The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1884-06-21
ESSAY.
Read before the County Grange al Freedom,
June 8, 1884

!
rhyme should be.
She was pleased to call it poetry, but with
that cant agree,
For there's mighty difference twixt Ten
nyson and me.
For he is Englands laureate, and knighted
by the crown
For composing a tender elegy on faithful old
John Brown,
By birth I'm farmers daughter-by mar
rage farmers wife;
Only an armor-bearer in the battlefield Of
life.
SO ask me not for poetry when you ask an
other time,
For there is wide, wide difference 'twixt
that and simple rhyme.
What subject shall choose is the question
that comes next,
For in the wake Of an apology you always
find the text,
This thought has been presented, and III
say word or two
What shall farmer family in winter even
ings do,
When raging old Boreas with fearful furry
sweeps
Around his lonely dwelling the snow in
drifted heaps?
We FIRST will glance at childbood's days, free
from care and strife,
And follow on as they advance and take
their stands in life,
A paper and pair Of shears are the childs
delight
In making dolls and various things they'll
spend an hour each night;
Then pasting pictures in scrap-books affords
lot of pleasure,
And mothers box Of buttons is the little
maiden's treasure.
Sometimes they want story told, and gather
round the fire,
And with open-eyed establishment they listen
to their sire
Tell the wonderful performances the youths
and maidens did
When their mother was q lassie and their
father but kid
How be always run the fastest when they
played pomp.pull-away,
And when he couldn't beat in wrestling twas
very cold day
And how in all his classes he carried off the
prize
From the boys and girls who we're double
him in size
That they are not such prodigies to them
seems very odd
And as they try to grasp the truth their
heads begin to nod.
The farmer then his paper takes to read the
lates, news,
And the patient mother now removes the
childrens clothes and shoes,
And puts them in their little beds and listens
to their prayers,
Then looks their simple garments DER and
sews up all the tears.
OF the fingers through the mittens, the stock
ngs minus toes,
No one except the mother of lot of children
knows.
he lies down to rest,
"Motber," says he, "get needle and thread,
there's button off my vest"
That man s work ends AT set Of sun, as some
one says, you know,
And woman's work is never done-is it all
because she's slow?
Then as the children older grow, school
books their time employ,
To see their youthful minds expand is the
parents greatest joy.
And when their lessons they have learned,
they need some recreation-
Popcorn and apples form farmer boy
collation..
Then there are games Of various kinds to pass
away their time,
With picturebooks and story books, and
books of jingling rhyme.
There is book, if parents buy, twill sacri
fee their joy,
IT'S known from pole to pole, by name of
"Peck's Bad Boy
Then if you find it in your homes, just cast
il in the fire,
Or soon your hopeful son will be playing
tricks upon his sire.
Then as the years glide swiftly by, each tai
ent springs to light,
And music drawing, painting, charm the
ear and please the sight
There are crazy quilts and tides, rickrack
and arrasene,
For the nimble, busy fingers of madens
sweet sixteen.
Then there's the Seaside Library brings for
few pence each,
Such authors as George Eliot and Dickens
within reach
OF every person in the land with literary
taste.
Time snent wit h hooks ILL q tbaea 10 NJ, 49,