PHASES OF FARM LIFE 225 



It is unquestionably true that farm life and farm 

 scenes in this country are less picturesque than they 

 were fifty or one hundred years ago. This is owing 

 partly to the advent of machinery, which enables 

 the farmer to do so much of his work by proxy, 

 and hence removes him farther from the soil, and 

 partly to the growing distaste for the occupation 

 among our people. The old settlers — our fathers 

 and grandfathers — loved the farm, and had no 

 thoughts above it; but the later generations are 

 looking to the town and its fashions, and only wait- 

 ing for a chance to flee thither. Then pioneer life 

 is always more or less picturesque; there is no 

 room for vain and foolish thoughts; it is a hard 

 battle, and the people have no time to think about 

 appearances. When my grandfather and grandmo- 

 ther came into the country where they reared their 

 family and passed their days, they cut a road 

 through the woods and brought all their worldly 

 gear on a sled drawn by a yoke of oxen. Their 

 neighbors helped them build a house of logs, with 

 a roof of black-ash bark and a floor of hewn white- 

 ash plank. A great stone chimney and fireplace 

 — the mortar of red clay — gave light and warmth, 

 and cooked the meat and baked the bread, when 

 there was any to cook or to bake. Here they lived 

 and reared their family, and found life sweet. 

 Their unworthy descendant, yielding to the inher- 

 ited love of the soil, flees the city and its artificial 

 ways, and gets a few acres in the country, where 

 he proposes to engage in the pursuit supposed to 



