Camas Prairie chronicle. [volume] (Cottonwood, Idaho) 1901-1917, 1917-03-23
Farmers Out
Of A Job
by James III. Collins
Continued from last week. }

edge really began to make money
then 1t was profitable to sell or feed
corn instead of burning it for fuel, and
wheat rose to the neighborhood Of a
dollar bushel. Corn Belt land
values began to rise, too, because
there was now a profit in working it.
Men without farms began to appear
as renters.
For thirty-odd years the Nagles had
struggled through lean times in the
Middle West, with an occasional
streak of fat times in between. They
had always lived we'll, had reared six
boys and girls and sent them out into
the world with various degrees of
schooling, and were now alone on two
hundred acres Of prairie land, with a
comfortable house, ample barn and
outbuildings, and a considerable in
vestment in live stock and equipment.
One night John Nagle sat figuring
intently.
GLOW much did it cost us to run
the house last Year, he asked his
wife. After some thinking and a
little prompting she put the whole
expense of their groceries, clothes and
sundries at about three hundred dol
lars.
"Why did you ask" she inquired.
because I've had an offer for the
place, William Hicks wants it for a
rent Of four dollars an acre on a FIVE
year lease. En- thinking of letting
him have it. With what we've saved
we could build house in Smithboro,
live on the income from the farm,
and take life little easier. Do you
think we've earned it, Mother? How
would you like to be town LADY,"
John Nagle is a little over fifty,
and his wife a few years younger.
They lease the farm, sell their stock,
move to town, and for year or two
are busy building the new house.
While this occupation lasts, all is
interest and activity. There are
plans to be carried out, workmen to
oversee, new comforts to be investi-
gated and installed, materials to be
bought, prices to be compared, mer-
chants and salesman to be consulted.
But presently they are comfortably
settled for the newer, broader life, and
then something happens-or rather
things cease to happen.
Thirty years Of farming have given
John Nagle strong body and an ac
tive mind. Both require a mans oc
cupation to keep them in tune. But
in town there is nothing for him to do
He may have a garden and a COW anC
a few tools for puttering jobs, bu
these are not activities for man O
his ca ibre. He used to be up every
| morning at day light. Now there i
nothing to get up for, and he form
the habit Of sleeping little later
He spends more time reading the pa
pers and worrying about politics, loaf
around aimlessly downtown because h
is ashamed to sit at home waiting 70
| meal times, eat too much when mea
times come, smokes too much after
] wards, and frets and fritters away tn
= stored up energy within his body an
brain that should now find som
gradual outlet in healthy work. H
4 does not know how to play.
Town has suddenly changed its att
tude, too. In the old days it SCENE
as though he could never get enoug
of town. Every visit was excitin
= an full. The merchants greeted hiI
when he entered their stores. Th
doctor and lawyer hailed him with
, joke, inquired about the fishing {
y hunting up his way, and sighed ft
the day which somehow never can
/ when they planned to come out an
4 see him. The county political bo
g hurried to his wagon 10 shake hanC
! and ask how things were going in b
- district.
But now town is stale. The me
chants step forward and meet hi
with an inquiring smile when he e
tiers the stores, but when he says,
guess there won't be anything today,
they go on with their work, and /
j and nv nav no attention tn him Whf