News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-09-07
THE DEAR OLD FARM.
why Boys Desert the Quiet Home
stead.
From the Laramie Boomerang. l

From the Laramie Boomerang.
Numerous writers have been heard
from upon the question of why boys
leave the farm, and the suggestion has
been made that one reason is that the
rising generation is becoming depraved.
This is not true. They do not leave the
dear old farm, where industry and vir-
tue have their eternal abiding place, to
mingle with the mad follies of city life.
Boys do not desert the quiet home
stead, and the fond parents whose life
has been devoted to their children, for
the reason that they want to mingle in
the giddy whirl of metropolitan life and
become sharks in business and immoral
society stars.
No farmer boy ever forgot in his sue
cessful years the quiet home, the sturdy
| labor, or the numberless attractions of
that old farm, and during the cares and
perplexities of commercial or profess
sional life in great city there is forever
in his heart that picture of contentment
and rest, that haven secure from the
storm-tossed pillows of uncertain trade
and the snares of an artificial existence.
Other reasons as varied as the human
mind lie at the bottom Of this dissat-
isfaction. The same causes, perhaps,
never led two different boys to desert
the rural home and flee to the city.
We can state why we left the old
farm if it would contribute anything to
| science or aid in settling a long ag-
itated question.
Our last season on the farm was an
unfortunate one. The frost didn't get
out of the ground till haying, and just
as the season opened, the old bay mare
became parent, and the spring plow-
| ing had to be done with fractio us pair
of mules. We had just become attached
to these mules and felt a friendly in
terest in them, when a little incident
occurred which changed the whole cur
rent of our life.
We decide one day to reach the iron
gray mule in order to give him chic and
OSACs IL hOu1O tdhO lOO lOuR W klN0
the particulars of this occurrence, but
suffice it to say that during our conva-
lescence we went into town and secured
position there.
We did not plunge into the false gay
ETY. of town because we loved it, or be-
cause we Stunned the solemn calm and
holy hush of nature in that beautiful
valley where we had spent many happy
years. Those who accuse us of that do
us an injustice, and cast upon us an in
sinuation which is iIl-deserved and un-
fair.
The life of farmer boy is clouded
with many Dameless annoyances of
which the great heart of traffic wots
not. He who has not passed through it
ought not TO rite about it, for he can
not deal with the trouble understand
IngIy. If you have boon 4. farr4aor's
and have swung an old scythe all
the forenoon and come home at
noon hot and hungry, wearing an old
pair of oyeralls of which you are little
doubtful and an open back shirt with
your sun-burned spinal column sticking
out of it clear down to your waistband,
and found on your arrival a sweet little
city dumpling dressed in cool muslin
there to greet you and look you over,
and smile at your costume and your
appetite, you can say something per-
haps.
If you have bent your aching form
over a two-acre field of Early Rose po-
tatoes all day feeding Paris green to the
voracious potato bug and then MIXED
nine COWS and labored with a primary
class of nine calves trying to teach
them how to drink, and experienced
the rural Joy of being butted over
to the cucu mber patch by each one of
them and then crawled into your bed
hands at night, you know a farmer
boys communion with nature. 1t is
true that machinery in every depart
ment of agriculture has lent q charm to
it on paper, but still it has its draw
backs and its sorrows.
GOd forbid that the memories that
cluster around the after life of farmer
boy should be lost or eradicated, but |
there are little incidents of our career on |
the farm that we are endeavoring with
great zeal to forget. They come up be-
fore us yet sometimes, and in the dead |
hours in the quiet night we seem to be
once more kicked through the barn door |
by that hoary old mule, or in our
dreams we are out in the midst of hay |
ing, pitching the fragrant grass and rat
tlesnakes, and humble bees, and crickets |
up into the hot hay NOV as we did In |
our boyhood days.
We like to hear the curfew bell toll |
the hour of parting day, and we also
like to see the lowing herd wind slowly |
DER the lea, but that mad hunger for
life in the not harvest fields and the
thrill and excitement of dawdling away |
our time around threshing machine |
are gone.
Who will say that it is because we
shun the purity, and honesty and in
dustry, and one dollar per day of the
farmers life? Let him who accuses us
of that step into the Boomerang office
some evening for an hour and we will
give him some more reasons, which lack
of space at this time forbids.