Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-02-29
BILL NYE ON HIS TRAVELS.
HE MEETS A HARD-FISTED FARMER
ON A RAILWAY TRAIN.

ON A RAILWAY TRAIN.
THE AGRICULTURIsT UNBOsOMs HIMSELF
JUST WHY HE Is NOT ENAMOURED WITH
A BUCOLIC LIFE-sOME OF ITS DRAW
BACKs-THE MAN WHO MAKES MONEY
WRITING FARM HINTs"-REMARKs
ABOUT THE TARIFF.
Bill Nye reports an interview with a
farmer on Western train from which we
extract the following
"What are the prospects for farmers in
your State?''
"Well, they are pore. Never was so pore,
in fact, since I've BEN there. Folks won
der why boys leaves the farm. My boys
left so as to get protected, they said, and
SO they went into clothing store, one OF
| 'em, and one went into hardware, and one
is talkiu' protection in the Legislature this
winter. They said that farmin' was gettin'
to be like fshin' and huntin', well enough
for man that has means and leisure, but
they couldn't make Twin at it. they said.
Another boy is in drugstore, and the man
"Kind of a castor royal feller," l said,
with shrek of laughter.
He waited until l had laughed all want
ed to, and then he said:
'tI've always hollered for high tariff in
order to hyst the public debt, but now that
we've got the national debt coopered l wish
they'd take little hack at mine. I've put
in fifty years farmin', never drank lickel
in any form. I've worked from ten to
eighteen hours day, been economical in
cloze and never went to show more'n
dozen times in my life, raised family and
learned upwaod of two hundred calves to
drink out of tin-pail without blowing all
their vitties up nay sleeve. My wife woreed
alongside 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 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 long breath one day
while the doctor and me was watchin' her.
and she says to me, Henry says she, 'Pve
got chance to rest, and she put one tired,
wore out hand on top of the other tired,
wore out baud, and l knew she'd gone
where they don't work all day and dc
chores all night.
81 took time to kiss her then. I'd been
| d
and then l 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 put up with, and nobody spoke up around
the house as we used to. The boys quit
whistlin' around the barn and talked kind
of 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 berryin' ground"
! Then both of ms looked out of the cal
/ window quite long while without saying
ANYTHING:
81 don't blame the boys for going into
something else long IS other things pays
better; but l say-and say what know
that the man who holds the prosperity Of
this country in his hands, the man thai
actually makes money for other people tt
spend, the man that eats three good simple
square meals day and goes to bed at 8 O.
clock, SO that future generations with goot
blood and cool brains can go from his farm
to the Senate and Congress and the Whit,
House-he is the man that gets left at las
to run his farm, with nobody to help hin
but hired man and high protective tariff
The farms in our State is mortgaged for owe
seven hundred million dollars. Ten of GU
Western States-I see by the papers-ha
got about three billion and half mortgage
on their farms, and that don't count th
chattel mortgages filed with the tow
clerks on farm machinery, stock, Vaughn
and even crops, by gosh ! that amt tw
inches high under the snow That's VIDA
the prospects is for farmers now. Th,
Government is rich, but the men that made
it, the men that fought perarie fires an(
perarie wolves and Ipjins and potato bug,
and billiards., and has paid the war deb
and pensions and everything else and hol
Tered for the Union and the Republican
party and high tariff and anything else that
they was told to, is left high and dry THU
cold winter with mortgage of seven bill
lions and 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
future senator and the future member O
Congress"
"That looks well on paper, but VIVA
does it really amount to -? Soon as farm
CIR boy gets in place like that he forget
the soil that produced him and holds hi
head as high as hollyhock. He beller
for protection to everybody but the farmer
and while he sails round in lightweight,
room with fire in it night and day, hi
father on the farm has to kindle his owl
fire in the morning with elm slivvers, and b,
has to wear his sons lawn tennis suit mex
to him or freeze to death, and he has t.
milk in an old gray shawl that has held tina
member of Congress when he was baby
by CORY and the old lady has to sojourl
through the winter in the fiaunels that Silas
wore at the riggatter before he went t.
Congress.
$50 l say, and l think that Congress.
agrees with me, Damn farmer, anyhow =.
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