605 
American Agriculturist, June 16,1923 
B 
LESSINGS on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan! 
With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes; 
With thy red lip, redder still. 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill. 
“Oh, for boyhood’s time of June, 
Crowding years in one brief moon. 
When all things I heard or saw. 
Me, their master, waited for.” 
—Whittier 
In an old back hill lot one June day a 
quarter of a century ago, a barefoot boy 
was picking wild 
strawberries. The 
primitive calls runs 
high in every coun¬ 
try youngster. Some 
of them satisfy it by 
getting away once 
in a while from the 
dull and monoto¬ 
nous round of farm 
work to go fishing; 
others will tramp 
all day with a gun 
in the autumnal 
woods, hoping to 
get a rabbit or 
partridge; and still 
others find some 
real fun in going 
berrying. 
In a way it is too 
bad that the old 
slashings with their 
fallen and rotting 
logs and their berry 
bushes growing 
higher than a man’s 
head have mostly 
disappeared from 
the East. In them 
the rabbits scurried 
up and down; the 
cat bird cried 
“Thief, Thief!” and 
the blackberries 
grew large and 
plentiful. 
There is some¬ 
thing of the spirit of 
gold mining that 
comes to the young 
berry picker when he discovers a real 
“berry patch” and there is no achieve¬ 
ment that may come to one in later life 
that quite equals the satisfaction of 
Mother’s praise for a pail of berries 
which “was heaping full before they 
settled.” 
From where the boy 
stretched away hundreds 
poor hill land, good for 
woods, on which no farming should ever 
have been attempted. Twenty-five years 
ago and still to-day there are thousands 
of such acres throughout the East 
covered with worthless wire grass, 
daises and devil’s paintbrush. 
Down on the other side of the lot, 
old Milden was plowing under the weeds 
A June Story 
By E. R. EASTMAN 
in the vain hope of . producing a good 
crop of buckwheat. As the boy 
paused from his picking to absorb 
some of the spirit of the June day, 
there came up to him across the lot a 
constant stream of invective and expos¬ 
tulation from old Milden as he labored 
with his horses, the poor plow and the 
stony worthless soil. 
The boy can close his eyes and look 
back across a crowded twenty-five years, 
and as if it were yesterday, he can still 
see the old fellow urging his horses along 
THE CRY OF THE DREAMER 
I am tired of planning’ and toiling 
• In the crowded hives of men; 
Heart-weary of building and spoiling. 
And spoiling and building again, 
And I long for the dear old river. 
Where I dreamed my youth away; 
For a dreamer lives forever 
And a toiler dies in a day. 
I am sick of the showy seeming 
Of a life that is half a lie: 
Of the faces lined with scheming 
In the throng that hurries by. 
From the sleepless thoughts’ endeavor 
I would go where the children play; 
For a dreamer lives forever, 
And a thinker dies in a day. 
I can feel no pride, but pity 
For the burdens the rich endure: 
There is nothing sweet in the city 
But the patient lives of the poor. 
Oh! the little hands too skillful, 
And the child mind choked with weeds! 
The daughter’s heart grown willful, 
And the father’s heart that bleeds! 
No, no! From the street’s rude bustle, 
From trophies of mart and stage, 
I would fly to the wood’s low rustle 
And the meadow’s kindly page. 
Let me dream as of old by the river. 
And be loved for the dream alway; 
For a dreamer lives forever. 
And a toiler dies in a day. 
—John Boyle O’Reilly. 
stood, there 
of acres of 
nothing but 
the stony furrow and hear him curse the 
old farm plugs in a harmless and in¬ 
effectual manner. 
“Dod blast your danged hides, geeup 
out o’ thar ’fore I git a rail and com¬ 
plete your education! Ginger to grind¬ 
stones git out o’ that thar furrow, 
can’t ye?” 
The strawberries seemed to run pretty 
good for awhile, but as the paintbrush 
became more dense the berries got 
scarcer and the boy was beginning to 
feel that he could not get the big pail 
full. He had a feeling that there were 
more and bigger berries near where 
Milden was plowing, but because of the 
fierce talk the boy feared that if he 
went down there he would be chased. 
Finally becoming completely discour¬ 
aged, he started for home, and Mil¬ 
den saw him. “Hey, boy! Come here” 
said he. Expecting a scolding the 
boy went down to where the old fellow 
had stopped his horses. “Ain’t got your 
pail full have yuh?” said he. “This 
danged soil has got so, most of it won’t 
even grow wild strawberries. But if 
you go up on the upper side of this 
‘land’ you’ll find a nice lot of berries. I 
used to find it kind o’ pleasant to go 
berryin’ myself years ago and I know 
how you feel to have to go home without 
your pail full. By ginger, this dod- 
blasted farmin’ bus- 
ness leaves me lit¬ 
tle chance now-a- 
days for any of the 
pleasant things o’ 
life. Go on thar 
Dave, git up Sal!” 
and the plowing 
with its accompany¬ 
ing storm of espos- 
t u 1 a t i 0 n began 
again. 
Following M i 1- 
den’s kindly advice 
the boy found the 
berries thicker and 
filled his pail. 
On the way home 
down the long, dug 
road he saw some¬ 
thing shining in the 
dirt and digging it 
out found it to be a 
silver dollar, which 
in those days to a 
country boy was a 
very great fortune 
indeed. So great, in 
fact, that that pleas¬ 
ant June day so long 
ago—b e c a u se of 
Mother’s praise over 
the milk pail full of 
berries and the shin¬ 
ing silver dollar— 
still stands a high- 
spot in the hall of 
boyhood’s memories. 
* 
Last summer we 
rode by the place 
where Milden used to live. The farm 
was deserted. The barns had fallen in 
and the windows of the farmhouse had 
been broken by boys of another genera¬ 
tion. Never again will the old place 
know the joys and sorrows of a farm 
home, nor the laughter of little children. 
As we stood looking at the ruined 
buildings, so typical of the hopes of 
thousands of farmers whose struggle 
for a life time with debt, the devil’s 
paintbrush and a worn-out soil, the 
hope came that Milden and all his fel¬ 
lows have found a place where the 
devil’s paintbrush blooms not, and 
where the hard struggle for existence, 
leaves more time for some of the pleas¬ 
ant things. 
