THE MORTGAGE. 
We worked through spring and winter, through 
summer and through fall, 
But the mortgage worked the hardest and the stead¬ 
iest of them all; 
It worked on nights and Sundays, it woi ked each 
holiday; 
It settled down among us, and it never went away. 
Whatever we kept from it seemed a'most as bad 
as theft; 
It watched us every minute, and ruled us right and 
left. 
The rust and blight were with us sometimes, and 
sometimes not; 
The dark-browned scowling mortgage was forever 
on the spot. 
The weevil and the cut-worm, they went as well as 
came; 
The mortgage stayed forever, eating hearty all 
the same. 
It nailed up every window, stood guard at every 
door. 
And happiness and sunshine made their home with 
us no more, 
Till with failing crops and sickness we got stalled 
upon the grade, 
And there came a dark day on us when the interest 
wasn’t paid; 
And there came a sharp foreclosure and I kind 
o’ lost my hold, 
And grew weary and discouraged, and the farm 
was cheaply sold. 
The children left and scattered, when they hardly 
yet were grown; 
My wife she pined and perished, an’ I found myself 
alone. 
What she died of was a “mystery,” an’the doctors 
never knew; 
But I knew she died of mortgage-—just as well as 
I wanted to. 
If to trace a hidden sorrow were within the doctor’s 
art. 
They’d ha' found a mortgage lying on that woman’s 
broken heart. 
Worm or beetle, drought or tempest, on a farmer’s 
land may fall, 
But for first-class ruination, trust a mortgage ’gainst 
them all. 
— Selected. 
The Mistakes Farmers Make. 
An exchange, published in the interior of 
the State, speaks of the departure of an old 
settler for Dakota, where he will take up a 
quarter section of land and start in life 
again at the age of seventy. The case of 
the man is so near that of thousands of 
others, that a few comments may not le 
out of place. The man had a nice farm 
near a splendid town where he had lived) 
and brought up a family. He got tired of 
farming, sold the farm for six thousand 
dollars, moved to town and went into the- 
liveiy business, and in three years went 
through everything except a team and a 
lumber wagon, and now he lias packed up 
and gone to Dakota, with a heart heavier 
than his pocket-book, and he will die out 
there. The number of farmers that decide- 
to go to town to live every year, and go- 
into business, is appalling.. Every tiwn 
has them, and nine out of ten become poor. 
They get an idea that town business men. 
are the happiest people on the earth, and 
have an easy time, and they get to brood¬ 
ing over their hard life, and they think 
anybody can run a store, a grocery, or a 
livery stable, and they sell out the farpi 
and go into business, because it seems so 
easy to weigh out sugar and tea. They 
can always find a grocery man who w ill 
sell out the remains of a sick stock of 
groceries for ready cash, and when the 
farmer first sees his name over the door of 
a grocery, lie feels as though he was made, 
and puts his thumbs in the arm-holes of 
his vest. He uses his money to stock up. 
pays cash, and his credit is good, and lie 
buys everything that is shown him. The 
commercial traveler who first strikes flu- 
farmer grocer has it all his own way, and 
pretty soon the grocery is full. It generally 
takes a farmer two years to .go through a, 
500-acre farm in the grocery business. 
Instead of the business being an easy, ruu- 
itself sort of lay out, it requires the best 
management of any branch of trade. The 
profits are small, and the waste is terrible. 
A grocer has got to be sharp as tacks. The 
farmer’s girls and boys soon realize that, 
they are merchant’s sons and daughters, 
instead of farmers, and they have to keep 
up with the procession. There has to he¬ 
lots of things bought as merchants that 
would never he thought of as farmers. The 
farm house furniture is not good enough, 
flie democrat wagon gives place to a car¬ 
riage, the old mares give place to high 
stoppers, and the girls dress better, and do 
not work. The family lives out of the 
grocery, the boys play base ball, and the 
girls go to big parties. The farmer is a 
