718 
ZShe  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
May  6,  1916. 
HOPE  FARM  NOTES 
Part  I. 
Nightfall. — Wo  have  had  a  cold,  wot 
day.  I(  lias  boon  a  disappointment  to  us. 
in  a  way.  but  much  of  that  is  forgotten 
before  the  fire  to-night  with  chunks  of 
apple  wood  glowing  and  snapping.  To 
follow  out  a  line  of  thought  which  came 
to  me  twice  to-day  I  came  in  and  got 
down  my  battered  and  marked  old  copy 
of  Shakespeare,  and  have  been  reading 
King  John.  At  first  thought  you  will  say 
that  Shakespeare  knew  nothing  about 
farming,  lie  was  not  even  a  buck-to-thc- 
lamler.  Yet  back  of  all  farming — or  any 
other  business — lies  the  great  quality  of 
human  nature — unstrained  and  natural. 
Learned  men  may  poke  fun  at  old-fash¬ 
ioned  farming,  but  their  scientific  agricul¬ 
ture  will  never  get  very  far  until  it  yokes 
up  with  “instinct”  and  can  make  the  old 
"signs'’  clear.  So  I  am  reading  over  what 
seems  to  me  the  most  significant  period  of 
English  listory — that  of  the  Great 
Charter. 
A  Celebration. — That  is  what  we 
started  in  to  make  the  day.  When  I  say 
“we”  I  refer  to  the  children  who  wanted 
to  celebrate  the  Hope  Farm  man’s  birth¬ 
day.  The  poet  of  the  family  sent  me  this 
message : 
"My  thought  for  you  on  this  birthday 
A  statement  plain  and  true. 
While - is  old  for  some 
It  isn't  old  for  you  !” 
We  will  omit  the  numbers  if  you  please. 
The  Hope  Farm  man  has  been  voting  for 
a  good  many  years.  I  knew  a  woman 
once  who  never  seemed  to  get  beyond  ”0 
-though  sb<-  became  a  grandmother !  We 
try  to  celebrate  these  birthdays  on  the 
hill-  in  one  of  the  back  orchards.  There 
are  some  young  trees  over  there  that  need 
cutting  and  shaping  and  the  six  of  us 
planned  to  do  it  and  put  in  a  feast  on  the 
side.  I  brought,  home  a  package  of  food 
last  night  and  we  expected  to  have  a 
camp  fire  and  cook  our  dinner.  After 
much  discussion  it  was  decided  to  cook 
eggs — one  boiled  and  one  fried  for  each — 
crisp  a  little  bacon  and  also  try  our  hand 
at  a  few  pancakes.  Fsuall.v.  on  a  windy 
Spring  day  such  pancakes  are  well  sea¬ 
soned  with  dead  leaves  and  sticks  which 
somehow  trill  blow  into  the  batter.  That 
is  a  small  thing,  however,  for  everything 
tastes  good  in  a  sharp  wind.  Oh,  we  bad 
it  all  planned  to  the  minute,  blit  the  day 
opened  with  a  dull  wet.  sky.  A  few  damp 
clouds  hung  over  us  like  a  great  handker¬ 
chief  wet  with  tears  which  wore  soon  to 
be  squeezed  upon  us. 
Hard  Luck. —  However,  we  started  for 
the  bills  with  ax  and  saw  and  pruning 
shears,  and  a  great  bundle  of  “supplies," 
for  it  is  entirely  true  that  an  army  must 
travel  on  its  stomach.  Before  we  were 
halfway  up  the  hill  those  wet  handker¬ 
chiefs  over  us  began  to  drip,  and  before 
you  knew  it  the  rain  was  soaking  down. 
This  would  never  do  for  soldiers  barking 
with  the  whooping  cough,  as  our  little 
folks  are,  so  we  were  reluctantly  obliged 
t<>  march  hack  to  camp.  We  might,  have 
come  in  here  to  sit  by  the  fire  and  tell 
about  it.  but  it  is  better  to  start  a  new 
year  with  action  rather  than  fiction. 
Glancing  out  the  window  I  saw  the 
broken  gasoline  engine  standing  by  the 
big  pile  of  uncut  wood.  There  was  the 
dry  shed  only  partly  tilled.  Here  was  a 
fine  chan  re  for  a  display  of  good  citizen¬ 
ship.  H«>  1  led  my  rather  reluctant  army 
out  to  the  shod.  They  went  with  better 
spirits  as  they  saw  the  "supplies"  coming 
under  command  of  Cherry-top.  The  Ital¬ 
ian  had  been  driven  in  by  the  rain,  and 
we  impressed  him  at  one  saw.  The  two 
smaller  Cherry-tops  stood  on  the  log  to 
hold  it  firmly  on  the  saw-horse  and  the 
rest  of  us  cut  and  split  with  our  axes. 
The  raiu  pounded  on  the  roof,  the  wise 
old  cat  sat  on  the  back  porch  and  watched 
ns  and  the  bundle  of  supplies  hanging  on 
a  nail  over  our  heads. 
Reflections!. — As  I  stood  by  the  chop¬ 
ping  block,  hacking  at  a  knotty  piece  of 
aople  wood,  the  absurdity  of  some  of  the 
outcomes  of  youthful  resolutions  came  to 
mind.  When  1  was  a  boy.  cutting  stove 
wood  was  to  me  the  meanest  job  to  which 
a  human  being  could  he  chained.  1  bad 
to  do  it,  but  I  am  afraid  I  committed 
many  a  mental  murder  with  ax  and  saw. 
Many  a  time  poor  TTiolc  Daniel’s  head 
fell  into  the  basket  as  m.v  saw  finally  ate 
its  way  through  a  big  oak  stick  1  made 
many  a  resolution  that  when  I  grew  up  T 
never  would  work  on  a  wood-pile,  and  if 
1  ever  had  any  boys  they  would  escape 
such  drudgery !  Yet  here  I  was  after 
nearly  50  years  more  of  experience  cele¬ 
brating  a  birthday  at  the  wood  pile  and 
LA  RGEAKIDaM*  Ll-HAAOA  »i,PO  WER 
t FRIEND 
CO.  gasport.n: 
keeping  five  children  at  it.  The  absurdity 
of  it  made  me  laugh  out  loud  and  the  chil¬ 
dren  nil  stopped  operations  in  wonder. 
So  I  had  to  explain  that  it  was  time  we 
passed  around  our  lunch.  They  might 
have,  been  slow  at  splitting  wood,  hut 
there  was  no  complaint  when  it  came  to 
splitting  bread  and  butter  and  cakes. 
The  Vital  Point. — As  a  hoy,  with  all 
future  before  me,  I  could  not  see  any  of 
it  clearly.  That’s  the  way  of  life,  the 
more  you  have  of  it  the  less  you  cau  un¬ 
derstand  what  it  means,  for  knowledge 
comes  only  through  Struggle  and  expe¬ 
rience.  I  hated  a  wood-pile  because  it 
seemed  so  useless  to  do  all  this  work 
when  it  could  not  he  utilized  to-day. 
That’s  all  the  hoy  knows — the  man  must 
know  something  of  to-morrow.  These 
children  of  mine  would  cut  a  dozen  sticks 
of  wood  and  call  it  a  job.  1  know  that  a 
dozen  cords  will  he  needed.  If  they  out 
just,  a  day's  supply  and  then  quit  they 
will  be  slaves  chained  to  a  daily  task — 
which  seems  to  be  the  fate  of  a  great  ma¬ 
jority  of  human  beings.  Hacking  away 
at  that  chopping  block  and  keeping  an 
eye  on  those  children  as  the  wood  pile 
slowly  grew,  the  old.  old  question  of 
human  rights  came  to  mind. 
Getting  Ilts  Rights. — Years  ago  T 
knew  a  boy  who  was  expected  to  cut  up 
a  big  wood  pile  every  Winter  in  the  hours 
outside  of  school.  The  farmer  was  a 
good  man,  but  he  believed  in  “working” 
boys — thought  that  play  was  some  sort, 
of  an  invention  of  the  evil  one.  So  he 
give  that  boy  a  big  “stent”  every  day — 
throwing  out  a  number  of  big  sticks  for 
him  to  saw.  When  they  started  the  far¬ 
mer  agreed  that  one  slick  for  each  year 
of  the  boy’s  age  was  a  fair  daily  stent — 
the  farmer  to  select  the  sticks.  The  boy 
quietly  made  a  bargain  with  the  1 1 i red  man 
lo  see  that  the  big  sticks  were  split  at  least 
once  before  they  cairn;  to  the  pile,  The  hoy 
was  a  good  worker  and  he  often  got  his 
"stent”  done  so  as  to  have  half  an  hour 
of  his  own.  Now  this  farmer,  strange  to 
say,  coveted  that  little  owe  lamb  of  little 
extra  time,  and  he  began  to  break  liis  bar¬ 
gain,  He  threw  in  more  and  more  sticks, 
and  told  the  hired  man  lo  cut  up  the  little 
ones,  First  the  boy  knew  lie  seemed  to 
he  about  four  years  older  than  the  family 
Bible  stated  if  you  went  by  the  sticks — 
and  he  bad  no  time  of  his  own. 
It  came  to  me  as  I  split  wood  to-day, 
that  this  boy  and  the  farmer  represented 
in  a  small  way  something  of  the  relations 
which  have  been  for  some  years  growing 
between  the  farmers  and  producers  on 
one  side  and  the  interests  which  handle 
them  and  their  products  on  the  other. 
That  boy  thought  it  over  and  decided  to 
know  just  where  be  Stood.  It  was  just  a 
question  of  knowing  What  his  rights  were 
if  be  bad  any  at  all.  So  be  went  to  the 
farmer — not  out  in  the  barn  where  I  hey 
would  be  alone,  but  in  the  house  right 
after  supper,  when  they  had  been  eating 
hot  biscuits  and  honey.  He  told  them  of 
the  farmer's  bargain  and  bow  many  sticks 
bad  been  worked  off  on  him. 
And  the  farmer’s  wife  and  the  hired 
man  sided  with  the  boy.  You  know  these 
women!  They  may  think  everything  of 
their  husbands,  hut  they  consider  it  good 
discipline  to  cal!  them  to  account  now 
and  then.  As  for  the  hired  man — he  was 
one  of  the  old-fashioned  kind.  You  rarely 
see  them  now.  hut  in  those  days  the  hired 
man  was  a  member  of  the  family,  and 
usually  a  good  adviser.  The  farmer  had 
no  following  in  that  case.  He  hud  to  ad¬ 
mit  lie  was  wrong  and  then  followed  a 
clear  statement  of  the  hoy's  rights  and 
what  lie  was  expected  to  do.  The  wife 
and  the  hired  man  both  wanted  the  boy 
to  work,  and  the  hoy  expected  to.  but 
what  be  got  was  a  bill  of  rights  -a  stan¬ 
dard  for  hoy  work  in  that  family! 
The  Great  Charter, — The  Italian  had 
sawed  off  a  very  knotty  chunk  and  gave  it 
to  me  to  split..  Smashing  away  at  it.  I 
began  to  see  how  that  little  struggle  for 
rights  between  the  boy  and  the  farmer 
was.  in  principle,  not  unlike  the  winning 
of  the  Great  Charter  by  the  English  peo¬ 
ple  some  700  years  ago.  Here  again  was 
a  tight  For  a  clear  definition  of  popular 
rights.  The  English  people  wanted  to 
know  just  where  they  stood.  King  John 
hud  crowded  them  closer  and  closer,  idl¬ 
ing  more  and  more  of  the  sticks  into  their 
“stent”  and  finally  they  stood  up  to  ask 
themselves — as  they  say  at  the  South, 
“Where  are  we  at?”  When  these  people 
finally  managed  to  get  together  and  agree 
upon  what  their  fair  share  was.  they 
found  that  the  king  bad  little  if  any 
backing,  for  he  bad  clearly  been  wrong. 
Thus,  at  Runnynicde,  in  i‘J15.  by  plain 
outspeaking  and  solid  co-operation  the 
English  people  obtained  from  their  king 
what  the  boy,  in  a  very  much  smaller 
way.  obtained  from  that  farmer.  In 
neither  case  were  any  very  new  princi¬ 
ples  of  liberty  laid  down,  but  merely  a 
clear,  fair,  basic  statement  of  common 
rights.  Human  nature  rarely  if  ever 
changes.  I  have  no  doubt  that  the  boy  in 
that  old  farm  kitchen,  backed  up  by 
mother  and  the  hired  man,  traced  back 
to  some  of  these  fine  old  fellows  who,  at 
Ituuny mode  faced  (hut  king  and  made 
him  agree  to  their  rights. 
It  is  a  wonder,  I  presume,  that  I  did 
not  cut  off  a  finger  or  toe  while  thinking 
this  out,  but  I  glanced  up  to  find  that  the 
children  had  all  quit  work.  The  clock  in 
the  house  is  15  minutes  fast,  ('berry- 
top  had  been  in  to  investigate,  and  as  the 
band  pointed  to  five  minutes  before  1‘2  he 
reasoned  that  dinner  must  be  nearly 
ready.  The  Italian  and  I  kept  at  it  until 
the  true  time  for  eating.  u,  w.  C. 
(To  be  continued) 
■fjAMHoi 
E  WHOLE  WORLD'S  TRADE' 
oa  rk  Plu  q  s 
^  TOLEDO  M 
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At  both  shoulders  of  the  porcelain  there  is  an  asbestos  cushioned 
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more  apples 
ANY  MAN  will  eat  an 
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