River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1877-09-13


personally superintends the job. When /
was q small boy was told by M good
mother that the sun rose every morning
and-I always believed her. never got
up TO see, for / always felt as if it would
look as if / doubted her word.
After the farmer Is up he must cut up
some green wood for his wife 10 build
the fire with. A farmers wife who had
kindlings and dry wood furnished her
would consider that she had good grounds
for divorce. While the breakfast is be-
ing cooked the farmer HES TO the barn TO
take care of and feed his cattle. Any
body who has ever taken hold Of q pitch
fork handle when the thermometer was
below zero never viii outliye the remem-
brance Of it. There may be things colder
but I never touched them. / took hold
of white oak pitchfork handle over
twenty years ago and have never had
the full use of nv hands since.
After completing the chamber work IN
the barn, the next thing is to water the
stock. Watering stock on Wall street
and watering il on q farm are two differ
ent Things. Pu-11ing up water through
q leaky pump, when it seems S. If the
first drop came from the center OF the
earth. Is more cheerful 10 read Of then 10
DO. Perhaps it is not pump, but an icy
well-pole that you are called upon TO en-
brace. and, rs il slips through your fin
gers, and the cold drops of water splash
up your shirt-sleeye, you begin TO wonder
whether this really Is the bright world
you thought il was, and whether you will
be called upon TO draw water from deep
well with an icy pole in the other land
beyond the skies.
II is during the winter that the farmer
throws aside the dIudgery and hard
work of the farm, aud engages in the
sport of cutting and hauling ont cord
wood. Next 10 making tatting, there Is
4 scarcely any labor more easily done than
I breaking out wood-road through snow
three feet deep, and then chopping down
/ trees, splitting and cutting them into
cord wood, then hauling q load of il
/ fifteen miles to market, and finally sell il
i for five dollars a cord, and take your pay
in something yon don't want. When
/ think of this easy way of earning dollar
/ have TO hire a stout man TO hold me
down in chair, in order 10 keep me
from plunging out and buying q wood
4 lot.
When spring fairly sets in, then il Is
4 that the farmCI begins TO realize that he
owns farm, ana that lac is a sturdy yeo-
man. He starts out with his pillow to
turn up the burrows in the glad earth.
How beautifully the poets sing about ali
+ this, and how nice it sounds if the poetry
/ is good think there IS a charm abcu
a poetic lie that does not exist in prose
For delicate invalid, a course of treat
ment consisting of holding a pillow feI
+ f Teen hours a day, through rocky field,
'rl Id be likely TO make another man OF
hin in a short time. II might possibly
I be a dead man, but still it would be
another man. held a pillow once and
i helped to break up piece Of new land
Through the kindness of friends ! was
taken into a machine shop and rebuilt
over as we'll as the machinist could do the
Job. / have never seemed to feel exactly
right since, but | don't suppose l ought
to blame the man. He said my arms
were both pulled out of the sockets and
l was all stretched out of shape, and he
I did as well as anybody could for me.
shall not hold pillow again as long as
hold my reason. and when that leaks out
of me it will rot matter much what hold
or what holds me.
! When a farmer wants little play, in
stead Of putting out his croquet set. be
turns f. and builds piece of stone wall.
+ Building stone wall is more exciting then
I playing billiards, for there Is more variety
I 10 it. Amateur billiards always reminds
me of the itch, there is SO much scratch to
( il, but building stone wall is diversified
something to do all the time, ike catch
/ ing fieas.
4 No one can realize the charm Of dig
/ cling round a big rock, and getting 8
chain under it, and twitching it onto 8
drag or Of getting a crOwbar under it
and lifting and straining on IT, enough tC
! strain the whole Atlantic Ocean. and then
Of having the bar slip, and the stone roll
back, barking a shin OF otherwise bruis
ing you, while you plunge forward viii
force enough 10 drive your head into tbs
ground. | sag no one can realize the
charm Of this unless he has sal on fence
as / have, and seen il done.
The bug problem TO the farmer IS d
/ stupendous one. 1t amounts TO more tc
a small farmer than il does 10 the biggest
hotel proprietor in the country. A good
smart chambermaid and bottle Of dou,
bic B poison will fix bed so that you
can plant man at nine o'clock at night
and have to haul him ont of bed with 8
steam-tug in the morning, he viii sleeI
so soundlv.
The potato-bug is a native OF the West
He originated in the canyons of Colarado
and may be called an off-shoot of that
section. The State is rammed full and
! loaded down with them. They formerly
lived on wild plants, but one Of them
I went up to Denver on a little pleasure
+ trip, and at the hotel there he had some
4 fried potatoes. and they struck him as be-
/ ing about the best thing to quiet hunger
/ he had ever lighted on.
/ He went home and advised his breth
rem to go East. and they simply packed
/ upa few collars and change Of clothing
and started. The potato-bug dawns on
I the farmer very rapidly; he sees his po-
| tatoes nicely up; their green tops remind
/ him that potatoes in the fall, at a dollar
I a bushel, are better than serpent's tooth
I or a thankless child, and he goes to bed
/ dreaming of wealth pouring in on HIM In
/ burrows, and the next morning he visits
! his field and sees some rcd spots on the
potato vines, about as big as pin heads.
He notices that they give rather genteel
look to the leaf. In day or two he
sees these red drops begin to grow, and
then to crawl, and in three or four days
he goes out and is SO surprised at what
he sees that you could not paint his look
of establishment, nor even prime it over
one coat with less than bucket of paint.
He sees that the potato-bug has arrived,
and has brought his whole family and all
his wife's 500 friends. He is there with
all his tools and implements of labor, He
sees a bug about as large as the letter O.
when it drops from the lips Of a small
boy, as he incautiously sits down on an
adult bull thistle. He sees this bug laid
off in stripes endwise, like the marks of
gridiron on slice of brOiled liver lie
sees that what the bug lacks in size he
rains in quantity. He is there and keeps