Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-05-27
OLD-TIME FARM BOYS
They Began to Do the Usual Chores
at the Age of Seven
Years.
WORKED IN THE FIELDS AT 10.
In the Evening They Had to Husk
Corn and Pare Apples for
Drying on a String.

What would the boys of to-day think
Of the way the country boys lived sixty
and seventy years ago, or even forty
years ago, when the writer was boy?
asks a contributor to the Rural New
Yorker. At the age of we boys q
speak more especially about boys, as
there were no girls in our family be-
| gan to have our regular chores to do.
At z we began to milk, and at the age
Of 10 we were expected to be out at 4
in the morning, and do our share of
the milking, feed the pigs and calves,
eat our breakfast and away to the field
(no compulsory educational laws in
those days. driving oxen to pillow or
| narrowing with an old fOrty-tOOth
drag; hoeing corn, for it must be hoed
at least three times. We boys at 10
we're expected to hoe a hill and skip
hill to keep up with the men; fetch
the water for the men, to drink and
ride the old mare to cultivate, for the
man who held the cultivatOr must have
a boy to ride the horse, but he must
not let her step on a hill of corn, for
| if he did the whole field was thought to
have gone to ruin. 1 wonder what the
farmers of those days would have
thought to see the farmers of to-day
gliding through the cOrnfield with a
two horse, double-row cultivator doing
the work of six men.
The boys of those days had to work.
The majority of farmers seemed to
think that all boy was created for
was what work they could get out Of
him; that boy ever became tired was
something against the laws of nature;
if he Jagged he was lazy. The school
days of the farmer boys of those times
were from about Dec / to April 1,
but mind you, we were expected to go
to the barn evenings and husk corn
until the husking was all done. After
that was done, then for the apples, for
about Is to 100 bushels must be pared,
quartered and cored, and strung on
strings with the rib of an old umbrella
for a needle, and hung up behind the
kitchen stove to dry. This work was
all done evenings. About two or three
bushels were considered to be a fair
evenings work. Oh, yes, we used to
have corn huskings and apple parings.
It broke the mOnotony, and we young
sters had lots of fun, but l guess the
boys of to-day would think it was rath-
er tame sport, for now the hotels and
saloons have more attractions. The
average farmers boy of the twentieth
century has more money to spend on
himself in one year than the boy Of
fifty years ago had in his entire boy
hood days. There was not even $1,000
boy in those days.
At the age Of and 10, respectively,
my brother and l rode our old bob
tailed mare, Slippery Jane" to school,
a distance Of two miles. What would
the boys of this age think to see two
such youngsters astride of one horse?
But as we became a little older we
drove her hitched to fathers old pung.
In connection with this l never shall
forget an incident, although it was
very common occurrence for boys Of
those days to be left alone and with
/ the care of the premises. My brother
was 10 and II years old. We came
from school one very cold, stormy night
in February We stopped on our way
to leave a girl who lived at neigh
boris, and who rode to and from school
with us.
The neighbor was a relative Of the
family and he told us that our people
had all gone away early in the day, as
4 near relative of the family had died,
and that we must hurry home and do
up the chores, which consisted of about
! forty head of cattle to care for, also
horses, hogs, hens and various other
things. Our neighbor relative told us
to hurry home, do UP the chores, eat
our supper, be careful Of fire and get
to bed early and get up early next
morning, do up the chores, give our
cowhide boots a fresh coat of grease
and make ready to go to the funeral of
the relative where our people had gone
the day before.
Well, we trudged home as fast as we
could hurry the old mare. The snow
was falling fast and a stiff wind was
coming up in the west. Our home was
mile from the main highway and over
a mile from the nearest neighbor and
in the very shadow of the heavy tim
Der. We arrived home to find it desert
ed except for our old shepherd dog Jim
and the house as cold as an iceberg
You can bet we were not very long in
doing up those chores and getting our
selves tucked away in bed. It seems
that 1 can hear now the wind howl
around that old-fashioned Dutch house
up there on the hill that cold and
stormy night. The next morning we
were up bright and early to make ready
for our journey, some five or six miles
away. Our neighbOr relative came and
helped us some about chores. so we