He then left his team standing in the furrow while he
served his country in an official capacity for a little over twenty-nine
years, after which he went back and resumed his farming.

[Illustration]

Though 2,300 years have since passed away and historians have been
busy with that epoch ever since, no one has yet discovered the methods
by which Cincinnatus organized and executed this, the most successful
"People's Movement" of which we are informed.

The great trouble with the modern boom is that it is too precocious. It
knows more before it gets its clothes on than the nurse, the physician
and its parents. It then dies before the sap starts in the maple
forests.

My object in writing this letter is largely to tone down and keep in
check any popular movement in my behalf until the weather in more
settled. A season-cracked boom is a thing I despise.

I inclose my picture, however, which shows that I am so healthy that it
keeps me awake nights. I go about the house singing all the time and
playing pranks on my grandparents. My eye dances with ill-concealed
merriment, and my conversation is just as sparkling as it can be.

I believe that during this campaign we should lay aside politics so far
as possible and unite on an unknown, homely, but sparkling man. Let us
lay aside all race prejudices and old party feeling and elect a magnetic
chump who does not look so very well, but who feels first rate.

Towards the middle of June I shall go away to an obscure place where I
cannot be reached. My mail will be forwarded to me by a gentleman who
knows how I feel in relation to the wants and needs of the country.

To those who have prospered during the past twenty years let me say they
owe it to the perpetuation of the principles and institutions towards
the establishment and maintenance of which I have given the best
energies of my life. To those who have been unfortunate let me say
frankly that they owe it to themselves.

I have never had less malaria or despondency in my system that I have
this spring. My cheeks have a delicate bloom on them like a russet
apple, and my step is light and elastic. In the morning I arise from my
couch and, touching a concealed spring, it becomes an upright piano. I
then bathe in a low divan which contains a jointed tank. I then sing
until interfered with by property owners and tax-payers who reside near
by. After a light breakfast of calf's liver and custard pie I go into
the reception-ro