Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1882-04-06
Sunday Reflections.

Texas Slflings.
Work is what men are paid for do
ing. Some kinds of work is paid for
by the yard, some by the day and
some by the job. Railroad contractors,
for instance. are paid by the yard,
street-car drivers by the day, and por-
trait painters by the job. Legis-
lators are paid both by the day
and by the job. When a GER
tain thing is done-an act performed
for money. it is called work. When
the same thing is done merely to pass
time it is called pleasure. A man will
go prowling around all day through
marshes and boys in search of snipe,
and come home at night, worn and
tired, with eight or ten poor little birds,
the market price of which is about 25
cents for the lot, and he will say that
he had a glorious days sport. That is
pleasure. If that same man was paid
good wages to pursue and harrass snipe
every day in the year it would be work,
and he would think this weary world
and wish he were dead. Some people
get an immense amount of so-called
pleasure out of the fl swing bowl. But
take one OF those people and pay him
Els week to disorganize his internal
machinery with adulterated alcohol
and drugged malt liquors. Have it in
the contract that he must take enough
to make him sick at the stomach once
every twenty-four hours, and make
him sleep on hard benches and attend
to his duties until IL or II O'clock
every night. He will call that work
and won't like it, while under the name
of pleasure he would gladly give it his
undivided attention 365 days in the
year. What we are compelled to do
we call work, and mostly every one of
US think that the work he has to do is
more severe than what those in other
vocations have to perform. The horny.
handed farmer as he earns his bread
by the sweat of his brow and the jolts
he gets as he plows through roots and
snags, thinks his the hardest work OF
all, and when he thinks of the editor
sitting in his easy chair, dashing of
eloquent and humorous editorials in
his leisure moments, he crashes his
teeth and swears if the idea is sug
gested to him that an editor ever knows
anything of work. And the editor, as
he tolls over an idea that he cannot
find words to express, while the print
er, in the most aggravating manner
stands around on one leg impatiently
waiting for copy, and mutteiing some
thing about not getting to press il
time for the next mail-that editor, al
he scratches his head in vain endeav
or to remember whether one is al
; that belongs to the word harass, wish
es that he was only farmer-One O
those simple-minded grangers wh'
need never be in hurry to get to tn,
end of row, who is never too busy Il
sit on the fence and discuss politics
} and whose severest labor is in sup
: pressing his robust appetite with fres(
laid eggs, and curds and cream. So i
is in every department of life; we have
all got work to do, and each of us is in
clined to think his lot the hardest, but
the cultivation of a cheerful and hope
full spirit and the occasional reflection
; that if it were twice as bad with us i
, would be worse, will do much toward
making US contented and better pre-
pared to wrestle with the labors, cares
, and duties that the injudicious act o
that old ancestor of ours left us as al
, heritage.