The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1878-08-03
For the Free TrI
GRANGERDOM.
Two Pictures Of Country Life,
or
The Dog Days" on a Farm.
How It's Done. and all About 1t.


BY j. D. II.
A farm house with meadows wide,
And sweet with clover on each side;
The door with woodbinc wrcathed about
The boys and girls that look from out
And wish the liyc-long summer day,
ooh If we could but fly away
From this dull place the world to see,
How happy, happy we should be-
Amid the city's constant din,
man who round the world ha6 been,
Who mid the tutnult and the throng
OF city life has wandered long,
Oft wsh'd, son, could always roam
Amid those scenes of farm-lifc home,
The meadows green, the old oak tree,
How happy, happy would be"
A farm house, nesting in the midst of bios
soming fields, away from the din of busy life,
is charming spectacle for those to contem.
plate who arc forced to dwell within the brick
pilcd cities.
How quiet and cool and peaceful it looks,
with great tree boughs dropping over It's messy
roof, and tall grass waving about its open
doors. What can equal the rural delights Of
hay fields, and was there ever anything so fas-
cinating as an old brown barn peoplcd with
swallows and shadows and sunbeams, and fra
grant with the great mows OF new-mown hay =?
Then there is an od-iashioned garden--how
fantastic with its mixture Of favored flowers,
savory herbs and vegetables, It's long rows of
currant and goosberry bushes and hives of
bees whose busy tenants Jingle the gold of
every sunbeam and set all the flowers to dream
ing with their dronlng music. How the corn
fields rustic in the sweet gales that blow from
the woods, while their bowling stalks keep
time to the music of the wind. What lovely
grassy floor there Is TO the old, old orchard,
and how breezy and inviting are the distant
meadows, holding their green laps to catch
every sweet gift that falls from the boun,eous
hand of Summer.
How our hearts incline toward farm house
situated among such charms, and how we loye
TO lInger amid It's shade. The wide, pleasant
chamber under the roof, so cool, and yet that
seems the very abode of sleep, with vine-lcavcs
drapng the windows, and winds singing softly
round the caves, and the quaint old kitchen
with chimney hooks that look rs though they
had been arranged on purpose for storytelling
ON winter nights What delightful place in
which 10 dream away Il summer afternoon are
the broad spacious parlors where the decora.
tions and ornaments Indicate good taste and
Judgment, with doors and windows opening
upon wide view of expansive prairie fringed
with meadows, low hills and lofty trees, whose
irregular outlines indicate the banks of Il me
andcring stream You stretch yourself out up
on one of the finely upholstered sofas and try
to count the colOrs in the rich and lovely car
pet; the many unique ornaments on the what
not attract your attention, the rare pictures
which hang ON the wall come IN for their share
of admiration; warm verdure is blooming all
around, the sun is pouring glorious rays upon
the distant hills, the perfume of hay and bios
SONS drift in, and finally you doze off INTO "A
rosy dream.
Awaking you refresh yourself with draught
from the "old oakcn bucket" go out into the
fields where the hay-makers arc, try your hand
at max ing hay, and think of fair Maud Muller
and what might have been"
And when the evening meal is ready and the
family have gathered around the table, il is
more like sitting down TO banquet than any.
thing else. JOY and happiness beam on every
countenance and the tables sorgeously bur.
dened with everything hom6-H'dde and home
raised, is an appreciative sight to the individu-
al who is obliged TO endure the agony" OF
fashionable % boarding houses and partake
~, Al N, ,,,,,,u,ar,,', Nvhtch il hrnuuht from the