The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-10-29
ChiIdren's Column.
THE FARN BOYS OCTOBER APPETITE.

poetry for more than forty years,
but if anything could awaken our
Muse, always stiff in the JOINTS and
lame in all four feet, and make him
gallop like a yearling colt on a frosty
morning, it would be the memory of
our boyish appetite in October,
"When the frost was on the pumpkin
n she corn was in the shook"
Those were glorious days, indeed, in
our memory, although we had to get
up from an alluring bed which beg
ged every inoh of bodily surface to
remain just a little longer where it
was so warm and comfortable, and
had 60 dress in the sharp chill of a
frosty morning. The imperative
tone of the voice from below and the
sound of the bootjack on the stairs
warned us, however, that there was
as Gen. Weaver says In his book, ga
call to action" Teddy Roosevelt was
not the inventor of the strenuous
life - TO our certain kno Wedge that
was invented at least fifty years ago.
The horses had 80 be fed and har-
messed, breakfast eaten by candle
light, the COWS brought in from the
pasture and MIXED Eve did not do
the milking), and then for the corn
field where the shocks were still
covered with frost, and only a vigor-
ous swinging of the arms around the
body could drive the blood 80 the
finger tips and produce that feeling
of comfort without which no man
can do his best work.
But what grand feeding there was
in those days, and what an appetite !
The lassitude of summer was gone
the vital forces were no longer re-
sisting heat from the outside and
pouring out sweat from every pore
TO cool the surface of the body by
evaporation. Heat was now required
within, fuel, and there was a draft
TO the appetite like that of a first
class stove on q clear ard oold winter
morning.
Bring on your oat meal porridge,
mother. A CUP of o,fee. Your
rashers of bacon. An egg or 50.
Thanks. Now for the pancakes or
the fried mush, made from new
oUrn dried in the oven after the bak-
ing and ground in the custom mill
where every nan gets his own grist.
A little honey over it, or maple
molasses, or butter if you have moth
ing better. Another CUP of coffee
with real cream fresh from the
springhouse /; thick and lumpy, tumb-
ling into the coffee like stones into
the mill dam. And now for the
corn field"
ALI through the morning the crows
ca we'd in the dead trees The squir-
rels gathered the falling nuts and
stored them away for winter. The
leaves, released by the frost, fell TO
the ground through the still autumn
air. The jays screamed tIOm the
oak trees, and the fall of nuts and
acorns told that while the song birds
had long since gone South, there
was still life in the forest and an
active preparation for the winter.
Toward noon our eyes frequently
turned 80 the sun. Ii seemed to
move Rwfully slowly towarL the
meridian, and no sound was more
welcome than that of the long tin
horn, 1.-The tocsin of the soul" in
those days. My, what an appetite d
growing boy enjoyed in those OctO
DER days How rapidly roast beet
and Irish potatoes, or sweet potatoes
and chicken gravy, disappeared
from that boys plate. How 'pi Gus"
he became toward the close, whether
is was pumpkin pie, oustHrd pie, OF
apple pie-not thin, lean ones like
such as you buy at the Restaurants,
but big, thick, fat, nicely browne d
unes, with the flavor of the RambO
lust coming into Its best as it lies in
plies in the orchard covered over
with rye straw, until the best are
-tOred away in bins in the cellar for
winter and the spotted fed so the
pigs.
By nightfall, when the chores were
all done, the days dusking in the
crib, the fodder tied up and shocked,
the boys appetite was at it's best in
those days. He did not disdain the
newly cooked mush, and preferred