ON THK RECOLLECTIONS <>! \ IIIR1 I) MAN 555 



As children, we used to number the years on the farm by the 

 " hands" we had employed, much as nations mark their calendars 

 by their changes of kings. There was the year of Will Williams, 

 ears of Owen Williams, the summer we hired Bill Jones, the 

 interregnum which followed the turning off of Bob Peters, and 

 so on. One of the marked characteristics of American farm life 

 is its democracy, and this is well illustrated by the relations which 

 exist between employer and hired man. Often the son of a 

 neighboring farmer, the "hand" enjoys the same consideration 

 as that received by a member of the family. He sits at the same 

 table, and shares in the dishes as early and often as the other 

 men of the family. He probably would be asked to join in the 

 evening game of checkers or authors, if there were any evening 

 between summer chores and bedtime. He has a voice in family 

 debates regarding the election of a new schoolma'am, and his 

 opinion is of weight in the discussion of current politics or the 

 proper time for weaning calves. His joys are those of his em- 

 ployers and his sorrows their sorrows. A discussion of these 

 sorrows I have reserved for a separate chapter, The Sorrows of 

 the I lired Man. 



In my preface I dwelt sufficiently on the physical ills contingent 



on farm life, and I need mention them no further. Considering 



the wholesomeness of out-of-door work, they are probably less 



than those of young men of any other profession. The ill that I 



shall describe I ought, perhaps, to classify as a psychological one, 



\v of the hired man occasioned by tin- bashful conscious 



Of being a farm hand- an evil, like- his joys, not pec-uli.tr to 



his condition, but shared by his I :hns. the sons of the 



family. This feeling does not disturb ordinarily, but intrudes only 



on occasions when lie is contrasted with people who walk in dain- 



ths. ( )IK of these occasions arrives when a town girl comes 



out to sjx-nd a week with an older daughter of his empl<>\ 



. possibly, to an invitation made- when both girls 



students in the Normal. Then the hired man suddenly realizes 



bow great his hinds have grown, and li illy his boots 



sound on the uncarpeted flo<> ;uct mallet U -comes a 



maul in his fingers, and his tongue is the of an ox. Mis 



