News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1883-02-22
LEAVING THE OLD FARM,
Little Chapter on Keeping the Boys ut
Home.
TFrOm peck's Sun.1

| Sampson Atkins, a farmer near Cir.
cleville, O., hung himself because he was
compelled to move off Il farm on which
he had lived since childhood. - Er-
| change.
And still there are people who will &c
on wondering and inquiring how to keer
the boys on the farm. Here is a 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 a 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 subiecting
thom - afi wanr.r of 5rudgcry, the
same rs they would pair of yearHng
steers, and expect them to wear the
yoke, and never make a 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 a sort
of yearning to leave the old farm and
go away to the city, and put on a boiled
shirt and smoke cigars, and amass a
fortune. But he stuck to the old farm,
and when he was finally obliged to leave
it, 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
DER a lifetime spent on the old farm, the
same narrow winding lane through which
he trudged, when a 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 its 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 a happy evening,
and then went to a bed of feathers be-
meath rafters laden with dried pumpkin
and catnip, and seed corn, and cob-webs,
and dried apples, was more than thepoo
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
mt thoughts, and he never stopped to
think, as he shed tears at parting with
-he dear old farm, of how he had got up
It four o'clock in the morning and gone
Town to wash ut 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 a lifetime he would not ex-
change places with a 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
it is often better to own a three hundred |
acre farm, without a mortgage on it, and
a good, sound constitution, than to be
the proprietor Of millions, and a brown
stone mansion, and the consumption.