The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1888-02-29
BILL NYE.
he Meets n Farmer on TN e Train, and They
Talk of Various Things.
New York HERALD

he Meets n Farmer on TN e Train, and They
Talk of Various Things.
New York Herald
"What are the prospects of farmers in
your Slater
pore, in fact, sense I've ben there. Folks
wonder why boys leave the farm. My
boys left so as to get protected, 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
gettin' to be like fishin' and huntin', well
enough for man who has means and
leisure, but they couldn't make livin' at
1t, they said. Another boy is in a drug
store, and the man that hires him says he
is royal feller."
''KiRd of castor royal feller," said.
with q shrek OF laughter.
He waited until l had laughed all /
wanted to, and then he said:
1--WE always hollered for high tariff in
order to byst the public debt, but now that
we've got the public debt coppered l wish
they'd take a little hack at mine. I've put
in fifty years at farmin'. l never drank
Ticker in any form. I've worked from ten
to eighteen hours day, been economical
in cloz and never went to q show more'n
dozen times in my life, raised family and
learned upward of 200 calves to drink out
of q tin pau without blowing all their
vittles up my sleeve. My wife worked
alongside o. me sewn new seats on the
boys pants, skimmin' milk and even
helpin' me load hay. For forty years We
toiled along together aud hardly got time
to look into each others faces or dared to
stop and get acquainted 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 a
long breath one day while the doctor and
me was watchin' her and she says to me,
Henry says she, I've got q chance TO
rest and she put one tired, worn out hand
on top of the other tired, worn out hand,
and knew she'd gone where they don't
work all day and do chores all night.
81 took time to kiss her then. I'd been
too busy for good while previous to that,
and then l called in the boys. After the
funeral it was too much for them to stay
around and eat the cookin' we had to put
up with, and nobody spoke up around the
house as we used 10. The boys Quit whist.
lin around the barn and talked kind OF
low by themselves about goin' to town and
gettin' job.
"They're all gone now. aud the snow is
four feet deep on mothers grave up there
in the old berryin' ground"
Then both of Us looked out OF the car
window quite long while without saying
anything.
81 don't blame the boys for going into
something else long g other things pay
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, SIM
nd m cd OF
O'Clock, so that future generations with
good blood and cool brains can 60 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 no.
body to help him but hired man aud a
high protective tariff. The farms in our
State is mortgsged for over 100000, 000
papers-has got about three billion and q
half mortgages on their farms, and that
don't count the chattel mortgages flied with
the town clerks on farm machinery, stock
wHgins and even crops by gosh! that ami
two inches high under the snow. That's
what the prospects is for farmers now. The
Government is rich, but the men that made
1t, the men that fought perarie fires and
perarie wolves and IDjins and potato bug,
and billiards, and has paid the war debt
and pensions and everything else aud hol
party and high tsriff and everything else
that they was told to, is left high and dry
this cold winter with a mortgage OF sever
billions and q half on the farms they have
earned and saved thousand times over"
Eyes; but look at the glory of sending
from the farm the future President, the fu-
ture Senator and the future member CT
Congress"
THAT looks. well on paper, but what does
it really amount to? Soon as farmer boy
gifts in place like that he forgets the sol
that produced him and holds his head 8,
high as a hollyhock. He hollers for pre-
lection to everybody but the farmer, and
while he sails round in a highty-tighty
room with fire in it at night and day, his
father on the farm has to kindle his owr
fire in the morning with elm slivers, ano
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 member of Congress when he was a
baby, by CORY! and the old lady has to
sojourn in the winter in the fannels that
Silas wore at the riggater before he went to
Congress.
$50 1 say, and I think that Congress
agrees with me, damn farmer, anyhow