The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1908-05-09
Copyright. by Joseph B. Bowles.)

cNCu SEVEN uolldIS AuOulA WIN
room for chickens, COW and place
to keep a pig. You can have butch
er kill your pig and have your winter
meat, or good deal Of 1t, in that way.
You can keep COW and strike out the
butter and milk items. You can keep
chickens and knock OF the eggs and
poultry items. You can have a garden
besides, and thus reduce It all to
groceries and clothes. And, mind you,
this can be done, and still be, near
enough to q large city to go in and
see whatever you want to At the the
aters. etc.
So what Is the use Of keeping your
nose to the grindstone just to keep
up blur" Of living in certain way?
OF course, II you like that sort Of
thing. you ought not to be deprived of
it The item of ice in the country
means having a little dumb-waiter ar
rangement run down in the well where
you keep your stun cold all summer
with no expense, and little trouble.
The item of ice In the city means be-
pirates who treat you like parcel Of
beggars. Everything in the city costs
right up to the limit. In the country
you raise almost everything you need.
A good-sized family can make five
acres of land near any large city sup
port them all. BY near a city, 1 mean
within 40 to 20 miles from town, and
that is near enough.
The farmers in our vicinity cared
very little whether school kept or
not" They worked or they let 1t
alone, just as the mood happened to
possess them. They all of them had
good horses and buggies, and in the
winter time they got out their sleighs
and cutters and so they got about in
all seasons very comfortably. If they
owned their own farms they were, of
course, even more independent than
the renters" but the renters" them
selves were just as well of as to the
Injuries and the necessities In the
country, as the landed proprietors.
They always had at least two crops
out every year, and If one crop failed,
which was almost never, the other
crop was success, and they always
made some money, at least. They all
had fruit on the farms, and raised
good gardens. They had chickens and
sold their extra eggs and chickens
and so paid their grocery bills, and
more, too. They had hogs fattening
for winter meat, and they butchered a
heifer or a steer once in awhile for
fresh beef. They had never known
in their lives what it was to worry
about bare living. AS for indus
culture, at present. There was no
union to fight with. When harvest
time came around, each man helped
his neighbor, and the improved ma
chinery Of to-day made the work COM
paratively easy. When the farmers
worked, they were not cooped up In a
smoky, choky atmosphere in the midst
of smoke and SCOT, the whirr of ma
chinery, their lungs filled with grit
and iron filings.
They were out in the open, breath
ing the purest air, and with all the
four winds of heaven blowing about
them. If it was storming, they did
not go out to work; they did not have
to. Mostly on rainy days the boys
and men In my neighborhood went
hunting. Or they sat around the
kitchen stove and cracked pecans,
hickory nuts and walnuts, ate apples,
drank cider and played the fiddle.
They were hustling lot, good many
of them, and they raised crops all
right, but they did not kill themselves
working They had a little enjoy
ment while they went along; and il a
circus or county fair happened along
they could all quit and go to see it,
for every man was an independent
sovereign. They waited for no mans
beck or call, and spoke of no man as
"the boss" and never had to gallop
back after dinner to pull string or
give their name to 'looknpt." so as
not to get fined for being a couple OF
seconds late.
When they felt like it, they laid OF
and browsed around the farms and
fixed up the fences. II l happened to
run across a neighbor he could always
stop and have little chat with me.
Nobody around to give him the eye"
and make him feel like cheap Grim
inal. And If 1t was exceedingly hot
some scorching July day. you could
go into some of the farmhouses and
find active, healthy and frst-class
farmers reading a paper and reckon
ing they wouldn't go out that after
noon.
They worked hard when they did
work, of course; and some of the
work was disagreeable. But they
could LAY on" whenever they felt
like It, and there was no one to say
them nay. The proprietor of a farm
had absolutely nothing to say as to
A.