Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1895-03-27
Alistellanrpus 8eadiitg.
THE VOICE Of SPRING.
BY BILL ARP.

The lizard IS summing himself on rail-,
The lamb is shaking his new born tail.
The darkey is plowing his stubborn mule,
And gayly hollows '"gee. you fool"
King Cotton has unfurled his banner,
And scents the air with sweet guanner.
The days grow long-the nights declining,
The Indians summer sun is shining.
The smoking hills are now on fire,
And every night it's climbing higher.
The water warm, the weather fine,
The time has come for hook and line;
Adown the creek around the ponds
Are gentlemen and vagabonds,
And all our dirty little sinners
Are digging bait and catching minners.
The dogwood buds are now swellin,
The yaller jonquils sweet are smelling;
The little busy bees are humming,.
And everything says spring is coming.
1t has been hard old winter on
man and beast Hard in weather and
harder in fire and flood and pestilence,
and all sorts of unnatural troubles
The horrors Of hotels burning up,
and theatres and circuses shrouded in
flames, and thousands of poor people
made homeless and destitute by the
raging waters, and smallpox marking
its victimes all over the land, is pitt
full, most pitiful; but I can't get over
the shock of those poor little children
who were trampled 10 death in that
schoolroom in New York city. I can't
help but seeing them all laid out in the
room together, and their parents how
ering over their little, disfgured and
mangled corpses. The distressing scene
haunts me. There is power of trou-
bic in the world that we know nothing
about-trouble that we who live in the
country do not have. Here there are
no storms, no floods, no fires, no pesti-
lence, no scarcity, of wood, or food or
comfortable clothing. A poor man
in the country is safer from all calam-
ity than q rich one in the city. A
poor man may lament this poverty
and envy the rich, but he has no reason
to. A man who makes comfortable
living on q farm has greater security
for life and liberty and happiness and
long life than any other class that I
know of. Cobe says he is getting along
"tolable well, I thank YOU" Cobe is
always calm and serene. He owns
-colored mule, and has owned
him ever since the war. That mule is
one of the family, and he knows it.
The children play under him and over
him and between his legs, aud the
mule is happy, too. Cobe has chunk
of a COW and q sow and pigs, and
about enough old rickety furniture
to move in wagon-load, and that's
all Cobe has got except his wife and
half a dozen little children, who live
on cornbread and taters. And they
are smart children, and healthy and
good looking, though Cobe is called
the ugliest man in the county, and I
think enjoys his reputation. His face
is of three colors, and sploched about,
and his mouth is in twist one way
and his nose in another, and his eyes
are of different color, and he is hump
shouldered and walks pigeon-toed ;
but he don't care. His wife says he is
just the best little man in the world.
He works hard, he and the mule, and
always says he is getting along "tola-
ble," and says he fiuds no more trou-
bic in supporting six children than he
did one. He says there never was
possum born that didn't find q sim
mon tree somewhere. Says he is
raising his boys more for endurance
than for show-for another war will
come along about their time of day
and he wants 'em to be able to stand
it. Cobe is honest man and comes
from an honest family, and his wife
did, too, and their children are well
hammered and they are getting little
schooling, and my opinion is that there
is more hope for the country in that
kind of stock than in the average
children Of the rich. They will make
good, humble, law-abiding citizens and
they will work and produce something.
When war and trouble comes it is the
yeomanry of the land we have to de-
pend on. The children of the poor
are running this Southern country
now. They arc the foremost men in
most everything. They are the best
merchants in Atlanta and other cities
the best farmers, the best mechanics
and the best railroad men. Some of
'em make splendid bankers, if they do
not spell hog with double G. Gram
mar may deceive, but figures don't lie.
We are mighty busy now in these
parts. I can sit in my piazza and see
over good deal of farming territory,
and the mules are moving up lively.
They seem to know the spring is late,
and the farmers are behind time. But
I don't sit long at a time, for the gar
den is to plant, and the rose bushes
have to be trimmed, and the flower
beds dressed off, and the compost scat
tered around, and the vines want new
trellaces, and everything got ready for
a suit of new clothes. The old year is
just now dead, and the new one is born
with the spring. March used to be
the first month, and it ought to be
now. 1 don't sec what they ever
changed it for. One hundred and
twenty years ago our English fore
fathers took q notion to set old Father
Time back Il couple Of months, without