Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1886-07-05
TKEARM BOY.

the farm boy, toiling contentedly
yonder by the wayside. He is not
attlred as trinity as you are; nay, his
trousers bag at the knees and hang
on him loosely by one suspender, and
his hat is less shapely than it was
spring before last, and his boots are
coarse and roomy, but some years
hence you may go down to Washing
ton 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, everyday signature
may draw great deal better than
your beautiful autograph, at the bank.
No, my son, the farm boy does not
begin his active career under $40
plug hat, neither does he leave his
victuals untasted and fade away to a
shadow because he cannot have a
ingle-barreled eye-glass to his name.
The farm boy is not familiar with
the lap of luxury, and in his working
clothes he does not resemble frag-
lie hot-house flower, but he is full of
grit, my son, chock full of grit. Very
likely he is not getting much more
than his board and clothes for his la
Dor just now; silver dollar may
look almost as big as cart wheel to
him, but he is storing up experience
that is better than gold-fine, all
wool experience full two yards wide
experience that will pull him thro'
places In which you may get mired,
in spite of your college education and
high cultured legs.
L 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 may
not get tangled up with each other
in the mad, mazy whirl but if you
don't keep your eyes open and the in
side works of your head busy, lie will
be likely to waltz 50 far ahead of
you Oh The race course of succcss
that you won't see his coat tails atler
the end of Tie first quarter.
On. no, the farm boy hasn't much
time lo read, bul L do not doubt but
that he uses well the little he has.
He has great deal of exercise in Tie
open air. His father is a very lively
Old man. He works like a barrel of
new cider, and when his resonant
Voice is heard laundering through his
ancestral halls at 4 o'clock, a. m.
there is a general resurrection on the
premises.
AT noon our merry farm boy comes
i'll with an appetite like sausage ma
chine, and after he has swallowed his
dinner his father invites him out un-
der The early harvest apple tree to
turn the grindstone while he is rest
ing his back. The energetic old
farmer can always find something fol
the farm boy to do while he is rest.
lug his back at noou.
In the evening The tired farm boy
leads his few books and papers, ano
is thus soaking in valuable intorma.
tion in small but effective doses,
whilst you, my beautiful son, are
forgetting large part of that valu
able knowledge which cost me a very
high price. Mayhap it does not seen
SO valuable to you, because l paic
for it.
But you are such bad boy, afte1
all is said, and | am not finding fault
with you at all. l merely suggest in
gentle sort of way, that you shoul(
not smile derisively at the farm boy
Look about you, my son, among
the successful men in every calling
A large majority of them were once
toiling farm boys, who absorbed book
knowledge out of business hours
and there are not many hours which
are not business hours on the farm
my son.
The farm boy early learns the val
ue of time. He can't help but learr
that, and he learns it so hard that ht
never forgets it.
Whenever you find him, my son
whether in the editorial chair, in tht
White House at Washington, in the
halls of congress, governor of his
native or adopted state, an eminen,
professional man, lat the head of some
great commercial or manufacturing
firm or corporation, you will find him
knowing the value of time, and max,
ing use of the large and varied stock
of priceless experience he soaked in
on the old back country farm.