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What I Shall Do

Creator: n/a
Date: September 1855
Publication: The Opal
Publisher: State Lunatic Asylum, Utica, N.Y.
Source: New York State Library


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Well, I'm going home to-morrow. I've been talking of going home to-morrow each day for two years past, but have been putting it off. I shall certainly go to-morrow, and then I'm going to N. Y. City -- to Barnum's Museum. Barnum's platform broke down at the Baby Show, and I'm going to repair damages, and set all the broken limbs. Broken down political platforms I don't undertake -- they're quite beyond my skill.

2  

Next I shall stop the Mohawk, and all other rivers over the whole earth. What business has the Mohawk running around all the curves in the meadows, where all the daisies and willows are, and then overflowing and drowning them all out? All the canals shall be drained, and the railroads made to run on bridges. What's the use of wasting so much land for them? There is the Chenango Canal, built to fetch molasses up here! It just spoils B--'s maple orchard, that makes twice as good molasses.

3  

This harpooning whales shall be stopped too -- as though we had'nt gas enough, without burning them up! The whales shall be all yarded and domesticated.

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But I shall, finally, settle on a farm. On that where I was born, you know -- with the old house, and the big barn. But I shall move them off; the land is so rich that I can't afford to let it be covered with buildings. And then to work. God says "work your own farms, and the Indian Reservations." All the timber that don't bear fruit on my farm, I shall cut down. All the low, wet, unwholesome places in all the new countries I'll fill up, too.

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O dear! -- I'm sleepy. I don't sleep much either. Ben Franklin did'nt sleep any, you know.

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How I shall enjoy life after all this. "The married life's the life for me" -- you know that song -- and little children are so polite and genteel when they begin to grow!

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The Dutch women in Scotland do all the farm work, we know, but the city of Utica is the biggest that I ever read about, and the women and children dress the tidiest. Sarsaparilla grows in Alabama, and God says work your own vineyard, and read your bible in your closet; but I hav'nt got any vineyard, and Jake W. stole my last sheepskin, and sold it for three shillings.

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I'll have no tobacco raised, or rum made. There shall be Free Trade, and no taxes to pay. The President shall work his own farm -- did'nt the Apostles catch their own fish? -- and all the other governors do the same. I shall have the poor-houses all pulled down, and each poor man shall have a cottage and a farm like the Garden of Eden. The jails shall be shut up, for there shan't be any more rogues. The Lunatic Asylums too; for there's no such thing as crazy people -- I never saw any -- and these Irish, here, that eat so much bread and beef -- they dont -sic- know anything at all -- they're what's called Know Nothings -- they shall be taught the English language, and how to raise the best quality of potatoes. Then there shall be reservations for the Indians, and all the negroes shall go to Africa. I shall go to Sebastopol and Kansas and stop that fighting and make every man raise his own grain. Finally, I shall settle on my farm, pick off all the stone, sow a bushel of apple seeds, set out a big sugar orchard, and enjoy rest of my days.

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