810 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
June 11, 1921 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
There are men who lived an adventur¬ 
ous life in their youth who would like to 
forget some of it. At 50 or over they 
.settle down to play the part of dignified 
and respectable citizens. They may be 
successful farmers or bankers or lawyers, 
or just plain men. Perhaps they come to 
hold office or take a prominent part in 
church or Sunday school work. Then 
they imagine they must do—not what na¬ 
ture and life experience prompt them to 
do, but what the little world in which they 
live has decided to call “proper.” It 
often amuses me to see some of the old 
boys that I knew years ago trying to for¬ 
get. that free part of life which represents 
the best that is in them. It seems to me 
as if “society” had put some sort of a 
fashionable corset around their habits 
and tightened the strings until they go 
through life like a man forced to “walk 
Spanish” by some powerful hand. I 
know men who once sat on a log and ate 
cold meat and bread with great relish. 
The entire family ate in the kitchen, 
where the stove was handy for warmth 
and food. Now you ought to see them in 
their elegant dining-room, with waiters 
to do everything for them except eating 
the food. If they travel for a quarter of 
a mile they must enter a beautiful car. 
I know a man who travels in that way, 
and the other night he sat in full regalia 
of evening dress at a great banquet where 
the “price per plate” was .$25. As he sat 
there amid all that splendor I wondered 
if his mind went back to the time when 
he and I together went calling on the 
Rogers girls! We had worked through 
the day on a threshing machine.. In the 
old days, before blowers were invented, 
that was a dusty job, and the oats were 
so full of smut that the dust came out 
like black smoke. After supper we went 
down to the creek and had a swim to 
clean up. Then we dressed in the best 
we had and started for the Rogers farm¬ 
house. You could save about a mile by 
going through a swamp, so we took off 
what I may call the lower part of our 
clothing, carried it as a bundle in our 
arms as we waded through the mud. On 
the other side we washed our feet in a lit¬ 
tle brook, put on our clothes and went 
our way—the shining way of all young 
men. And there my old friend sits in his 
evening clothes, a rich and successful man. 
That portly, overdressed lady beside him 
is his wife. ITe has several children as 
correct in dress and manners as a group 
of dolls. He was not thinking of them 
as the coffee came on, and lie settled him¬ 
self for the oratory. He was thinking 
how we young hopefuls looked back from 
the moonlit road that night long ago and 
saw the face of sweet Mary Rogers 
framed in the vines that grew over the 
farmhouse porch. Yet it never would do 
to go to him before his family and call up 
the old days. He must be “proper” now 
and forget such things. 
***** 
I was put in this reflective frame of 
mind by two letters which reached me not 
long ago. Personally I have no objec¬ 
tion to having my past overhauled. 
“I wonder if yon are the young man 
who worked in a tailor’s shop.in A-— 
some 40 years ago. I was traveling with 
a circus end ripped my coat in a fight 
with the town men, and you sewed a 
patch on it, and forgot to take the needle 
out. 
B. 
No, I must plead not guilty. This man 
has me mixed with some other partf. 
My modest attempts at tailoring were not 
for the public. For two years at college 
I confess that I did more or less refitting, 
although perhaps the fit was uot perfect. 
Forty years ago life at an. agricultural 
college meant pioneer work in education, 
and no pioneer ever made a .success in a 
dress coat. I entered college against the 
advice of my friends. They seemed to 
feel that I had no chance to get through, 
and therefore I was not a good financial 
risk. My mother and my sisters were 
about, the only people who stood by us 
in the struggle. By doing farm work and 
teaching a Winter school it was possible 
to earn enough to pay for board and 
books, but the clothing item was a puzzle. 
My mother helped us solve it by sending 
us second-hand clothes which she obtained 
from friends in Boston. There were two 
men in particular who contributed these 
goods. One, I take to be a tall, thin, 
melancholy man, who dressed in black, 
with long-tailed coats of the type known 
at that time as “Prince Albert.” Tim 
other seemed to be more of a “sport,” 
large and round and fat. with a liking for 
rather lively colors. My tailoring con¬ 
sisted in trying to adapt these two types 
of clothing to the shape of a vigorous 
young man. The tall man’s trousers 
could be cut off with a pair of shears and 
sewed up with a tuck at the bottom. 
The fat man’s clothes couhl be let out 
somewhat, but I confess that it was a 
delicate job to take them in around the 
waist without having them hang like a 
grain sack. That was the limit of my 
tailoring. My great regret is that I 
haven’t one of those old garments tucked 
away somewhere like a wedding garment, 
to serve as a recruiting place for mem¬ 
ories. 
***** 
My children art' not interested in such 
experiences. I take it they feel that if 
they should show any particular desire to 
know all about it. I might begin to argue 
that they may" do'the same thing. I 
know better than to urge any such thing. 
My daughter likes finery, and my boys 
all want to dress as their companions do. 
1 think they are right about it. Forty 
years ago conditions were very different. 
I was able to graduate with fair reputa¬ 
tion dressed in a coat owned orignally by 
that tall gentleman who turned his clothes 
over to me, but that is no reason why I 
should ask my boys to put on some of my 
discarded clothing. I would not have 
done it except through dire necessity, and 
as I look back upon life it has become 
quite a question in my mind whether 
necessity is, after all. such a wonderful 
teacher. I begin to think she leaves too 
many marks on your life—marks that 
you cannot rub away. I should not care 
to try it over. There are certain ameni¬ 
ties of life which we must live up to if 
we would have any “class,” as my chil¬ 
dren put it. I am sorry I am not the 
man who put the patch on our friend’s 
coat. If he came here today with his 
clothing torn I would do my best to darn 
it, but the patch would not be accepted by 
good tailors as a badge of merit. 
And here is what I find in the other 
letter: 
“I wonder if you are the young fellow 
who worked as hired man for H— in the 
town of G— many years ago. I used to 
see you there, and perhaps you remember 
the tight we all had over that ditch. You 
used to be quite a singer. J.” 
l r es, I seem to be the hired man in 
question. It was an irrigating ditch that 
we fought over, and as I now recall it 
there was far more water than blood 
spilled iu the encounter. I never could 
see that we hired men had any reason 
for fighting. Our interests were identi¬ 
cal. yet we lined up dutifully like “good 
soldiers” and put up a battle for the boss. 
I think “J.” is the man who hit me on 
the nose when I gave him one iu the eye. 
We were rolling on the ground when one 
of the boys who came from Holland cut 
the wall of the ditch and let a flood of 
water come pouring over us. Yes, indeed, 
I worked as hired man. On a. dairy farm 
we worked seven days a week. We were 
up before sunrise every morning, and 
worked until after dark. You probably 
could not call me much of an expert at 
farm work, but I helped at all sorts of 
jobs. The woman had a large family of 
children. There always seemed to be a 
baby. Many a night after the chores 
were finished I would wash or wipe 
dishes, help clean up the house and play 
housemaid generally. Some nights the 
children would be fretful or ill, and the 
tired woman could not care for thorn all. 
Then the boss and I would each take a 
child and walk up and down the room 
singing duets. We had a choice selection 
of old favorites, such as “Larboard 
Watch.” “Leaf by Leaf the Roses Fall,” 
or “Come Where Mv Love Lies Dream¬ 
ing.” Very likely “J.” refers to some of 
those free concerts given by the boss and 
his hired man. At any rate, the children 
went to sleep and the tired woman was 
cheered. My singing days ended_ long 
ago, and my family, seems determinedly 
opposed to any revival of them. They 
were great davs, however—days of joy, 
when life fairly bubbled over with hope 
and confidence. 
***** 
I often wonder if there are any of the 
old-fashioned hired men left. When I 
worked out most of the hired men were 
sons of neighbors or from big farm fami¬ 
lies, where there was a surplus of labor. 
In those days the hired man was “just 
as good as the President”—better if the 
President chanced to belong to the other 
political party. We were just like mem¬ 
bers of the family, and in many cases the 
hired man married the farmer’s daughter 
and' was considered a good match for her 
in every way. There were thousands of 
them who did just as I did—helping in 
the house and cheerfully working over¬ 
time. There were no nine-hour days and 
Saturday holidays. Many a hired man 
did the blacksmith work, and could make 
anything from a. henhouse- to a hay rig¬ 
ging. I wonder if there are any of them 
left? They were fully appreciated then, 
and especially in a new country were just 
as good as anyone. Iu those days $20 a 
month for a 12-hour day was considered 
great wages, and most of us) saved the 
greater part of it. I should think that 
such a hired man today, competent and 
willing, would be considered almost price¬ 
less on many a good farm. Where have 
they all gone to? My children certainly 
have no desire to grow up into the job— 
though they might do worse. Surely Jt 
is a great satisfaction to a man over 50 
to look back in life and feel that he made 
something of a success as hired man. 
Manv of them have done large things 
during the past 20 years, but I’ll guaran¬ 
tee they never did' anything more useful 
or creditable than the service they per¬ 
formed as hired man, for they were men 
who hired out their labor and skill, but 
never sold their character or their reputa¬ 
tion for honesty. I suppose there were 
few more satisfactory things in the old 
days than when a hired man could feel 
that the job sought the man—there was 
strong competition for his services. Yes, 
indeed, it makes you fern good to think 
that a hired man can do his work so well 
that fate will say : “Friend, go up higher.” 
Rut, after all. does the successful hired 
man want to go much higher? I doubt 
it. for success means only the career of a 
successful hired man in a larger job. 
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THE RUSSELLOID COMPANY 
Dept. R, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 
