Vandemarks Folly

Vandemark's Folly

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vandemark's Folly, by Herbert Quick
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Title: Vandemark's Folly
Author: Herbert Quick
Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12179]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[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