a great genius may come up who will put on paper
the strange and splendid story of Iowa, of Monterey County, and of
Vandemark Township; and when he does write this, the greatest history
ever written, he may find such adventures as mine of some use to him.
Those who lived this history are already few in number, are fast passing
away and will soon be gone. I lived it, and so did my neighbors and old
companions and friends. So here I begin.

The above was my first introduction to this history; and just here,
after I had written a nice fat pile of manuscript, this work came mighty
close to coming to an end.

I suppose every person is more or less of a fool, but at my age any man
ought to be able to keep himself from being gulled by the traveling
swindlers who go traipsing about the country selling lightning rods,
books, and trying by every means in their power to get the name of
honest and propertied men on the dotted line. Just now I began tearing
up the opening pages of my History of Vandemark Township, and should
have thrown them in the base-burner if it had not been for my
granddaughter, Gertrude.

The agent of the Excelsior County History Company called and asked me
how I was getting along with the history, and when I showed him what I
have written, he changed the subject and began urging me to subscribe
for a lot of copies when it is printed, and especially, to make a
contract for having my picture in it. He tried to charge me two hundred
seventy-five dollars for a steel engraving, and said I could keep the
plate and have others made from it. Then I saw through him. He never
wanted my history of the township. He just wanted to swindle me into
buying a lot of copies to give away, and he wanted most to bamboozle me
into having a picture made, not half so good as I can get for a few
dollars a dozen at any good photographer's, and pay him the price of a
good team of horses for it. He thought he could gull old Jake Vandemark!
If I would pay for it, I could get printed in the book a few of my
remarks on the history of the township, and my
two-hundred-and-seventy-five-dollar picture. Others would write about
something else, and get their pictures in. In that way this smooth
scoundrel would make thousands of dollars out of people's vanity--and he
expected me to be one of them! If I can put him in jail I'll do it--or
I would if it were not for posting myself as a fool.

"Look here," I said, after he had told me what a sple