Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1886-06-18
The Farm Boy.

My son, 10 not SInlle uerlSlVe1y
at the farm boy, toiling contentel i
ly yonder by the way side. He is
not attired as trinity as you; nay,
his trousers bag at the knees and
hang ON him loosely by one sus-
pender, his hat is less shapely
than it was spring before last and
his boots are coarse and roomy,
but some years hence you may be
down at Washington begging his
influence to help you get little
$1,000 post Office.
And the farm boy may not write
as prettily as you do, but in the
near future his plain, every day
signature may draw a great deal
better than your beautiful auto
graph, at the bank.
No, my son, the farm boy does
not begin his active career under
a SO plug hat, neither does he
leave his yictuals untasted and
fade away to shadow because he
cannot have single barreled eye
glass, but not infrequently he
goes up front in due season, with
out a plug hat or single barreled
eye glass to his back.
The farm boy is not familiar
with the lap of luxury andin his
working clothes he does not re-
semble a fragile hot house flower,
but he is full of grit, my son, chock
full of grit. Very likely he is not
getting much more that his board
and clothes for his labor just now,
silver dollar may seem as big as
cart wheel to him, but he is
storing up experience that is bet
ter than gold-fne, all wool expert
ence, full two yards wide-experi-
ence that will pull him through
places in which you may get mir
ed IN spite of your college educa-
ton and highly cultured legs.
/ know that you Can waltz all
around that uncouth farm boy, my
shapely son, for he has not had
time to educate his feet SO that
they might not get tanged up with
each other in the mad, may whirl;
but if you don't keep your eyes
open and the inside works of your
head busy he will be likely to
waltz SO far ahead of you on the
race course of success that you
wont see his coat tails after the
end of the first quarter.
Oh, no, the farm boy hasn't
much time to read, but I do not
doubt but that he uses well the
little time he has. His life is not
sedentary. He has great deal of
exercise in the open air. His
father is very lively old
man. He works like barrel of
new cider, and when his resonant
voice is heard laundering through
his ancestral halls at 4 a. m. there
is general resurrection on the
premises.
AT noon our merry farm boy
comes in with an appetite like a
sausage machine, and after he has
swallowed his dinner his father in
vites him out under the apple tree
to turn the grindstone while he
is resting his back. The ener-
getic old farmer can, always find
something for the farmboy to do
while he is resting his back at
noon, and he generally finds it.
In the evening the tired farm
boy reads his few books and pa
pers and is thus soaking in valu-
able information in small but eff
fective doses, while you, my beau
tiful son, are forgetting a large
part of that knowledge which cost
me very high price. Mayhap, it |
does not seem so valuable to you
because l paid for it
But you are not such bad boy
boy, after all is said, and l am not |.
finding fault with you at all. 1
merely suggest in a gentle sort of
was that you should not smile
.derisively at the toiling farmer
boy.
Look about you, my son, among
the successful men in every call
ing.