home 
 into a hell. He is not a patriot now who acts 
 thus — even though he left a part of his anat- 
 omy upon the battle field. 
 
 There is such a thing as asking too much. 
 There is such a thing as patriots being trans- 
 formed into mendicants and demanding pay 
 for services which they never rendered. Like 
 a man in Pennsylvania who applied for a 
 pension because his substitute was wounded. 
 
 Are not the man and woman who make 
 their home happy — who rear a good, honest, 
 truthful, intelligent family — who lead a 
 straightforward life, wronging no one — 
 
8 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 building a national defence which grows 
 stronger as time passes by, just as good and 
 noble patriots as they who shoulder a musket 
 and go forth to battle? 
 
 Your Uncle Jonas has but little use for a 
 patriotism that only swells on the 4th of July 
 and Decoration Day. He likes a patriotism 
 that will build happy and prosperous homes, 
 — a patriotism that will cause men to edu- 
 cate their children — a patriotism that will 
 purify the ballot box — a patriotism that will 
 purify the voter. 
 
 When this nation has that kind of patriots 
 in time of peace, she will never have cause 
 for cruel war. My dear friends, are you 
 patriots? 
 
HOW. 
 
 My Dear Friends: Your Uncle has ob- 
 served that people receive more in this world 
 for knowing how to do work than for doing it. 
 
 A large manufacturing establishment was 
 once closed down because the engine and 
 machinery, from some unknown cause, would 
 not do their work. The men in charge 
 sought in vain to learn the trouble, and repair 
 where necessary — but they could not find the 
 cause of the engine's refusing to do its work. 
 Workmen by the scores were standing idle 
 and the owners of the establishment had 
 large contracts that were to be filled — a fail- 
 ure of which meant financial disaster. 
 
 There was a skillful and ingenious man 
 living in the city. He was sent for and came. 
 He examined the machinery, loosened a nut 
 here, and tightened one there, scrutinizing 
 everything with eye and ear, and in a short 
 time the machinery was in motion and the 
 men all at work. 
 
 He was called to the office and asked what 
 he charged for repairing the machinery.. He 
 replied, "I worked two and one half hours, 
 
IO UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 for which I charge $2.50, — but for knowing 
 how to do it, I charge you $97.50. Total, 
 $100.00. " 
 
 The bill was paid without a murmur and 
 money saved the owners by so doing. 
 
 My dear friends, your Uncle Jonas has 
 observed that the person who knows how to 
 do work, can do it much more easily, and 
 with less waste of muscular power than he 
 who attempts to do it by "main strength and 
 awkwardness." 
 
 The physician who examines your pulse 
 and writes you a prescription does not charge 
 you much for his work, but he charges for 
 knowing how. If a leg or arm is to be am- 
 putated, a common butcher with his saw 
 could do the job so far as the mere work is 
 concerned as easily as he can saw a beef bone 
 — but the surgeon is called because lie knows 
 how to do it without endangering the life of 
 the person. 
 
 My dear friends, this age demands more of 
 a person than mere muscular power. He 
 must be skilled in some way. He must 
 know how to use his strength to a purpose. 
 His education must be not only of the hand, 
 but of the head also. 
 
 The winds of heaven sported overhead for 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 1 1 
 
 thousands of years before man learned how 
 to yoke them to the piston of his pump and 
 make them do his bidding. 
 
 It took thousands of years for man to dis- 
 cover how to imprison steam and make it 
 "turn with tireless arm the countless wheels 
 of toil." 
 
 Many centuries came and went, before 
 man learned how to capture electricity and 
 make it the fleetest messenger the world has 
 ever known. 
 
 Your Uncle has oftimes thought that the 
 forces which seem so potent of evil would be 
 just as potent of good if we only knew how to 
 apply them. The same knife that cuts your 
 bread and meat might cut your throat. It 
 all depends upon how it is applied. 
 
 My dear friends, when you are passing 
 along your journey of life, you will find that 
 it is of just as much importance for you to 
 know how to do and how to act, as it is for 
 you to know what to do and when and where 
 to do it. 
 
 The average man's "hindsight is much 
 better than his foresight" and it does not 
 take much ability to explain how a thing was 
 done after it is done. 
 
 The world is full of men who are standing 
 
12 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 with their panels thrust into the pockets of 
 their jeans up to the elbows, and informing 
 the dear people what ought to be done, but 
 have not even the ghost of an idea how it 
 can be accomplished. 
 
 The eminent lawyer receives a large fee for 
 knowing how to handle his case; the emi- 
 nent teacher for knowing how to teach and 
 manage; the eminent preacher for knowing 
 how to preach, and so on from Alpha to 
 Omaha. 
 
 So, my dear friends, if you desire to be- 
 come something more than a mere "thing of 
 beauty and a jaw forever," you must com- 
 mingle your thoughts with your work — you 
 must plan and execute — you must study how 
 to do and then do it. 
 
RASHNESS OF THE MOUTH. 
 
 My Dear Friends: No doubt, you have 
 observed that there is a disease which is very 
 contagious, and which exists in every clime 
 that the wand of civilization has touched, 
 and for want of a medical term your Uncle 
 will call it "Rashness of the Mouth." 
 
 There are a great number of people afflicted 
 with it, and a much larger number afflicted 
 
 BY it. 
 
 In some cases it is hereditary and in other 
 cases it is acquired. 
 
 It quite often kills the victim who is 
 afflicted with it and cripples those who are 
 afflicted by it. This rashness of the mouth is 
 sometimes cured by the fellow's fist who is 
 affected by it, coming in contact with the 
 person's mouth who has it, with such force as 
 to horizontalize his perpendicularity. 
 
 Eike the consumption, it steals unawares 
 upon people and gnaws at their social life to 
 such an extent that their eyes become gan- 
 grened with hatred — they lose confidence in 
 their fellow beings, and there is a breaking out 
 
14 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 at the mouth, and the air is filled with social 
 and moral miasma. 
 
 When a person has a bad case of rashness 
 of the mouth it is generally accompanied by 
 a very fertile imagination, which leads him 
 to talk about everybody's business but his 
 own, and does it, too, in an uncomplimentary 
 manner. 
 
 This afflicted class generally obey the fol- 
 lowing injunctions: 
 
 " Tell your neighbors all you know, 
 
 Who it was that told you so; 
 Talk to this ou<\ talk to that, 
 Learn your story, get it pat." 
 
 This disease is very contagious among peo- 
 ple who have more mouth than brains. 
 
 This rashness of the mouth is quite often 
 preceded by two other diseases; namely: 
 petrifaction of the heart and putrefaction of 
 the brain. 
 
 My dear friends, to be honest in this mat- 
 ter, we are all more or less afflicted with the 
 rashness of the mouth. We too Often are 
 ready and willing without thinking what the 
 result will be, to assist in circulating an evil 
 report on our fellow beings before we know 
 whether it is true or not. 
 
 The little verse which follows your Uncle 
 committed some years ago: 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 1 5 
 
 "First somebody told it, 
 
 Then the room wouldn't hold it; 
 And the busy tongues rolled it, 
 
 Till they got it outside. 
 When the crowd came across it, 
 
 They never once lost it, 
 But tossed it and tossed it, 
 
 Till it grew l$ng and wide." 
 
 How often do people become rash at the 
 mouth because somebody told this or that 
 and before the truth could be learned, it 
 grows "long and wide." 
 
 When an evil report is heard, my dear 
 friends, would it not be best for us to ask, "Is 
 it true?" and if true, "Is it a benefit to socie- 
 ty to tell it?" If these two questions were 
 asked candidly, your Uncle believes that 
 there would be fewer cases of the rashness of 
 the mouth than there are. 
 
 "Speak gently to the erring — know. 
 
 They may have toiled in vain; 
 Perchance unkindness made them so. 
 
 Oh, win them back again." 
 
 My dear friends, this rashness of the mouth 
 has destroyed the happiness of many a home. 
 It has changed love into hatred. It has ar- 
 rayed husband against wife — children against 
 parents — friend against friend. It has often 
 taken out of life all that is worth living for, 
 and obscured the Star of Hope in life's firma- 
 
l6 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 ment and left nothing- but the darkness of 
 despair. 
 
 When your Uncle sees some poor wayfar- 
 ing person who has strayed from the path of 
 duty and who has lost his self-respect, he of- 
 ten thinks it may be moje the fault of society 
 — more the fault of the rashness of other's 
 mouths than that of his own. Many persons 
 are too weak to bear the severe censure of 
 their fellow beings without straying from the 
 path of duty. 
 
 My dear friends, your Uncle Jonas advises 
 
 you to be careful how you handle words. 
 
 They are dangerous things. "The tongue 
 
 has cut off more heads than the sword." 
 
 When you feel that you are about to be seized 
 
 with rashness of the mouth, as an antidote 
 
 ponder well the following verse of Will 
 
 Carlton: 
 
 "Boys flying kites may haul in their white- 
 winged birds, 
 You can't do that way when you are flying words. 
 'Cai*eful with fire' is good advice, I know, 
 'Careful with words' is teu times doubly so. 
 Thoughts unexpressed may fall back dead, 
 God, himself, cannot kill them when they're; said. 
 
 Yes, the small pox is preferable to a severe 
 
 case of the rashness of the mouth. 
 
WILL IT PAY ? 
 
 My Dear Friends: When the Creator stood 
 with* the clay in his hands and the idea in 
 his mind ready to make man in his own 
 image, it is likely that he asked himself the 
 question, Will it pay? 
 
 Will it pay to create a being capable of 
 loving and hating, hoping and fearing — capa- 
 ble of doing right and wrong — capable of 
 bearing pleasure and pain — capable of ascend- 
 ing the scale of progression or descending to 
 the depths of degradation? 
 
 Man who was made in the image of his 
 Maker generally asks himself, when abont to 
 do anything, "Will it pay?" "Wherein will 
 I be benefited if I pursue this or that course?" 
 "Will it pay for me to undertake this enter- 
 prise or will I reap a greater reward by doing 
 something else?" 
 
 These questions, your Uncle has observed, 
 have been asked by men viewing the rewards 
 from different standpoints. The majority of 
 men when they propound the question, Will 
 it pay? to themselves have in mind a mate- 
 rial reward — one of dollars and cents. They 
 seem to look upon the accumulation of prop- 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 erty to satisfy some personal or selfish ambi- 
 tion as the only real answer to the question, 
 Will it pay? They have a greater desire to 
 rise above their fellow man than to raise him 
 to a higher plane in the social world. 
 
 My dear friends, the greatest reward for 
 work does not always come in dollars and 
 cents, but in the full consciousness of having 
 assisted others or having aided your fellow 
 man to a nobler life. 
 
 You cannot afford to neglect the little acts 
 of kindness toward your associates — you can- 
 not afford to neglect to speak a kind word to 
 those you daily meet — many of whom are 
 soul-sick and almost too weak to bear the 
 burdens of life. Will it pay to withhold from 
 such the balm of sympathy which will 
 encourage them to better deeds? 
 
 Too many people believe in immediate 
 returns for their work — the Jonah's gourd 
 kind that comes in a night, and they do not 
 seem to think that it will pay to cast their 
 bread upon the waters with the expectation 
 that it will return after many days. 
 
 A number of years ago (pardon reference 
 to self) your Uncle was the teacher of a 
 young man who had but little home attrac- 
 tions. He longed to tear himself away from 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 1 9 
 
 his country home, so he came to town and in 
 a short time was frequenting the saloons — a 
 thing that was not considered in that place as 
 being much disgrace if any. Being confi- 
 dent of the fact that the boy had a great deal 
 of respect for his teacher's opinion, your 
 Uncle met him alone one clay when about the 
 following advice was given him in the most 
 friendly manner: "I saw you going in and 
 coming out of saloons several times. You 
 cannot ever expect to become much of a man 
 if you frequent such places. I presume you 
 have been drinking some. I do not fault 
 you for going in to see what is there — but 
 you ought not to go as a customer. Look 
 around you and see the men in this town who 
 a few years ago were honored and respected 
 and whom you now know as drunkards. 
 Now, when you get out by yourself, I want 
 you to ask yourself this question, 'Can I 
 afford to take any risks in becoming like 
 them?' " 
 
 Years after the above advice was given and 
 the boy had gone out into the busy world, 
 and your Uncle had lost trace of him, a letter 
 came stating that he had a good position 
 paying him one hundred dollars per month, 
 and amongst other things he wrote, "I have 
 
20 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 never tasted an intoxicating drink since the 
 day you gave me that little advice, and I 
 suppose if it had not been for you I would 
 be a drunkard." 
 
 My dear friends, there was no money in 
 the above work for your Uncle, — but he has 
 been paid a thousand fold for what he did for 
 that boy. 
 
 Will it pay to let .boys and girls, young 
 men and young women go to ruin when but 
 a few words given in the proper spirit, by 
 the right person at the right time, in the 
 right manner and at the right place, will 
 save them? 
 
 Will it pay to follow a business that simply 
 clothes the back and feeds the stomach? Do 
 not think for a moment your Uncle Jonas 
 would take from man the desire to accumu- 
 late property and make money — for by obser- 
 vation he has learned that those who work to 
 accumulate wealth are amongst the best peo- 
 ple on earth. But men can work arid accu- 
 mulate and not neglect to assist those around 
 them who need advice — who need a word of 
 encouragement — who need sympathy. 
 
 Too many men have fallen into the habit 
 of passing by boys without noticing them — 
 snubbing them on every occasion. It does 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 21 
 
 not pay to act thus. These boys soon become 
 men, and an injustice or an uncalled for snub 
 done a boy, he never forgets it when he 
 becomes a man. Your Uncle is now speak- 
 ing from experience. 
 
 My dear friends, will it pay to treat your 
 fellow man in an uncivil manner? Will it 
 pay to be selfish and arrogant? Will it pay 
 never to lend a helping hand to those in 
 need? Will it pay to use any power you 
 may possess for any other purpose than to 
 promote the best possible good? Will it pay 
 to accumulate wealth at the expense of hon- 
 esty and the true principles of manhood? 
 Will it pay to conduct yourself in such a 
 manner that when old age — the time for 
 reflection — comes upon you that you will be 
 forced to review a life full of selfish deeds? 
 
KEEP OFF THE GRASS. 
 
 My Dear Friends: Did you ever pass 
 through a public park without seeing on 
 every turn the command to "keep off the 
 grass?" This sign is stuck up everywhere 
 in cities until people are almost led to believe 
 that grass is not to be trod upon at all. 
 
 At the opening of the Chicago schools a 
 few weeks ago, a little six- year-old boy who 
 had spent the most of the summer in the parks 
 and had been compelled to stare at the keep- 
 off-the-grass placards, started to school and 
 the teacher was talking to her pupils con- 
 cerning the earth and the many beautiful 
 things that grow thereon, and while she was 
 speaking of the beautiful grass that covers 
 the earth like a carpet, one little hand came 
 up and he said: "Teacher, I know what 
 grass is." 
 
 The teacher smiling, asked "What is it, 
 Charlie?" 
 
 Charlie replied, "Grass is something that 
 people must keep off of." 
 
 Your Uncle never sees one of these keep- 
 off-the-grass cards that he does not feel like 
 tramping it. While he is aware that it is 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 23 
 
 necessary sometimes to say "Thus far — but 
 no farther," yet people are ordered to keep 
 off the grass by so many commanders that 
 have commissioned themselves to give orders 
 and their right is only assumed. 
 
 My dear friends, while your Uncle has 
 been roaming around in the green pastures of 
 society, lo, these many years, he has been 
 confronted with this same keep-off-the-grass 
 spirit that is to be seen on placards in the 
 park. 
 
 If a man or class of men resolve to cut 
 loose from an old political party, even though 
 its principles have lost their usefulness by 
 time, there will be a howl go up in loud tones 
 that the}' keep off the grass and return to the 
 beaten paths of their old party. The self- 
 constituted policemen of the old party will 
 swing their political maces of sneers and 
 abuse above their heads and command all to 
 keep off the grass in the political park. 
 
 Occasionally a barbed wire is stretched 
 between the grass and the beaten path, so he 
 who attempts to cross over into the green 
 pastures may rend his garments. 
 
 This keep-off-the-grass card is also seen in 
 the religious parks of the world, and the man 
 or class of men in all ages, who have strayed 
 
24 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 from the paths of the majority have been 
 called upon to keep in line and not trample 
 on the grass on either side. 
 
 Yes, my friends, the parks of society in 
 this world are filled with orders to keep off 
 the grass. 
 
 When Dr. Harvey announced to the world 
 that the blood of man circulated in his body 
 the entire medical fraternity yelled at him to 
 keep off the grass. To-day there is not a 
 physician in the land but what knows that 
 Dr. Harvey was correct in his statement. 
 
 When our Revolutionary fathers sought to 
 establish a "government for the people, of 
 the people, and by the people,'' a pusillani- 
 mous, bull-headed king ordered them to keep 
 off the grass, and he attempted to enforce his 
 order by the "last argument to which kings 
 resort." 
 
 Your Uncle has observed that there are too 
 many cards posted up in this world telling 
 people what not to do instead of telling them 
 what to do. In society matters people bow 
 to customs quite often that are as absurd as 
 anything can be, simply for fear that they 
 may trample on the grass outside of the worn 
 path. 
 
 Public opinion is a mediocre — a tyrant 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 25 
 
 quite often that would crush out all progress 
 if possible. Public opinion has transformed 
 many a budding genius into a blatant hypo- 
 crite. Your Uncle is aware, however, that a 
 good healthy public opinion is the conserva- 
 tive power — the balance-wheel of society — 
 yet there is a great deal of public opinion 
 that is not of a good healthy kind, judging 
 from the effect it produces. 
 
 This keep-off-the-grass card is found in too 
 many homes. Your Uncle has visited houses 
 that were called homes where the children 
 were not allowed to enjoy themselves for fear 
 of soiling the carpet, scarring the furniture, 
 or tearing the lace curtains. They could not 
 turn around without being told "to be care- 
 ful/ ' "don't do that," "that's naughty," 
 "don't soil the carpet," etc., etc., until the 
 sweet milk of concord in the household had 
 become sour, and home (?) had no charms 
 for them. 
 
 My dear friends, men have always differed 
 in opinion on great and small subjects, and 
 your Uncle is glad such is true, but that is 
 no reason men should not be tolerant with 
 each other — that is no reason men should 
 hate each other — that is no reason they 
 should order each other to keep off the grass. 
 
26 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 The continent of Thought is infinitely 
 large, and there is room for all without each 
 person putting up the sign keep off the grass 
 and as time goes by and men become truly 
 civilized, as your Uncle believes they will, 
 then, and not till then, will people no more 
 be ordered to keep off the grass. 
 
BUZZARD AND HUMMING-BIRD. 
 
 My Dear Friends: Many years ago when 
 your Uncle was a small boy living among the 
 vine-clad hills of his eastern Ohio home, he 
 was cutting down mullen stalks which had 
 grown upon the field; and beautiful flowers 
 were in bloom and all nature was giving evi- 
 dence that autumn was at hand. The 
 orchard near by was groaning under its load 
 of Wall-dower, Rambo and other apples of 
 the choicest kind. The robin and swallow 
 were preparing to migrate to a warmer clime. 
 The busy bee was chasing from flower to 
 flower, gathering his winter store of honey. 
 The crow was cawing in the woods beyond. 
 The frisky little squirrel was chattering as he 
 stored away the nuts. The grasshopper was 
 ceasing to be a burden and the little ant was 
 hurrying to and fro busy with its work which 
 no human can understand, and as your Uncle 
 lay there under the old wild cherry tree, his 
 scythe by his side watching these members 
 of the lower creation and dreaming only such 
 day visions as boys can dream, a great large 
 buzzard came flying over his head. He 
 
28 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 watched it as it balanced itself upon the 
 atmospheric sea and sailed as gracefully as 
 a ship over the placid waters of a lake. It 
 seemed to take no notice of the flowers that 
 were blooming in the fields or the beauties 
 of nature that were around on every side. 
 But in a short time it saw the object of its 
 search and hovering above it for a moment 
 then lighted upon it. 
 
 It was the carcass of an old dead sheep 
 which lay in one corner of the field. Your 
 Uncle watched it as it feasted with a great 
 deal of delight upon the putrid flesh, the 
 stench of which but a short time before had 
 driven the boy who was lying beneath the 
 wild cherry tree from that portion of the field. 
 While musing over the strange nature of the 
 buzzard and chiding it for lacking in taste, a 
 beautiful little humming-bird came flitting 
 by, diving its tiny bill into a flower here and 
 hovering over a flower there, and sipping the 
 nectar and in a gleesome manner seeming to 
 enjoy the beauties which surrounded it on 
 every side. 
 
 The buzzard having satisfied its appetite 
 sailed away and was seen no more. The 
 humming-bird was soon lost to sight, and the 
 boy picked up his scythe and resumed his 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 29 
 
 work of cutting the mullen, little thinking 
 then that he had gathered food for thought 
 from the buzzard and the humming-bird 
 which in after years could be applied as a 
 lesson in life. 
 
 My dear friends, long years have come and 
 gone since that day, and as your Uncle has 
 traveled over many states which then had no 
 location to him except on the map in his text- 
 book in geography, he has seen and met some 
 human buzzards who fly over the field of 
 society, which is filled with many beautiful 
 things, scenting the air not for the pure, but 
 for the putrid and decaying matter they may 
 find. These human buzzards, though few in 
 number, may be seen moving about every 
 day with no eye to see that which is good — 
 no scent to smell that which is wholesome — 
 no desire to partake of that which is pure. 
 On the other hand, your Uncle has seen and 
 met ninety-nine human humming-birds to one 
 buzzard, who like the humming-bird of his 
 boyhood days fly over the field and see the 
 beauties — taste of the sweets, and never once 
 think of feasting upon the dead and putrefy- 
 ing bodies that lie in the fence corners of this 
 field of human society. 
 
 My dear friends, you can each transform 
 
30 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 yourself into a human buzzard if you desire — 
 you can educate yourself to see nothing that 
 is pure, noble, and good in your fellow man 
 — you can make yourself miserable by refusing 
 to taste of the sweets of life, or you each can 
 be a humming-bird if you so desire — you can 
 educate yourself to see that there is a great 
 deal more good than evil — more of the pure 
 than of the impure — more happiness than 
 unhappiness in this field of human society. 
 
 The buzzard of the bird kingdom no doubt 
 has a mission to perform which is of as much 
 importance as that of the humming-bird's, but 
 this buzzard never feasts on anything until it 
 is really dead, while the human buzzard 
 preys quite often upon the supposed dead and 
 putrid matter of society. 
 
 Your Uncle leaves this subject with you 
 allowing you each to choose for yourself 
 whether you will be a buzzard or humming- 
 bird in society. 
 
GOOD PEOPLE. 
 
 My Dear Friends: When yon go home 
 after your day's work is done yon are apt to 
 sit down and think of the mean things that 
 your fellow-men have done that day. You 
 are apt to think harshly of the acts or imag- 
 ined acts of those you have met. Man is 
 prone to consider that his fellow-man is seek- 
 ing to take some advantage of him wl^en, in 
 fact, these thoughts are too often but a reflec- 
 tion of self. 
 
 When you go home some evening sit down 
 in solitude, with a lead pencil in hand, and 
 write out the names of those you met that 
 day, and when you have done that, then 
 draw a line across the names of those who 
 have done you an injury or mistreated you in 
 any way, and your Uncle will venture the 
 assertion that you will be surprised how few 
 the number. 
 
 Why, my dear friends, this world is so full 
 of good and noble people that it is sometimes 
 a pleasure, by way of change, to meet a 
 person who has a surplus of pure, unadulter- 
 ated meanness about him and in him. It has 
 
32 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 a tendency to make one appreciate good 
 people. 
 
 Yonr Uncle has been a resident of this city 
 more than three years, and he meets hun- 
 dreds of different persons every day, and 
 some days thousands, and in all that time he 
 has met but one man in this city whom he 
 positively knows has done him an injury. 
 But when he thinks over how much a mean 
 man must suffer for his meanness — how 
 dreadful it must be for a person to be in com- 
 pany^vith mean thoughts concerning himself 
 — he would rather be the one who is mis- 
 treated than he who mistreats. In such a 
 case it is more blessed to receive than to give. 
 
 But, oh, how many good people has your 
 Uncle met in the same time. As he passes 
 up and down the streets daily he often thinks 
 the world is full of good people, and he has 
 no desire to leave it. He feels like the 
 Kansas farmer when attending a revival 
 meeting, and the minister called on all those 
 who wanted to go to heaven to rise. All 
 rose but the farmer, and when the minister 
 walked down the aisle with the lachrymose 
 substance trickling down his cheeks, and 
 taking the farmer by the hand said: "My 
 dear brother, when I asked all to rise who 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 33 
 
 wanted to go to heaven, yon did not get up. 
 Why this thusness?" 
 
 The farmer replied in tones that could be 
 heard all over the house, u Wal, Til tell you. 
 I want to stay right here in Kansas. This is 
 good enough for me." 
 
 This is a kind old world and kind people 
 living in it, if you only do your part. 
 
 Of course, mistakes are often made and 
 wrongs done, but it may be that these are 
 what make us love the right and the true. 
 The most of the evil in this world is too often 
 imaginary. 
 
 Mr. Shakespeare says, "There is nothing 
 either right or wrong but thinking makes it 
 so." 
 
 Your Uncle does not wholly agree with 
 Shakespeare, yet he thinks that nine times 
 out of ten his saying just quoted is true. 
 
 Persons too often consider other people 
 mean and wicked, simply because they 
 oppose them or their views on some subject. 
 Those who oppose us are sometimes our best 
 friends in disguise. When your Uncle was a 
 callow youth, he fell clear up to his ears in 
 love with a freckle-faced girl — but it was 
 "sweetness wasted on the desert air," for she 
 loved another, and the day they committed 
 
34 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 matrimony in the first degree, your Uncle 
 thought them the meanest couple on earth. 
 He has often met that couple together with 
 their numerous progeny since that eventful 
 day, and he now feels like falling on the neck 
 of that man and weeping tears of joy down 
 his spine. What was supposed to be an 
 injury was only made so by thinking. 
 
 My dear friends, you will see that your 
 thinking that the people you meet are mean 
 is about all the evidence you have that so 
 many are mean. You should rejoice that 
 every person you meet does not agree with 
 you in your opinions, for some of your ideas 
 you will find to be very crude; and besides, 
 the world needs the diversity of opinions, of 
 acts, of plans, in order to bring about the 
 best results. 
 
 The lesson your Uncle wants to teach you 
 in this talk is to have faith in your fellow- 
 men. Don't condemn the whole human race 
 because you meet a few people whom you 
 know to be absolutely mean. Don't go 
 through this beautiful world wearing green 
 glasses and contending that everything you 
 see is green. Don't go through the world 
 pulling the mote out of your neighbor's eye 
 while there is a beam in your own. This 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 35 
 
 world has many good people. Are you 
 amongst the number? 
 
 STUDYING HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 My Dear Friends: Have you ever been a^ 
 student of human nature? Have you ever 
 noticed that the general make-up of people is 
 an index of what they will do or say? Of 
 course, education will do much toward 
 removing some inherent disposition to do 
 certain things, but not always. 
 
 Let us stroll down here on the corner and 
 observe the people that pass by. 
 
 Do you see that man coming there with 
 his toes turned in, or what is called pigeon- 
 toed?" Well, he is a man that cannot be 
 convincd. He knows it all, or at least knows 
 more than any other man can tell him. He, 
 in his mind, has had a wonderful experience, 
 and has done wonderful things in his time. 
 
36 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 It is a waste of time to try to argue with or 
 convince men who walk that way. They 
 are one-idead. 
 
 Now, that man you see coming there with 
 his head above the level and chin pointing 
 forward is a person who wants to run things. 
 He wants to rule and if he can't do that he 
 tries to ruin; and that small, very small-eared 
 man passing by is so stingy that he won't 
 eat what his system demands. Such a man 
 will wear a dicky and grow a wart on the 
 back of his neck and use it for a collar button 
 to keep down expenses. 
 
 That woman who passed by just now was 
 about one step ahead of her husband. Did 
 you notice her lips? They are as thin as the 
 blade of a table knife. She has a ring in her 
 husband's nose, and those thin lips bespeak 
 a temper that is a terror to that poor man. 
 May the Lord have mercy on him when she 
 gets mad, for she will not. 
 
 Look at those two young women standing 
 there, each peeling a peach. Do you see that 
 one on the left cuts right in and throws half 
 the pulp away with the peeling? Well, she 
 has an extravagant nature and the young 
 man who commits matrimony with her wants 
 to have plenty about the larder. That other 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 37 
 
 one, you see, peels it so very thin. She has 
 a very saving disposition. 
 
 Did you notice that man step clear to the 
 edge of the sidewalk to let those ladies pass, 
 while there was plenty of room for them to 
 have turned to the other side a little and not 
 crowded anyone? That man gets out of 
 everybody's way. If those ladies had moved 
 a little nearer to him he would have gotten 
 clear off the walk. He is one of those men 
 who feel like apologizing for being on earth. 
 He never does anything of his own accord 
 except get out of the way of others. 
 
 Look at that bald-headed man there who 
 has just removed his hat. Do you observe 
 how high his head is right at the middle 
 point on top? A head like that denotes an 
 extremist. When such men belong to church 
 they can be heard half a mile when they 
 pray and when they get mad at the church 
 they can be heard swear at a greater distance. 
 They generally talk loud and long. They 
 are impulsive and apt to go to extremes when 
 excited. They can't help it, for they were 
 made that way. 
 
 Now, that fellow coming yonder striking 
 his heels against the sidewalk instead of lift- 
 in them up is a poor shiftless man and will 
 
38 UNCLE JONAvS TALKS. 
 
 always be so. It is almost a waste of bread 
 for him to eat and live. He does not amount 
 to anything. 
 
 There, do yon not see that young lady 
 coining down the street, hippy-skippy-nippy- 
 nappy, swinging her head in every direction? 
 She is a silly little creature and would do well 
 enough if she would never grow old. She 
 lacks stability. 
 
 There, did you hear those men laugh? 
 Did you observe that one of them hee-hawed 
 like a Balaam's ass? Well, he is a coarse 
 man. Now, that other man to his right who 
 broke forth at first with a loud laugh and 
 then tapered off to a simper, he always begins 
 a new job of work with a great spurt and 
 "peters out" before he gets through. If he 
 decided to sow seventy-five acres of wheat 
 this fall, he went at it with a rush and the 
 first day or two he nearly killed his team. 
 But he concluded before he worked long that 
 fifty acres were enough, and when he quit he 
 found he had sown but twenty-five acres. 
 
 Have you noticed that fellow right there 
 by the corner who has stopped a half dozen 
 men as they came by, and drew them to one 
 side and talked in a tone so no one could hear 
 him except himself and the one to whom he 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 39 
 
 was talking? Now there are a few men who 
 never talk to another without taking him to 
 one side. Such men are not to be trusted. 
 They are generally betrayers of confidence. 
 
 That man you see with one suspender, one 
 pant leg in his boot and a general slovenly 
 dress is a slouch. Just follow him to where 
 his team is hitched and you will see that his 
 harness are fitted on his horses in about the 
 same style that his clothes are on him. 
 
 Look at that big fat man there in the center 
 of that group. Why are so many gathered 
 around him? Hear him laugh. He is one 
 of those men who draw everybody around 
 him on account of his happy disposition. 
 No matter where he goes he will attract peo- 
 ple. He is a sure cure for the "blues." 
 He is better than medicine for soul-sick peo- 
 ple. He is a benefactor to mankind and 
 when he becomes helpless he ought to receive 
 a pension. 
 
 My dear friends, if you will observe closely 
 you can learn much concerning the character 
 of those you meet. Your Uncle could point 
 out many other indexes to character, but 
 these will suffice. This variety of acts and 
 dispositions is what gives unity to the human 
 race. A rainbow of but one color would not 
 
40 UNCLK JONAS TALKS. 
 
 be beautiful. If all men were alike, life 
 would grow monotonous. No doubt, each 
 one has a niche to fill — each one is a part of 
 one stupendous whole. 
 
 "Out of earth's elements mingled with flame. 
 Out of life's compound of glory and shame, 
 Fashioned and shaped by no will of their own, 
 
 And helplessly into life's history thrown. 
 Born by the law that compels men to be, 
 
 Born to conditions they could not foresee— 
 John and Peter, Robert and Paul, 
 God in his wisdom created them all." 
 
WHERE ARE THEY? 
 
 My Dear Friends: This evening as the 
 clock on the shelf is ticking away the time 
 and the cricket is chirping in the corner and 
 the shades of night have gathered around, 
 your Uncle has fallen into a dream of the 
 past, and his thoughts go back to eastern 
 Ohio to the scenes of his boyhood, and as he 
 stands there in imagination, and looks around 
 him, he asks himself the question, What has 
 become of his early associates? W r here are 
 they who played with him when a boy? 
 Where are they who were grown up men and 
 women at that time? Where are the school 
 teachers that ruled him in more ways than 
 one? Where are they all gone and what are 
 thev doing this eveningr? 
 
 He wanders down to the little old Bethle- 
 hem church that stands amid the honey 
 locusts near the bank of Sandy creek, and 
 climbs over the fence and strolls through the 
 graveyard, and he finds many of them there. 
 
 Yes, my dear friends, many of those with 
 whom your Uncle was acquainted in his boy- 
 hood days lie there beneath the sod, "Careless 
 
42 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 alike of the sunshine and rain — each in his 
 windowless palace of rest." 
 
 He looks around him and on the marble 
 slabs, he reads the date of birth and death, 
 and in but few cases is there other memorial 
 to testify that the inmates ever existed. But 
 deep down in the very being of him who 
 stands there, many of them live. Thoughts 
 of bygone days come rushing back like the 
 flow of the tide of ocean and many of those 
 dead live again. Yonder monument marks 
 the grave of father. Where is he? Does he 
 not live in the very thoughts, deeds and 
 actions to a certain extent of those he left 
 behind? When the mind calls up in long 
 review the forms of those it knew in youth, 
 time itself has been annihilated and Then is 
 Now. 
 
 But your Uncle must not hold you here too 
 long. He now wends his way to the old 
 Brown Frame school house. Here he taught 
 his first term of school. Well does he 
 remember the first morning of that eventful 
 term. And as he stands upon that dividing 
 line, the Present, and looks back through the 
 kaleidoscope of time and views the scene as 
 it then was, he returns again and asks him- 
 self, where are they who gathered there as 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 43 
 
 the pupils of the Brown Frame school? What 
 has become of those boys and girls who for 
 four years called your Uncle their teacher? 
 Where are they all? Were the lessons they 
 received such as to make them better as the 
 years went by? Where are they! Echo 
 answers. Your Uncle thinks of them as the 
 boys and girls of Brown Frame school and 
 not as grown up men and women as all are 
 who are yet alive. 
 
 And the Cross Road school where three 
 years were spent as teacher. Where are 
 those boys and girls that came with whoop 
 and hurrah on each morning? They are not 
 there now. In his imagination, he strolls by 
 and as the boys and girls at recess time who 
 now are there come up, he asks them if Coon 
 Bowers still attends school here. They tell 
 him that no such a boy belongs to Cross Road 
 school. He inquires after many others, but 
 they are not there now. They have gone 
 from there and that is all that he can learn — 
 but they have not gone from the memory of 
 him who asks the question, Where are they? 
 
 In his dream he is carried up to the site of 
 the old log school house. Here is where he 
 first made the discovery that there was such 
 a thing as a school in the world. He sees 
 
44 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 the long slab, backless benches, the old box 
 sheet iron stove, the goose qui 11 pen. He 
 
 sees the form of Silas G the tyrant who 
 
 presided over the school and who "licked" 
 one of them on an average every five minutes 
 while he taught the.re. There sit the Dicken 
 boys, the Gantzes, the Jeromes, the Dorises, 
 the Casselmans, the Eckleys, the Westfalls, 
 and eight or ten different breeds of Harshes. 
 Your Uncle can see them all and as he hears 
 the rod of that old master strike the ceiling 
 he shuts his eyes and curses in speechless 
 silence. But that old master is not there 
 now. The last that was heard of him, he 
 furnished the corpse for a funeral somewhere 
 in Iowa. Nor are those boys there now. 
 Where are they gone? Your Uncle occasion- 
 ally meets one of them — but he is not a boy 
 any more. His head is becoming silvered 
 and he is nearing the summit of life. The 
 shadows of these boys will soon cease to point 
 westward. Yes, these boys and girls have 
 wne from there and come back no more save 
 on memory's tide. 
 
 It is with melancholy pleasure that your 
 Uncle visits these scenes and inquires for the 
 "boys." He has no regrets or no desire to 
 live over those days again except in memory. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 45 
 
 He does not believe with those who think 
 that childhood is the happiest period of life. 
 He believes that life and its enjoyments should 
 increase as time goes by, else it is a dismal 
 failure. If when we ask Where are they? a 
 feeling arises in ns that our brightest days 
 are gone, then can we recite with the poet, 
 
 "Comfort? Comfort scorned of devils, 
 
 This is the truth that the poet sings, 
 
 That a sorrow's crown of sorrow 
 
 Is remembering happier things." 
 My dear friends, you' each, no doubt, often 
 go back to the scenes of your childhood and 
 ask where are they whom you then knew. 
 
STRAY THOUGHTS. 
 
 My Dear Friends: This evening while 
 your Uncle is in his thinkshop looking over 
 the timber at hand, he has concluded to pick 
 up some of the scraps that are lying around 
 and join them together for the inspection of 
 his readers. 
 
 The first thought that he will present you 
 is, that there is always two sides to every 
 subject — the outside and the inside. An 
 Irishman fresh from the old sod was 
 employed to drive a stage coach across the 
 country with a number of high-toned Ameri- 
 cans in it. Pat drove along many miles 
 until he at last came to a railroad crossing 
 and seeing the sign "Look out for the loco- 
 motive," he stopped and yelling from the top 
 of the coach to those within — "Will one of 
 ye's plaze look out for the locomotive?" One 
 of the party answered "Why don't you look 
 yourself." Pat answered, "and how the 
 divil am I to look out when I am not inside." 
 
 Just so in life, a subject appears very 
 different to those who view it from the outside 
 to what it does to those who view it from the 
 inside. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 47 
 
 To the man in the moon, the earth moves; 
 while to those on earth, the moon moves. 
 
 So my dear friends, if yon feel inclined to 
 criticise the acts and motives of those who 
 are acting- for themselves in matters that are 
 not interfering with your rights, bear in mind 
 that you are doing so from a standpoint with- 
 out, while they may be acting from within. 
 
 Less than four hundred years ago, Colum- 
 bus was considered a fool and heretic for 
 asserting that the earth is round, and to-day 
 the teacher that would teach his pupils that 
 it is any other shape would be expelled and 
 possibly sent to the lunatic asylum for 
 treatment. 
 
 When Robert Fulton built his boat the 
 common herd called it "Fulton's Folly," 
 and stood on the banks of the Hudson and 
 hooted and jeered him. But it moved and 
 now the white sails are spread on every sea. 
 
 When the first steamer was built to cross 
 the Atlantic the crowd stood around and said 
 "It can't be done." "No steamship can 
 ever cross the ocean, and a learned (?) physi- 
 cian of England wrote a book showing the 
 impossibility of such an adventure. Well, 
 my dear friends, the first copy of that book 
 was brought to America in that steamship. 
 
48 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 When railroads were first talked of, it was 
 declared that three miles an hour would be 
 the fastest time they could ever make and 
 that it would be forever impossible for a train 
 to run on any but a straight track. 
 
 When Morse asked congress to appropriate 
 $30,000 to assist him in building a telegraph 
 line to experiment on his invention, one con- 
 gressman suggested that they build a lunatic 
 asylum for him and another sneeringly moved 
 that they appropriate money to build a line 
 to the moon. 
 
 But the trains are running at more than 
 three miles an hour, go around curves, over 
 hills and through mountains. The telegraph 
 has been perfected, and time and space have 
 been annihilated by it. 
 
 My dear friends, your Uncle has observed 
 that on the dead snags and limbs of the tree 
 of Knowledge are perched blind human owls 
 who sit there and look wise and hoot at those 
 who are trying to make improvements over 
 what already exists. It has ever been thus. 
 If you desire to pass through this world with- 
 out being severely censured, follow the advice 
 given by Pope in the couplet: 
 
 ''Be not the first by whom the new is tried. 
 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside." 
 
IF. 
 
 My Dear Friends: Did you ever observe 
 what everlasting things hang on "if? 1 ' 
 
 It stands between many a man and success. 
 It is a thief that has stolen (in the minds of 
 many) all earthly achievements and has left 
 them — Jeremiah-like — doling out their lam- 
 entations. It is a tyrant, quite often, that 
 banishes hope from the human heart and 
 leaves it worse than dead. It is a vulture 
 that preys upon the living, and too often a 
 murderer of the holiest ambitions of the soul. 
 It is the insurmountable wall that separates 
 what is from what was hoped to be. 
 
 Yes, my dear friends, IF things were not 
 as they are, what wonderful changes there 
 would be. 
 
 If your Uncle had not been born, he would 
 not be at all; and if he had been born a 
 female he would have been your Aunt. If 
 the matter of gender was not as it is, what 
 great changes there would be in the average 
 human family. 
 
 If Greece had never flourished, if Rome 
 had never been, if Columbus had never been 
 
50 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 born, if Washington had never existed, IF 
 Lincoln had died in his infancy, who can 
 surmise what the result would have been? 
 If slavery had never been introduced into 
 the American colonies — the late war would 
 never have been, and the average politician 
 in this country would be cut short of cam- 
 paign fuel for want of scarlet garments. 
 
 If the surroundings were different the 
 results would be different, also. 
 
 Why, my dear friends, if we had been born 
 and reared in China, we would all be wearing 
 "pig-tails' ' and believing that our eternal hap- 
 piness depends upon it. If we had been 
 born and reared in India, we would all believe 
 in the transmigration of souls, and not a 
 mouthful of meat would ever find its way to 
 our stomachs. If we had been born and 
 reared in Turkey, when the bells from the 
 towers of the mosques peal forth the hour of 
 high twelve, we would all stop, no matter 
 where we were, and return thanks to Allah. 
 
 "If I had only improved my time while 
 young," says the aged man as he is nearing 
 the end of his journey, "my life would have 
 been more pleasant." 
 
 "If I had only had enough money to have 
 purchased a block when the city was platted," 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 51 
 
 sighs the street loafer, "I would now be 
 wealthy." 
 
 "IF I had only married the judge," whis- 
 per the Maud Mullers, li I might be living 
 differently." 
 
 u lF I had only followed my mother's ad- 
 vice," says the criminal, "I would not be 
 where I am." 
 
 Thusjt is all along the avenues of life we 
 find men and women who are forever lament- 
 ing over the mistakes or supposed mistakes 
 of their past lives. The hell-hounds of 
 Regret and Remorse are forever dogging 
 their steps or baying on their tracks. These 
 people have turned their heads upon their 
 shoulders and are gazing with sorrow into 
 the land of was, and see nothing but the 
 tombstones erected at the graves of disap- 
 pointed hopes, which lie on either side of the 
 pathway of life. 
 
 If they would only look forward into the 
 beautiful land of Will-be, and let "the dead 
 past bury its dead," how much brighter and 
 pleasanter would their lives be, and how 
 much happier would they make those around 
 them. 
 
 Since no one is permitted to choose his 
 parents or to name the country where his 
 
52 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 eyes shall first behold the light of the sun, or 
 to have choice as to the coloring matter that 
 enters into his skin, — it is worse than folly 
 for him to sit down and lament and groan, 
 and say, "If things had been different." 
 
 Your Uncle would not have you understand 
 that he believes you should be contented with 
 anything and everything that may come to 
 you, for he verily believes that contentment 
 as understood by most people is nothing more 
 or less than satisfied laziness. But what he 
 wants to impress upon you is, not to spend 
 your time in grieving over the past mistakes 
 of your life, and neglect the present and 
 blast the hopes of your future. 
 
 When you have set your mark and feel 
 certain it is a worthy one, then if you miss 
 it, "Pick your flint and try it again." 
 
 When things do not go to suit you do not 
 sit down and hold your jaw and whine about 
 it until you become a being of disgust. But 
 up and doing and profit by your mistake. 
 
 And now, my dear friends, your Uncle 
 asks you to make use of that little word IF 
 just as sparingly as possible, for those who 
 use it to excess are generally hated and 
 shunned by all good people. 
 
 Look not mournfully into the past. It 
 
 < ( 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 53 
 
 comes not back again. Wisely improve the 
 Present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the 
 shadowy future without fear, and with a 
 manly heart." 
 
 -^^m¥ 
 
 DRAG THE RAKE, BOYS. 
 
 My Dear Friends: When your Uncle was 
 a mere boy working on the farm with his 
 father and brothers many little incidents 
 occurred which have since become lessons of 
 profit. 
 
 One conies floating back this evening upon 
 Memory's tide and serves as a text for your 
 Uncle's Talk. In the year '63 or '64, wheat 
 was worth $3 a bushel and farmers were 
 anxions to save every head grown — but boys 
 sometimes do not prove as frugal as their 
 father would have them. Thus it was in 
 this case. The wheat field was upon a hill- 
 side. An older brother and a hired hand 
 were cutting it with cradles, and a younger 
 brother, his father and your Uncle were 
 
54 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 raking the swathes into sheaves and binding 
 them. The hillside was so steep that the 
 grain could be cut but one way — hence the 
 cradlers when they cut through to the end 
 would walk back carrying their cradles. 
 Father would insist on the rakes being- 
 dragged on our return to gather up the heads 
 of wheat that lay scattered about. He once 
 stopped at the end and when we trudged on 
 out of his sight, we shouldered our rakes and 
 let the scattered heads remain on the ground. 
 
 Presently a loud well-known voice rang 
 out from the knoll over which we had passed, 
 in tones which we did not mistake, "Drag 
 the rake, boys, wheat is $3 a bushel." 
 
 The voice of him who uttered that com- 
 mand has been stilled by the night of death, 
 but the wisdom which it contains is yet heard 
 through the trumpet of years. 
 
 My dear friends, there is quite a difference 
 between being heard and being understood. 
 If a person is not heard (unless his audience 
 be deaf) it is the fault of the speaker, if he is 
 not understood it is the fault of the hearer. 
 
 Well, your Uncle heard distinctly the 
 utterance, "drag the rake, boys," but it took 
 years to reach the seat of his understanding. 
 There is an excellent lesson in it — one which 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 55 
 
 when fully understood and practiced will be 
 a benefit. 
 
 Look around you, my dear friends, and see 
 how many persons there are who have shoul- 
 dered their rakes instead of dragging them. 
 See how many have gone through to the end 
 of their swath and are now 7 walking back 
 with their rakes in the air. Not a head will 
 they catch — not a kernel will they save. The 
 world is full of people who do not drag their 
 rakes, — and who will not even carry them on 
 their shoulders, but have cast them aside and 
 are sitting around claiming a right to a share 
 of the sheaves bound and the grain gathered 
 by those who drag their rakes. 
 
 There is another class of people who drag 
 their rakes and will not lift them for stones 
 or snags — but rip right through. Such peo- 
 ple soon find all the teeth broken out of their 
 rake and sometimes the head of it split, so 
 new teeth cannot be inserted. Others drag 
 their rake right through everything that 
 comes in its way. The golden wheat, the 
 rag- weed, the Canada thistle, the sand-burr 
 aud bull-nettle are all heaped together — one 
 conglomerate mass — never to be separated. 
 
 The swath of life which every one has to 
 cut and bind into sheaves can not always be 
 
56 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 untied. We can not walk back to the other 
 end dragging our rakes, and come through 
 again. The seed which we sow at seed time 
 has much to do with the sheaves which we 
 rake together and tie at harvest time. "Drag 
 the rake, boys," through life. You may 
 catch many a straw which may show you the 
 direction of the wind or the course of the 
 currents. Drag the intellectual rake, boys, 
 and you will find occasionally an idea hang- 
 ing to it. 
 
 The largest ear of wheat is not always 
 found in the largest field nor will the largest 
 rake always gather the greatest amount of 
 grain. 
 
 There are some people who seem to think 
 that there is no room for their rakes — that 
 some other fellow has their swath — that the 
 harvest is past and all the grain has been 
 gathered, bound into sheaves, threshed and 
 marketed, and they have arrived a little too 
 late to get a share, so they stand around and 
 in their disappointment and anger, they 
 smash their rakes over the stumps and stones 
 on the outside of the field, forgetting that 
 they will need them when the season returns. 
 
 My dear friends, your Uncle admonishes 
 you to drag the rake as you pass through 
 
57 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 life. Drag the rake socially — drag thje rake 
 physically — drag the rake morally — drag the 
 rake intellectually, and when you get 
 through to the end of your swath you will 
 have a crop of grain to thresh instead of chaff 
 and cheat. 
 
 4i» 
 
 GROWING APART. 
 My Dear Friends: Away up in the Rocky 
 Mountains you will find two little streams is- 
 suing from the rocks within a few miles of 
 each other, and seeking to obey the law of 
 gravitation, they wind around the little 
 ravines eager to escape and become some- 
 thing greater. These two streams form the 
 head waters of the great rivers Columbia 
 and Missouri. As they proceed they 
 grow farther apart until the waters of one is 
 poured into the Pacific ocean — while the 
 other courses its way east and south until 
 swallowed up by the mighty Mississippi. 
 
58 UNCLE' JONAS TALKS. 
 
 These inanimate beings obeyed the law of 
 Nature and thus grew apart. 
 
 How like these mighty rivers are many 
 human beings. Their sources may have been 
 near each other — they may have been chil- 
 dren of the same parents, reared and nurtured 
 under the same roof — yet their courses in life 
 may diverge as widely as the Columbia and 
 Missouri. 
 
 Is it from some law of Nature which they 
 are compelled to obey like the waters, or is 
 it from some law of impulse? Or are they 
 responsible for the course they pursue? 
 
 While people are like these rivers in one 
 respect — they may differ in that they may 
 grow apart in thought, feeling and action, 
 and yet, in body, remain under the same roof 
 and eat from the same table. 
 
 How often may be seen brothers who have 
 been rocked in the same cradle — soothed and 
 caressed by the same mother, growing apart 
 until they lose all trace of each other save in 
 memory. How often may be seen a young 
 married couple starting out amid the moun- 
 tains of hardship which so often rise before 
 the poor in early life — but as the years roll 
 on, and they have accumulated enough of 
 this world's goods on which to live in ease, 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 59 
 
 they have so grown apart in opinions and 
 feeling that the streams of kindness and sym- 
 pathy that flow from the heart never reach 
 each other's heads. They have grown apart 
 until the cold and sterile mountain that sepa- 
 rates them is higher than the Rocky Moun- 
 tains which separate the rivers referred to. 
 
 Into the stream of life many obstructions 
 may be thrown to turn it from its course. 
 Selfishness, cruelty and unkindness have 
 caused many to grow apart who should have 
 lived closely together. Greed for the accu- 
 mulation of this world's goods has caused 
 many a man to convert his head into an 
 account book and his heart into a stone, and 
 thus he has grown apart from the world into 
 a piece of congealed self. 
 
 My Dear Friends, your Uncle would not 
 have you believe that this growing apart 
 is always a bad thing. It is as often a bles- 
 sing as a curse. If you have bad associates 
 whose influence has a tendency to drag you 
 down, it is well to grow apart from them. 
 Early associates are quite often a mill-stone 
 around the neck of him who has an ambition 
 to rise above the station in life occupied by 
 mediocres. 
 
 But oftimes it is with a kind of sorrow that 
 
6o UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 one looks back through the kaleidoscope of 
 
 years and follows the winding stream of life 
 
 from then to now. 
 
 "Where are the friends 
 That to me were so dear, 
 Long, long ago, long ago," 
 
 comes like an echo to the soul of him who 
 asks it, and he will find that there has been a 
 wonderful growing apart as the years have 
 gone by. Many of those friends in whom he 
 confided, and almost lived, moved and had 
 his being years ago, have grown so far away 
 from him that they are now scarcely ever 
 thought of. 
 
 The following beautiful poem which ap- 
 peared in the Yankee Blade, from the pen 
 of S. W. Foss, fully illustrates this growing 
 apart. Read it carefully and bear in mind 
 that what you are is more important than 
 WHERE you are. 
 
 ENOCH, CYRUS, JERRY AND BEN. 
 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben 
 
 Were babies together, four fat little men, 
 
 Four bald-headed babies, who bumped themselves 
 
 blue, 
 And sprawled, grabbed and tumbled as all babies 
 
 do— 
 Full of laughter and tears, full of sorrow and glee, 
 And big, bouncing bunglers as all babies be. 
 All in the same valley lived these little men- 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 6l 
 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben 
 Were fast little churns — till they grew to be men. 
 Eight bare little feet on the same errands flew 
 Thro' meadows besprinkled with daisies and dew; 
 They were aimless as butterflies, thoughtless and 
 
 free 
 As the summer-mad bobolink, drunken with glee. 
 A wonderful time were those careless days then 
 For Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben. 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben 
 Grew from babies to boys, and from boys into men. 
 Too restless to stay in the circumscribed bound 
 Of the green hills that circled their valley around, 
 To the North and the South and the East and the 
 
 West, 
 Each departed alone on a separate quest, 
 Ah! they'll never be the same to each other again — 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben. 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben, 
 Though companions in youth, were strangers as 
 
 men; 
 Enoch grew rich and haughty and proud, 
 While Cyrus worked on with the toil driven crowd; 
 In the councils of state Jerry held a proud place, 
 But poor Ben, he sounded the depths of disgrace. 
 Ah! diverse were the lives of these boys from the 
 
 glen- 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben. 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben, 
 Who can read the strong fates that encompassed. 
 
 these men? 
 The fate that raised one to the summit of fame, 
 The fate that dragged one to the darkness of shame! 
 Ah! silence is best; neither glory nor blame 
 Will I grant to the honored or dishonored name. 
 We are all like these boys who grew into men — 
 Enoch and Cyrus and Jerry and Ben. 
 
PUBLIC SPEAKING AND PUBLIC 
 SPEAKERS. 
 
 My Dear Friends: When your Uncle was 
 a boy on the farm, he used to go to the fields 
 and drive the cows home at milking time. 
 He often observed that while the cows kept 
 in the path that led to the barnyard, they 
 would often reach first to this side and then 
 to that and bite off a mouthful of grass and 
 eat it as they passed along. Now and then 
 they would break away from the path and 
 run back, and the driver would have to go 
 after them and bring them up again. 
 
 In many ways some public speakers are 
 like these cows. They start out on the path 
 of their subject which ought to lead them to 
 the barnyard of conclusion where the cream 
 and milk of their efforts can be extracted and 
 used as intellectual food for their hearers. 
 But they keep biting off a mouthful here to 
 one side of their subject, and one there on 
 the other side, and then break and run back 
 to where they began, and their audience must 
 follow them back and come over the same 
 path again, and quite often they never reach 
 the barnyard at all. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 63 
 
 In fact, they fume and fuss and fight the 
 air in wild gesticulation and bellow like cat- 
 tle in those seasons of the year when they 
 are bothered with warbles and gad-flies. 
 
 If it Avere not for the constitutional right to 
 free speech and the liberty of the hearers to 
 leave the place where some speakers speak, 
 your Uncle would be in favor of having some 
 speakers arrested for cruelty to animals. 
 
 First, your Uncle verily believes that there 
 is too much public speaking in the present 
 age for the welfare of good thinking. The 
 average person is too apt to let the public 
 speaker do his thinking for him. Figura- 
 tively speaking, the intellectual (?) morsel 
 is chewed and the hearer closes his eyes and 
 opens his mouth and swallows it down, not 
 even tasting it, — thus bringing upon himself 
 mental dyspepsia. 
 
 But as speakers are like the poor — always 
 with us — it may be well for your Uhcle to 
 point out some of the different kinds that are 
 met, and in doing so he will use a classifi- 
 cation made by John Hall in which he divides 
 them into three great classes: 
 
 First, those who have nothing to say, 
 and say it. 
 
 Second, those who have something to say, 
 but do not say it. 
 
64 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 Third, those who have something to say, 
 and say it. 
 
 The first class may be among the weak 
 things of this earth which have been chosen 
 to confound the mighty — but it is doubtful. 
 How often are we compelled, out of what is 
 called courtesy, to sit and listen to mere 
 sounds from a speaker whose talk is full of 
 "airy nothings." He may be carrying a 
 double head of steam, as it were, but his 
 intellectual steam chest is so small and his 
 escape valve so large that everything escapes 
 in noise, and no power is left to move his 
 audience. This class of public speakers who 
 have nothing to say, and who say it, is quite 
 numerous, and makes considerable noise 
 while doing it too. 
 
 The second class — those who have some- 
 thing to say but do not say it — makes your 
 Uncle very uneasy when he listens to one of 
 them, and he always wishes that he could 
 help him out in some way. This class is 
 very small, for when a person really has 
 something to say he can generally express it 
 and in such a manner as to be understood, 
 too. 
 
 The third class is always appreciated, 
 whether what they say coincides with one's 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 65 
 
 views or not — whether what lie says makes 
 one angry or not. At least, one thing is 
 certain, his audience will know what he said 
 and how he said it. This class always has a 
 clear conception of what they are saying and 
 feel, at least for the time, just what they are 
 talking about. 
 
 There are man}' thing's to which your Un- 
 cle might call your attention. There is the 
 public speaker who hems and haws and 
 apologizes and squirms around for ten or fif- 
 teen minutes when he first gets Up, until his 
 audience begins to feel that he will never get 
 started. No public speaker has a moral right 
 to do this, even if he has the privilege. If 
 he is billed to speak, he should proceed at 
 once, or else say he is unprepared and sit 
 down. Silence is sometimes the finest ora- 
 tory your Uncle has ever heard. 
 
 Then there are those who never know when 
 to stop when they get started. They want to 
 exhaust the whole subject and their audience 
 too, and generally do the latter. At intervals 
 in the last half hour they say, "one thought 
 more" and "finally" and "in conclusion" 
 and "take the subject home with you," etc. 
 until the audience twist and squirm, yawn 
 and breathe "how long, O Lord! how long 
 
66 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 will it be till this speaker -stops;" and when 
 they get out of the hall, they take a solemn 
 vow that they will never he bored again by 
 that man. 
 
 Then there is the public speaker who seems 
 to think that the louder he talks the greater 
 impression he will make upon his audience. 
 He will howl and saw the air, and then want 
 people to be persuaded by what he says. Do 
 you know that such a speaker is scarcely ever 
 heard? In less than five minutes the major- 
 ity of his audience hear nothing save the roar 
 of the wind and seem to have gone into a 
 kind of reverie. 
 
 My dear friends, there are volumes that 
 might be said on this subject, but suffice it by 
 saying that every public speaker should know 
 what he wants to say and say it — he should 
 study his subject in a two-fold relation so 
 what he says may be applicable to his sub- 
 ject and audience, — he should not go into 
 detail but suggest thought that will lead his 
 hearers to think more than he has said — he 
 should never attempt to relate a funny story 
 unless he is certain that he can do it — he 
 should look at his audience while talking — 
 he should leave his audience when it is eager 
 to hear him talk longer. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 67 
 
 My clear friends, if any of yon desire to 
 become a public speaker study a few of the 
 above suggestions and observe the weak- 
 nesses of other speakers and profit by them 
 and then sail in. 
 
 — ^VlWT 
 
 SEEING. 
 
 My Dear Friends: When your Uncle was 
 a country schoolboy, he had the good fortune 
 of attending several terms to a teacher who 
 was able to think beyond the text-book — a 
 thing which is rather uncommon among 
 average teachers. 
 
 One day this teacher informed his school 
 that people do not see with their eyes — but 
 all sight (understanding) is in the mind, and 
 by illustration and demonstration, he proved 
 the truth of his assertion. He proved to us 
 that there were many things before us that 
 were unintelligible to us, and which could 
 only be seen by the mind or understanding 
 brought into the proper relation by the culti- 
 vation of the intellect. 
 
68 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 My dear friends, the eve is only the camera 
 obsenra on which the picture is thrown — the 
 mind sees the picture. Not all that falls 
 upon the camera is seen. 
 
 The story of the six blind men who vent 
 to see the elephant, and who touching- differ- 
 ent parts of him formed different notions of 
 that animal, is as applicable to people with 
 eyes as it is to those blind men. 
 
 A few years ago the battlefield of Waterloo 
 was visited by excursionists. Amongst them 
 was an ignorant sight-seer who had more 
 money than brains. The field was covered 
 with briars and shrubs. The more intelligent 
 of the party looked back through the tele- 
 scope of history and saw the armies of the 
 Duke of Wellington and the mighty Napo- 
 leon arrayed in bloody conflict — they saw the 
 defeat of the French general and his army — 
 they saw him as he was borne away in lonely 
 exile to the island of St. Helena, there to eke 
 out his life — they saw mighty governments 
 change asthe result of this battle, and while 
 they looked and conversed, the ignorant boor 
 who waswith them, exclaimed: lt I do not 
 see anything wonderful in a few briars and 
 shrubs to go into fits about.' ' 
 
 His eves beheld — but his mind did not see. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 69 
 
 There was an excursion of the learned to 
 Niagara Falls a few years ago, and as it pass- 
 ed through Buffalo, New York, a Vermonter 
 — a sheep man wdio had brought a carload of 
 sheep to the Buffalo market — joined the 
 excursion. He was one of those men who is 
 in love with his business. No matter what 
 he looked at, he saw something that reminded 
 him of SHEEP. When the excursion reached 
 the Falls, and each was viewing the sublimity 
 and grandeur of this mighty freak of Nature, 
 — the force of gravity was seen as never 
 before — in the spray the beautiful rainbow 
 revealed all the primitive colors, and the 
 scientists saw the laws of physics obeyed to 
 the letter and while they were standing there 
 awe-stricken with the sight, the old Ver- 
 monter with his pantaloons in his boots — 
 with his hands up to his elbows in his 
 pockets — blurted out, "My God! What a 
 good place this would be to wash sheep." 
 
 He had eyes, but he saw not above or be- 
 yond. He could see nothing of what the 
 others saw, for his mind was uncultivated and 
 concentrated in the horned patriarch of the 
 sheep tribe. 
 
 My dear friends, education is the telescope 
 that reveals thousands upon thousands of 
 
UNCLE JOXAS TALKS. 
 
 things to mankind. With it a person may 
 read sermons in the pebbles and find com- 
 panions in the babbling waters of the brook. 
 By education, man may see to read the starry 
 sky — by education he can go down into the 
 bowels of the earth and see the past history 
 of the rocks — by education he can see the 
 morsel of food transformed to living tissue — 
 by education he can bring up in long review 
 the nations of the earth that have flourished 
 and faded — by education the mental horizon 
 may be so enlarged, that seeing may not be 
 confined simply to the present, but may be 
 extended through the mists of bygone years. 
 My dear friends, if you desire to k 'have 
 eyes and see not," just cease to cultivate your 
 mind. If you wish to go through this life 
 like a young robin — with your eyes closed 
 and mouth open — do not improve your intel- 
 lect, but if you wish to see the beauties that 
 lie around you on every side, improve your 
 mind, and the panorama will present itself at 
 everv turn. 
 
WHAT MAX CAN DO. 
 
 My Dear Friends: If you will east your 
 eye over the progress of the past century you 
 will almost be led to the conclusion that man 
 is capable of doing anything that he desires. 
 He has caged steam and by its expansive 
 force, he sends the iron horse prancing across 
 the continent. He has tamed lightning 
 and by the telegraph he has annihilated 
 time and space. He has by the invention of 
 the telephone made it possible to converse in 
 audible tones for hundreds of miles. He has 
 spanned the mighty rivers with bridges, tun- 
 neled the mountains, and no obstacle seems 
 to arise that he cannot surmount. 
 
 But, my dear friends, — your Uncle has 
 observed that with all man's boasted ability 
 — with all the progress he has made in 
 science, art, literature or in any direction 
 whatever — after all he can do but two things. 
 Namely: Put things together and take 
 things apart. 
 
 The farmer can do no more than put the 
 seed into the ground — or put the seed and 
 the ground together — he cannot make it 
 o-row. Nature does that. Man builds rail- 
 
72 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 roads, and all he does is to place the ties and 
 earth together to form the roadbed, he joins 
 the irons together to make the track. If he 
 wants to span the rivers with bridges, he 
 only puts things together — he creates nothing. 
 He tunnels mountains by taking rocks and 
 earth apart. He enslaves the winds to do 
 his work by bringing his wheel in contact 
 with the atmosphere. He produces all these 
 changes by either mechanical or chemical 
 force. He kindles the fire — but the chemical 
 change called combustion produces the heat. 
 He puts cold water and cold lime together, 
 and Nature slacks it. He, in fact, is but an 
 agent to guide and direct force — he can not 
 create it. 
 
 Things must be put together, else no effect 
 will be produced, and if put together in their 
 proper relations the effect will produce what 
 is called good — if put together improperly 
 the effect will produce what is called evil. 
 
 The same knife that cuts your bread may 
 cut your throat. It is the application — the 
 putting together — that produces the effect, 
 and not the things themselves. 
 
 My dear friends, let us observe if the same 
 statement, that man can do but two things, 
 will hold eood in literature. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. *] $ 
 
 You are aware that the letters of the alpha- 
 bet have no power — no meaning in fact when 
 detached. But just put them together in 
 proper relation and they form every word in 
 the English language, whether that word be 
 good or bad. A good word may be so put 
 together with other words as to make its 
 meaning bad. 
 
 Every sentence uttered or written can only 
 be done so by putting words together. The 
 same word when joined differently may pro- 
 duce a different thought. 
 
 The following sentences convey quite differ- 
 ent meanings although made np of the same 
 words: "Lost, a cow with brass knobs on 
 her horns, belonging to a widow." "Lost, 
 a cow belonging to a widow with brass knobs 
 on her horns." The meaning depends on 
 the manner in which the words are put 
 together and not on the words themselves. 
 
 The sentence, "Woman — without her — 
 man would be a savage," does not mean the 
 same as the sentence, "Woman without her 
 man — would be a savage." 
 
 You see, my dear friends, that there is 
 much in the statement that man can do but 
 two things, and if he does those well he will, 
 no doubt, fill his mission on earth. Every- 
 
74 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 thing in Nature is governed by immutable 
 laws, and Man progresses just in proportion 
 as he discovers these laws and applies the 
 proper principles to make them serve his 
 wants. 
 
 If your Uncle has caused you to think by 
 the few thoughts presented above, he has 
 accomplished his desire. 
 
 ; ^m— 
 
 CONVERSATION. 
 My Dear Friends: Conversation is quite 
 often confounded with talking, — but there is 
 a vast distinction between the two terms. 
 The former implies at least two persons who 
 speak and listen alternately, while the latter 
 implies a speaker and a listener. There is 
 no way in which so much information can be 
 gained — no way in which so much happiness 
 can be derived — no way in which so much 
 misery can be inflicted as there can be by 
 conversation. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 75 
 
 It is often the block and tackle that raises 
 people to higher planes of thought or the 
 millstone about the neck that drags them 
 down to gross and groveling things. 
 
 The subjects of conversation may be divided 
 into two classes, namely: persons and things ; 
 and these may be subdivided into an innu- 
 merable number according to their treatment. 
 
 Your Uncle has observed that the common 
 herd of mankind prefers to converse about 
 PERSONS instead of things, and that, too, when 
 the subject of their conversation is not 
 present. Just listen to the ordinary conver- 
 sation, and after the greeting and reference 
 to the weather are made, then you will hear 
 the name or names of parties not present 
 referred to, and that quite often in uncompli- 
 mentary terms. People fall into the habit of 
 directing their conversation about other 
 people who, in their opinion, have short- 
 comings, and great delight seems to be taken 
 in showing them up in the worst possible 
 light. Women, as a class, are given to this 
 kind of conversation more than men. 
 
 Now, my dear friends, the last sentence 
 above will cause your Uncle to be discussed, 
 if not cussed, instead of conversing on the 
 thought presented in that sentence. 
 
76 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 How often do people meet and converse for 
 hours and hours about some one whom they 
 consider worthless, insignificant and mean, 
 and with whom they would not associate, 
 and yet they will waste valuable time which 
 in no way will benefit themselves or the 
 person of whom they are conversing. There 
 is scarcely a private social gathering where 
 the character of some absent one or ones is 
 not picked, carved and dissected in a most 
 nnmercifnl manner, — beheading people, as it 
 were, with the tongue. 
 
 Yonr Uncle one time offered to give a 
 present to each of a party of young folks who 
 the next day intended to have a social gath- 
 ering, provided they would let their conver- 
 sation be wholly about things instead of 
 absent persons. The presents have not yet 
 been called for. 
 
 Why is it that so many good people will 
 spend their time and destroy their peace of 
 mind in conversing about other people of 
 whom they know so little? Why condemn 
 people when the circumstances and surround- 
 ings which make them what they are, are 
 illy understood? Why assassinate an absent 
 person with your tongue and then when you 
 meet him, greet him with a smile and shake 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 77 
 
 his hand and inquire about his health? What 
 good can come of speaking disparagingly of 
 other people when you hope and trust what 
 you have said will never be heard by them? 
 Should your criticism not be, first for the 
 benefit of him who is criticised, and second 
 for the benefit of society? 
 
 How different is conversation which dis- 
 cusses things instead of persons. Of course 
 it takes more thought — more knowledge — 
 more education — more moral character — 
 more brains generally to converse on subjects 
 of this kind — the benefits and pleasures 
 derived are far greater in the end. 
 
 The reason there are so many poor conver- 
 sationalists is because people have devoted 
 most of their time to business matters, and 
 but little time to the study of science, art and 
 literature. Men have fallen into the habit, 
 not into the idea, that it is necessary to 
 devote every moment to their business mat- 
 ters, and hence their conversations when 
 away from their place of business takes 
 naturally in that course. The school teacher 
 talks school, the lawyer talks law, the physi- 
 cian talks disease, the minister talks sin and 
 righteousness, the farmer talks crops and 
 hogs, the dry goods man talks calico and 
 
78 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 silk, and so on through all the callings in 
 life until every person's conversation smells 
 of his profession or trade. Would it 
 not be better to direct the mind when away 
 from business by conversation which will 
 open up new channels of thought? To be 
 a good conversationalist — a rare thing — one 
 must possess a broad and liberal education. 
 One must know that "all right thinking 
 people" do not necessarily think as he does, 
 and that in the continent of Thought there 
 is room for every explorer. 
 
RESOLUTIONS. 
 
 My Dear Friends: You, no doubt, have 
 observed that there never has been a time in 
 the history of the world when so many reso- 
 lutions have been passed as in the present 
 age. Resolutions full of nothing — resolutions 
 which are to be put in print instead of into 
 practice — resolutions which are intended to 
 boom their author instead of benefitting the 
 convention which passes them — resolutions 
 which will not bear the light of reason to fall 
 upon them — resolutions which are never 
 thought of before or after the day they are 
 adopted. 
 
 This passing of resolutions which are not 
 put into action has a demoralizing influence 
 upon those who adopt them, yet your Uncle 
 believes that while the practice of passing 
 resolutions without due consideration is con- 
 tined it is best that they are not carried out. 
 
 A resolution — and when your Uncle says 
 resolution here he means resolution — presup- 
 poses that thought has preceded and that 
 action will follow, else the resolution is only 
 another name for falsehood. 
 
 "Think, resolve, act," is a good motto 
 
8o UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 when taken in its order, but when reversed 
 it oftimes proves disastrous. How often do 
 you see men who ACT the fool and then RE- 
 SOLVE that they will never do so again, but 
 never put their resolution into effect. Tt is 
 much easier to attend a temperance conven- 
 tion and arise and offer a resolution condemn- 
 ing the liquor traffic and then go home and 
 sit down and see the law violated daily, than 
 to do anything to put the resolution into 
 action. 
 
 The world is full of moral cowards who 
 want to be dead certain that a large majority 
 will favor the enforcing of a resolution before 
 thev will conimit themselves. 
 
 Resolutions passed in a convention too 
 often contain narrow opinions which are 
 either the fruits of some contracted mind or 
 the legitimate works of the devil. 
 
 A number of years ago, a national conven- 
 tion of a small sect was called to meet at 
 Memphis, Tennessee; and when the time 
 came there were but three ministers present. 
 One of them was elected chairman, and he 
 appointed the other two a committee on reso- 
 lutions. The committee withdrew from the 
 hall and in a short time returned and reported 
 the following: 
 
U N C L K JO N AS T A L KS . 8 1 
 
 "Your committee beg leave to make the 
 following- report: 
 
 i . Resolved that the world belongs to the 
 Saints. 
 
 2. Resolved that we three are the Saints." 
 
 The report was unanimously adopted and 
 the convention adjourned. 
 
 My dear friends, these resolutions like 
 many others prove nothing — in fact, in the 
 true sense of the term, are not resolutions 
 at all. 
 
 Nine-tenths of the resolutions passed are 
 the ebullition of anger, the effervescence of 
 impulsive natures, the froth of ignorance or 
 the snares of the hypocrite. 
 
 Resolutions are not confined to the living 
 alone — but to the dead also. Just how a 
 series of resolutions can do the dead any good 
 is more than your Uncle has been able to 
 comprehend. If people or societies have 
 such an exalted opinion of a person why 
 should they wait until he dies before they 
 formulate them into resolutions, prefaced by 
 a number of "whereases." No criticism is 
 intended upon a tribute of respect given to 
 the world by the friends of the dead — but 
 many of the resolutions passed on such occa- 
 sions are but the vapor of a momentary 
 impulse. 
 
82 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 My dear friends, do not infer that your 
 Uncle is advising you not to make any reso- 
 lutions. Far from that, he would have you 
 first think, then resolve, then act, and when 
 you find that you have make a bad resolution 
 do not be foolish enough to act in accordance. 
 
 It is the actions — not the resolutions — of 
 men that emblazon their names on the pages 
 of the world's history. 
 
 Bear in mind that there is quite a difference 
 between resolving to do right and doing it. 
 
 FORMERS AND REFORMERS. 
 My Dear Friends: Your Uncle has always 
 believed that there is a great deal of time 
 spent in trying to RE-form parties and people 
 that could be better employed in forming 
 them correctly in the first place. Men go 
 howling around the country about the need 
 of reform who make no effort to see that the 
 children of their own household are forming 
 habits that will not need RE-form ing in after 
 life. 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 83 
 
 Tiie building of a man or woman is not the 
 work of a day — but of a lifetime, and the idea 
 held out by many that a reformed man is just 
 as good as one who has always walked some- 
 where near the path of right and duty, is a 
 false light that is leading too many into the 
 swamp of evil habits from which they never 
 return. 
 
 Figs do not grow on cactus nor are Ben 
 Davis apples found on the crab tree. 
 
 The seed sown prophesies the harvest and 
 the wild-oats sown in youth will not produce 
 a valuable crop of manhood or womanhood. 
 
 The growing of a manhood or womanhood 
 must be done on the same principle as im- 
 proving a Kansas farm, and that is hard work 
 and patient toil in its cultivation. 
 
 The sand-burrs of an evil inclination must 
 be rooted out — the bull nettles of an ungov- 
 ernable temper must be brought under con- 
 trol — the Canada thistles of avarice and 
 discontent must be grubbed out and the weeds 
 of various kinds that are to be found in 
 human nature must be plowed up, so the 
 sunshine may beam down upon better things 
 and the gentle rains may do their work in 
 bringing forth an abundant harvest of good 
 deeds and acts. 
 
84 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 It is much easier to be a re-former than a 
 former, because it is much easier to find 
 fault with a job after it is completed than it 
 is to do the work. 
 
 It is much easier to inform people wherein 
 they erred than it is to point out the way and 
 direct children how to avoid error. It is 
 easier to get people to listen to the sins and 
 short-comings of others than it is to instruct 
 them how to avoid the same. It is much 
 easier to point the finger of scorn at the wart 
 on the other fellow's nose than it is to remove 
 the wart or prevent its growing in the first 
 place. 
 
 My dear friends, your Uncle would not 
 have you infer that he does not believe in a 
 person reforming who has done wrong and 
 led a bad life, — but he has little if any use 
 for a reformed reformer. Society seems 
 to be eager to lionize a man especially who 
 has touched the shoals and depths of wicked- 
 ness and who reforms and uses it as capital 
 to bring him into prominence. 
 
 Does a person deserve any special credit 
 for doing his duty to society by conducting 
 himself properly? 
 
 Has a reformed reformer any moral right to 
 inflict upon an audience a recital of his past 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 85 
 
 life, with all its horrors, and then with a 
 kind of pharisaical air pat himself on the 
 back and say, "I thank Thee that I am not 
 as other men are." 
 
 My dear friends, there is an old saying that 
 the way to reform a man is to reform his 
 grandparents, and your Uncle has a great 
 deal of faith in the idea. The lives of men 
 and women reach back through many gener- 
 ations. Unseen hands quite often push us 
 on to do the deeds and acts performed. 
 
 Your Uncle once listened to the great (?) 
 Francis Murphy recite the horrors of his past 
 life — a life steeped in murder and debauchery. 
 He told of the many nights he had gone 
 home drunk, and driven his wife and chil- 
 dren from the house, fleeing for their lives, 
 and then drawing himself in an attitude of 
 "now-look-how-big-a-man-I-am," he seemed 
 to act as though he thought it necessary to 
 be mean first in order to be good. 
 
 As your Uncle listened to him, he thought 
 to himself, "I do not want any such a man 
 to teach me how to treat my wife." 
 
 The man who plants an orchard, cultivates 
 and prunes the trees, and guards the jack- 
 rabbits from peeling them will have a far 
 better orchard, other things equal, than he 
 
86 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 who plants the trees and takes no care of 
 them. Jnst so it is in the forming of a man- 
 hood or womanhood, it needs constant care 
 by those in charge — whether that be the 
 parents or self. 
 
 There is need of reformers, but it is doubt- 
 ful if the world needs reformed reformers 
 who saw the air in recitation of their past 
 iniquity. Rotten timber must sometimes be 
 removed from the building — but it should not 
 be tised by others in the construction of their 
 homes. 
 
 Bad habits must also be abandoned and 
 mistakes corrected — but they should so far as 
 possible not be ingrafted on others or used as 
 stock for self-aggrandizement. Let there be 
 more time and care given to the formation of 
 character and less time will be needed for 
 re- form at ion. 
 
HOME OVER HERE. 
 
 My Dear Friends: When your Uncle 
 Jonas was a tender youth, he used to attend 
 meeting at a little country church which the 
 common herd called the "Devil's Half Acre/' 
 — but its proper name was Emery Chapel. 
 Often has he heard men and women speak of 
 what they expected that home to be and how 
 they longed to go and enjoy it. He has seen 
 and heard men sing and talk about their 
 "Home Over There 1 ' who never made an 
 effort to build for themselves and family a 
 decent and comfortable "Home Over Here." 
 They seemed to forget that the only way to 
 build for the future home is to work and do 
 what is right in the present one. 
 
 Our home over here should be made one of 
 the most pleasant places on this side of the 
 pearly gates of the New Jerusalem, and it can 
 be made so if all the members of the home 
 work to make it so. 
 
 Too many children in this age are growing 
 up almost ignorant of what home is. They 
 have been hauled about in a covered wagon 
 from place to place until they become uneasy 
 
88 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 and do not want to settle down for a perma- 
 nent home. 
 
 The home over here that is purchased is 
 not half so good as one that is built by father 
 and mother and the children. It is a happy 
 feeling to the man who can sit under a tree 
 in his own door yard and say "I planted this 
 tree." It is a great pleasure for the members 
 of the home to know and feel that the 
 orchard, grove, vineyard and berry patch 
 were all planted, nurtured and cared for by 
 them. You never saw a renter take much 
 interest in the property he has in charge. 
 You never saw a man "shoulder a musket to 
 defend a boarding 1101186," but a home he 
 will die for if he is a man of honor. 
 
 When your Uncle refers to the home over 
 here he does not mean the building, or what 
 is too often called a residence. A home often 
 means something quite different from that. 
 Upholstered furniture, lace curtains, lambre- 
 quins, tidies and Brussels carpet, are too often 
 found in houses which are considered too 
 fine for a home, and children are almost com- 
 pelled to remove their shoes before entering, 
 so they may not soil the fixtures. Children 
 soon become dissatisfied with such surround- 
 ings and seek to spend their spare moments 
 elsewhere. 
 
UNCLES JONAS TALKS. 89 
 
 A great many men are so engrossed with 
 their business that they have no time to spend 
 in making a happy home, and becoming 
 acquainted with their children. A story is 
 told of a man of this kind, who thought more 
 of making money than of building a home. 
 During the week he rose early before his 
 little son was out of bed, his wife would get 
 his breakfast and he would go to his place of 
 business — take his dinner at a restaurant and 
 return late, after his little boy had gone to 
 bed. Sunday was the only day he could 
 spend with his family. He slapped his little 
 son one day and the child went into the 
 house crying, and when asked by his mother 
 what the matter was, he said, "That man 
 who boards here on Sunday slapped me." 
 
 If our home over here is to be what it 
 should be — what it may be — there must be 
 no room in the house too good to use — the 
 members of the household must feel and 
 know that they each own a part of the home. 
 Children must be taught to obey — for boys 
 and girls who are permitted to do as they 
 please before they have grown to years of dis- 
 cretion do not honor their father and mother 
 for it. Kind words and kind acts should not 
 be forgotten in the home over here. The 
 
90 UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 man who ruthlessly wounds the members of 
 his household with cross or unkind words — 
 the woman who finds fault with everything 
 and everybody around her family circle, 
 ought to get a free pass to their home over 
 there where fuel is reported to be cheaper 
 than it is here in Kansas. 
 
 Your Uncle has observed men who have 
 sacrificed their homes — who have destroyed 
 the peace and happiness of those they loved, 
 all for strong drink. These men vowed when 
 at the marriage altar that they would "love, 
 cherish and protect," and yet they seem to 
 be unable to control themselves and to make 
 their home over here a fit dwelling place for 
 their families. 
 
 My dear friends, the building of a home 
 requires constant care. It requires patience 
 and forbearance. It requires the highest 
 order of government — which is granting to 
 others the privileges you ask for yourself un- 
 der like circumstances. To furnish food, 
 clothing and shelter for wife and children 
 and that alone, are not all the requirements 
 of a home. You do the same for your hogs, 
 cattle and horses. But the sunlight of love 
 must shine around the home circle — brute 
 fear must be banished — kindness must be 
 
UNCLE JONAS TALKS. 
 
 9 1 
 
 there — amusements must be tolerated and 
 the little courtesies of life must not be neg- 
 lected if our home over here is to be a fit 
 dwelling place. Let greater care be taken 
 to beautify this home. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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