Vandemark's Folly

BY HERBERT QUICK

1922

CONTENTS

• CHAPTER I. A Flat Dutch Turnip Begins Its Career.
• CHAPTER II. I Learn and Do Some Teaching.
• CHAPTER III. I See the World, and Suffer a Great Loss.
• CHAPTER IV. I Become a Sailor, and Find a Clue.
• CHAPTER V. The End of a Long Quest.
• CHAPTER VI. I Become Cow Vandemark.
• CHAPTER VII. Adventure on the Old Ridge Road.
• CHAPTER VIII. My Load Receives an Embarrassing Addition.
• CHAPTER IX. The Grove of Destiny.
• CHAPTER X. The Grove of Destiny Does Its Work.
• CHAPTER XI. In Defense of the Proprieties.
• CHAPTER XII. Hell Slew, Alias Vandemark's Folly.
• CHAPTER XIII. The Plow Weds the Sod.
• CHAPTER XIV. I Become a Bandit and a Terror.
• CHAPTER XV. I Save a Treasure, and Start a Feud.
• CHAPTER XVI. The Fewkeses in Clover at Blue-grass Manor.
• CHAPTER XVII. I Receive a Proposal--and Accept.
• CHAPTER XVIII. Rowena's Way Out--The Prairie Fire.
• CHAPTER XIX. Gowdy Acknowledges His Son.
• CHAPTER 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 about something else, and get their pictures in. In that way this smooth scoundrel would make thousands of dollars out of people's vanity--and he expected me to be one of them! If I can put him in jail I'll do it--or I would if it were not for posting myself as a fool.

"Look here," I said, after he had told me what a splendid thing it would be to have my picture in the book so future generations could see what a big man I was. "Do you want what I know about the history of Vandemark Township in your book, or are you just out after my money?"

"Well," he said, "if, after you've written twenty or thirty pages, and haven't got any nearer Vandemark Township