Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-22
JOYS OF FARM LIFE.
Bessie Bramble Takes a Pessimistic
View of the Much-Vaunted
DELIGHTS OF A RURAL EXISTENCE
When 1t is Darkened by the Shadow of q
Heavy Mortgage.
WHY FARMERS WIVES BECOME INSANE
WRITTEN FOR THE DrsrArcH.l

crowd, the hum, the shock of men, (" the ides
of country life ever holds out rest, refresh
ment, and the sweetness of living in clover
The solemn quiet of the sequestered vale,
and leafy forests, broken only by the fluttel
of the leaves, the whisper of the wind OF
the voice of birds; the gentle ripple of the
flowing waters; the meadows fair, and
densely wooded hills; the cosy homestead
bounded by broad fields of grain and tas.
seled corn, present a picture to those whose
lives are passed amid the din of factories,
the roar and racket of busy marts
and moving merchandise, the SHARP
contests of competition, the wearing
turmoil of every days business in the
battle of life that suggests nothing but calm
content, beatitude and bliss and beds oil
roses. To them it seems that life amid
such surroundings must be slow, and may
hap little dull, but it is not lived at the
pace that kills. They fondly, perhaps,
imagine that some day, when fortune plays
them fair and gives them luck, nothing
will be sweeter than to settle down in the
autumn Of life in such ''sequestered scenes
and bow'ry mazes and surrounding greens, +"
and trust to rural sights and rural soundsto
exhilarate the spirit and restore the tone OF
1anguid nature
The traveller on trains enjovs short
glimpses OF the many eozy, spacious and
comfortable hofnesteads in the midst of fer
tile fields, fruitful orchards, and luxuriant
gardens, and he is wont to welcome the illu-
sion that if anywhere is to be enjoyed Pope's
epitome Of happiness:
Reasons whole pleasure, all the joys of
Lie in three .words-health, peace and COM
petence,"
it is in such homes, where, with the lows
and charms of nature, the royal task of man
is to labor and trust the result to heaven,
and then ITO sit every man under his own
vine and fig tree and revel in the fat of the
land and
CALL NO MAN MASTER.
No man is 50 Independent as the farmer.
say the eloquent orators of the Grange. He
is his own boss, and is not subjected to the
whims and caprices of magnates and mill
lionaires. He crooks no hinges of his knee
that thrift may follow fawning, as Shake
speare puts it. He and heaven are partners.
He furnishes the labor, and the sun and
showers and increase come as the share of
heaven to swell the profits. He can manage
to get living whether stocks go up or
down, whether business booms or beats
upon the rocks, whether banks break or
money kings are swept to ruin by cyclone
of insolvency. The forces of nature are
not subject to panics, but to universal law.
If crops are short prices are high.
The poets keep up the illusion that life
upon a farm is Arcadian in its happiness.
and halcyOn in its quiet, happy peacefulness.
Volumes have been written upon the beau
ties of rural life and the feiicities of the
farmer. Armed with poetic license they
dilate in flowing numbers and regulation
feet upon the beauties, the pleasures, the
transporting scenes of country life, while
the artist with no less of enthusiasm and
ideality portrsys the lovely bits of land
scape, the romantic old mills, the COW cot
tages, and all the picturesque glories seen in
their summer outings in an enhancing way
that suggests only the sweetness of quiet
life far from the madding crowds ignoble
strife.
But perhaps withal no man expresses him
self more discontentedly than does the
farmer. And as a chorus to his song are the
of the dwellers in the country
villages which, as observation goes, seem so
quiet and peaceful and happy. But if the
towns people have their illusions as to life
in the country, the ruralists have no less
their delusiops as to life in the city. The
country boy gets tired of the monotony of
planting potatoes, and dropping corn, and
bring home the COWS. He is full of the
bright ideals of youth, and sees in the city
The golden chances of life. His hopes of
highest happiness are beyond the grubbing
and the moiliDg on the old farm, and in his
fancy the prizes of the world are waiting to
be captured by courageous hands, but he
soon finds that happiness is no more realiza-
Die in the busy markets, in the struggle for
places in the professions, in the toll and
IF summer and the cold of winter, and the
1ngenial work and depressing surround
ngs of
THE FAMILY FARM.
The philosophy of disenchantment bears
luite as hardly upon those who see in these
ural homes the peace, the pleasure, the
happiness that the world is so determinedIy
eeking, and of which, saith John Stuart
Mill, nineteen-twentieths of the people fall
hort. Beneath the roofs of these quiet
ZONES are lived lives as full of tragedy as
ver shown in song or story. Within those
walls, surrounded by all that is beautiful
md blooming, may be found unhappiness as
and direful as was ever conceived |
II concealed within the busy haunts of city |
ife. Within the closets OF those vine-coV- |
red, fower-embowered, picturesque old |
arm houses are skeletons hidden as horrible |
md heart-breaking as any to be found |
within the stone walls of city mansions. |
den are as cruel. as stubborn, as cross !
.rained when brought up under natures
and familiar from their earliest
Iours with the charms of fields and flowers,
f sun-kissed hills and forest glades, of
eavenly zephyrs, delicious odors, and earth
n verdure clad. Oppression. tyranny,
INJUSTICE are as often found on
he farm as though no emancipation
ct had ever been proclaimed, or no brutal
egislation of the common law had ever
cen repealed. Little children grow up upon
arms who are taxed with work cruelty be-
ond their powers, whom the labor laws of
he Legislature has had no power to protect.
III hands are needed for work if it is only
hose of the little ones who carry water to
be fields. Longfellow paints beautiful
icture Of EvangelIne carrying fagons of
ONE -brewed ale to the reapers in the har-
est heat, and while it reads beautifully, it
lust have been hot, tiresome work, espe-
tally if she had in addition, the dinner to
ct and dishes to wash. as Evangelines out
poetry have to do. Whatever the princes
the pen may say, or the artists ideally
ortray, life on the farm has little Of ro-
lance or poetry aboutit. 1t is full of hard
'ork for both women and men whose high
1T endeavors are likely to be ruined by the
Gather, and whose best planted hopes go to
reck oitentimes By matter oftemperature.
Mrs. Poyser puts it well when she says:
As for farming, it's putting money In your
ocket wi your right hand and fetching 1t
fofk A fr,- -
using victual.fo other folks, and just get
ng moutnful for yourself and your chill
rem as You go along It's more than flesh
nd blood 'ull bear sometimes, to be toiling
nd striving and up early and down late,
nd hardly sleeping wink for thinking as
lie cheese may swell, or the COW may slip
er calf. or the wheat NAV grow green in the