The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1890-11-20
COUNTRY CHILDREN.
Bill Arp PhilOsophIzes Sweetly on the
Privileges Of Farm Life.

Bill Arp PhilOsophizes sSweetly on the
Privileges OF Farm Life.
1t is great thing for a family to be
independent. 1t is good thing for the
boys and the girls to know how to do
all the family work, and to be willing
to do it, and we have tried to raise our
flock that way. The boys can kang a
gate or window curtain, or put in a
pane of glass, or mend a chair, or make
a wagon for the baby, or cut the wood
and feed the stock, and the girls can
paper room as nicely as Mauck, and
they can cut and fit and make their own
garments, from calico to silk, and cook
as good meal as anybody, but we don't
want them to do these things all the
time, and they shall not as long as /
can help it. There are some social
privileges and pleasures that are reason
able and natural and innocent, and we
all like to enjoy them. If a friend comes
to see me l wish to entertain him pleas
antly and cordially, and not have to say,
''Pve got to cut some stove wood right
now and you will have to excuse me"
If ladies call to see my wife and daugh-
ters it would not be pleasant or polite
for them to say, 1--WE don't keep cook
and are doing our own work, and you
will have to excuse us this morning"
The poor should not envy the rich for
enjoying these social pleasures. nor
should the country people be envious OF
the town people. All would do the
same thing If they could, and it is
everybody's duty to better their con-
dition If they can. Nine farmers out
of ten would move to town if they
could afford to. They would do it for
their children's sake-for better schools
and better preachers and better social
advantages. But nine out of ten can't
move, and so it is their duty to build up
the country schools and country churches
and raise the grade of both. If the Al
lance does no other work in the legisla-
ture than to demand and enfore tax
that will establish good ten months
school in every settlement that can num-
Der fifty scholars between the ages of
eight and eighteen, it will have accom-
| plished great work. Give the country
| children a chance. If they had had it
| heretofore / would have been in the
country farming until now, for there my
children spent the happiest years of
their life. They talk about it yet with
memories of delight. The springs and
branches, and fish-pond, and the creek
and mill not far away; the wash-hole
and the spring-board; the walks through
/ shady, winding ways to the lime-sink
field, and the little spring beyond that
was overhung with haw trees; the dells
and coves, and meadows, where the wild
flowers grew, the hunt for huckleberries,
and maypops, and blackhaws, and scaly-
barks, and walnuts; the ripened grain,
and the grass falling before the reaper's
| blade, and their sweet, dizzy rides on
tho top of the loaded hay. They still
love to tell how they fshed, and seined,
and hunted squirrels, and rabbits, and
coons, and set traps for birds and killed
the water moccasins that hung in the
bushes that bo<dered the meadow
branch They talk about the colts they
raised, and the narrow escapes they had
from butting rams and vicious bulls and
runaway teams, and they magnify all
these accidents and incidents the more
and moro as time recedes from those
happy days. If they live to the allotted
ages of three score years and ten, they
will still recall their farming life with
fonder memories than any other.
/ wish that all the children of this
blessed, bountiful land could be raised,
at least, in part in the country upon a
well-watered, well-managed farm.-Bill
Arp, in Atlanta Constitution.