Down On The Farm
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| Our'kids'Suzy and Sally and Me the "Goat Lady' | Daisy May,our pig. She and Beaver our horse are great pals. |
Mother on a winter's day
milked the cows and fed them hay,
slopped the hogs,saddled the mule,
and got the children off to school.
Did a washing, mopped the floors,
washed the windows and did the chores.
Cooked a dish of home made fruit,
Pressed her husbands Sunday suit.
Swept the parlor, made the bed,
Baked a dozen loaves of bread.
Split some firewood, and carried in
enough to fill the kitchen bin.
Cleaned the lamps and put in oil,
Stewed some apples she thought would spoil.
Churned the butter, baked a cake,
Then exclaimed,For Heaven's sake
The calves have gotten out of the pen;
Went out and chased them in again.
Gathered the eggs and locked the stable
Back to the house and set the table,
Cooked a supper that was delicious,
And afterwards she washed the dishes.
Fed the cat and sprinkled the clothes,
Mended a basketful of old hose.
Then opened the organ and began to play
When you come to the end of a perfect day.
Those 'Good old days' again;
When we were living those'good old days' they didn't seem so good
We read by the light of a kerosene lamp and heated our homes with wood.
We carried water up the hill to wash with,cook and scrub
And we took our baths behind the stove in a galvanized laundry tub.
I can still smell the old lye soap and feel the hurt
and sting when some of it got in my eyes,but it got the dirt.
We slept on cornhusk mattresses,sometimes three in a bed
If you were late you got the foot,the early got the head.
We waded snow,and ice and mud to get to the seat of learning,
With a potbellied stove that froze our backs,while our fronts were nearly burning.
We drank from a cup by a water pail on a bench where the teacher put it,
and whatever ailments the others had,the rest were sure to get it.
In winter you milked in a drafty barn,while the wind whistled through the cracks.
And the swirling snow,while you were inside,filled up your fresh made tracks.
A little house at the end of a patch half hidden with brush and weeds
In summer's heat and winter's cold served other family needs.
Now you may look with envious eyes to those things if you are twenty.
But I've been through those 'good old days' and once, my friend, is plenty.
Modern equipment and improved working conditions has lightened the work load for today's farm owners and now twice as much can be accomplished in half the time it used to take with the old methods. It is a good life and one which many people from the city envies. Tourists love to spend a few days close to nature on the farm.
Have you ever spent a night in June,
in an old farmhouse,in an upstairs room,
'Tween sheets as white as fallen snow,
while a night owl cries, soft and low.
With a feather pillow beneath your head
and an open window by your bed?
As the gentle breezes swirl about,
the filmy curtains drift in and out
- the trials of life seem far away,
midst the smell of roses and new mown hay.
You gaze out at an azure sky,
and a shooting star goes sailing by,
hurrying off to who knows where;
and you wonder if someone is waiting there,
and you make a wish and you start to doze,
in the quiet and peace of sweet repose.
Oh! the simple joys of country life,
far from the city's noise and strife.
