452 
March 2.?, lOlS 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The Service Flag 
Till’ Man.—J ohn TT. Thompson found 
tlie gri'af jiatriotic lesson of his life in an 
»iiie.\pct-tC(l place. He, liad started out 
to make a short cut lietween two fireat 
cities hy getting off the main road, driv¬ 
ing the car through a lonely country sec¬ 
tion. They whirled over hills and on 
through dark narrow valley.s where little 
homes were tucked away in lonely places. 
It was a dark, gray day; the valleys were 
full of shadows and the loneliness of it all 
filled Thompson’s heart with a sort of 
terror as he sped on—eager to leave the 
lonely country behind him. For Thomp¬ 
son was a <-ity man—one of what 1 call 
the “third generation of brick and vstone.” 
lie called liimself a “pure-blood Ameri¬ 
can.” for his iiedigree ran back to that 
old 'riiomjison who came to New Kngland 
in KHO. ’The 'riiomiisons had jilayed a 
large jiaid. in the limelight of American 
history, and each generation had addial 
a little to the belief that the limelight is 
the only ]»la<-e where true iiatriotism is 
developed. Such men come to forget that 
the world is not only fed and clothed but 
finally dominated and uplifted by the un¬ 
known workers who toil iiatiently in tin* 
shadow. In every geniTation of Thoni))- 
Rons there had always been a soldier, a 
lawyer, a statesman, a banker and a 
shrewd business man. They had all 
hamhal fame and fortune down to tlndr 
desci'iidants and this had piled u)) so 
that tin* pre.sent Thomjison felt little need 
of adding to it by any sacrifice or exertion 
of his own. It is little wonder that a 
man living on the jiroceeds of six iirevious 
generations comes to be something of 
an autocrat—prosperous, selfish, proud of 
what others have given him and sure in 
his belief that the city with its limelight 
of jiower and sjile.ndor rejiresents all that 
is worth while of higher life! Thus it 
was natural that, as Thompson sped 
tlirotigh this lonely country, he was think¬ 
ing that the dwellers in these humble 
homes are incapable of great thing.s and 
should be satisfied with the menial things 
of life. That belief on the iiart of jieoide 
who live on inherited wealth or rejiuta- 
tion iis the most dangerous thing' in 
American social life today. 
The Fr.Af!. — Suddenly swinging 
fhrotigh a cleft in a range of low hills 
they came out into a Ju'oader valley where 
pleasant, level land stretched away to a 
great river. At the base of the hill stood 
a house with windows and outbuildings 
which seemed somehow familiar to 
Thompson. He had se<>n the Rhine Val¬ 
ley in Germany, and it seemed as if some 
giant hand had taken one of those Rhine 
farms, as one might dig up a tree 
or flower. 1 rimmed it to suit its }iew 
conditions, and transplanted it on this 
hillside. This thought had just formed 
itself in his mind when with a snap and 
a lurch a front tire gave way, and the 
car suddenly stopped nght in front of 
the house. The words of a pedigreed 
autocrat when hi.s plans are exploded and 
his run to the city is delayed are not for 
publication here. The chauffeur becomes 
a shock absorber of strong language. 
Rubber is a non-conductor of language, 
and ti)-es will explode or give way Avhen 
they see fit to do so. .and your SO horse¬ 
power engine can only cough a humble 
apology for not using tts great strength 
until the thin film of rubber on the wheel 
i.s renewed. Thompson glaiua'd at the 
house, and the thing that caught his eye 
first was a flash of color over the door. 
An American flag hung from its short 
staff and under it a small service flag 
with two stars, .and something inside of 
Thompson’s breast stirred as he saw 
those flags. He was jiatriotic; he had 
bought TJberty bonds, presided at meet¬ 
ings and served on commissions, but here 
was something in this lonely place which 
somehow stirred him as the flags on Fifth 
Avenue had never done! 
The FItoky. —As Thomiison stood there 
a woman appeared in the doorway and 
beckoned him. She was a short, heavily- 
built woman of middle age, with a bro,ad, 
kindly face. She seemed somehow like 
the house—transplanted—for Thompson 
had seen hundreds like her among the 
peasants who live among the hills along 
the Rhine. She was the s-ame in shape 
and action, but America seemed to have 
changed her in dress and spirit, and there 
was that painted upon her broad, homely 
face which Thompson knew he had seen 
again and again in the great art gal¬ 
leries where are preseiwed on canvas the 
vision and soul of the artist who is per¬ 
mitted to know something of the great 
spiritual .secrets of life. It all seemed 
very strange to Thompson—the rich man, 
autocrat and country-hater—that such 
things should come to him in this lonely 
place, but he walked up to the house and 
seated himself on the little porch—as it 
hai)pened, just under the two-starred 
service flag. He glanced up at it as he 
took his seat. The woman noticed it 
and smiled, and then she spoke. There 
was just a touch of the German in her 
epeech, but I shall not attempt to put 
it in. 
“I am glad you notice our flag. We 
are very proud of it. It means more to 
us than you think. I would like to tell 
"Che RURAL N 
you our little story, that you may carry 
it out to till' world !” 
And Thomjjson, the man of great af¬ 
fairs, heir to .'^o many great and noble 
deeds that it seemed hardly neeessaiy for 
him ever to add to the list, felt a strange 
thrill at this simple-stateiiient, and found 
himself sajing: “Tell me, by all means.” 
And so on that gray day, in the lonely 
valley, standing under the flags, the Ger¬ 
man woman told her story as 1 tell it 
to you. 
T'npert.incs.—“I was born in Ger¬ 
many. a peasant, the daughter of a long 
line of plain, working xjeojile. For gen¬ 
erations my people had understood that 
they nevf^r could hojie to be anything but 
toilers, underlings or serfs. From my 
cradle I was taught that God had or¬ 
dained that we were born to labor—that 
gloj-y, jiower, ambition, the real joy of 
life, were reserved for the nobles and 
wealthy families. I had dreams beyond 
my situation, but I came uii believing 
that life ju'csented such dreams only to 
mock us with the imiiossilde. My hus¬ 
band was like me. a iieasant, but he too 
had dreams of a better lot in life. 
“One evening, as the sun went down 
across the river, we stood looking down 
the great beautiful valley. He reached 
out his hand and asked me to marry him. 
And I said to him, ‘AYhy? Why should 
we make another home? Why bring chil¬ 
dren into the world when our boys can 
be only soldiers or serfs for the Kaiser, 
and our girls can only hope to be drudges 
and breeders of soldiers? Why make a 
new home when we know we never can 
l(‘ll our children that they may satisfy 
the hunger and thirst of the heart and 
be free?’ • 
“Then my husbanft told me, of a land 
far across the sea—America—wlu're 
women like me, where men such- as he 
was, may be free. He told me that in 
this new land our children, if they would 
be true and faithful, fUlght grow u]) to 
stand on terms of eipiality with any in 
the nation. It did not seem to me possi¬ 
ble, but I believed him and we came. I 
can see him now as be stood there, tall 
and .straight, with eyes shining. Now 
he is gray and bent with toil, but we 
have found that what he said was true. 
The NjvW Land. —“We came poor Ger¬ 
man immigrants into the great new life. 
Farly one morning we looki'd out across 
the .shining ocean and saw a spot of 
land, and we crowded up to look .at it. 
On the deck above us stood a group of 
men and women also looking across the 
water to the land. The men took off 
their hats, the women had tears in their 
eyes, as they sang. I did not then under¬ 
stand the words, but I remembered the 
tune, and later when I came to read 
English I found the words and these 
h.ave always been with me: 
“ ‘Long may our land be bright 
With freedom’s holy light. 
Protect us by Thy might. 
Great God, our King.’ 
,‘For years I tried to understand what 
was meant by ‘Freedom’s holy light.’ I 
could not understand until we jiut up 
that sendee flag. Now I know and I 
re.ali^e that I and such as I must keep 
that light burning.” 
Thompson, the autocrat and rich man, 
sat listening with a strange warmth 
growing at his heart. He did not notice 
that his chauffeur, a in.an with the marks 
of Europe on his face, had put down his 
tools and was standing up to li.sten ! 
INIy rorxTRY.—“We came, we found 
our place and we worked for our home. 
You cannot understand what it must 
mean to such as we were to own a piece 
of land—to feel that a part of the earth 
is really our own. Here our children 
were born, I risked my life that t//c// 
might have life and strength. Their 
father bent his back with toil that our 
children might have education and op¬ 
portunity. We gladly sacrificed the best 
of our lives Mmt our children might make 
the dreams of these German peasants 
come true. The school and the college 
slowly drew our children away from us, 
for we could see that they could not stay 
within our humble lives with the great, 
bright world of hope calling them away. 
We gave them honesty and character and 
suffered for Hiem, and we knew that all 
through their happy life they would re¬ 
member it. They did understand, for 
when this war came our great, beautiful 
boys saw what it meant. They realized 
what this country had done for us. They 
know that ‘Fi-eedom’s holy light’ means 
the offering of human life. 77(C)/ are l)oth 
hv Europe — fiffhtiuf/ (Kjainst my nuiive 
laud." 
The woman paused and pointed at the 
flag. Her A’oice was clear and calm. 
Her eyes were bright, and there was a 
look upon her face which somehow’ sent a 
flood of shame over Thompson. It 
brought him to his feet and without know¬ 
ing why, he took off his hat. 
“It must have been dreadful to see 
them go,” he said awkwardly. He had 
seen young men marching down the ave¬ 
nue betw’een cheering crowds with bands 
playing and flags flying. It came to him 
how thi.s woman’.s boys had merely walked 
out of the yard and dowy the lonely road 
with nothing to relieve the dull, hard 
agony of parting. 
The Sacrtfice. —“No,” continued the 
German woman, “I do not feel that w’ay 
about it. This country has given us all 
a new birth—a new life. M'y boys will 
pay the debt for us—for all didits of 
E W-YO R K E R 
This Engine .’Sprayer leiil Cover an Acre in 6 minutes 
Your War Problem 
YOUR boy—your neighbor’s boy, friends and relatives 
of yours—have gone to make the world safe. Whether 
they succeed or not depends on you at home. Production 
must be vastly increased to make up for their absence, and 
the absence of the men who make ammunition and ships. 
We have got to feed the world to win. 
There is only one way to increase production now— 
use modern machinery. 
The Government recognizes the vital importance of 
farm and garden implements. The manufacturers of 
IRONAGE 
Farm and 
Garden Tools 
have disregarded industrial shut-downs and Monday holidays. They are 
running on a war basis. Every effort will be made to fill all orders in 
time, but you should get yours in today to be sure. 
The 100% Potato Planter shown here saves time, saves seed and avoids 
missed plantings. In every hill a plant, d/ir/on/y o/te. Theboy behind sees to 
that, earning many times his pay inthesavingofseed alone. Write for booklet. 
Bateman M’Pg Co., Box 200T, Grenloch, N. J. 
The 100% Potato Planter Increases Yields 
Plant With These Drills 
THRILL-PL ANTED fields produce greater 
yields. Remember that at planting time 
this year, when every bushel added to 3'our harvest 
field counts. 
The use of Empire Jr., Hoosier, or Kentucky Drills means 
not only more grain per acre, but better prices. Drill-iMant- 
ing improves the quality of the grain, for when seed is proper¬ 
ly planted, at even depth, and covered as it should be, it 
comes up all at the same time, grows uniformly, and ripens 
evenly. Such grain grades high and brings good prices. 
The drill that will do the best work for you is in one of 
these lines. It is handled by some local dealer not far from 
your farm where you can see it, or you can find out all about 
it by writing us for drill catalogues. There are drills for 
jflanting every kind of grass or grain, with or without ferti¬ 
lizer, in every kind of soil. 
The dealer, or the catalogue, will tell you all about feeds, 
furrow openers, bearings, attachments, etc. All we can tell 
you here is that you will find just the drill for your work in 
the Empire Jr., Hoosier, or Kentucky lines, and that without 
any trouble or expense on your part beyond the writing of a 
letter or post card. Why not write it now, before you forget? 
International Harvester Company of America 
(locorporstcd) 
CHICAGO U S 
Champion Oeerise McCormick Milwaukee Osborne \ tH / 
' — - - " .- * 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you*U get a 
quick reply and a “square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
