Connecticut western news., 1883-02-07
LEAVING THE OLD FARM.
A Little Chapter on Keeping the Boys at
 HOiiie.
From Peck's Sum-

from FeCKS Sun.
 Sampson Atkins, farmer near Cir cleville, O., hung himself because he was compelled to move off farm on which he had lived since childhood. - Er- change.
 And still there are people who will go on wondering and inqt1iring how to keep the boys on the farm. Here is man who had grown up with the old farm and become so attached to it, that to leave the scenes of his boyhood broke his heart, and he hid his grief in suicides grave.
 There is no sense in talking about how the boys may be kept on the farm. To be sure, farm life is not one continual circus day, as in the city, nor fourth of July, and farmers can make their sons hate the old farm home by subjecting them to all manner of drudgery, the same as they would pair of yearling steers, and expect them to wear the yoke, and never make kick. The man alluded to above, had grown up on the farm.
 He was somebody's son, and no doubt, in his boyhood days he often had sort of yearning to leave the old farm and go away to the city, and put on boiled shirt and smoke cigars, and amass fortune. But he stuck to the old farm, and when he was finally obliged to leave 1t, the thought was too much, and he took his own life rather than go No doubt when he thought of leaving the old place, the scenes of his boyhood's happiest hours would arise up before him, and he could see, in looking back OCT lifetime spent on the old farm, the same narrow winding lane through which he trudged, when boy, over the grass and stubble covered with the heavy dew and frost of early morning, and the thought of how he placed his bare foot down on the early bumble-bee which nestled among the clover blossoms and sang it's morning song, came back to him with old time vigor.
 The thought of leaving the dear old home, around whose cheerful fireplace he had spent many happy evening, and then went to bed of feathers be- meath rafters laden with dried pumpkin and catnip, and seed corn, and cob-webs, and dried apples, was more than the poor man could stand.
 The many happy scenes of his boy hood days, and the recollections of com fort and plenty, on the old place, would admit of no thoughts on the drawbacks that had sometimes crept in and made him think that life was not worth living for, anyway.
 The cares and troubles of farm life were drowned deep in the tide of pleas ant thoughts, and he never stopped to think, as he shed tears at parting with the dear old farm, of how he had got up at four o'clock in the morning and gone down to wash at the pump in the yard, when the weather was so cold the soft soap in the jar by the side of the house was frozen solid, and the milk he had warmed for the calf, and bran-mash for the COWS had to be broken with fork
  handle before the cattle could eat it. He only stopped to think of the spring time, gentle Hannah, when the COWS came home at night, the taxes were paid, the crops nearly in, and everything lovely, and it is not to be wondered at that the poor man felt sad at leaving the old home. There is no use talking about keeping boys on the farm when they get the roaming fever, but after man has been there lifetime he would not ex- change places with king, and wear crown, and suffer with the gout and the dyspepsia. There are thousands who know just how that poor man must have felt, and will pity him, as they know that 1t is often better to own three hundred acre farm, without mortgage on it, and 8 good, sound constitution, than to be the proprietor of millions, and brown stone mansion, and the consumption.