Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1909 — A TOAST TO THE FARMERS. [ARTICLE]

A TOAST TO THE FARMERS.

There is a club in Louisville, Ky., composed of a few members only. Unpretentious quarters, an atmosphere sucharged with good fellowship, and hospitality captivates those who are fortunate enough to be honored as its guests. Marse Henry Watterson is the president. John Macauley is the only other officer. He has no title —just host. The inspiration that animated Dickens, Johnson and Byron must have sprung from just such surroundings. About one guest at each meeting of the Bohemian gathering is the rule. Al. G. Field, the famous minstrel, who has Lately become the proud possessor of a farm and was the guest of the club recently, and in response to the toast "The Farmer," spoke as follows: “Gentlemen, the introduction honors me; to be a farmer has been a dream of my life. Beginning my life on a farm, I ask no more pleasant ending than to live the last days of my earthly time on a farm. "The facetious remark of the toast-master does not explain my reasons for engaging in farming. It is true, financial considerations did not govern me in this matter, although I do hope to make pry farm self-supporting. If I do not I shall not feel that I have made a bad investment. “In seeking the quietude of the farm, I was actuated by that yearning that comes to all men who have led a busy life—to turn back the years and to try to live again the days of patches, freckles, stone bruises, and laughter—to live those days again when there was only one care in the world—not to be late for meals. “I wahtto go back yonder in my life to a House half hid from view by the locusts and maples, where the bees hummed and swarmed. I want a scent of the honeysuckle as the maples and locusts budded forth in what seemed to me the morning of the world—springtime. I follow the path "down by the big spring, through the hazel

brushes, where the cotton tall jumped up Just" ahead of you and the red bird sang his sweetest song. I can follow the path In my mind as the hunting dog follows the scent, down the old rock hole where the clear, cool waters of the creek formed an eddy in which the chub and yellow perch lurked and jumped at the bait as they never did anywhere else.

“I want to feel that ecstacy that only comes when the bottle cork you used tor a bobber goes under the wa t e r—when something is pulling on the line like a scared mule, bending double the pole cut in the thicket on your way to the creek. I want to throw the pole away, roll up the tangled line, hide It away In the corn crib, and sneak back to the house the opposite direction from the creek that the folks wouldn't’ suspect' I had been fishing on Sunday. "I want to go back yonder In my life where the hills meet the sky in a purple haze, where you feel yourself growing with the trees, where the smell of new earth calls you to the woods, where the big dogwood Is budding and the mayapple peeps up through last year’s leaves at the new leaves budding out on the grand old maple above. “I want to go so far back from the worries of the city life that the crowing of the cock and the cackling of the hen will tell rile it is morning, Instead of the clanging of bells and blowing of whistles. I want to go back yonder where the setting sun Instead of city light, will tell me It is night. I want to hear the cricket and the whip-poor-will as we heard them in the evenings long ago, as we listened with bated breath to the jack o-lantern legends that stirred our childish fancy until the croaking of the frogs sent us to dream of uncanny things. “I want to live In the happiness of an autumn when the frost Is on the pumpkin and the fodder is in shock—when the hickory nuts falling on the ground called the squirrels—when the stars gleamed bright enough to bring a possum out of a tree with the old flintlock musket. How you cherished that gun; and when the snow hid the roads and paths like the white coverlets on the big bed in the spare room and the big backlog crackled and burned on the hearth, and the red apples glistened in the firelight, and the popcorn Imitation of a snowstorm was more realistic than any artificial one you have since witnessed.

“How you shivered as you undressed in the room above going to bed, but how soundly you slept after you got warm. I want to go back to one of those hallowed Sunday mornings in summer when the hush of heaven seemed to fall on the earth —when the quiet that spread over hill and vale and seemed to announce the spirit of God In some unusual sense —when the peace of heaven seemed so near that you felt its happiness. “While living the old days way back yonder—l want to live in the love and esteem of my friends of today above all things In this life. “Gentlemen, come down to the farm, visit with me and endeavor to live the life of a boy again if only for a day.”