Year: 1877

| my.


I honor the farmer, rs l do the
truthfulness OF George Washington,
but l should have lied the old man
right out of his boots about that cher.
ry tree, if I had been George. / free
ly confess that | do not like farming
any better than do castor oil. There
| is more hard work to the acre in farm.
ing than in any occupation l know of,
if we except the dentist. There is a
heap of hard work to the acher in
that business, though the work is
chiefly to the acher rather than to the
dentist.


The farmer has an inborn idea that
the sun will not rise unless he gets up
and personally superiutends the job.
When l was a small boy | was told
by my good mother that the sun rose
every morning and-I always believed
her. | never get up to see, tor l al
ways felt as if it would look as if l
doubted her word.


After the farmer is up he must cut
up some green wood for his wife to
build the fire with. A farmers wife
who bad kindlings and dry wood fur
nished her would consider that she
had good grounCs Tor divorce.
While the breakfast is being cooked
the farmer hies to the barn to take
care OF and feed his cattle. Anybody
who has ever taken hold of pilchtork
handle when the thermometer was be
low zero never will outlive the remem-
brance OF 1t. There may be things
colder. but never touched them. |
took hold of white oak pitchfork
handle over twenty years ago and
have never had the full use of my
hand since.


After completing the chamber work
in the barn, the next thing is to water
the stock. Watering stock on Wall
street and watering it on a farm are
two different things. Pumping up
water through leaky pump, when it
seems as if the first drop came from
the centre of the earth, is more cheer
tul to read OF than to do. Perhaps it
is not a pump, but an icy we!l-pole
that you are called upon to embrace,
and as it slips through your fingers,
and the cold drops of water splash up
your shirt-sleeve, you begin to wonder


whether this really is the bright world
that you always thought it was, and


whether you will be called upon 10


draw water from deep we'll with all


icy pole in the other land beyond the


skies.


Iti is during the winter that the
: farmer throws aside the drudge and


hard work ofthe farm, and engages in
tie sport of cutting and hauling out
cord wood. Next to making tatting,


there is scarcely any labor more easily
done than breaking out wood'road


through snow three feet deep, and
then chopping down trees, splitting
and cutting them into oord wood


then hauling load Of it fifteen mlles


to market, and then stand in the street
all day, aud finally sell it for IS a
cord, and take your pay III something
YOU don't want. When / Nlnk of
this easy way Of earning a dollar


have to hire stout man to hold me


down into a chair, in order TO keep me
from plunging out and buying wooe
lot.


When spring fairly sets in, then it
! is that the farmer begins to realize
that he owns farm, and that he is 9
, sturdy yeoman. He starts out with
his plough to turn up the burrows il
t the glad earth. How beautifully the
poets sing about al this, and how
: nice it sounds if the poetry is good


[ think there is a charm about po
= etic lie that does not exist in prose.
, For delicate invalid, a course O.
. treatment consisting of holding ;
plough for fifteen hours day, through
rocky field, would be likely to make
) another man of him in a short time
1t might possibly be a dead man, bu
still it would BE- another man. | helC
e a plough once and helped to break W


. piece of new land. Through the
: kindness of friends was taken into :
a machine shop and rebuilt over al
!. well as the mach,nist could do th'
lob. | have never seemed to teel ex
: actly right since, but | don't suppos'
a ! ought 10 blame the man. He sale
e my arms were both pulled out of th'
J, sockets and was all stretched out o
e shape, and h, did as we'll as anybod!
could for me. | shall not hold
S plough again as long as l hold m.