Vandemarks Folly

Vandemark's Folly

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vandemark's Folly, by Herbert Quick This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Vandemark's Folly
Author: Herbert Quick
Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12179]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VANDEMARK'S FOLLY ***

Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Illustration: "I must think!" I said. "Let me be!"]
VANDEMARK'S FOLLY
BY HERBERT QUICK
1922

CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I
A Flat Dutch Turnip Begins Its Career. II I Learn and Do Some Teaching. III I See the World, and Suffer a Great Loss. IV I Become a Sailor, and Find a Clue. V The End of a Long Quest. VI I Become Cow Vandemark. VII Adventure on the Old Ridge Road. VIII My Load Receives an Embarrassing Addition. IX The Grove of Destiny. X The Grove of Destiny Does Its Work. XI In Defense of the Proprieties. XII Hell Slew, Alias Vandemark's Folly. XIII The Plow Weds the Sod. XIV I Become a Bandit and a Terror. XV I Save a Treasure, and Start a Feud. XVI The Fewkeses in Clover at Blue-grass Manor. XVII I Receive a Proposal--and Accept. XVIII Rowena's Way Out--The Prairie Fire. XIX Gowdy Acknowledges His Son. XX Just as Grandma Thorndyke Expected.

INTRODUCTION
The work of writing the history of this township--I mean Vandemark Township, Monterey County, State of Iowa--has been turned over to me. I have been asked to do this I guess because I was the first settler in the township; it was named after me; I live on my own farm--the oldest farm operated by the original settler in this part of the country; I know the history of these thirty-six square miles of land and also of the wonderful swarming of peoples which made the prairies over; and the agent of the Excelsior County History Company of Chicago, having heard of me as an authority on local history, has asked me to write this part of their new History of Monterey County for which they are now canvassing for subscribers. I can never write this as it ought to be written, and for an old farmer with no learning to try to do it may seem impudent, but some time a great genius may come up who will put on paper the strange and splendid story of Iowa, of Monterey County, and of Vandemark Township; and when he does write this, the greatest history ever written, he may find such adventures as mine of some use to him. Those who lived this history are already few in number, are fast passing away and will soon be gone. I lived it, and so did my neighbors and old companions and friends. So here I begin.
The above was my first introduction to this history; and just here, after I had written a nice fat pile of manuscript, this work came mighty close to coming to an end.
I suppose every person is more or less of a fool, but at my age any man ought to be able to keep himself from being gulled by the traveling swindlers who go traipsing about the country selling lightning rods, books, and trying by every means in their power to get the name of honest and propertied men on the dotted line. Just now I began tearing up the opening pages of my History of Vandemark Township, and should have thrown them in the base-burner if it had not been for my granddaughter, Gertrude.
The agent of the Excelsior County History Company called and asked me how I was getting along with the history, and when I showed him what I have written, he changed the subject and began urging me to subscribe for a lot of copies when it is printed, and especially, to make a contract for having my picture in it. He tried to charge me two hundred seventy-five dollars for a steel engraving, and said I could keep the plate and have others made from it. Then I saw through him. He never wanted my history of the township. He just wanted to swindle me into buying a lot of copies to give away, and he wanted most to bamboozle me into having a picture made, not half so good as I can get for a few dollars a dozen at any good photographer's, and pay him the price of a good team of horses for it. He thought he could gull old Jake Vandemark! If I would pay for it, I could get printed in the book a few of my remarks on the history of the township, and my two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar picture. Others would write