IN THE FRONT YARD. 279 



Again let the farmer keep his soul and liis speech 

 clean. When I was a boy and men used to change work 

 in threshing time it was awful. They seemed to vie 

 with each other in using the foulest language and he- 

 fore the boys at that, and as the result many of the 

 sons grew up vile and debased and lived in the base- 

 ment rather than in the upper story of farming. 



The farmer works with God. The one furnishing 

 the capital, the other the labor, and thus the world is 

 fed. He of all men lives the nearest to Grod. And 

 when he receives his warranty deed from Him and 

 from the United States government he is under the 

 highest obligation to make the most of himself, of his 

 family and of his farm. He should see that his children 

 are brought up clean and not weakened by debasing 

 habits. Surroundings have much to do in the develop- 

 ment of character. I would much rather children 

 would be brought up in beautiful grounds where beauty 

 and purity would greet them every^vhere than in a 

 yard which Avas the home of pigs and a hospital for 

 sick machinery. 



There is no farm in the great Northwest which can- 

 not be greatly improved and made homelike. A man 

 should have an ambition to make the most possible of 

 his home. It should not be an eyesore and a plague 

 spot. It should match the greenness of the fields, the 

 beauty of the prairie and forest and the repose of the 

 waters and all the loveliness of nature, and so, my 

 brother, you will fix up, won't you? 



^ C. State Collet 



