San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1883-03-22
Leaving the Old Farm.

Leaving the Old Farm.
Sampson Atkins, q farmer neal
Circleville, o., hung himself because
he was compelled to move off farm
on which he had lived since child
hood"
And still there are people who will
90 on wondering and inquiring 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, 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 boys may be kept on the farm.
To be sure, farm life is not one con-
tinual circus day, as in the city, nor
a fourth July, and farmers can make
their sons hate the old farmhouse by
subjecting them to all manner of
drudgery, the same as they would a
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, no doubt,
in his boyhood days he often had
yearning to leave the old farm and
60 away to the city, and put on
boiled shirt and smoke cigars, and
amass a great fortune. But he
stuck to the old farm, and when he
was obliged to leave it the thought
was too much, and he took his own
life rather than 60. 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, looking back DER life
time spent on the old farm, the same
narrow, winding lane through which
he had trudged when boy over the
grass and stubble covered with the
heavy dew and frost of early morn
ing, and the thought of how he placed
his barefoot down on the early bum
BILE bee which nestled among the clo-
yer blossoms and sang it's morning
song, came back to him with the old
time vigor. The thought of leaving
the dear old home, around whose
cheerful fireplace he had spent so
many happy evenings, and went to
bed of feathers beneath rafters laden
with dried pumpkin, catnip, and seed
crop, and cob-webs, and dried apples,
was more than the poor man could
stand. The happy scene of his boy
hood days, and the recollections of
comfort and plenty, on the old place,
would admit of no thoughts on the
drawbacks that 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 pleasant
thoughts, and he never stopped to
think, as he shed tears at the parting
with tho dear old farm, of how he
got up at four o'clock in the morning
and went down to wash at the pump
in the yard, when the weather was
SO cold that the soft soap in the jar
at the side of the house was frozen
solid, and the milk he had warmed
for the calf, and the bran-mash for
the COWS had to be broken with fork
handle before they 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 every
thing lovely, and it is not to be won
dered at that the old man felt sad at
leaving the old farm. There is no
use talking about keeping boys on
the farm when they get the roaming
fever, but aftera man has been there a
lifetime he would not exchange places
with a king, and wear a crown, and
suffer with the govt and dyspepsia.
There are thousands who know just
how the poor man must have felt,
and will pity him, as they know it is
often better to own three hundred
acre farm without a mortgage on it,
and good, sound constitution, than
to be the proprietor of millions, and
a brownIstone mansion, andthe con-
y