Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1888-03-09

ldTlH. MS DoIs iClt 81 oS w So PiS
tected, they said, and so they went
into a clothing-store, one of 'em, and
one went into hardware and one is
talkin' protection in the Legislature
this winter. They said that farmin'
was gittin' to be like fishin' and
huntin', well enough for man that
has means and leisure, but they
couldn't make livin' at it, they said.
Another boy is in drug store, and
the man that hires him says he Is a
royal fellern
Kind of castor royal feller," l
said. with a shrek of laughter.
He waited until had laughed all |
wanted to and then he said:
I've always hollered for high tariff
in order to hyst the public debt, but
now that we've got the national debt
coopered | wish they'd take little
hack at mine. I've put in fifty years
farmin'. I've worked from ten TO
eighteen hours day, been economic
al in cloze and never went TO a show
more'n a dozen times in my life, raised
a family and learned upward of two
hundred calves to drink out OF a tim
pail without blowing all their vittles
up my sleeve My wife worked along
side O me sewin' new seats on the
boys pants, skimmin' milk and even
helpin' me load hay. For forty years
we toiled along together and hardly
got time TO look into each other 5
faces or dared to stop and get ac-
quainted with each other. Then her
health failed. Ketched cold in the
spring house, prob'ly, skimmin' milk
and washin' pans and scaldin' pals and
spankin' butter Anyhow, she took
in long breath one day while the
doctor and me was watchin' her, and
she says TO me, Henry, says she, I've
got a chance to rest, and she put one
tired, worn-out hand on the top of the
OllltI tlItd, NOlll-Oul ldlN' anu L
knew she'd gone where they don't
work all day and do chores all night.
IL took time to kiss her then. I'd
been too busy for n good while previ-
Gus to that, and then / called in the
boys. After the funeral it was too
much for them to stay around and eat
the kind of cookin' we had to pat up
with, and nobody spoke up around
the house as we used to. The boys
quit whistlin around the barn and
talked kind o low by themselves about
goin' TO town and gettin' job
They're all gone now and the snow
is four feet deep on mothers grave up
there in the old buryin ground
Then both of us looked out of the
car window quite long while with
out saying anything.
Il don't blame the boys for going
into something else longs other things
pays better; but say-and say what
| know-that the man who holds the
prosperity of this country in his hands,
the man that actually makes money
for other people to spend, the man
that eats three good, simple, square
meals a day and goes to bed at
o'clock, so that future generations
with good blood and cool brains can
go from his farm to the Senate and
Congress and the White House-he is
the man that gets left at last to run
his farm, with nobody to help him
but hired man and a high protective
tariff. The farms in our State Is mort
gagged for over seven hundred mil
lion dollars. Ten Of our Western
States-I see by the papers has-got
about three billion and a-half mort
cages on their farms, and that don't
count the chattel mortgages filed with
stock, waggins and even crops, by
gosh! that ain two inches high under
the snow. That's what the prospects
is for farmers now. The Government
is rich, but the men that made it, the
men that fought perarie fires and pc
rarie wolves and Injins and potato
bugs and billiards, and has paid the
war debt and pensions and everything
else and hollered for the Union and
the Republican party and high tariff
and anything else that they was told
to, is left high and dry this cold win
ter with a mortgage OF seven billions
and a-half Oh the farms they have
earned and saved a thousand times
over"
Yes; but look at the glory Of send
ing from the farm the future Presi-
dent, the future Senator and the fu-
ture member of Congress"
That looks well on paper, but
what does it really amount TOT Soon
as farmer boy gifts in a place like
that he forgets the soil that produced
him and holds his head as high a hol-
ly-hock. He bellers for protection to
everybody but the farmer, and while
he sails around in a highty-tighty
room with a fire in it night and day,
his father Oh the farm has to kindle
his own fire in the morning with elm
slivers, and he has to wear his sons
lawn-tennis suit next to him or freeze
to death, and he has to milk in an old
gray shawl that has held that mem
ber of Congress when he was a baby,
by CORY! and the old lady has to So
journ through the winter in the fan
nels that Silas wore at the the riggat-
ter before he went 10 Congress.
80 say, and think that Congress
agrees with me: Damn a farmer,
anyhow
He then went away.