Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGHAM COUNTY

where they can fit twenty acres of land for wheat in one day, where
it took our forefathers twenty days to fit one acre, and yet people
are not content.
Delhi people are proud of their schools, which have always been
of high standard, and I don't believe there is another township in
the county whose rural population has turned out more professional men and women than Delhi, doctors, lawyers, teachers,
preachers and missionaries-and all making good in their work.
Last but not least, we have our politicians, just as great workers
in their particular line as any city can produce.
Let us compare the pioneers of the '60's with us today; they
with their faithful ox teams, and frugal way of living, which enabled them to pay all debts promptly, with our way of 1919.
The first party I ever attended I went in an ox cart, one with two
large wheels, and the driver walked beside the oxen, but it was a
swell party for us school children. Now it is with a high
powered machine, and we go so fast that we have to dodge the
man we owe in order not to run over him.
The early days compared to those of 1919 reminds me of a bit
of verse by Clem Bradshaw, entitled "A Dollar Down."
"Our forefathers frugal planked down the cold cash for their
furniture fashions and fixings; they did the same thing for their
clothes and their hash, and they ran up no bills for their mixings.
But folks now-adays in the country or towns have schemes that
are modern and clever; they buy all their stuff a dollar down and
a dollar a week forever. And the weeks they come and the weeks
they go and ever we're paying, paying; and it's easy to figure and
easy to know where the plunks go straying, straying. Carpet
and table and folding bed, cabinet, chairs and piany; we pay and
we pay till its takes the last red, and then start on a new hat for
Fanny. Our ancestors lived in an age that was slow; they'd
have thought that our ways were most shocking; they bought
on the theory 'Pay as you go,' and they saved a few coins for the
stocking. We live in an age that is doing things brown, an age of
high aim and endeavor, and we live by paying a dollar down
and a dollar a week forever."
Read at the mid-year meeting of the Ingham County Pioneer
and Historical Society held in Holt, Dec. 4, 1919.