Thus having caught their attention by light weight stories, I gave them broadsides of facts and arguments until I won the greatest political fight of my life.  We won a famous victory; the workers, as usual, were soon forgotten; the elected exulted in their brief authority; the defeated at once began log-rolling for the next election, and so the office hunting strife goes on forever.  After this I resumed the work of my crusade against ignorance and bad literature, having had my pockets well filled by those who are always eager to trade money for fame.

Our home was three miles from the railroad station, and the wintry winds with deep snows made the frequent journeys to and fro over the bleak, uncomfortable country roads, extremely cold and often hazardous.

I had endured for years these alternate freezing and roasting rides for the pleasure of living near the old folks; but now the numerous colds and coughs resulting from the exposure drove me to move nearer to the depot, and we bought a large three-story house with barn and fourteen acres of land on High Street in the city of N——.

We rejuvenated our old castle with paint, new boiler and paper, letting loose upon our devoted heads numerous fevers and other diseases which generations had stored up on the walls, all eager for new victims.  Strange it is, that all bad things are so contagious and so long-lived to punish the innocent for the sins of the guilty.

Upon me, the descendant of a long line of farmers, fell the agricultural fever, and I broke my own back as well as that of the hired man, cultivating that sterile soil where my potatoes cost me about a quarter of a dollar a piece, and each blade of grass, sickness and much hard-earned cash.  We made the old place to bud and blossom like the rose, but the game as usual was not worth the candle, and an ulcerated sore throat which some predecessor had breathed upon the paper which we tore off, left me a walking skeleton, when ex-Congressman Loring, then United States Commissioner of Agriculture, came to my relief by appointing me his deputy for Florida at a good salary, to investigate and report upon the developed and undeveloped resources of that State, and its attractions for northern settlers.  I gladly accepted this commission to serve my country, for—­

  Somewhere the sun is shining,
  I thought as I toiled along
  In the freezing cold of the winter,
  Yes, somewhere the sun is shining
    Though here I shiver and sigh,
  Not a breath of warmth is stirring
    Not a beam in the arctic sky.

  Somewhere the thing we long for
    Exists on earth’s wide bound,
  Somewhere the heat is cheering
    While here winter nips the ground. 
  Somewhere the flowers are springing,
    Somewhere the corn is brown,
  And is ready unto the harvest
    To feed the hungry town.

  Somewhere the twilight gathers,
    And weary men lay by
  The burdens of the daytime,
    And wrapped in slumber lie.