This month I think it’s time for a change-up, with a bit of humor instead of stories of the rigorous lives of our ancestors. To that end, here are a couple of The Lazy Farmer’s little homilies, with an observation from “The Cheerful Plowman” thrown in.
From the June 3, 1950 issue of The American Agriculturist comes this offering from The Lazy Farmer:
There was a time when I was young when I would more than gladly wrung the neck of ev’ry dog-gone hen out in Mirandy’s chicken pen. Each bunch of birds she got, you see, meant lots of extra work for me; twas I who paid the bill for chicks and struggled with the brooder’s tricks; twas I who left my bed at night to see that heat was still all right; twas I who furnished all the feed to satisfy each greedy pullet’s need; twas I who had to weekly scoop a ton of litter from the coop; and if by chance, some eggs were laid, Mirandy got what cash they made.
But nowadays the system’s changed, the whole routine’s been rearranged. Electric brooders purr along, it’s seldom anything goes wrong; the house gets cleaned just once a year, there’s nothing ’bout the chores to fear, the feeders hold a week’s supply, the pipe-fed fountains can’t run dry. Each high-producing pullet lays so well Mirandy gladly pays for her own chicks and for the feed, and there’s no longer any need for me to sit up with the sows or struggle with a bunch of cows; now I can rest my back and legs and live off of Mirandy’s eggs.
Although the years immediately following World War II were years of growth and prosperity in this country, most of Asia and the Middle East was in turmoil. Even here, polio and the atomic bomb were always lurking in the back of peoples’ minds. This little verse from The Lazy Farmer, published in the March 5, 1950 American Agriculturist, sums up The Lazy Farmer’s thoughts on the situation. The illustration accompanying it shows the old man sitting contentedly in his rocking chair in front of a pot-bellied stove, reading a newspaper and blowing smoke rings from his old corncob pipe.
If you don’t think humanity is just as queer as it can be, just read your daily paper through and see the crazy things people do. Seems ev’ryone is worrying for fear some new and awful thing, like atom bomb or dread disease will kill them sooner than they please. And still, if what I read is so them folks are rushing to and fro a-meeting death in accidents because they do not drive with sense; or else they take a slug of pills to cure imaginary ills, then slam around the whole durn night and wonder why they don’t feel quite right.
Why should we do things in a rush, with sweaty brows and face that’s flush? It seems to me the world’s berserk, the way most people like to work and stew and fret until they’re sick, no wonder ulcers are so thick. There’s nothing ails the world today that can’t be treated best my way, if ev’ryone would just slow down and not go runnin’ off to town or get up at the crack of dawn to wear out both their brains and brawn. I never heard of any war that started at the kitchen door between two fellers full of pie who only want soft spots to lie.
From a couple of decades earlier, in perhaps a much simpler time, The Cheerful Plowman, aka J. Edward Tufft, reminds us in the September 27, 1927 Pennsylvania Farmer that kids should be allowed to be kids.
That maid of ours, the blame old hick, she’s far too ready with the stick, she makes me cross, she makes me sick! You see, she has a little lad, a snappy, racing little tad, who’s anything but mean or bad; but every time he turns around, or ventures on her sacred ground, she grabs her willow with a bound. When he grows noisy in his play, as kids will do ‘steen times a day, or turns a hand spring in the hay, she’s after him with whip in hand with words the world can understand, and soon the kid is licked and panned! The little jigger dare not run in wild goose fashion just for fun like kids in every age have done, he dare not be his very self, a sprightly, frisking little elf, while that old switch is on the shelf.
Well, that old widow, drat her bones, may see good things in stripes and groans, and see results in whips and moans, but I’m a gent of kinder views, my lenses carry brighter hues, her methods I would never use! I favor making kids obey each hour and minute of the day, the parents should have perfect sway; but still I’m prone to say and sing initiative is the thing that changes peasant into king! Initiative, the power to act, the will to play alone, in fact, tho not supported, helped, or backed, is something kidlets should acquire when they are young and full of fire, ’tis something parents should inspire! How can a kid who cannot say his soul’s his own a single day grow up with a power of “Yes” and “Nay”? Drat that old lady! Some fine day I’ll open up and have my say–shell think six dams have given way–unless she throws away her stick and lets her youngster do his trick and become a man! The blamed old hick! -J. Edw. Tufft
The above verses probably aren’t very good poetry, but they do get the author’s point across and are entertaining to boot.
Sam Moore
