Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1876-05-19
Western Homo Life.
From the Western Farm Journal

OF mind and body. Their tables are
meanly furnished; they wear calico
and shoddy, and rags, tic up the
broken harness with ropes, buy sec
end hand tools, rise early and work
late, sell off the little comforts that
the farm, garden, and dairy bring
them, and which they ought to keep
and use, to make the years ends
meet. And women get weary and
back bent, wrinkles furrow their
cheeks and foreheads, their hands
get hard and knotty, and unless a
change comes soon, the mind takes
pattern from the body, loses its elias
ITCHY, and becomes sodden and slow.
Such constantly is the experience
of the early years on the prairies.-
But in time there is generally an i'm
provement. Not always, nor perhaps
often, in the face and figure, or char.
acter, but in the purse. Cattle and
hogs, full cribs and bins, bring and
are prosperity.
And now comes my text and SER
mon. This first ten or twenty years
represses under our common ways
of living) the nobler and better quail
tiles of the human, and somehow
stimulates the lower. Of this last
none is basef than vanity, selfcon-
ceit, and it is amazing how it lives
through all vicissitudes Of fortune,
all sufferings and all losses, it perks
and yaunts itself, whether we are in
rags or in silks.
Well, now our farmer has sold Il
fine lot of hogs and cattle; his purse
is rotund, and he must do something.
His farm is wet and needs draining,
but that won't show much. His
grounds about his house are rough
and treeless, but these take time and
taste to cure. The graces that adorn
our lives and make US nearer the an
gel than we are to the gorilla, neg
lected during his years Of trial and
toll, are too teebly remembered to
attract his notice. Better systems of
farming, improved methods of work,
come only from study and patient
experiment. He will none of them.
But he's got money, and he must do
something. He can't carry his purse
onhis sleeve, but he is bound to show
the world somehow that he's got
some money, So he falls into the
common folly trap, and builds a
house. Now" "a house Is fine thing
on farm" as Sparrowgrass has it.
1t is the shelter of our household
gods, the retreat when the world
presses US heavily, the most sacred
spot on the wide world for him or
her who deserves or appreciate it.
In the early years of which spoke,
the house is humble and unpreten-
tious like ourselves; lacking in room
and comforts, like our pioner lives in
4 measure, but none the less sacred
and beautiful in its contribution to
the symmetry of our lives. 1t at
tractcd no attention as house, not
even OR own attention, for our busl.
ness and work was On and in the
acres that lay about it. "Some day."
he said to her, tive will build a good
large kitchen on back there, so as to
have it handy to the we'll; and bed
room or so for the growing yonkers."
And she said, eyes; and we will
have nice piazza along the sunny
side, where climbing roses and honey
sIckles shall sweeten our toll and
make onr children better" And he
said, eyes; and we Will wall Up
our cellar and well, and build a wood
she'd" And she said, )" Yes;" and
then said she, "some day." and there
was far-away, misty look in her
eyes, "shan't we some day finish our
best room with paint and paper and
carpet, and gather some jewels of
reading, some of the immortal
thoughts in song and prose, of the
dear great ones who struggled for
life just as we are doing, and maybe
a choice picture or two, just enough
to make our home loved and respect
ed by our little ones and ourselves"
And he SAID, YES"
And this was all in tins aarly years,
when the remembrance of the old
home was fresh; when the enthusiasm
and romance of youth was still theirs.
And under those blessed influences
they builded, in imagination, true
farmers home, comfortable, roomy,
convenient, hospitable in it's look,
tasteful, complete; the work OF neces-
sity and the eternal fitness of things.
But youth wears out, and carries its
varied attributes with it. That house
never was built, because, first, they
couldn't, and finally they didn't want
to.
But now for a house, architecture
can be bought by the square and
paint by the bucket. ! will not fol
low the process. The result stares
in generally white hideousness
along road sides and ont of timber
lots, all over the land, resembling
nothing SO much rs they do new
style of lady's head gear, one inch of
hat to twenty-four of fluff and feath-
ers, If you visit them, you will, nine
cases in ten, find the family huddled
in seven by nine kitchen, and the
balance of the castle as hollow as the
cave of the winds, unfitness and in
congruity sitting upon everything
like y nightmare. | went into such
an establishment once, The owner
and his wife were thin and bowed
with hard work, and in this case
there were no children to be ruined
by this stupendous folly. The man
took us into his parlor with the same
air with which he showed his fine
hogs. The room was rich in tawdry
paint, joiner work and upholstery, a
full length mirror at one end, Cpl
amer" at the other; tcn-cent litho-
graph Of Yankee Robinson, and a
Buckeye mower advertisement, were
the owners contribution to the rooms
adornment. In the pig pen he was
at home and happy; in his parlor he
was tickled, but miserable; sitting
down on one corner of handsome
"cheer," close to the door, looking
as If he was afraid" some on it Would