The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-02-18
M E N, w o M E N
 "A ND T HIN c s

|
 It seems a Tennessee farmer boy got Into the-eat tile game and landed good
 position with one of the big plants Tn
 this district. He is one of the locai ! salesmen and while in dress and man
 ner is to all intents a city man. yet deep down in his heart he is still icountryman.
 l Not that he isn't city broke, alright for he knows a thing or two and can hold his own with the chaps who have never lived anywhere save where the bright lights" burn, the taxis come and go, the theatres invite, the cabarets call, and all the town lures are going at full blast.
 J He lacks a whole lot of being a hay ' seed, but as some philosopher has said that civilization is only skin deep am sure that the city veneer countryman f gets when he comes to town is liable | to grow thin and show when the spring sap begins to flow and his heart turns back to the thought of the old home ] place he left.
  It seems that the corporation for which the young man about whom am writing works has a patch which 1t plants each year. Well, the other day when the birds were singing and the ] air was like fine wine and all nature just crying out to tired office workers to come out into the sunshine and fill their lungs with the balmy breezes, he just couldn't let the invitation go by. 1 Rather shamefacedly he went to the
 manager and said, Look here, am | just dying to do little blowing; can't you give me the morning off and I'll l get a mule and blow and break up that piece of land?" It was such an
 unusual thing that the big man readily agreed, as it is no easy matter when
 the days are good to get any one will l ing to do bit of blowing without be- ] ing held up.'
 | Where there is a will there is way,
 and after some trouble the salesman with the soul of a farmer arranged with one of the other employees to get his outfit and soon he was in the patch
 as happy as june bug as he saw the fresh, rich earth turned up as he went down furrow after furrow. The other boys thought he would white eye" on
 the job, and for while he had quite 1 "a gallery" but the way he handled l the mule and the way the dirt was hrnl T. bo m Un- lateur
 | From time to time in this column
 have made claim that I have done this | or that but I am ashamed to own up to the fact that I have never plowed q furrow in all my life, and l am sure that I have missed something by never having had the experience. Just think of what handicap it will be should ever be so foolish as to run for office. l I wouldn't be able to stand a chance
 with the plowboy candidates.
 But all joking aside, it is wonderful
 thing for any lad to have been reared with old mother earth. Say what you please, but the fact that a man passed his boyhood on the farm, where he had
 to do with horses, cows, chickens and other animals gives him confidence in himself. Then the opportunity which comes to the country lad to build up
 his constitution in out-of-door work is a great asset There is an air of free dom which characterizes the man who gets his living out of the ground which is not found in the man tied down to a machine.
 But the results are not merely ma terial and physical, but spiritual. I be- llieve it is Rudyard Kipling who in one
 of his short stories brings out the fact that the man who lives in city by de- grees gets to think that man made ev- erything; but the fellow who works out in the country as he watches the eternal procession of the seasons and day by day takes note of wind and weather and fills his eyes with the beauty of the Hills and valleys and !rivers and lakes is conscious of God, I the great creator. He does not put it in
 my words, but think I give his idea. i
 I am sorry for the man or woman
 who at times does not turn their back lupon office and household duties and
 get alone with God as He is seen in vis-
 ible creation. I remember a friend of
 mine who had led wild and dissipated
 life, but who when the call came for
 volunteers in the Spanish American war was one of the first to volunteer.
 and made great reputation for Amer
 ican pluck and courage. He found him lself in the war. as or human dere- !licts have done.
 On his return from the Philippines
 he was telling me of some of his ex-
 periences. He was college man and
 had had every advantage which money
 and social position could bring, bu1
 when knew him as a reckless man oi
 the world he gave no evidence what
 ever of having the slightest intereat-ir
 religious matters. do not recall ir the old gay days when we ran together of ever having seen him in church, but like a lot of foolish young fellows, hs
 rather prided himself on being an az.
 hostile.
 Now. here Is what he told mo
 "Frank," said he. lone day I was or guard duty stationed on the rampant ol , | a wall in the Philippines, looking ou