The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vandemark's Folly, by Herbert Quick

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Title: Vandemark's Folly

Author: Herbert Quick

Release Date: April 27, 2004 [EBook #12179]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: "I must think!" I said. "Let me be!"]

VANDEMARK'S FOLLY

BY HERBERT QUICK

1922

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I A Flat Dutch Turnip Begins Its Career.
II I Learn and Do Some Teaching.
III I See the World, and Suffer a Great Loss.
IV I Become a Sailor, and Find a Clue.
V The End of a Long Quest.
VI I Become Cow Vandemark.
VII Adventure on the Old Ridge Road.
VIII My Load Receives an Embarrassing Addition.
IX The Grove of Destiny.
X The Grove of Destiny Does Its Work.
XI In Defense of the Proprieties.
XII Hell Slew, Alias Vandemark's Folly.
XIII The Plow Weds the Sod.
XIV I Become a Bandit and a Terror.
XV I Save a Treasure, and Start a Feud.
XVI The Fewkeses in Clover at Blue-grass Manor.
XVII I Receive a Proposal--and Accept.
XVIII Rowena's Way Out--The Prairie Fire.
XIX Gowdy Acknowledges His Son.
XX Just as Grandma Thorndyke Expected.

INTRODUCTION

The work of writing the history of this township--I mean Vandemark
Township, Monterey County, State of Iowa--has been turned over to me. I
have been asked to do this I guess because I was the first settler in
the township; it was named after me; I live on my own farm--the oldest
farm operated by the original settler in this part of the country; I
know the history of these thirty-six square miles of land and also of
the wonderful swarming of peoples which made the prairies over; and the
agent of the Excelsior County History Company of Chicago, having heard
of me as an authority on local history, has asked me to write this part
of their new History of Monterey County for which they are now
canvassing for subscribers. I can never write this as it ought to be
written, and for an old farmer with no learning to try to do it may seem
impudent, but some time