The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1907-09-19
OF Ye 0lden Times Furnished by
One Who Grew UP in a
Pioneer Home.
1ncidHnts Illustrating Customs of
the Early Settlers OF the
County Are Entertainingly
Recounted.
CONTINUED from last weekl


to the wicked temptation of being
ashamed of our lowliness IL they
should rise to fortune. A community
is in bad way when The farmers
son begin to sicken of the fields. If
wish your children reared for liberty
do 1t simply and do not fear that 1t
will injure their happiness. The more
costly toys, merry parties and studied
out pleasures you give child tide less
fun II will have Sated with luxury
he will tire of it."
Reading these words of this great
man brought to my mind afresh the
fields and forests around my dear old
Highland home of which never sick.
ened nor do believe any of my family
did.
Home. is world of strife shut out.
world of love shut in"
James Whitcomb Riley's love for
rural life, evidenced by his many
beautiful poems, called forth these
lines from Ida VI. Keck: e
Perhaps for us no mystic charm
May hover DER a hum BILE farm:
But when your (Riley') glances on II fall
The house, the tence, the garden wall
crows fairer than park and hall
Theirragged rows, the orchards lose
Transformed to stately avenues :"
To me there is no perhaps, about
the mystic charm" that hovers DER
one humble farm, which | can reach
so easily now, on the trolly cars
Home in the true sense of that
precious word, is "a fathers king
dom. The children's paradise. The
mothers world" Doubtless most men
and women can remember when their
home seemed also the world to them
And If 1t had even the semblance of
home, 1t was to them surely, their
paradise, until they we're old enough
to discern good from evil, and to know
the meaning of unkind words or treat.
ment by which 1t may be turned into
something more like prison, than a
home.
My bosom Is filed with transport,
as am enabled to recall the scenes,
and incidents of my childhood and
young girlhood on my dear parents
farm, which think at that time did
not contain much, If any, over two
hundred acres of land, yet in size,
can remember, when II seemed as big
to me, no doubt, as the world does to-
day Oh, what an immeasurable dis
tance did 1t seem to me across the big
field in front of our house, as held by
my dear mothers hand, trundled
through the tangled meshes of weeds,
wild flowers and grasses to the farth-
esq corner of 1t, to where, perhaps,
from the house, we had espied for the
first time little calf with its mother
which my mother thought might need
some care and attention from her.
Such are among my first recollections
of my home and of my parents.
And then the forests which belonged
to our farm and skiIted the road near
our house, and joined other unfenced
forests belonging to our neighbors
how immense 1t did look to me. Oh,
its seemingly impenetrable depths
into the dark and shady recesses of
which l would not have thought of
venturing very far, without having
been accompanied by an older brother
or sister or both, and even then as
they would dare explore its wonders,
and 60 farther and yet farther until
the light which penetrated its borders
from the adjoining cleared fields we
had left behind US had disappeared,
and we could see no difference, look
ing backward or forward, and could
no longer see the blue smoke wreath
ing through the breezes over head, as
1t ascended from the chimney of our
house.. would almost quake with
mortal fear, to think how far / had
gone away from home and parents.
But this feeling of fear left me, after
we bad gone 90 often as to have be-
come familiar with the appearance of
many an old big stump from which
the tree had been sawed, land upon
which six or eight children could
easily stand,) and with the clump of
blushing wild roses and large fallen
trees, back and forth upon which we
had so often run, or large grape
vines upon which we had so often
swung ftfGe. .4ff HtnHtfFf
What lovely play houses we would
build in that forest, with the branches
of the trees for the walls and roofing
and carpeted with the lovely velvety
mosses, which abopnded in such great
variety and decorated with Wild