UNCLE TOM HOLLAND
February 23, 1898
Arizona Republican Newspaper

Uncle Tom Holland pushed back from a game of solo in the Commercial 
Hotel card room yesterday afternoon, indignant because his partner 
had made a bad play. The old man put his feet on the table and 
obstructed any further gambling.  He sank into a reminiscent 
mood and told a story of one early experience. To relate it 
without the forcible interjections of the old man must meet 
the failure of an attempt to gild a sunbeam.

Said he "I am more than eighty years old and I never went 
sparking but once. I lived back in New York on a farm and 
had a twin brother. We was growing up and getting to be 
young men and you know we were looking around for partners 
for life. A neighbor who lived about a mile away had a 
couple of grown up daughters and three or four small 
children. Me and my brother talked about them grown up 
girls for they was likely looking girls and we decided 
to go and spark them.

"On Saturday afternoon we dressed ourselves up in our best 
and when a young man in our country dressed that way in the 
daytime he throwed himself open to a breach of promise 
suit for it meant a marriage proposal. My brother and me 
cut across a cornfield where our neighbor lived.  The 
little children was out in front of the house and when 
they seen us coming they raised a big shout.  The two 
grown up girls come to the door and when they seen us 
they laughed and run down to the cornfield.  We went on 
into the house and sat down.  The old folks was glad to 
see us and asked us about the weather and the crops. My 
brother wasn't much of a talker and I had to carry one 
the whole conversation. It was a mighty warm June day 
and the bear grease on my hair run down and made me feel 
uncomfortable.

The children gathered around in front of us and stared at us 
with their mouths and eyes. We was the biggest circus they 
had ever seen. At last we couldn't stand it no longer and I 
told my brother we'd better go. The old folks wanted us to 
stay, but I had had all the sparking I wanted. We went out 
in to the cornfield and the direction we seen the girls 
running, thinking maybe we'd flush them out but we didn't 
an I never seen them no more.  I meant to marry one of them 
girls but now I never married nobody.  I just wondered up 
and down the world for sixty years.  Oh, I have a home up 
at Castle Creek, but I ain't got that no more.

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