Connecticut western news., 1899-02-02


 chanic himself has been cheated out of the right ingredients, and that he did not find out the trouble in time, or scolded at because he seems to have lamed horse by unskiliful shoeing, when the horse has for months had spavin or ringbone or springhalt You feel you have the right to find fault with a mechanic when he does i'll. Do you ever praise a mechanic when he does wellp
 Encourage the farmers They come into your stores, you meet them in the city markets, you often associate with them in the summer months. Office seekers go through the land and they stand on political platforms, and they tell the farmers the story about the in dependent life of farmer, giving flat tery where they ought to give sympa thy Independent of what? l was brought up on farm, I worked on farm, 1 know all about it. I hardly saw city until I was grown, and I tell you that there are no class of peo- pie in this country who have it harder and who more need your sympathy than farmers. Independent of what? Of the curculio that stings the peach trees, of the rust in the wheat, of the long rain with the rye down2 Independent of the grasshopper, of the locust, of the army worm, of the potato bug? Independent of the drought that.burns up the har- vest Independent of the COW with the hollow horn, or the sheep with the foot rot. or the pet horse with nail in his hoof? Independent of the cold that freezes out the winter grainS Independ- ent of the snow bank out of which he must shovel himself? Independent cf the cold weather when he stands thrash ing his numbed fingers around his body to keep them from being frosted? Inde- pendent of the frozen ears and the frozen feet? Independent of what? Fancy farmers who have made their fortunes in the city and go out in the country to build houses with all the modern improvements and make farm ing a luxury may not need any solace, but the yeomanry who get their living out of the soil and who that way have to clothe their families and educate their children and pay their taxes and meet the interest on mortgaged farms such men find terrific struggle. de- mand that office seekers and politicians fold up their gaseous and imbecile speeches about the independent life of a farmer and substitute some word of comfort drawn from the fact that they are free from city conventionalities and city epidemics and city temptations.
 Need Sympathy, Not Flattery.
 My most vivid remembrance of boy hood is of my father coming in on very hot day from the harvest field and seating himself on the doorsill because he was too faint to get into the house, the precipitation streaming from fore head and from chin, and my mother trying to resuscitate him with cup of cold water, which he was too faint to hold to his own lips, while saying to us: "Don t,be frightened. There's nothing little tired. Ever since that day, when I hear people talking about the inde pendent life of farmer l see through the sham. Farmers want not your flat teries, but your sympathies.
 Encourage the doctors, You praise the doctor when he brings you up from an awful crisis of disease, but do you praise the doctor when, through skill ful treatment of the incipient stages of disease, he keeps you from sinking down to the awful crisis? There is a great deal of cheap and heartless wit about doctors, but I notice that the people who get off that wit are the first to send for doctor when there is any thing the matter. There are those who undertake to say in our day that doc tors are really useless. One man has written book entitled, Every Man His Own Doctor. That author ought to write one more book entitled, "Ev cry Man His Own Undertaken. "Oh, says some one, physicians in constant presence of pain get hard heartedp' Do they? The most celebrated surgeon of the last generation stood ill clinical of one of the New York medical colleges. the students gathered in the amphitheater to see very pain ful operation on little child. The old surgeon said: "Gentlemen, excuse me | as well as can, and as I get older it gives me more and more distress to see pain.
 Physicians have so many hardships, so many interruptions, so many annoy ances, I nm glad they have so many en- couragements. All doors open to them. They are welcome to mansion and to cot Little children shout when they see them coming down the road. and the aged, recognizing the step, look up and say, Doctor, is that youf" They stand between our families and the grave, fighting back the troops of disorder that come up from their encampment by the cold river. No one hears such thanks as the doctor hears. They are eyes to the blind, they are feet to the lame their path is strewn with the benedictions of those whom they have befriended.
 In the Hour of Anxiety.
 One day there was dreadful fore boding in our house. All hope was gone The doctor came four times that day The children put away their toys and all walked on tiptoe, and at the least sound said, "Hushl'' How loudly the clock did tick, and how the banister creaked, though we tried to keep it so still That night the doctor staid all night. He concentrated all his skill upon the sufferer At last the restless ness of the sufferer subsided into calm, sweet slumber, and the doctor looked up and smiled and said, ''The crisis is past. When, propped up with pillows in the easy chair, she sat, and the south wind tried to blow rose leaf into the faded cheek, and the childrcn brought one red clover top, the other violet from the lawn-to the lap of the convalescent, and Bertha stood on a high chair with brush smoothing her mothers hair, and we were told in a day or two she might ride out, joy came back to our house. And as we helped the old country doctor into his gig, we noticed not that the step was AI~z L