I have read with much interest Al. G. Field's address on "The
Farm." If you will pardon my profanity for a minute, I will say
"Damn the Farm."
Our paths through the woods on the farm must have been
different. Al. pursued the cotton tail through the level and
green grassy meadows, getting pleasure in pursuit, and which
left no traces of his going; I pursued the ever ready pole cat
through hollows, over logs and stone piles, which left nothing
but bruises, but I found more pleasure in pursuit than
possession.
Al. had patches, freckles and laughter; I had rags, bruises and
tears. Al. took the path down to the spring through the hazel
bushes; I took the stony road to a mudhole through thorns and
blackberry bushes.
Al. caught nice yellow perch with a cork bobber; I caught
suckers with a paper bobber, for there were no corks used on our
farm. Al. fished on Sunday; I went to church at 10 o'clock,
Sunday School at 11, church again at 1:30, and perchance prayer
meeting in the evening.
Al. smelled the new earth from a two seated surrey or horseback;
I smelled the new earth from the back of the harrow or plow.
Al. watched the dogwoods bud, and breathed their fragrance as
they budded; I felt the dogwood switches drop on my poor back
and bare limbs.
Al. had to be told when it was dark and when it was morning. I
knew when I was told to quit work that it was dark and bed-time,
and knew that it was daylight when I was yanked out of bed to
walk two miles before breakfast to bring in a lot of cows.
Al. had a nice "coverlit" over his bed, and turned into a nice
feather bed and rested in peace. I rolled myself up in a
worn-out horse blanket, and turned into a tick filled with
straw, shivering until I got to sleep and kept on shivering. Oh
yes, I cherish the days on the farm and will never forget them.
But a more pleasant recollection to me is the day that I left
the cackling of the hens, the braying of the donkey, the
bellowing of the cows, and the old plow standing in the furrow,
where I hope it still stands.
The new stack of hay might have brought fragrance to Al's
sensitive nostrils, but to me it seemed as well suited as a
reservoir for perfume as for a monument in a cemetery.
I want to live in the love and esteem of my friends of today; I
cherish the memory of the old friends, and I value their love
and esteem, but the memory of the old straw pile back of the
barn still clings to me closer than all these, and e'er I get
ready to go back to the darned old farm, I will make myself a
pair of wooden bills and perch myself on the stake and rider
fence, prepared to take my turn with the hennery.
"Visit me," he says, "and endeavor to live the life of a boy
over again on the farm." Not for Bill, and I can but repeat what
I said in my profane way, again and again.
Al. can have the farm, but as for me it's first "back to the
mines, Bill." With sad memories of the milk pail, the fork and
curry comb, I am,
Sadly and sorrowfully yours,
BILL BROWN.
Insofar as Alfred's knowledge goes, Bill Brown's pessimistic views of
farm life were not accepted by any save Alfred's immediate family.
Alfred carried a copy of his address, "A Glimpse of Nature, or Back to
the Farm" in his pocket. Mrs. Field preserved Bill Brown's screed. As
one prediction of Bill's after another came to pass, she would say to
Alfred: "There, see there? Even Mr. Brown knew what would come of this
farming business."
The dyke was constructed and would no doubt have answered the purpose
intended had it not been constructed of clayey soil that disintegrated
and floated away with the muddy current the first freshet.
Chickens were the first purchases. Rhode Island Reds, Alfred asserted,
were superior as farm chickens. They were good layers, good setters and
good mothers. One hundred hens and two roosters were the basis of the
poultry plant. Alfred had read that one hundred hens properly catered to
would produce on an average five dozens of eggs a day. Eggs were fifty
cents a dozen. He figured that fifteen dollars a week would be pretty
good. Of course, he had forgotten that farm hands eat eggs. Two dozen
eggs were brought to the city and delivered to the home of Alfred, where
the family rests up in the winter from the farm labors of the summer.
"Of course, it's not what I expected," he consolingly admitted to his
wife, "but you can't move chickens from one place to another and have
them do well. Howard Park says so and he has had a heap of chicken
experience. They will do better when you get out there. You will feed
them properly and regularly. Their laying streak has been broken up. We
must train them to lay while eggs are expensive and lay off when they
are cheap."
Alfred insisted Pearl keep a "farm book," entering on one page the
expenditures opposite the receipts. After two months Alfred declared the
book a trouble and worry. "Just spend what you have to and let it go at
that. Howard Park says everybody has the same experience when they first
go into farming." There were two entries on the two pages of receipts,
nineteen pages of expenditures:
February 14th--Credit by 2 dozen eggs $ .98
March 11th--One bull 35.00
Alfred bought the bull from a neighboring farmer. "Registered Jersey,
worth at least $100; I got him for $75," boasted Alfred. "The man needed
the money." It was learned later that the bull had been accidently shot
by trespassing hunters and permanently disabled. When Alfred was put
wise to this, he sold the bull for beef.
[Illustration: "I Want a Rooster for Every Hen"]
In the grocery bill, (Alfred furnished everything), there was a charge
of four dollars and thirty cents for eggs. Alfred argued to his wife it
was for hatching eggs for the incubator; that he had instructed Mrs.
Roost she must raise four hundred chickens at least. But Mrs. Roost,
over the telephone, advised that farmers must have eggs to eat and she
always cleared her coffee with eggs, and our hens were not laying and
that most of them had the roup, and you can't expect eggs when you only
got two roosters for a hundred hens. Alfred called up Mrs. Reed and
advised that he must have more roosters. "How many do you wish?" she
inquired.
[Illustration: AL. G. FIELD, 1886]
"Well, we are not getting any eggs. I want a rooster for every hen. I'm
bound to have eggs."
The wife changed her mind as to Rhode Island Reds. She declared the only
person she knew that had good luck with Rhode Island Reds was Mrs. Mott
and she just lived with her chickens. "Now, Mrs. Goodrich has Barred
Plymouth Rocks and they are the chickens." Alfred ordered a flock of
Barred Plymouth Rocks. Someone recommended to Alfred Black Minorcas.
Charley Schenck had a pen he wished to dispose of. Alfred figured that
since they had experienced so much bad luck with one breed they would
soon strike a winner by having several kinds. Therefore, when S. S.
Jackson presented Alfred with a pen of India Games, you could look out
upon the chicken lot at any time of day and see three or four
cock-fights in progress at the same time. The hands were kept from their
work, attracted by the gameness of the cocks.
A beautiful litter, (as Alfred termed them), of top-knots, Van Houden
chickens, were the next addition to the poultry yard. When cautioned
that he would soon have a polyglot lot of poultry, Alfred, for the first
time, weakened on the chicken proposition; more for the reason that he
was disgusted with their polygamous propensities. Although living in one
herd, he imagined that each breed would live to itself. Alfred dubbed
them "Mormons."
Pearl and Mrs. Field had become interested in the little chicks. As hen
after hen came off, her brood was carried to the house and endeavors
made to raise the chicks by hand. They had some forty or fifty, when
rats, or a "varmint" penetrated the coop and twenty-four were killed in
one night. The sorrow caused by this loss of their pets was partly
compensated for by the closer ties formed with those spared. Each one
was named. When either Pearl or Aunt Tillie passed out of the kitchen
door, the chicks would fly to meet them. Stooping down to feed them,
they would fly on the shoulders of the two women.
One of the grocery bills rendered contained an item, "Four dollars for
chickens." Mrs. Mott had also sold Mrs. Field quite a number of
chickens. Alfred supposed these chickens were for breeding purposes. One
Sunday the table was without chicken. Mrs. Field explained she had no
one to go after them. "I'd have shot them for you if you had advised me
you wanted chickens killed." "Chickens killed?" repeated both Pearl and
Aunt Tillie, "Well, I'd like to see you or anyone else kill _our_
chickens. Why, there's Betty, Biddy, Snooks, Dick and Kelly; they're
just like humans. You don't imagine for a moment we will kill any of
_our_ chickens, do you?" And Alfred bought chickens for the table all
summer.
Alfred promised his wife that he would look after the farming part. The
chickens and dairy came under her charge. He therefore, sat down to his
desk and wrote out minute instructions as to fields to be planted and
designated the crops to sow in each field. He ordered a hill field, near
the barn, sowed in buckwheat. The farmer meekly intimated that ten acres
of buckwheat and five acres of oats seemed rather disproportional.
"Never mind, follow my order," haughtily commanded Alfred. "None of us
care for rolled oats and we all like buckwheat cakes." Alfred discharged
his regular farmer; he claimed the man got up too early; he got up at
four o'clock and threshed around making so much noise nobody could
sleep.
The hills had not been plowed in years. The land was shaly, easily
washed. It rained from the day the family moved onto the farm until late
in June. Seeds of all kinds from the fields above washed down into the
bottoms below. Beans, potatoes, egg plant, rye, peas, beets and cow peas
grew in the bottom as only noxious weeds and wild crops grow. From this
conglomeration sprang the noted bean that Bill Brown and Alfred are
forming a company to distribute.
The rain continued. The weather being cool, fires were necessary.
Nothing but wood was used as fuel. The wife protested the heat for
cooking was not sufficient. It just dried the juices in the meats. A
heating plant was put in. Kerosene lamps did not produce sufficient
light, so a lighting plant was installed. Springs and well were unhandy.
Alfred installed a water plant. Alfred swore you might just as well live
in the city if you had all city fixin's. The walks in the yard and
across the lawn were inches thick with mud. Pearl and Mrs. Field, by the
light of the wood fire, would read Bill Brown's life on the farm, while
Alfred watched the barometer. The women began to talk about moving back
to town. Alfred was as miserable as life could make him. Day after day
the rain fell in torrents. The dam that formed the lake wherein Alfred
intended raising fish in summer, and a skating pond in winter, and also
to furnish ice, broke, flooding the cow stables, washing out the sweet
corn patch and the garden floated.
Alfred was unmercifully berated that he had dragged his family to the
country, destroying their happiness and spending all his money
for--what, for what? Just to gratify a whim, a boyish illusion.
Alfred felt he must do something to turn the tide. The rain kept
falling. He started to the city on his mysterious errand. Returning he
proudly hung above the mantle piece this motto:
"It hain't no use to grumble and complain,
It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
Why, rain's my choice."
The rain ceased. The sun shone, the grasses grew. Happiness came into
the family. Ere the summer was over, farm life had so ingratiated
itself that they did not relish the idea of moving back to the city.
Bill Brown is ever kind. He sent a half dozen guineas, advising they
were "chicken-house sentinels." They multiplied more rapidly than any
fowls known; that the hen laid forty and fifty eggs in one nest. Mr.
Field and all the hands followed those guineas all summer, nor did
anyone find a guinea egg. After months of seeking guinea eggs, an old
lady familiar with guineas advised Alfred that all of Bill's guineas
were cocks. It was true; they were all Shriner guineas. Alfred procured
a few Suffragettes and guineas are now the most prolific fowl production
of the farm.
[Illustration: Home, Sweet Home]