Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1891-07-30

| THE SUCCESSFUL COUNTRYMAN IN THE CITY.
worked by the humorist that everything
said by him of the ruraite is generally &C
copied as truth, just as his remarks on the
subject of the oriental wealth and luxury
peculiar to the average practicing plumber
are usually regarded as statements of we'll
authenticated fact.
And thus it becomes the opinion of every
one that the countryman knows nothing;
that, if he has any knowledge at all, it
leaves him as soon as he mixes with the
great, surging mass of humanity you find
on the average city street.
These people who have so much innocent
fun among themselves on the subject of
the sweet simplicity Of the countryman,
may not be aware of the fact that they
themselves afford the farmer an amount Of
amusement that it would simply startle
them to know. And why should they not
furnish the farmer with amusement when
they think that pumpkins grow all the
year round because pumpkin pies are served
in restaurants from one end of the year to
the other? The fact that the farmer some
! times blows out the gas is not bit more
| funny than the city man thinking a Ger
| tain unpretentious flower bird because it
is called a wake robin; and the agricul-
| turiSt, red in the face through an impotent
endeavor to blow out the electric light is
not bit more ludicrous than the city man
assuming that because chickens roost on
high boughs at night they must make their
nests in towering trees.
But the countryman knows more than
the humorist and playwright would have
US believe. He doesn't always wear his
whiskers on his neck and saturate his hair
with oil until it becomes a sort of salad to
hold the bran and hayseed in place. Neither
is he any more conspicuous for his clumsy,
| grotesque mEnners in theater than a city
| man is for the amusing effect he creates
| when astride the farm horse, that bounces
| him about to such an extent that for about
week after he is happiest when he stands.
In a certain town, which might be called
| citifed village on account of it's i'm
provements and high taxes, a debating so
ciety recently had for it's subject, (Which
is the more at sea, a city man in the coun-
try or countryman in the city," This
theme is quite worthy the attention of any
| philosophic student of human nature It
is a subject that bristles and throbs with
possibilities in the hands of the man who
is equal to the emergency of handling it
with consummate skill and art. Yet it
seems question that you cannot answer
upon the spot, and feel that the answer is
just and true one And when you come
to turn the matter over in your mind, you
become more sorely puzzled than small
boy looking at shop window filled with
all sorts of novelties in the way of artistic
| toys, and tr ing to decide which one he
would rather possess. When the coun-
tryman is in the city he is like fish out of
water When a city man is in the coun-
try he is like a cat or we'll dressed woman
suddenly caught in thunderstorm.
Perhaps, as the subject of the debate ad-
mits, both are at sea, the city man in the
country and the countryman in the city;
but when it comes to answering the OBJ
vious question which is the more lost at
sea, we think the only way to answer that
question fairly and conclusively is to look
at each one while off his native and on his
adopted heath, and follow him on his path
to fortune or failure, as the case may be.