It will give me a parish. I should like to urge that upon you."
"Do you want me to sign it?" I asked him, looking at Virginia.
"Yes," said he, "if you have no objection."
"Please do!" said Virginia. "I know you can't have any objection."
I turned on my heel, went back to Governor Wade, and signed the petition
for Monterey Centre; and then Magnus Thorkelson did the same. Then we
both signed another petition carried by both parties, asking that an
election be called by the judge of the county south which had
jurisdiction over us, for the election of officers. And just as I had
expected one side to begirt crowing over the other, and I had decided
that there would be a fight, both crowds jumped into their rigs and went
off over the prairie, very good naturedly it seemed to me, after the
next settler.
"Jake," said N.V., as they turned their buggy around, "you'll make some
woman a damned good husband, some day!" and he took off his hat very
politely to Virginia, who blushed as red as the reddest rose then
blooming on the prairie.
That was the way counties were organized in Iowa. It is worth
remembering because it was the birth of self-government. The people made
their counties and their villages and their townships as they made their
farms and houses and granaries. Everybody was invited to take part--and
it was not until long afterward that I confessed to Magnus that I had
never once thought when I signed those petitions that I was not yet a
voter; and then he was frightened to realize that he was not either.
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