The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1901-05-09
THE FARMER.

If we are to believe the story of
Adam and Eve, of course we must
believe there was Abel and Cain.
Now Moses says that Abel was a
dealer in stock and Cain was a
tiller of the soil, and that, dis
pute arising between these two,
Cain, being the best man, knocks
Abel out and he dies. Now it
seems the Lord didn't like this
very much, so he calls Cain to &C.
count. And he says: "Cain, 1.
must punish you for this" So he
gives him a mark. Now Moses
doesn't tell us what kind of a
mark this was, but il must have
been different from the marks we
get occasionally, for Cain said his
punishment was greater than he
could bear. So he left his farm
and home and went over in the
country of Nod, got married and,
if we are to believe Bible history,
he made a success of life, and his
generations, says the good Book
were many.
Cain must have had some very
promising traits about him, for the
Lord issued an edict that, "who-
soever slayeth Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold."
Gen. 4:15. And again, the good
Book says, "Cain's first born.
Enoch, walked with God 800
years." And to cap the climax,
Noah, the great-grandson of Cain,
and his family we're the only ones
saved on this earth when God
saw fit to cause mans destruction
by water.
So we are all direct descendants
of the first farmer, Cain: and since
his time we have been raising
Cain ever since. Just think Of it!
to be prodigal son of the old
farmer Cain! And that's what we
are, most of us. It is not alone
the tiller of the soil nowadays
that is called farmer; but if a
man be an honest old plug, and
doesn't care to enter into schemes
with the schemers, they call him
an old farmer.
Why Markham should write
poem and apply it to the honest
tiller of the soil, and censure him
as hopeless dying man, drown
ing in ignorance, is hard to under
stand. Well he knew the great
majority Of the people of today
have so much old Cain in them
that it is the censure, and not the
praise, that wins the plaudit of
the great majority everywhere.
Some time ago I read a parody
on The Man With the Hoe; and it
struck me as much more applicable
to the case than Markham's
verses. It was "The man who
will not hoe.'' Now if 1 had less
Of old Cain in me I might not in
sert it here. But I plead guilty
to the old relationship and thus
lay myself open to criticism on
the applied application.
"Offspring of the centuries, who tramps
From morn till night and from town to town,
DER his back dilapidated rag
A walking, breathing, allegory of want,
Who made him alive with wit and with song?
A soul that grieves not, but forever hopes,
Smoked and sunburned, with the strength of an
OK.
Who loosed and smoothed the wrinkles in his
tongue;
Whose was the hand that stitched his filthy
dudS?'
Whence the budding knowledge that stirs his
soul?
Down all the gloomy stretch of ages past,
There is no phrophecy more omiDous than he
More tOngued with censure of the worlds blind
greed:
Sore filled with signs nor hopeless dying man;
More fraught with tidings of brighter day.
He is the thing the law made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To break the CALLING chains of drudgery,
And proclaim the freedom of all mankind.
He is the dream they dreamed, who made the
law