Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-22

meet at the end of year.
| Perhaps the farm upon which life is most
miserable, and the illusion of happiness Is
least tangible, and pessimist views are most
largely entertained, is that upon which q
mortgage rests with the eVer-present horror
of piling up yearly interest that must be
paid whether crops are good or not, whether
the weevil ruins the wheat, or the rot at.
tacks the potatoes. or the hay is spoiled by
wet weather. The farmers wife must dc
without q bonnet, the children must 20
without shoes, the pinch of poverty that
turns life to bitterness must be felt on the
score of that blighting monster of mort
gage.
Happy the man whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound"
says the poet, but when the man has 10 pay
taxes, and the interest OF a mortgage, and
exc out scanty living on his paternal
acres, he is very likely to agree with
Socrates that Happiness was a pure illu-
sion, and that lie seems pleasing only to
the fool.
''No man on earth is more independent
than the farmer" sounds like irony to him
whose enslavement to mortgage drives
sleep from his pillow. zives bitterness to his
soul, and incites an affirmative to the ques-
tion, 'Is lie an affliction?''
Somebody has said that farmers dollar
is as big as a cart wheel. But what wonder?
Who knows so we'll as he what work it was
to earn it? But with too many of the tillers
Of the soil the boarding Of dollars becomes a
passion for parsimony. They deny their
families everything save the barest neees-
stiles.
Even when prosperous, some farmers
wives are the veriest drudges. No woman,
perhaps, on the face of the earth toll more
L. al Il
early morn till deWy eve their labors are in
cessant. Remote in many cases from neigh
bors, they perform their daily tasks in
monotonous round without the stimulus of
wages, need of appreciation, hope OF better
things. or the solaee of sympathy. Driven
by spur of necessity to toll beyond their
strength, they grow cross and wornout and
homelY long before their prime.
A FARMERS WIFE
in Pennsylvania who has no help-and help
is next to impossible to get save for those
who pay large wages-has to be uu before
the dawn to milk and feed the chickens, to
get breakfast and dress the children. to
make the beds and clean the rooms and do
the dishes, and wash, and iron, and bake,
take care of the milk, >ehurn the butter, get
the dinners, make the garden, do the sew
ing and mending, gather the eggs, and
other multitudinous things which her city
sister would never dream of doing.
All this work with no time to rest,
or to read, without society since
every woman in the neighborhood is as
busy as herself-and anyhow so far apart
that social intercourse can scarcely be main
tained-without recreation, save if going to
church may be called such, or "a wake''
once in while for spice of variety. No
hnI Qahh hat
for cows must be MIXED, chickens. and pigs
must be fed, meals must be got, dishes must
be washed, children must be dressed and
cared for even on the day held by men holy
to rest. In the vicinity of cities and within
reach of things by decent roads the isolation
may not be so depressing and disheartening,
but out West and in regions sparsely settled
the life is described by those who have ex-
perienced it, as nothing less than sheer mar
tyrdom.
81 married the man 1 ardently Ioved,''
said lady in telling her story, with the
most brilliant anticipations of welded love.
A home on the prairie held no horrors for
me, with him by my side. Loneliness
would not be felt in desert were he my
companion. But, alas / how soon were nv
dreams dispelled. He proved to be one Of
the sort of dull, practical, heartiess men
who think the duty of wife consists in
being willing slave, to whom no kind
words are due after marriage, and no consid-
Grafton is included in the marriage bond
There was mortgage on our farm, as there
is on almost all of them through the West
and the struggle to pay the interest-let
alone the principal-was up to the notch of
what flesh and blood can stand. Work?
No factory hand or Southern slave ever
worked harder than did. NV
husband, alter his toilsome day at
the pillow or in the harvest field,
had to sit up and make and
mend the clothes of the family. Mauy a
day when haste was essential to save the
hay or other crops have worked in the
fields and done the most of the homework |
at night That mortgage crushed out every 1
flower that might have bloomed in my life. |
1t defrauded my children of their mothers |
care when they most needed it. It starved |
my mind by depiiving me of books and |
papers, and even the
TIME TO READ.
sit made my husband niggardly ,penurious |
aud illtempered-ifh he was not born so. Nor
were things much better after by ineessant
toll and struggle the farm was at last
cleared. Mortgage was the first bugbear
to keep me stinted of every comfort and
pleasure, then it began to be the rainy day.
against which We were to fight. Little
recked the man had once so fOndly loved
that all the days were rainy to me-"
This is only little bit OF individual ex
perience, but it gives something of a clue
Is to why. in the matter of insanity, farm
,rs and farmers wives exceed in numbers
hose of any other occupation, and why, in
he statistics of suicide, they stand at the
head of the list by large majority. Their
aborious lives, their lack Of congeniaI
society, their isolation from neighbors, their
hort allowance of recreation, all tend to the
owness of spirits. that leads to melancholy
md finally insanity. Men are less subject
o this than women, because they have the
hange of going to market, meeting their
elbows in business and politics, and gossip
ng at the country store, while their wives
'ften times stay at home from one years end
o another. One farmers wife, who dWelt
within Is miles of Pittsburg for 80 years,
lad never been in the city nor out of the
ownship. She grew melancholy, and
inally queer, as so many country peo-
lie do.
As preservative of health and happiness
armers should arrange it so as to dwell
1ore in communities-witht their farms out
society, recreation, amusement,
ould more easily be enjoyed. They should
emember, as Milton puts it, that "Loneli-
ess is the first thing which Gods eve
AIMED not good" Moreover, it may be
dded that nothing is more conducive to
he enjoyment and happiness of country life
han to have the farm well stocked up with
ank stock or Government bonds, or some
PURGE OF income that will preserve them
-om being "land poor" or dependent alto |
ether upon sunshine, showers and high
larkets. Moreover, nothing will so con-
-ibute to his joy and pleas
re in home life as to see
} it that his wife is no more overworked
IAN his favorite horse. Worry and too