at which it was issued. I was permitted to make a copy of it, and with the aid of my hired man, I have translated it with great care.
Office of Lucretius & Procalus, Dealers In Flour, Bran, Shorts, Middlings, Screenings, Etruscan Hen Feed, and Other Choice Bric-A-Brac.
Highest Cash Price Paid for Neapolitan Winter Wheat and Roman Corn
Why haul your Wheat through the sand to Herculaneum when we pay the same price here?
Office and Mill, Via VIII, Near the Stabian Gate, Only Thirteen Blocks From the P.O., Pompeii.
Dear Sir: This circular has been called out by another one issued last month by Messrs. Toecorneous & Chilblainicus, alleged millers and wheat buyers of Herculaneum, in which they claim to pay a quarter to a half-cent more per bushel than we do for wheat, and charge us with docking the farmers around Pompeii a pound per bushel more than necessary for cockle, wild buck-wheat, and pigeon-grass seed. They make the broad statement that we have made all our money in that way, and claim that Mr. Lucretius, of our mill, has erected a fine house, which the farmers allude to as the “wild buckwheat villa.”
We do not, as a general rule, pay any attention to this kind of stuff; but when two snide romans, who went to Herculaneum without a dollar and drank stale beer out of an old Etruscan tomato-can the first year they were there, assail our integrity, we feel justified in making a prompt and final reply. We desire to state to the Roman farmers that we do not test their wheat with the crooked brass tester that has made more money for Messrs. Toecorneous & Chilblainicus than their old mill has. We do not do that kind of business. Neither do we buy a man’s wheat at a cash price and then work off four or five hundred pounds of XXXX Imperial hog feed on him in part payment. When we buy a man’s wheat we pay him in money. We do not seek to fill him up with sour Carthagenian cracked wheat and orders on the store.
We would also call attention to the improvements that we have just made in our mill. Last week we put a handle in the upper burr, and we have also engaged one of the best head millers in Pompeii to turn the crank day-times. Our old head miller will oversee the business at night, so that the mill will be in full blast night and day, except when the head miller has gone to his meals or stopped to spit on his hands.
The mill of our vile contemporaries at Herculaneum is an old one that was used around Naples one hundred years ago to smash rock for the Neapolitan road, and is entirely out of repair. It was also used in a brick-yard here near Pompeii; then an old junk man sold it to a tenderfoot from Jerusalem as an ice-cream freezer. He found that it would not work, and so used it to grind up potato bugs for blisters. Now it is grinding ostensible flour at Herculaneum.
We desire to state to the farmers about Pompeii and Herculaneum that we aim to please. We desire to make a grade of flour this summer that will not have to be run through the coffee mill before it can be used. We will also pay you the highest price for good wheat, and give you good weight. Our capacity is now greatly enlarged, both as to storage and grinding. We now turn out a sack of flour, complete and ready for use, every little while. We have an extra handle for the mill, so that in case of accident to the one now in use, we need not shut down but a few moments. We call attention to our XXXX Git-there brand of flour. It is the best flour in the market for making angels’ food and other celestial groceries. We fully warrant it, and will agree that for every sack containing whole kernels of corn, corncobs, or other foreign substances, not thoroughly pulverized, we will refund the money already paid, and show the person through our mill.
We would also like to call the attention of farmers and housewives around Pompeii to our celebrated Dough Squatter. It is purely automatic in its operation, requiring only two men to work it. With this machine two men will knead all the bread they can eat and do it easily, feeling thoroughly refreshed at night. They also avoid that dark maroon taste in the mouth so common in Pompeii on arising in the morning.
To those who do not feel able to buy one of these machines, we would say that we have made arrangements for the approaching season, so that those who wish may bring their dough to our mammoth squatter and get it treated at our place at the nominal price of two bits per squat. Strangers calling for their squat or unsquat dough, will have to be identified.
Do not forget the place, Via VIII, near Stabian gate.
Lucretius & Peocalus,
Dealers in choice family flour, cut feed and oatmeal with or without clinkers in it. Try our lumpless bran for indigestion.
Broncho Sam
Speaking about cowboys, Sam Stewart, known from Montana to Old Mexico as Broncho Sam, was the chief. He was not a white man, an Indian, a greaser or a negro, but he had the nose of an Indian warrior, the curly hair of an African, and the courtesy and equestrian grace of a Spaniard. A wide reputation as a “broncho breaker” gave him his name.
To master an untamed broncho and teach him to lead, to drive and to be safely-ridden was Sam’s mission during the warm weather when he was not riding the range. His special delight was to break the war-like heart of the vicious wild pony of the plains and make him the servant of man.
I’ve seen him mount a hostile “bucker,” and, clinching his italic legs around the body of his adversary, ride him till the blood would burst from Sam’s nostrils and spatter horse and rider like rain. Most everyone knows what the bucking of the barbarous Western horse means. The wild horse probably learned it from the antelope, for the latter does it the same way, i.e., he jumps straight up into the air, at the same instant curving his back and coming down stiff-legged, with all four of his feet in a bunch. The concussion is considerable.
I tried it once myself. I partially rode a roan broncho one spring day, which will always be green in my memory. The day, I mean, not the broncho.
It occupied my entire attention to safely ride the cunning little beast, and when he began to ride me I put in a minority report against it.
I have passed through an earthquake and an Indian outbreak, but I would rather ride an earthquake without saddle or bridle than to bestride a successful broncho eruption. I remember that I wore a large pair of Mexican spurs, but I forgot them until the saddle turned. Then I remembered them. Sitting down on them in an impulsive way brought them to my mind. Then the broncho steed sat down on me, and that gave the spurs an opportunity to make a more lasting impression on my mind.
To those who observed the charger with the double “cinch” across his back and the saddle in front of him like a big leather corset, sitting at the same time on my person, there must have been a tinge of amusement; but to me it was not so frolicsome.
There may be joy in a wild gallop across the boundless plains, in the crisp morning, on the back of a fleet broncho; but when you return with your ribs sticking through your vest, and find that your nimble steed has returned to town two hours ahead of you, there is a tinge of sadness about it all.
Broncho Sam, however, made a specialty of doing all the riding himself. He wouldn’t enter into any compromise and allow the horse to ride him.
In a reckless moment he offered to bet ten dollars that he could mount and ride a wild Texas steer. The money was put up. That settled it. Sam never took water. This was true in a double sense. Well, he climbed the cross-bar of the corral-gate, and asked the other boys to turn out their best steer, Marquis of Queensbury rules.
As the steer passed out, Sam slid down and wrapped those parenthetical legs of his around that high-headed, broad-horned brute, and he rode him till the fleet-footed animal fell down on the buffalo grass, ran his hot red tongue out across the blue horizon, shook his tail convulsively, swelled up sadly and died.
It took Sam four days to walk back.
A ten-dollar bill looks as large to me as the star spangled banner, some times; but that is an avenue of wealth that had not occurred to me.
I’d rather ride a buzz-saw at two dollars a day and found.
How Evolution Evolves
The following paper was read by me in a clear, resonant tone of voice, before the Academy of Science and Pugilism at Erin Prairie, last month, and as I have been so continually and so earnestly importuned to print it that life was no longer desirable,