The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1907-04-24
BEAUTY ALL AROUND.
The Story of the Plough Boy and
a Mouse.
The Thought That First Inspired
Burns and Gave the World Great
Poet.

Burns and Gave the World Great
Poet.
One day a boy, poor son Of power
ty-stricken parents, was driving a
plow through the sterile soil OF a
rocky field. The task was hateful to
him. He did not like to work, and
what manual labor he did was done
reluctantly. Only because his faith
er and all the children were compell-
ed to cultivate a wretched farm to
avoid starvation, was this boy found
on that bleak autumn day istlessly
holdinga ramshackle outfit pulled by
cadaverous horse. His body was
, there but his thoughts were else
where and his waking hours were
spent in bemoaning his miserable lot.
While in this frame of mind the
ploughshare ran through q mouse's
nest, from which the dazed occupant
fed in tinnid terror. This would
mean nothing to the ordinary plow
boy. Millions Of them, before and
since, have turned up the nest Of a
field mouse, have pursued and killed
the occupant and thought no more
about it.
Not so, this particular farm boy.
He thought much about it during the
rest Of the day, and after he turned
out wearily for the day his thoughts
still dwelt upon the helpless creature
that had been ruthlessly deprived Of
house and home and thrown upon
the charities of cold and unfeeling
world. The result was poem and
such poem as had never before fall
en- from the pen of man. The poor
farmers boy put himself in the place
of the mouse and spoke to the world
from the mouse's standpoint. Infinite
was the pathos, profound the philos-
ophy, crowded into this brief COM
position. 1t meant little to the
mouse, whose injury was beyond re-
pairing, but it meant much for the
boy, nothing less than a crown of
fadeless Immortality?
Much yet remains unsung and
though there is no longer Burns to
sing the songs of nature, to extract
beauty from the humblest incidents
OF farm life, the lesson he inculcated
has not lost it's value. Real happiness
consists in seeing the charm Of things
all around us. in approaching the
sweets that are set before us, above
all in the faculty Of idealizing the
commonplace. We must not wait
for great events, spectacular occur
rences, for things to occur on Q
grand scale. It is the ordinary that
happens every minute, every hour;
the extraordinary comes but seldom.
tits all there before the farmer, even
the hunblest, much to be admired,
something to be appreciated at the
full.
IF there was a poem in the fright
ened mouse, why not in the crippled
gosling, the motherless calf, the
blooming flowers, the growing grain,
the lowing herds and the canticles of
the farmyard. ''The kingdom of
heaven is without you" is the most
valuable of Christ's savings. If not
found there, it Will not be found in
gorgeous cathedrals, in solemn tenn
pies or in the mystic land Of languld
longing. # we wait for tomorrow
it may never come; today, this min
ute, is all that belongs to us. Daily
life is but a routine, the going over
and over Of the same things. It will
surely become tiresome to those who
have not learned how to pluck beauty
from the wayside, how to continue
to love Y. At is seen constantly on
every hand. The music is all there
if a harpist be present to touch the
cords; q few wires strung in win
dow being sufficient to extract from
the rowing wind melodies worthy Of
Mozart.
Blessed is the gift Of extracting
good from everything and thrice
blessed the messages of encourage
ment and comfort that are brought
by the faculty of appreciating the
common things around US. All are
not philosophers and all cannot be
poets, but every one can learn that
he has before him in substance all
that can be boasted by the richest.
Rockefeller's palace is no more to
him than the nest was to the mouse
and, more fortunate than the wealth
lest millionaire, the little rodent mad
a Robert Burns to immortalize its
name in song. Though we may not
be able to sing, we are able to ap-
preciate the song when sung, and
after investigating the question from
all sides it will be found that herein
hes the secret Of the much sought
happiness. It is before you, in the
rustic Of the November leaves, the
signing of the autumnal breezes, the
plaintive cries of departing birds and
the warmth that causes the children
to cluster around the family freside.
A Growing Evil.
One of the many growing evils Of
this country today is the city depart
ment store. In our town, where we
have the best of stores, the most
honorable Of merchants, and where