The neighbors used to say that I laid the foundation of my present competence by trading one sound cow for two lame ones every few miles along the Ridge Road, coming into the state, and then feeding my stock on speculators' grass in the summer and straw that my neighbors would otherwise have burned up in the winter.

What was a week's time to me?
I had a lifetime in Iowa before me.
"Whose rig is that ?" I asked, pointing to the carriage.
"Belongs to a man name of Gowdy," the mover told me.

"Got a hell-slew of wuthless land in Monterey County an' is going out to settle on it." "How do you know it's worthless ?" I inquired pretty sharply; for a man must stand up for his own place whether he's ever seen it or not.
"They say so," said he.
"Why ?" I asked.
"Out in the middle of the Monterey Prairie," he said.

"You can't live in this country 'less you settle near the timber." "Instead of stopping at this farm," I said, "I should think he'd have gone on to the next settlement.

Horses lame ?" "Best horses I've seen on the road," was the answer.