A Link of Life

A LINK OF LIFE. BY PROF. WILLARD DONE. [In the year 1870, a mound in a field, near Payson, Utah, was excavated by Amasa Potter, an intelligent farmer residing then and now in that town. He found two skeletons, some implements and pottery, and a stone box. In the box were a few grains of wheat. Those that were bright he planted, and raised a few heads of the wheat. He planted this seed the following season, and raised about a bushel and a half. This was distributed among a few of the farmers, some of it beiDg sent to the Department of Agriculture at Washington, together with the relics which were purchased for the Bureau of Ethnology. The wheat was found to be far superior as dry-land wheat to other varieties, producing, according to the statements of those who experimented with it, about eight bushels to the acre more than any other. In August of this year, grain raised from this seed in a large field of dry land, near Nephi, was cut and threshed with the first combined harvester and thresher ever used in Utah. These facts led the author, who was a boy in Payson at the time the mound was opened, to write the following prose-poem. Editors.] Once in the dim, long-distant past, there lived among the ab- origines, among the Rocky Mountains, a man far-seeing, wiser than his fellows. A prophet of the future was he, and best of all, a provider for it. At his hands there were no better means than at his neighbor's. With the same rude plow they cultivated their fields; in the same way sowed them; with the same brushes they harrowed in the seed; the same rain from heaven nourished all their crops; the same sun ripened them. With the same primitive sickles they garnered their harvest; with the same flails beat the grain from the chaff; with the same stone mills turned it into meal. But this man had that power within him which made him a leader of men. If his lines were cast in the primitive age, his mind was fitted for an era more advanced. Like a Burbank he

A LINK OF LIFE. 33 tested, selected, experimented, cultivated, cross-fertilised, and proved the plants, until he found produced— call it what you will — the seed best suited to the arid soil and the waterless waste. The prophet of the future was building for the future. At length his work was done. There had come from his hand, in this respect typicalof the creative power of Omnipotence, a seed the perfection of its kind; adapted to the drouth; resistant to the parching sun and the baked earth; vital with the few light showers of spring; and bounteous beyond the dreams of fertility. And the fields waved with the moon shone grain; the harvest brighter; the songs of harvest-home were gladder; their autumn thanksgiving was more fervent, for the prophetic, philanthropic work of this their brother. Where heretofore but dusty deserts stretched, lay fields of golden grain. Where wild beasts and savage men had roamed, sleek cattle browsed on the rich stubble. Where God's great gift to man, the wide-stretched field, had lain in sullen barrenness, seed-time and harvest filled the ear of God with their rejoicing. This the prophet-creator lived to see accomplished. But who will

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say that he did not look far into the future and see things rise from his handiwork? At length the people's benefactor died. still greater With mingled lauda- tions and lamentings, sorrow and praise, they prepared him for his long home. They anointed the dead limbs with choicest oint- ments, and wrapped him in a costly shroud. They prepared for him the richest sepulture, and chose for his last resting-place the choicest spot in the fields he had made more fertile. Here they heaped for him a mound, and placed within its bosom the mortal coil of their great benefactor. In harmony with their burial customs, they placed at his side the loved companion of his youth, and the implements of labor he had known and used. The stone mill, the earthen vessels, the stone ax, the rude weapons, and the other insignia of the time and place were laid to rest with him. But even this was not sufficient remembrance for him they so much honored. What could they make his monument? A stone might be raised to him, but that would crumble into formless dust. A parchment might by written, but that would fade away. What-

34 IMPROVEMENT ERA. ever lifeless thing they might erect to his memory would pass into nothingness. They must give him a remembrance as immortal as the fame it should perpetuate. Like that fame, it must be living and everlasting. In the midst of their counsels there arose a patriarch of their people, and they listened to his words with the respect due to age and wisdom: "You seek a memento of him who has done so much. What better can you do than to make his own work his monument? What we could build for him would not perpetuate his fame. He has made his own memento. It bears within itself the germ of immortal life. It will live and flourish long after lifeless memori- als have passed away. Let the monument he himself has built be our memorial to him." With a great shout of approbation they heard his words. A stone was brought, and from it a box was fashioned. Within this box was placed a handful of the grain his genius had evolved. The cover was fitted and sealed. And this, the ever-living memento of

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his greatness and his worth, was placed in the sepulchre beside him, and the last sad rites were finished. liong ages passed away. For centuries of years, seed-time and harvest, toil and rejoicing, joy and sorrow, had passed in alternation. Generation succeeded generation; and the land was populous, the fields were rich, the harvests bounteous. Then came internecine strife and civil wars. The land, erst- while rich with man and his handiwork, and teeming with waving fields, was drenched with blood. And because man's precious life was spilled upon it, the curse of God was there. No longer did it respond to the plowman and the sower; and the reaper went un- rewarded. From industry to idleness; from idleness to poverty; from poverty to wretchedness; from wretchedness to savagery, the once happy people descended. At length the land was desolate; the people scattered; the fields deserted. Back to its primitive barrenness the wide-stretched plain reverted; and the sentinel mountains kept weary watch over desolate valleys. The savage, the wild beast, and the gray, life- less shrub possessed the scene alone.

A LINK OF LIFE. 35 Then came another prophet-builder. Wearied with his epoch- making march, he gazed from the mountain-side upon the valley, despised for ages by the seeming- wise, and said, "It is enough; this is the place!" With patient toil and broad fore-sightedness this leader poured water on the lifeless soil, and brought back the old fertility; and the land was rich with harvests. The curse of God was expiated by the diligence of man. A happy people spread over the land. Valleys long abandoned to the wasting drouth were conquered and subdued- Smiling vil- lages gladdened the land, made rich with harvest. Back to their lair slunk wild beast and savage man. The smile of God brightened plain and mountain, he saw the land; "and it was good." One day a mound, rising majestic in the open plain, was leveled. Within a chamber were found two skeletons, rude imple- ments, stone weapons, crude relics of a time long past, a stone box cemented. Carefully the box was opened. Amid grains long since crumbled into dust, a few shone bright and fresh as when garnered in that distant harvest.They were planted and tenderly nurtured. With jealous eye the first green shoots were watched. They grew and ripened. And now there came to the hand of the thoughtful husbandman, the product of the hand and brain of the prophet-provider, long since turned to dust. His living monument had been erected — a monument destined to be eternal. The fruit of a time long past was to be the seed of the future. Science now came to the aid of genius, and both worked side by side. Where the rude plow had skimmed the surface of narrow roods, the mighty engine born of man's brain turned the deep loam of broad acres. Where the sower had plodded with his pouch of seed, followed by the obliterating brush, the seeder placed its myriad grains in the mellow soil. Where sickle and flail by slow and weary effort took stalk from stubble, and grain from chaff, great engines swept the field, the wavug grain before, the bursting bags behind, ready for the whirring rollers. Where heretofore the harvest had meant the compass of an arrow's flight, it now was boundless as the sea. In his brightest vision the prophet- builder could not have foreseen transition so wonderful. And thus the past joins with the future. The seed planted by the aboriginal genius decks with multiplied fertility the modern

36 IMPROVEMENT ERA. field. From seed-time to the milling of the harvest, the grain of the past is touched with instruments produced by man's present genius. And where past races of men reaped with infinite toil the meagre harvest of a narrow field, present generations gather, as by the touch of magic, the bounteous product of the limitless plain. prophet-builder of the distant past, your voice of proph- ecy, sounding through the ages, has found its echo; and your ec- static vision is our reality! Salt Lake City, Utah.