Part 10 (1/2)
But the rich man's heart is heavy With gloom and fear of loss, When the purple clouds drop moisture On field and flower and moss; It's all very well for the plowman, But it's not well at all for the ”Boss.”
When the moonlight lies on the valley And into the hayloft streams, Where the humble laborer snoreth And dreameth his peaceful dreams; It silvers his slumbering fancies With the witchery of its beams.
But the poor rich man is restless, For his heart is on his sheaves; And the moonlight, cold and cloudless, For him no fancy weaves, For the gla.s.s is falling, falling, And the grain will surely freeze!
So the poor rich farmer misses What makes this old world sweet; And the weather grieves the heart of him With too much rain or heat; For there's nothing gold that can't be sold, And there's nothing good but wheat!
There is no cla.s.s of people who have suffered so much from wrong thinking as the farmer; vicarious wrong thinking, I mean; other people have done the wrong thinking, and the farmer has suffered. Like many another bromide, the thought has grown on people that farmers are slow, uncouth, guileless, easily imposed on, ready to sign a promissory note for any smooth-tongued stranger who comes in for dinner. The stage and the colored supplements have spread this impression of the farmer, and the farmer has not cared. He felt he could stand it! Perhaps the women on the farm feel it more than the men, for women are more sensitive about such things. ”Poor girl!” say the kind friends. ”She went West and married a farmer”--and forthwith a picture of the farmer's wife rises up before their eyes; the poor, faded woman, in a rusty black l.u.s.ter skirt sagging in the back and puckering in the seams; coat that belonged to a suit in other days; a black sailor hat, gray with years and dust, with a sad cl.u.s.ter of faded violets, and torn tulle tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, sitting crooked on her head; hair the color of last year's gra.s.s, and teeth gone in front.
There is no reason for the belief that farmers' wives as a cla.s.s look and dress like this, only that people love to generalize; to fit cases to their theory, they love to find ministers' sons wild; mothers-in-law disagreeable; women who believe in suffrage neglecting their children, and farmers' wives shabby, discouraged and sad.
I do not believe that farmers' wives are a down-trodden cla.s.s of women.
They have their troubles like other people. It rains in thres.h.i.+ng time, and the threshers' visit is prolonged until long after their welcome has been worn to a frazzle! Father won't dress up even when company is coming. Father also has a mania for buying land instead of building a new house; and sometimes works the driving horse. Cows break out of pastures; hawks get the chickens; hens lay away; clothes-lines break.
They have their troubles, but there are compensations. Their houses may be small, but there is plenty of room outside; they may not have much spending money, but the rent is always paid; they are saved from the many disagreeable things that are incident to city life, and they have great opportunity for developing their resources.
When the city woman wants a shelf put up she 'phones to the City Relief, and gets a man to do it for her; the farmer's wife hunts up the hammer and a soap box and puts up her own shelf, and gains the independence of character which only come from achievement. Similarly the children of the country neighborhoods have had to make their own fun, which they do with great enthusiasm, for, under any circ.u.mstances, children will play. The city children pay for their amus.e.m.e.nt. They pay their nickel, and sit back, apparently saying: ”Now, amuse me if you can! What are you paid for?” The blase city child who comes sighing out of picture shows is a sad sight. They know everything, and their little souls are a-weary of this world. It is a cold day for any child who has nothing left to wonder at.
The desire to play is surely a great stroke of Providence, and one of which the world has only recently begun to learn. Take the matter of picnics. I have seen people hold a picnic on the bare prairie, where the nearest tree was miles away, and the only shade was that of a barbed-wire fence, but everybody was happy. The success of a picnic depends upon the mental att.i.tude, not on cool shade or purling streams.
I remember seeing from the train window a party of young people carrying a boat and picnic baskets, one hot day in July. A little farther on we pa.s.sed a tiny lake set in a thick growth of tall gra.s.s.
It was a very small lake, indeed. I ran to the rear platform of the train and watched it as long as I could; I was so afraid some cow would come along and drink it dry before they got there.
Not long ago I made some investigations as to why boys and girls leave the farm, and I found in over half the cases the reason given was that life on the farm was ”too slow, too lonely, and no fun.” In country neighborhoods family life means more than it does in the city. The members of a family are at each other's mercy; and so, if the ”father”
always has a grouch, and the ”mother” is worried, and tired, and cross, small wonder that the children try to get away. In the city there is always the ”movie” to go to, and congenial companions.h.i.+p down the street, and so we mourn the depopulation of our rural neighborhoods.
We all know that the country is the best place in which to bring up children; that the freckle-faced boy, with bare feet, who hunts up the cows after school, and has to keep the woodbox full, and has to remember to shut the henhouse door, is getting a far better education than the carefree city boy who has everything done for him.
It is a good thing that boys leave the farm and go to the city--I mean it is a good thing for the city--but it is hard on the farm. Of late years this question has become very serious and has caused alarm.
Settlements which, ten or fifteen years ago, had many young people and a well-filled school and well-attended church, with the real owners living on the farms, have now become depopulated by farmers retiring to a nearby town and ”renters” taking the place. ”Renters” are very often very poor, and sometimes s.h.i.+ftless--no money to spend on anything but the real necessities; sometimes even too poor to send their children to school.
One cause for this is that our whole att.i.tude toward labor is wrong.
We look upon labor as an uncomfortable experience, which, if we endure with patience, we may hope to outgrow and be able to get away from. We practically say: ”Let us work now, so that by and by we may be able to live without working!” Many a farmer and his wife have denied themselves everything for years, comforting themselves with the thought that when they have enough money they will ”retire.” They will not take the time or the money to go to a concert, or a lecture, or a picnic, but tell themselves that when they retire they will just go to everything. So just when they have everything in fine shape on the farm, when the lilacs are beginning to bloom and the raspberry bushes are bearing, they ”retire.” Father's rheumatism is bad, and mother can't get help, so they rent the farm and retire.
The people to whom the farm is rented do not care anything about the lilac or raspberry bushes--there is no money in them. All they care about is wheat--they have to pay the rent and they want to make money.
They have the wheat l.u.s.t, so the lilacs bloom or not as they feel disposed, and the cattle trample down the raspberry bushes and the gate falls off the top hinge. Meanwhile the farmer and his wife move into town and buy a house. They get just a small house, for the wife says she's tired of working. Every morning at 4.30 o'clock they waken.
They often thought about how nice it would be not to have to get up; but now, someway it isn't nice. They can't sleep, everything is so quiet. Not a rooster crowing. Nor a hen cackling! They get up and look out. All down the street the blinds are drawn. Everybody is asleep--and it all looks so blamed lazy.
They get up. But there is nothing to do. The woman is not so badly off--a woman can always tease out linen and sew it up again, and she can always crochet. Give her a crochet needle, and a spool of ”sil-cotton,” and she will keep out of mischief. But the man is not so easy to account for. He tries hard to get busy. He spades the garden as if he were looking for diamonds. He cleans the horse until the poor brute hates the sight of him. He piles his wood so carefully that the neighbors pa.s.sing call out and ask him if he ”intends to varnish it.”
He mends everything that needs it, and is glad when he finds a picket off the fence. He tries to read the _Farmers' Advocate_. They brought in a year's number of them that they had never got time to read on the farm. Someway, they have lost their charm. It seems so lazy in broad daylight for a grown man to sit down and read. He takes a walk downtown, and meets up with some idle men like himself. They sit on the sidewalk and settle the government and the church and various things.
”Well, I must be gittin'!” at last he declares; then suddenly he remembers that he has nothing to do at home--everything is done to a finish--and a queer, detached feeling comes over him. He is no longer needed anywhere.
Somebody is asking him to come in for a drink, and he goes! Why shouldn't he have a drink or anything else that he wants, he asks himself. He has worked hard. He'll take two. He'll go even further, he'll treat the crowd. When he finally goes home and sleeps it off, he finds he has spent $1.05, and he is repentant.
That night a young lady calls, selling tickets for a concert, and his wife would have bought them, but he says: ”Go slow, Minnie, you can't buy everything. It's awful the way money goes in town. We'll see about this concert--maybe we'll go, but we won't buy tickets--it might rain!”