The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1902-07-24
JOHNSON CITY, TENNESSEE, THURSDAY. a. 1902.
"LIFE AS 1T IS."
Written for THE COMET.

"AAhNNA ipA AhN NNhf-A'
I see in the Herald and Tribune an
article headed Life As 1t Is." Week
after week have searched for some
phase of "life as ii now is" but never
clew. The Indians are gone, the old
settlers are sleeping beneath sunken
mounds and rank grasses, the for
ests are fast giving way to culti-
vated fields and the silent woods to the
activity of farms and towns and yet in
the backwoods we can find primitive
race of people that dig their corn in the
ground with hoe that raise flax,
scratch, spin and sew that have never
seen q railroad or factory, an opera
house or an organ. Will give you an
instance that can be verified, of boy
that helped a cattle driver across the
country with some cattle. They put up
at prosperous farm house for the
night. After supper they called the
boy to come in while they held family
prayer. He stopped at the door and
they told him to come on in and be
seated. "I kin Jest stand here an see
em hold it," he said.
They speak of the joyous freedom of
the farmers life, but little do they say
Of the farmers wife. / am not speak
ing of those that own fine farms and
palatial residences, (and their lives are
isolated enough), but of those that
dwell in log houses and work from three
o'clock in the morning until ten at
night milk from three to ten cows,
cook for an even dozen people, wash,
iron, sew, sweep, churn, feed chickens,
turkeys, calves, geese, ducks, swine,
hoe gardens, and work, worry and live
in constant turmoil of this to be done
and that to be done or the berries will
be gone, the apples rot, the beans be
lost. Can you tell me what pleasure
there is in the average lot of a farmers
wife in ''life as it is"? And yet our
boys and girls, almost as soon as they
can walk alone, begin casting sheep
eye glances at each other with view
to matrimony and setting up an estab-
lishment of their own-oftimes without
the required means to buy the license,
much less pay the minister, who is
generally willing nay, anxious, - to
start them on the road to trouble. In
few years the laughing maid is a sad
faced woman, weary and worn with the
ceaseless struggle against poverty.
Over and over is the tragedy enacted
that makes our boys and girls old men
and women, when they should be in
the glorious prime of manhood and
womanhood. Instead of enjoying their
youth, liberty and life at sixteen you
will find many of our girls wives and
mothers, hemmed in by four bleak
, walls of poverty-stricken home.
What is responsible for life as it is
Not love, for they are not old enough
to know what love is; not wisdom OF
common sense, for they have none. ]
will tell you what makes such sad es-
tate possible: the laws of our country
that make binding the marriage con
, tract of child of twelve years without
the consent of either parents or guard
ian; the same law that stands RESPONSE
BILE for the saloons, the drunkards, thu
gambling dens the law that gives tt
this glorious Union the blood -wor
9 money and the price of souls, Likewise
gives its consent to the union of a chilt
of twelve to man Of fifty, if he is bas'
enough to win the tickle fancy of
childish heart. So in true life as it i
We have sickness, sorrow and discon
\ tent, with now and then CLEAN o
! sunshine amid the tears, like the fame,
of an April day. We meet, and love
. and part, and are no more-a continua
tnronS tnat passes ON through lie
g field of action here below, pressin
forward to that bourne whence no tray
). eler ever returns. Some seen to fit i
properly to the links of the movin
4 circle, while others 60 iangling alon
= with sad discord all soon to fade an
perish as the flower that withereth b
the wayside. And yet, oh man fc
what purpose vast thou created? f? I
make of the desserts green fields an
Of the wilderness happy homes? Ar
you, with your "godly inheritance" {
10 life and power, responsible for th
n world of woe and misery in 'life as
N is" ? d. B. PHILLIPS.