The Greeley tribune., 1912-04-11

MS painful uTuuSeIy WueH ne HlSnt
be the cashier of trust company
| for the small sum of $4.67.
The wages are small, and the
work in the field Is hard, and there
are many discouragements of one
| kind and another, b0t the thing
that is driving laborers away from
the farms is chores. | have suffered
and endured, l know. The tradition
has handed down from the time of
our revolutionary sires that the
hired man should do most of the
| chores, and the chores on a farm
are as the sands of the seashore. 1t
isn't enough that he should go to
field shortly after sunrise. and toll
there until the shades of night are
falling fast; he is expected to do
days work before breakfast and
another half days work after
supper.
| The hardest work my employer
used to have when / was elevating
the farm was waking me in the
morning. The sleep of hired man
is the profoundest thing in this
world. Only for the snoring, it ia
an excellent imitation OF death. The
| farmer used to come to my room at
about five o'clock in the morning
with a tom-tom and handspike.
He sounded the tom-tom like a
Chinese physician for few minutes,
and If that failed to rouse me, he
used the lever and pried me out of
| bed, and then poured cold water
over me, and pulled me around the
floor by my feet and burned feath-
ers under my nose until | sat up
and asked if it wasn't nearly bed
time. Being thus restored to con-
seriousness. l had to go to the barn
and curry down the mules l was
destined to work during the day.
Mules are always peevish in the
morning, and many time they re-
buked me with their heels. The
mules having been supplied with
shredded hay and other breakfast
foods which make rich, red blood.
l had to feed the hogs. There were
about million of them, and it was
my province to carry swill to them
from a barrel near the house. The
buckets were big and water logged
affairs which made load when they
were empty, and it was back-break-
ing work carrying refreshments
hundred yards. This work being
done, several bushels of corn had
to be carried an equal distance to
relieve the ravenous creatures.
The hogs being supplied with the
necesaries of life, l had to do an
equal service for the calves. There
were eight or ten of them in an in
closure, and each had to be given
it's bucket of milk. Mine not to
reason why, mine not to make re-
ply; mine but to do or die, and
dyed the atmosphere blue with
language. Men who have never
. taught calves to drink don't know
what sorrow is. One calf isn't so
bad, but when you have to go into
den of the blood thirsty brutes,
and have them climb all over you.
t in an effort to get at the bucket
I first when they butt you in the
stomach and run between your legs
and upset you, and trample your
! whiskers into the ground, then you
cry with Bernardo del Carpio:
Talk not of grief till thou hast
seen the tears OF warlike men,
Having escaped alive from the
e calves, l had to turn in and help
n milk the feeble-minded COWS, ami
!. finals which take an insane delight
q in hitting you in the face with their
tails. When the cows were MIXED
it was usually breakfast time, and
e after that meal l drove my team
aheld and sweltered up and down
the corn rows all day, and when
!, night came, and the supper had
been disposed of, there was the
same round of chores to be done
again; and when the last hog had
1 been refreshed, and the last calf
t overpowered and fed, l was SO tired
1 that had to lift my feet with my
$ hands when | went upstairs to my
: room. In that room there was q
shelf of books and a little table
1 1-tfh mo lgy1v vi n
5 had pointed to these things with
2 pride, as being the comforts of a
: home, when he hired me. Although
!. fond of reading, i never once look
y ed into those books or magazines
during the months l occupied the
e room. When man is SO tired that
"a can hear his back ache around
a block, literature loses its charm.
And the worst of the whole ex-
! perience was that l had no rest on
1 Sunday There was the usual string
r of chores in the morning and the
e usual string at night, and during
r the day malevolent cows were
breaking into the corn field, or hogs
possessed of brainstorms were mir
!, ed in slough, or hen was laying
astray, and of course the hired man
had to remedy things.
The conditions are much the
same today. The western hired man
has to do the chores, and the chores
are driving him away from the
farm.
, The help problem never will be
, solved until the farmer takes the
, burden of chores from the hired
! mans shoulders and is satisfied
with an honest days work in the