Pioneer Tales: The Way You Push Things, So They Will Go (Or, You Reap What You Sow)

Arkansas Echo

January 26, 1894

(Wie man’s treibt, so gehts)

Frequently there have been comical and serious stories to read in the Echo about how things went for the first settlers. The stories are entertaining and arouse old memories in everyone. So, I had to think back on my first days here when I lacked serious experience. I had to start small. My entire possessions consisted of an ax,  a saw, and an old rifle. Therefore I had to work for other people in order to have something to eat at home. 

Yes, yes, at home. In my piece of the woods, I had built me a block hut just as they look in a picture. The time that I didn’t have to spend working for other people was devoted to cutting down trees and clearing land. That gave me swollen hands and tired bones.

Gus Blass Clothing Store, ad in Arkansas Echo, early 1894

At last a small piece of land was cleared and a provisional fence was up around it. Every three feet a stake was driven in the ground and crossed with the next one. A post over this and a fence was finished. It was high enough, and a cow couldn’t go through it.

So I planted corn and it grew splendidly. I was very happy about that. The time came when it was supposed to become ripe.  Then I heard one night that something was not right in my cornfield. I got up and went out into the moon-lit night. An entire pack of pigs was harvesting my corn.

“You beasts are going to catch it….”  With a club I drove them out, but was unable to wipe out any of them. I drove them far into the woods and thought, you rascals won’t return again tonight, and I went to lie down in bed.

A misjudgment. Hardly in bed, the hullabaloo outside broke loose again. This time, I ran outside in my shirt and hunted the beasts away, again driving them deep into the woods.

The next morning, I began to quickly improve the fence, but by the time I finished making my fence pig proof, the pigs were also finished with my corn. I cannot say that is the way it’s done in Hungary; I was never there, but you reap what you sow. Do all of your work steadily and don’t depend on luck.

Ad for Vienna Bakery, 117 West 5th St., Little Rock; January 1894, Arkansas Echo

Certainly a couple of times I shot squirrels out of a tree from my house, but I had little time to hunt. Once however I was in the woods with my rifle when I heard my dog nearby at a swamp. Running there, I saw a magnificent deer in the water with the dog running around on the shore. Yes, but a person can’t shoot a deer with buckshot. So I ran home and grabbed the only bullet that I had. And as I returned with the bullet in the rifle, I almost forgot to breath. Just as I arrived, a shot came from the other side of the water.

There I stood with my knowledge and had to watch as two others pulled the deer out of the water. So it often went with the unschooled; therefore, they have labeled us here as Grünhörner” (Green Horns).

1890's Kitchen Stove

I had three bachelors as neighbors. They had bought a cook stove and wanted to bake bread. Such an American stove is a practical thing. Of course a person must know how to handle it. The three had the dough ready and discussed where the fire had to be built. They agree with each other and made a wood fire in the front of the stove under the ash bin, where one takes out the soot. But they soon had to give this up because it smoked so much they could not stop it. Later they learned where one makes a fire in the stove.

But they wanted to invent something new. So they had a corn planter. The apparatus was a tube made out of sheet iron. One end was closed except for a hole through which a thick iron wire passed. The tube was filled with corn and the wire was pushed, opening a hole (letting a few kernels through), then it was pulled closed. The corn was planted and covered by scrapping soil over it with a foot. The thing is still not patented because planting in a plowed furrow goes better. It can’t be done with a bachelors' prank.

H. R.

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Introduction to the Pioneer Tales

This pioneer tale is one in a series published in 1893 and 1894 by the Arkansas Echo, a German-language newspaper in Little Rock. The stories are intended to show the challenges and adventures facing German-speaking immigrants when they came to settle in Arkansas. So far, the following posts have introduced the Pioneer Tales and provided translations of several of them:

Pioneer Tales of Arkansas' German Immigrants (background of the newspaper series)
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/05/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german.html

Arkansas Echo, November 3, 1893THE GOOD OLD DAYS?http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/05/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german_17.html

Arkansas Echo, November 10, 1893
MERRY MÄT, OR A TRIP TO THE BATHS, Part 1
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/05/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german_21.html

Arkansas Echo, November 17, 1893
MERRY MÄT, OR A TRIP TO THE BATHS, Part 2
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/05/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german_31.html

Arkansas Echo, December 1, 1893
A JUICY ROAST--OR--WHO WANTS TO EAT WITH ME?
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/06/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german.html

Arkansas Echo, December 8, 1893
ANOTHER PIECE ABOUT "AUGUST"  --OR -- LONG FENCE RAILS
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/06/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german_08.html

Arkansas Echo, December 22, 1893
HOW FRANK, WITHOUT POWDER AND LEAD, ONCE SLEW A MAGNIFICENT DEER
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/06/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german_10.html

Arkansas Echo, December 29, 1893
ERNST'S BAD LUCK
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/06/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german_17.html

Arkansas Echo, January 5, 1894
THAT'S THE WAY ITS DONE IN HUNGARY -or- A PERSON WHO WILL NOT ACCEPT ADVICE CANNOT BE HELPED
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/07/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german.html

Arkansas Echo, January 14, 1894
HOW ONE CAN LOSE ONE'S WAY IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/09/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german.html

Arkansas Echo, January 19, 1894
BILL’S TRIP TO THE MARKET
http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2011/10/pioneer-tales-of-arkansas-german.html

Arkansas Echo, February 23, 1894 and March 2, 1894

JOSEPH GLANZMANN'S STORY OF GERMAN-SPEAKING IMMIGRANTS 

SETTLING NEAR ALTUS, ARKANSAS

http://www.eclecticatbest.com/2012/10/pioneer-tales-joseph-glanzmanns-story.html

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