The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-04-08
Rural Musings.


CHRISTIE, VA, April 3-Special-Thc
lines in Grays EicSy:
How jocund did they drive their team
afield,
How bowed the woods beneath their
sturdy Stroke"
comes to mind as one thinks of rural
scenes and rural cmployments these April
days. Mellow sunshine, humnling insects
and warbling birds greet the toiier in the
country, as he goes to his daily task
Nature is wonderful when she dons' her
resurrected robes and even prosy, hum
drum emp!oyments must be liGhtened of
their burdensomeness when spring in all
its glory is upon field and forest.
To man, no study is more interesting
or ccESenial than this OF revivinG life,
which spring illustrates in bud and flow
cr. The wonderful change from winters
icy grasp is SO marked that the contrast
makes such a change SO vivid and CRATE
full that even the IMAM with a hoe" must
psuse and wcrder and drink in the scene.
The flowers must lie buried in darkness
Before they can bud and bloom;
And the sweetest and warmsst sunshine
Comes after the storm and gloom
Flowing the soil with its kindred en-
pigments that one sees these. days in
rura! sections suggests the honesty and
independence Of such a life which Is IN
harmony with the environments that ma
ture throws around it. 1t is good thing
to be born and reared in the glorious
country and for the development OF NOR
ais and muscle and much that goes TO
make a perfect manhood. Such environ
ments as rural lads and lassies have, are
not easily surpassed. Brown hands anu
feet tanned by sun and wind and muscle
IT, ~1o,r d., llnc-
can be close neishbors to a pure royal
heart and a mighty brain, nor does train
ing in rural parts unfit one for business
life, as numerous cases in the land prove
to-day.
Going to the mill where the grain is
crushed into snowy wilderness as the great
lazy wheel over which flows the sivery
water turns the hlnrming stone. may
seem to be prosy to the average man, but
to the Dare-footed boy it hasa positive
charm, FOR it gives him an opportunity to
fish, and whether his luck" be good or
bad. he enjoys it all the same.
Farewell to care and worry when the
country hero sits upon the bank of some
stream and watches the cork to detect the
nibble of the tinny prize. If such isn't
picture of contentment and patience, then
it is hard to find such. But the little
hero may not be killing time altogether,
for his brain may be busy building air
castles that in his future career may cryS-
talize into solid business plans that will
help his fellow man In l!feS great battle.
The bare-footed country boy has played
no insignificant part in American pulpits,
politics, business and poetry, when in af-
ter years on larger arenas his genius in
spred and nourished amid rural scenes
has had larger scope.
Gods lessons in woods. in fields, in
streams, in lovely landscapes are so i'm
pressive ana beautiful that it takes
great deal in after life to efface them.
One has sung:
You may break, you may shatter the
vase if you will,
But the scent OF the roses will hang round
it stll.''
So it is with the training We get in Gods
fields, meadows, sunshine and woods.
Often memory will make us live lover the
mast which was spent in rural surround
ings and if such retrospective views. don't
awake noble and pure feelings. then pity
I. is for US. T.. L. (.