The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1878-08-08

to be rs happy as CAM Margaret +,
Sangster.
Bill Arp-What He Thinks of Binding
The Shelves.
Mr.. Editur: The harvest is over.
Great expectations have not been real
lied. Farmin' is a good deal like fishin';
every time you start out you can just
zee yourself catchin' 'em, but after tryin'
every hole in the creek you go home
sorrowfully, with fisherman's luck.
But we are not complainin' by no means;
for we've got wheat enut for biskit every
day and light-bread on Sunday, and
few bushels to spare for them angels
that's cum along unawares sum of these
days
We finished cuttin' the oat crop this
mornin', and what with them and the
clover already housed, the cattle are safe
for another year imagine they look
sassy and thankful ; but, as for me, Mr.,
Editor, / am used up individual. Durin'
harvest have had to be binder, and if
you don't know what that is, ask Harris.
The ends of these fingers which are now
inscribln' this epistle are in bad fix.
Skarifde and stuck up with bull nettles
and briars, they are as sore as school
boys bile. There was sum variation to
my business, such as catchin' young
rabbits and fndin' partridge nests and
pickin' dewberries; but the romance
wore off the first day, and, by the end of
the next, my wife says | was az humble
a man as any woman could desire. It's
nifty purity thing to write about and
make up Dads and PONIES. The golden
grain, the manly reapers, the struttin'
sheaves the song of the harvesters, and
purity Miss Ruth coquettin' around the
fields of old man Beaz, and chow okin'
did they drive their team afeld," is all
sweet and nice to man up tree
with an umbrel; but if them poets
had to tie wheat half day in June
sun their sentimentslity would hence
forth seek another subjek.
tried swingin the cradle awhile, but
somehow OF somehow else couldn't ex-
actly get the lick. 1t wasent the kind
of a cradle Pve been used to, and Pm
too old dog to learn new tricks now
The swing of the reaper's cradle is a
very peculiar motion-very regular in
its irregularity, and goes for the weeds
and bushes and briars and the wheat all
the same. Somehow or other it re-
minds me of an independent candidate a
side wipin' around to get offs in twists
fed way. Well, like independence,
and that's why | like farmin'--no-
body to look to for a livin' but Pros
vidence. | like to see man inde-
pendent in opinion, and in action, too,
and if he suckseeds it shows
that there is gum in him; but it won't
do to run that schedule too long or too
far in politics or religion. Bonaparte
and Beecher tried it, and if they couldn't
keep it up, nobody can't. Everybody
has got to fall into line some time. For
a while all sorts of people will pat an
independent on the back and say, "GO
it, my larkey-bully for YOU" but be-
fore long they'll begin to think over
what good, fat thing he's got, and then
human nature, which you know is as
mean as the devil, will crop out, and the
next time they'll drop him so easy he
went know it. On the whole, the aspirin
man had better 60 along smoothly with
his party or his church or his copartners,
as the case may be.
General Black says he to me, says he:
"Bill, as you are goin' to farmin', let
me give you piece of advice: Don't
90 Of on new lines, but watch your
nabors, and do purity much as they do"
Well, he didn't mean if the nabors
went barfaoted in the summer time and
slept in shirt and washed their feet in
a skillet, and their darters worked in the
field and dipped snuff, we must do so
too, by no means. But he meant to say
that the kind of farmin' that is sustained
by the majority of farmers was nifty apt
to he the best.
Jesse with gettin' offis-the best way
the old way. 1t may be, however,
that Providence does raise up man as
an instrument to reform society,
but the in trument is very
likely to think he is doin it
all on his own hook and he'll keep on
reformin' till the millennium if the peo-
pie will let him. ] think it would be
well enough for him to report progress
some time, and maybe the good Lord
would let his servant depart in peace
But you let feller git taste of Wash
ington, and it does look onpossible to
even get him away from there. 81 will
stand for reelection" Oi course he
will but it does seem to me that il
had held a rotaten Office right straight
along for forty years would hunt the
shade of Liberty Hall and quit. Why,
there's forty men in that district been
patiently waitin' twenty years for his
chance, and he's now proposin' to outlive
'em all and himself, too. S'pose he does
want to die in harness, what's that to
Berry Houck? There's sum other gen.
tlemen worthy and well qualified, who
would take the gears kindly, and work
in 'em, too. But if had horse that
wore out his breachin' a holdin' back up
hill, and hsdent pulled nary pound in
seventeen years, he wouldn't die in my
harness, shore. He mout hunt another
wagin. I've no idee Of toadying man
who toadies everybody and every thing
| don't like, from General Grant down
TO a patent medicine and there's heap
of folks my way of thinkin'. Every
time | think aboutit | hear myself ex-
clsimin', Time out-next"
Yours, BILL ARP.
PROBABLY the most unexceptionable
explanation of the cause OF the ascent OF