Union County courier. [volume] (Elk Point, Union County, D.T. [S.D.]) 187?-1913, 1883-07-25
Spring Work and Bows.

This is the season OF the year when
eople begin the agricultural labor of
p gitating the soil of the garden, and
shaping up the onion bed, and giving it
the requisite form and void to receive
the early onion seed. and commencing to
gaze fondly into the soft dreamy eyes of
the seed potatoes to see if they possess
che necessary life to catch on under the
warm rays Of the spring sunshine. The
cabbage plants are set cut in the sun or
in the hot thouse. aud watched and nursed
with rs much care as . baby would be,
and the small boy of the household, who
sees in the near future prospects of II
seasons work keeping the weeds out of
the cabbage plants aftcrthey are set out,
lays awake nights planning destruction
10 the plants, and working up schemes
for getting them frost bitten and killed
before it is time to set them out There
is probably no work, unless it be saving
wood, that boy hates to do more than
wprk in the garden in the spring. 1t is
the season when the boy is letAolat after
winters confinement and lie il Just ach-
ing for fun, and he don't want any work
around the house to bother him. BOYS
have been known TO lay down a fish pole
and give up days fishing for t. e fun Of
raking up the yard, when the prospects
for bone fire in the evening were good.
but when it comes to spading up an old
flower bed, he knows the fish are Just
dying to be caught and it requires u
good deal Of diplomacy to keep him at
the spading job an hour at time. And
a boy can hardly be blamed for it.
oifhar In tho 1o 10
out and shake himself playing bali, and
no exercise in garden with spade will
do any boy on earth, that has anv get
up about him. Boys have been known
to lean over on their knees playing mar
bles for hours at time, and until they
had callouses on Il cir knees that stuck
right through their pants, but boy
with callouses on his knees from lean
ing over an onion bed in the garden
would be one of the curiosities of the
age. Nearly all the great statesmen of
the present day can look back to the
time when they rather stand in the mud
and water up to their knees and fish for
bull-heads than help plant potatoes in
the best garden in the country. a boy
seems to have a horror for working
around garden. and we don't believe
there is man in the country to-day, who
ever was a boy, but who eau look back
to the time when his fate for a spring
day lie between working in his fathers
garden, and going fishing or playing
ball. and when he could by any sharp
boyish craftsmanship choose the latter,
that he did not sneak over the back
fence with a can of angle-worms under
his nj lot 4 tl,, a el.
take for instance a hoy with lame back
and almost every boy has a lame back
when there is any work to be done in
the garden, and almost any parent
wouldtake pity on him and tell him to go
in the house and goto bed. 1t seems from
that moment that the boys back grows
stronger and in fifteen minutes he is out
of the window. and the neighborhood,
over with a crowd of other bows. strain
ing his poor little weak back irving TO
knock the stsiiiing out OF q bail, with
bat, that requires more exertion to WELD
than n hoe would. Even tie best kind
of n boy, who will gladly work like
major Mt any ether season of the year,
seems TO have a fearful falling ont with
all manner of labor in the spring But
somehow the spring garden is made each
year, and the boy growsup TO manhood,
and finally has Il boy of his own, and
garden that demands attention, then it
seems that when he wants his own boy
to help in the garden, and fifteen min
utes after he sets the boy 10 work he
finds him in the stree playing marbles,
he forgets how it was whcn he was boy
himself, and he argues with his boy with
a hoe-handle. Twas ever thus - Peck's
Sun.