The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1879-06-25
Brown Hands.

to put up with.-Escltanqe,
Brown Hands.
How | reverence bro wn hand !
Soft, white hands may possess more
of grace and beauty, and doubtless
do great deal Of good in the world,
but what would become OF us, were
it not for the strong brown hands !?
We visit machine-shop and note
the wonderful mechanism of every
thing there; watch the workings of
the curious, intricate machines, from
the great Corliss down, see how per-
feet they are, and with what harmony
they all perform their tasks, seeming
more than creations of some far-away
fairy land than the wonderful children
of mems brains, and we know brown
bands made them all, and brown
hands guide them to their allotted
tasks.
We view the splendid buildings
erected all over our land, standing so
proudly, and so grand in their archl-
tectural beauty, compelling admir-
alton from ever passer-by, and we
know cunning, skilltul, brown hands
put every inch of those vast edifces
in their place. Brown hands are to
white, what the strong, sturdy forest
trees are to the tender, graceful.
smaller growth; a protection, an
ever-pfesent help in every time OF
need.
Go to the farm. What think you
would white hands accomplish here ?
Simply nothing; in few hours time
they would be bruised, blistered,
bleeding, useless appendages, not
even capable of doing their duty as
white hands. Send out a pair of
brown hands and how strongly they
grasp the plow-handles! How easy
for them to guide the heavy pillow
through the mellow earth, to bind
the sheathes of golden grain, or toss
the great forkfulls Of sweet-scented
hay! They hardly realize their ex-
issence, and when the days work is
over, and the extra accumulation OF
mother earth washed away, they are
brown hands still, none the worse for
the days work and just as ready for
the next to come.
=. rhat / - : - - who nrs;
dict that brown hands viii soon be-
come obsolete; that Edison and kind
red spirits will soon end the neces-
sity for brown hands. | have never
had the pleasure of seeing Mr.. Edi-
son, but 1 candidly believe that his
hands are brown, and will be until he
can invent a machine that will hence
forward do his inventing tor him.
Fancy, if you can, a man who will
work for sixty consecutive hours,
suddenly changing his course of life,
and sitting quietly by on downy
cushion while some machine does his
inventing Tor him. Don't you know
brilliant idea would strike him so
quickly, he would jump to his feet,
smash his machine and go to work
himself? Never tor one moment en-
terrain the thought that the work for
brown hands is done. The only trou-
BILE is, there is not brown hands
enough to do the work that ought to
be done.
Because you cannot go to the
wheat fields with your sickle, or to
the corn field with your hoe, don't
creep back into some dark dreary
room and imagine from that time on
you are one of the white fingered sort
and ought to have u supplement to
your name, but examine yourself and
see if you have not brain that will
guide your hands to something be-
sides holding the plow-handle. There
is no reason why the brown hands,
guided by the strong brain that can
grow in body developed in Gods
pure air and sunshine, shall not be
the hands to hold the good things of
this earth. There is little need OF the
cry, nothing to do" the earth is
full of work and ready to reward the
workers.
And go to your homes. How many
OF our greatest and best men and wo-
men can remember mother with
brown hands? Is the memory OF
that mother less sacred because her
hands are brown? Was the touch
of that well-remembered, loved hand
less tender because it was brown !?
Oh, no. 1t grew brown caring for
the little ones God had given, and
always in its struggle for life, had
time to caress and tenderly lead them
through the first years Of experience,
and in maturer years had strength to