Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1876 — Farmers’ Visitors. [ARTICLE]

Farmers’ Visitors.

In the first days of August there is a hegira of townspeople toward up-country farms. It is the month when school children are everywhere free and when fruits are ripening. He who has a wife's cousin in the country now resumes his acquaintance, to drop it again with the advent of cooler days. Country relatives are bores in spring, nuisances in autumn, and utter evils in winter. August alone shows them In all their rural loveliness. We hope our render has a distant relative reveling in verdant luxury upon some green, sloping hill-side, where fishing is good, cucumbers brittle, bait easy to dig, and horses easy to ride. If by any possibility it is uncertain whether you are related to your distant cousin or his wife your welcome will be better, because each will treat yon well for the sake of the other. Be sure to take with you all your white duck clothes, so that the farmer’s wife may enjoy the hot wash days. A large empty basket will be lianay, for whea you leave you may bring with you the only half bushel of pears the poor fellow has been able to raise. For real country pleasure a long, thin walking-stick is desirable, and with it you may poke down the few peaches that the poor, red-faced woman has been watching all summer long and hoping to preserve for winter use. Nobodv goes into the country without

wishing to get fat on pure cream; so every morning at ten, when you rise for the second breakfast which has to be prepared for your sake, go into the cool cellar, skim the cream which is rising for the churn- <■ ing, and do not forget to leave a city-like taste of cocktails in the cup and pun. It would be well to go into the field at any time and ask the farmer to take you to town for your letters, and if you can invite .some fellow-citizen to visit you the armer Will go down for him with the best Duggy. He will be delighted to leave his work and go if you will only pay the six cents toll. Sometimes the quiet farmer has had the wish to give his children a taste of watermelons, and, as he has succeeded in raising five or sir, to the delight of the poor youngsters, who go down into the patch every day to see the green monsters grow, have no hesitation in plugging every blessed melon until you get one to suit you, then sit on the fence and eat it in sight of the little ones, and spurt the pits at them. They think city men are so nice. Melons are country productions, and you must not forget that you go to get country food and luxuries—“plain, healthy, country fare, you know.” Country people get so used to melons and plums that you can take them all for yourself. You had better go to church on Sunday, when the farmer’s wife can stay at home and stew over the stove, boiling pears and getting up a nice tea against your return. Before you start ask her to wash and iron a white necktie for you. When you come back make fun of the music; it may be her sister who plays the melodeon. Last of all, when you are leaving with that basket with the only half bushel of pears tucked between your knees, and you are hinting that you do not hold baskets in the city, he so good as to tell the poor woman that you do not suppose 9he ever comes to the city, but that if John happens to be in New YojJi you hope he will run into the store for a minute and let you know how they all get along. Do not refuse the piece of sponge cake she has put up for you; it is easy to throw it out of the car window. 'Do not ask John to come to spend a week, with his poor, tired wife, at your house; but with the joyous exclamation that the first thing you purpose to do the minute you reach the city is to get a first-class beafsteak, which you have been hungering after for a month, waft your hand grandly and sing out: “ Good-bye, John.” — N. Y. Herald.