The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-05-23
NOT so NICE.
The Merry Life of a Farmer.

From Augusta, Illinois, to Macomb,
every field was full of plows and patient
farmers. Dear, patient, goOd-natured,
grumbling agriculturist. Where farm
er gets his good nature from is mystery
to me every time l look at him. l watch
ed him to-day from the car window
plodding along at the tail of the pillow,
and wondered that he ever smiled at
all under any prOvocation. OF all men
it seems to me that the farmer has the
best right to grumble. Only he never
grumbles at the right things He grum-
bles at the prices, and then of course no.
body sympathiZeS with him nor cares
cent for his troubles, because they grum-
bic at the same thing. Prices never did
suit anybody. The seller always thinks
they are too low and the buyer always
knows they are too high. The merchant
goes into bankruptcy because he is COM
PEELED to sell his goods at half what they
cost him; and the customer goes naked
and starves because he can't afford 20
pay one-half what is asked for them.
So the farmer when he grumbles at
prices, is no worse off than the rest of us,
and accordingly attracts no sympathy.
But here is where, in my way of
thinking the gaZelle comes in for the
farmer.
1t is spring and the annual warfare be-
gins. Early in the morning the iocund
farmer HES himself to the field, and
hunts around in the dead weeds and
grass for the pillow he left there some
where sometime last fall. When he
finds it he takes it to the shop to have it
mended. When it is mended he goes
back into the field with it. Half way
down the first furrow he lays, he runs
the plow laZily into big live-oak root,
the handles alternately breaking a rib
on this side of him and jab the breath
out of him on the other, and the sturdy
root looking up at him out of the ground
with pleased smile of recognition, saws
cheerfully:
''Ah, Mr.. Thistlepod, at it again, eh ~
Fifty feet further on he strikes a stone
that doubles up the plow-point like a
piece of lead, while the amazed and
breathless agriculturist leans, a limp
piece of humanity across the pillow, the
relic of the glacial period remarks,
sleepily:
"Ah, ha; spring here already? Glad
you woke me up"
And then the granger sits down and
patiently tries to tie on that plow-point
with hickory withe, and while he pur-
sues his fruitless task the friendly crow
swOops down near enough to ask:
Coin to put this twenty in corn,
this year, Mr.. Thistlepod ?"
And before he has time to answer the
sable bird, tiny grasshopper wriggling
out of a clod so full of eggs that they
can't be counted, shouts briskly:
Here we are again, Mr.. Thistlepod;
dinner for 100000, 100000"
And then slow moving but very
positive potato bug crawls out into the
sunlight to see if the frost has faded his
stripes, and says:
''The old fashioned peach-blow pota-
toes are the best for sure crop, but the
early rose should be planted for the first
market"
Then several new kinds of bugs who
haven't made any record yet, climb over
the fence and come up to inquire about
the staple crops of the neighborhood,
and before he can get through with them
Professor Tice sends HIM a circular stat
ing that there won't be any rain from
the middle of May till the last of Octo-
Der. This almost stuns him, but he Is
beginning to feel little resigned when
a dispatch is received from the depart
ment of agriculture at Washington, saw
ing that all indications point to a sum
mer of unprecedented, almost incessant
and long continued rains and floods, and
to plant no root crops at all. While he
is trying to find words in which to ex-
press his emotion, a neighbor drops in to
tell him that all peach trees in the
country are winter killed, and that the
hog cholera is raging fiercely in the
northern part of the township. Then
his wife comes out to tell him that the
dog has fallen into the well, and when
the poor man gets to the door yard, his
children with much shouting and ex-
element meet him and tell him that
there are couple of cats of the pole
species in the spring house, and another
one under the barn. With tears and
groans he returns to the field, but by
that time it has begun to snow so hard
that he can't see horses when he stands
at the pillow. He is discouraged and starts
for the house with his team, when he
meets man who bOunces him for using
a three-hOrse clevis which he made him
self, and wrings ten reluctant dollars
from him. When he reaches the house
the drive-well man is waiting for him,
while he is settling with him a clock
peddler comes in, and a lightning-rod
man, screened by the storm, climbs up
on the ten dollar smoke-house and fas-
tens sixty-five dollars worth of lightning
rods on it, and before the poor farmer
could get his gun half loaded the baiIiff
comes in to tell him that he has been
drawn on jury.
No, / would not, even if could, be a
farmer.
The life is pleasant and independent,
but it seems to have its drawbacks.
If l were a farmer l would grumble
all l wanted, and thump the man who
found fault with me for it.-Hawkeye.