River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1899-10-19
he could stop to rest when he wanted

he could stop to rest when he wanted
and probably his wife brought him
his dinner e,ery noon time. and he had
nothing to do but to hoe. And he wasn't
even doing that!"
wait till you read the poem. Honora.
Markham calls him brother 10 the on
What for?"
THE OK, you see, is the beast of bur-
den. When the poet spoke of the la
borer as the brother of the OK he placed
him as low in the intellectual scale as
it was possible to get him. He asks:
Who blew out the"
"Gas-?"
Mono! Who blew out the light
within his brain? p asks Markham.
well, who did 2"
at was just metaphor figure of
speech"
why didn't he say what he meant?"
"Poets never do that, my dear"
swell, what did he mean?"
THAT the workman was miserable
creature, whose life was like an ami
mars-a-''
Don't he believe in men working?"
"Yes-but-"
II suppose he likes tramps, then.
Those men that sit around the parks.
The Man with the Tomato Can would
be his idea of the ideal man"
Poets look at these things different
ly."
"Well, l think it is silly to pity a
man because he has job. Think of all
the men that can't get work. Suppose
you didn't work? Where would we be ~
ITS the idea of man earning his
bread by the sweat of his brow-the
curse of laboring for hire--for'
"Why, this man with the hoe prob
ably had a good, steady place on the
farm. Perhaps he owned it. He prob
ably had stopped TO figure out the
crop. Maybe his wife took boarders
and they had plenty of money"
"When you read il, my dear, you viii
be able to-
"Oh, pshaw! I might just as well
start in to idealize the cook and call
her The Girl with the Frying Pan or
The Woman with the Rolling Pin F."
Really, my dear, 1 think you VIZ 10
able to talk before the club, if you
keep on"
Its the very same thing! The cook
| is laboring woman. but she's great
deal freer than / am. She has no so-
cial obligations and no calls to make
or to receive. She doesn't have to spend
her time dressing and talking to folks
when she doesn't want to. She has
comfortable home and just as good
| things to eat as we have. She has two
days off every week. Suppose began
to weep over her sad condition and
called her sister to the OK Why she'd
leave the very first thing"
But a poet would never write about
a cook
"Well, good cook is a lot better than
an old farmer who only hoes and looks
pathetic. Anyone could hoe. Why, !
almost believe you could hoe"
81 haven't hoe, my dear"
"That's another thing. Suppose the
man didn't have hoe? He'd have been
worse off, wouldn't he? A hoe repre-
sents capital. Do you know, John Dob
ley, it gets sillier every minute, to think
of all the sympathy that you're vast
| ing on that man. Ii is The Man With
out the Hoe you should be sorry for"
you are getting me round to your
way of thinking, Honora. / recall now
| the story of rich man who said that
he started in business picking rags,
but for a week or two he nearly
starved, because he had no money 10
| buy a rag-pick with"
What did he do?"
'He borrowed money enough, l be-
lieve, and 25 years after he told the
story of the trouble he had getting
some one to lend the money. The fun
niest part of it was that he said he
had never paid it back
Il wonder if that man really owned
| the hoe, or had borrowed it?''
Perhaps that is what he was think
ing Of
"He was probably too mean to buy
a hoe of his own! You know, John, I
think that man was no good"
''Houora, your logic is SO convincing
that | am beginning to agree with you
that The Man with the Hoe was con-
siderable of a gold brick."-N. Y. Sun.