Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-11-27
THE CROP LAID BY.

Home--The Ideal Grandmother--An
Adventure with the Bull-Cart.
CRaising children and pleasing them
is about all the majority of mankind
are living for, though they don't know
it, and if they did they wouldn't ac-
knowledge it. 1t is emphatically the
great business of the sublunary life.
We look on with amusement ut the
busy crowds in a great city that are
ever going to and fro like a iiddler's
elbow, and the most of them are strug-
Cling to please and maintain children.
II is the excuse for all the mad rush
that hurries mankind through the
world. 1t is the apology for nearly all
the stealing and cheating and lying in
the land.
Not long ago n of my neighbors
sold me z Poland-China SOW for fifteen
dollars, and she ate up five dollars
worth of chickens the very next day |
got her, and when | asked him why he
didn't tell me she was Il chicken-cater.
he smiled and said he thought ! would
find it out sooner or later. His girls
came to meeting next Sunday with
brand-ncw bonnets on that were bought
with that money, and SO ! forgave him.
He cheated me to please them. Some
times when | ruminate upon the mean
ness Of mankind | wish that children
would never get grown, for they don't
get mean or foolish until they do.
Solomon SAYS that Children are the
chief end of man and the glory of his
declining years" and | am prepared to
~ tina. raising ten or a dozen of them
Cbm the cradle to counting time is
about the busiest thing in his life and
the most responsible in the life to
come.
But the crop is laid by. We are
nearly through, thank the good Lord
for His mercies, and | wouldn't 20
through it again for "A world full of
gold.
The last tender shoot is out of the
grass-nO more nursing and trotting
and toting arOund-no more washing
and dressing and undressing and putting
to bed. No more tip-toe,ng around when
they are asleep, or playing horse and
bear and monkey when they are awake.
No more baby songs and paregorlc, or
teething, or collie, or catnip tea. Never
again will they be crawling over a tired
p~aternal, o riding on his back, or trot-
ing on his weary knees as he sings the
same old songs he has sung Il thousand
times before. Our last and youngest
of "A dozen has passed the rubicon-
bless her little heart almost wish
she never would grow any more, or
get any older, for she is the comfort of
our declining years. She car wash
and dress. and undress and say her own
prayers and put her little self to bed.
She can sing her w songs and she
waits on us like a fairy and fills the
house with sunlight.
The crop is laid by. In the heyday
of our youthful vigor u kind Provi-
dencc enables us to bear up splendidly
under these burdens, but an old man
can't. An old bachelor had better not
begin. 1t is a fraud upon his young
wife, for it leaves her all the burdens.
If there is any peril in life that is like
IA lingering suicide. ii is for an old
widower who has raised one crop of
children to marry a young wife and 90
to cropping again. it is against the
order of nature. and he will hardly get
to heaven. for paradise was not made
for fools.
When a man begins to get along in
years he gradually changes from being
a king in his family to "A patriarch. He
is more tender and kind to his off
spring. and instead of ruling them. the
first thing he knows they are ruling
him. 1t is the first-bUrn children who
get the most licking, and this is right
and according to nature. They are
the trainers of the younger ones. both
by prccept and example. They are to
lead the way and must be made to lead
ii right. They get the first favor, too,
and enjoy the most privileges. They
90 where the parents go. They wear
no secondhand clothes. They have
the birth-right and must keep up and
hand down the good name of the fami-
ly. But one by one they grow up and
marry and leave us for other loves that
are stronger than ours. How sad
ly. silently jealous we are OF
those loves. How hard to be
r~econciled! How do our hearts recoil
p a stronger affection towards those
Wnb are still our own, all our own,
and cling to us for love and support.
l said to Il good old mother not long
ago: well, / hear that Anna is to be
married soon" YES, SIR" said she.
smiling sorrowfully. IL don't know
what l will do. Ny last daughter is
going to leave me. I've Mursed and
watched and petted her all her life, and
kind o thought she was mine and
would always be mine. but she has run
off after a Teller she is no kin ITO in the
world end who never did do a thing
for her but give her a ring and Il book
and a little French candy now and
fhon II docs look MIGHTY STRANGE