The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1894-04-11
SARGE PLUNKETT.
Tho Cold Snap Was Severe but tho Old
Man Is Cheerful.
atlanta Constitution.

atlanta Constitution.
Brown has always said that you
never know what man is going to be
till he dies. Now he is figuring to
decide at what period Of time thing
can be put down as good or bad.
Often through life we have seen
blessings turned to calamities and
calamities turned to blessings. In the
days of slavery I knew an old negro
who had neither hands nor feet-he
travelled like frog, and was forever
bemoaning his condition. After the
war some northern soldier took him
North and to Europe, and as curl
osity he made lots Of money and came
back to Georgia the richest and merri-
est negro in the State. Brown and 1
tried to count on our fingers, the
other night, the bright geniuses as
children who have accomplished moth
ing in life. We couldn't count them
so easy, nor could we count with more
ease the "clod-hoppers'' as children,
who have proved a surprise in what
they have accomplished, but, accord.
| ing to Browns philosophy, We will
have to wait till the end of time, then
retrospect all the way and put to-
gether everything before judgment
can be correctly pronounced as to the
good or bad Of either.
I guess it would be sweet to live
under praise as genius in verse, as
hero in war, as benefactor to man
kind, but the qualities which entitle
us to this, as measured by posterity,
are hard fghting-not generation Of
mankind views things through the
same spectacles. But I think it easy
to figure out the most peaceful life to
man as measured by our own observa-
tion. Brown says farming, I say
farming and all our folks say farming,
yet it is hard to convince parents, es-
pecially mothers, that their sons
| should not be Shakespeares, or Cice-
ros, or Edisons, or something else,
that in the striving to reach nothing
is accomplished and a peaceful life on
the farm is sacrificed. If the same
time was spent striving to have it
fixed in the young man s mind that he
should stay upon the farm and follow
rural pursuits, as is spent in making
him believe himself a great something
or other, there would be fewer disap.
pointments and many more peaceful
lives in all the land. There is no
need for disparagement to any calling,
but let the old 'shayseed" have his
share of praise in the presence of the
young. Why not point to the old red
hills as we travel along and say some
thing nice about the man who dug the
bitches, who stopped the washes, who
planted the green grass where the cat
tie graze-point to the shady groves
and call the man a benefactor who has
tended and protected them and beau
titled the lawn about them !? But it is
not so. As much as we ever do, as a
more than usual pretty place strikes
our eye, is to ask: "Who settled this
place p and Che answer is more than
apt to be careless: 'Mr.-whatyou-
callem," and the subject is dismissed
to talk about some weasly fellow whe
wrote of pretty landscapes from a gar
ret, and whose heart never beat under
touch of nature so true, so sweet, so
grand. These old red hills are eter-
nal, and ye who lends them charm
builds glory as lasting as the rocks,
as high as heaven.
Imay get cranky on this magnify
ing Of the plowboy, but the disposi-
tion to look for glory anywhere but on
the farm has grown 80 unanimous and
has proved so disastrous from my
observations that I think it time for
the subject to have its cranks. And
it does not apply alone to the boys.
The girls need to be encouraged to
understand that in a country life lies
more honors than found in the milk
ing of COWS and the setting of hens,
by common acceptation, indicates.
The sweetest morsels in literature
were inspired from looking upon coun-
try girls-the country itself is all too
ready to disparage country life or
country folks. A beautiful thought
is in every wave of the corn6eld and
in every hue of the cotton bloom; the
hand may be rougher which causes
these to grow, but the heart is as ten
der, the brain as strong, the virture as
pure-country people are only less in
any way by virtue of failing to elbow
their own horns" I didn't use to
believe in a fellow "blowing his own
horn," but I do now. I have watched
it, with persons and with communi-
ties. He tha6 thinks himself better,
his calling better, his family better,
his home better, generally get other
people to think the same way after a
while-though it be virtue to abstain
if success was not delayed thereby.
Right now is hard time to enthuse
people on the countrywide. The cold
snap killed everything that could be
killed and throws a damper over the
prospects. Some will wear long faces,
because they will tell you fruit is all
killed. Fruit is one Of the things
that cannot be killed-not in March.
The "oldest inhabitant" does not re-
member of ever fruit being killed in
March. The crop will be short, but
better, if not killed at the full moon
in April. The green truck of the gar
dens is what me and Brown are griev-
ing over. We had fortified against
the rabbits, and our English peas and
other green truck were spreading them
selves, but they have ''gone where the
| woodvine twineth, as the young gen
| Grafton would say. But we have not
suffered as bad as some. Whole fields
| of corn were looking fine on some
plantations and it was killed too deep
to ever recover-they must plant over.
The greatest injury will come from
the belief that cotton in the lower
country has been injured. causing
some to replant in cotton what was
already in corn. These will howl next
fall about the low prices.
All in all, taking the winter as it
has been, there should be no grumb-
ling, but all of us should feel thank
full. Never were the people in this
section so badly prepared to meet a
hard winter as they were in the one
| :,c+ o,dod ond nouor hoforn uos th ore