West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1903-08-27
THE RURAL POSTWAR
Tells How Planting Beans in the Light
OF the Moon and Daniel in the Lions
Den, Impaired Domestic Tranquility.


lien, Impaired Domestic Tranquility.
On the road between Carter's
Hill and the Red Bridge / overlook
Farmer Elkin's wife the other day.
She was Jogging along with a bundle
in her hand, and | pulled up and
offered her lift as far as the cross.
roads.
"Well, Aunt Sarah, wha, is it7"
! asked as she got seated.
ave left Nathan" she replied
"You don't mean it %
"Sure's you're born, Abe. Yes.
sir, Nathan Eikins must take care
OF himself after this I've packed
my little bundle and started for my
sisters and Nathan can run things
to suit himself from this time on"
'But you've lived with him at
feast thirty years, Aunt Sarah"
al know il, Abe. It's thirty one
years ago TO morrow since we got
married, but I've had to leave him
at last. He would stick to il. and
he wouldn't give in, and so at last
it is done. Mebbe he won't be so
cranky with his next wife. 1t begun
the week after we was married."
"What begun1
"Why, Nathan said that if string
beans wasn't planted in the full of
the moon they'd never pod out.
told him the moon didn't make any
more difference with stringbeans
than il did with carpet rags, but he
stuck right TO it. l planted beans
under all kinds OF moons, and one
planting turned out as good as
another, but he wouldn't give up.
Every week, winter and summer,
for thirty years, that stringbean
question has come up and made
quarrel. This morning, as was
doing up the breakfast dishes,
Nathan came in from the barn and
begun to bang things around and
mutter to himself.
60 For what is il now p | asks.
(" 'Stringbeans, says he. They've
got to be planted In the full of the
moon
I" Il deny it,"
Z" Il say it's so. and if you haint
sense enough to know it you'd
better co.
"It didn't take me half an hour to
pack up" continued Aunt Sarah,
"and here / am. My walking out
took Nathan by surprise, and he's
kicking himself all around the farm
by this time, but I'll give him les
son. He'll be after ne before night
to come back, but I'll give him
string beans by the bushel before
I'll do it. I've done my duty as a
wife, Abe, and / guess everybody
knows it, but that bean question
has worn me out at last. You amt
blaming me, | hope ?"
DWELL, not so much"
ppm glad o. that. What's your
experience with stringbeans ?"
"They'll grow any time, moon or
no moon"
"They certainly will, and If you
meet Nathan as you go back you
tell him so. Tell him that that
stringbeans and fools grow on the
same vines, and that he'll have to
quarrel with the old one-horned COW
now for a change"
TT
had heard that Uncle Jerry
Davis was going to marry the Widow
White, and when 1 drove up to the
house and found him at the gate
asked him when the happy day wa.
to be named.
"Never, b'gosh !" he bluntly re.
piled.
Anything gone wrong ?"
"I'ye found out that the widdei
is as obstinate as a mule, and
wouldn't marry her if she was tn,
last woman in the State. 1t was Z
close shave for me, Abe. caught
on jest in time"
"What was it, Uncle Jerry ?"
oval, ] was down to see tn,
wilder about two weeks ago, and vs.,
was talking away, when l happened
to speak Of Dan1 in the lions den.
" You mean Joseph, says she.
No, i mean DanI.'
But It was Joseph who wa,