ith spring seats, who may be a little nettled when a
plain old farmer tells it; but they should never mind this: the time
will come when their descendants will be proud of it. For they were the
John Aldens, the Priscillas, the Miles Standishes and the Dorothy Q's of
as great a society as the Pilgrim Fathers and Pilgrim Mothers set
a-going: the society of the great commonwealth of Iowa.

The big supper--I guess they would call it a dinner now--served in the
large room on a long table and some smaller ones, was the great event of
the party. The Wades were very strict church-members. Such a thing as
card playing was not to be thought of, and dancing was just as bad.
Both were worldly amusements whose feet took hold on hell. We have lost
this strictness now, and sometimes I wonder if we have not lost our
religion too.

The Wades were certainly religious--that is the Governor and Mrs. Wade.
Jack Wade, the John P. Wade who was afterward one of the national bosses
of the Republican party, and Bob, the Robert S. Wade who became so
prominent in the financial circles of the state, were a little worldly.
A hired hand I once had was with the Wades for a while, and said that
when he and the Wade boys were out in the field at work (for they worked
as hard as any of the hands, and Bob was the first man in our part of
the country who ever husked a hundred bushels of corn in a day) the Wade
boys and the hired men cussed and swore habitually. But this scamp, when
they were having family worship, used to fill in with "Amen!" and "God
grant it!" and the like pious exclamations when the governor was
offering up his morning prayer. But one morning Bob Wade brought a
breast-strap from off the harness, and took care to kneel within easy
reach of the kneeling hired man's pants. When he began with his
responses that morning, a loud slap, and a smothered yell disturbed the
governor--but he only paused, and went on.

"What in hell," asked the hired man when they got outside, "did you hit
me for with that blasted strap?"

"To show you how to behave," said Bob. "When the governor is talking to
the Lord, you keep your mouth shut."

I tell this, because it shows how even our richest and most aristocratic
family lived, and how we were supposed to defend religion against
trespass. I am told that in some countries the wickedest person is
likely to be a praying one. It seems, however, that in this country the
church-members are expected to protect th