The log cabin Democrat. [volume] (Conway, Ark.) 1901-1982, 1908-04-23
Copyright. by Joseph b. Bowles)


even seven dollars a month with
room for chickens, a COW and a place
to keep a pig. You can have butch
er kill your pig and have your winter
meat, or a good deal of 1t, in that way.
You can keep a COW and strike out the
butter and milk items. You can keep
chickens and knock off the eggs and
poultry items. You can have garden
besides, and thus reduce it all to
groceries and clothes. And, mind you,
this can be done, and still be near
enough to 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 bluff" of living in a certain way?
OF course, if you like that sort of
thing, you ought not to be deprived of
it. The item of ice in the country
means having little dumb waiter ar
rangement run down in the well where
you keep your stuff cold all summer
with no expense, and little trouble.
The item of ice in the city means be-
ing under the thumbs of lot of
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 city, | mean
within 40 to 70 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 it
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 we'll off 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 a 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
| trial" troubles, that is outside of agri-
| 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 if a
circus or a 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 a string or
give their name to a LOOKOUT" so as
not to get fined for being a couple of
seconds late.
When they felt like 1t, they laid off
and browsed around the farms and
fixed up the fences. If / happened to
run across 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 so out that after
noon.
They worked hard when they did
work, of course; and some of the
work was disagreeable. But they
could LAY off" whenever they felt
like it, and there was no one to say
them nay. The proprietor of farm
had absolutely nothing to say as to
ubap or how his "rantar'' worked the