Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

A beautiful litter, (as Alfred termed them), of top-knots, Van Houden chickens, were the next addition to the poultry yard. When cautioned that he would soon have a polyglot lot of poultry, Alfred, for the first time, weakened on the chicken proposition; more for the reason that he was disgusted with their polygamous propensities. Although living in one herd, he imagined that each breed would live to itself. Alfred dubbed them "Mormons."

Pearl and Mrs. Field had become interested in the little chicks. As hen after hen came off, her brood was carried to the house and endeavors made to raise the chicks by hand. They had some forty or fifty, when rats, or a "varmint" penetrated the coop and twenty-four were killed in one night. The sorrow caused by this loss of their pets was partly compensated for by the closer ties formed with those spared. Each one was named. When either Pearl or Aunt Tillie passed out of the kitchen door, the chicks would fly to meet them. Stooping down to feed them, they would fly on the shoulders of the two women.

One of the grocery bills rendered contained an item, "Four dollars for chickens." Mrs. Mott had also sold Mrs. Field quite a number of chickens. Alfred supposed these chickens were for breeding purposes. One Sunday the table was without chicken. Mrs. Field explained she had no one to go after them. "I'd have shot them for you if you had advised me you wanted chickens killed." "Chickens killed?" repeated both Pearl and Aunt Tillie, "Well, I'd like to see you or anyone else kill our chickens. Why, there's Betty, Biddy, Snooks, Dick and Kelly; they're just like humans. You don't imagine for a moment we will kill any of our chickens, do you?" And Alfred bought chickens for the table all summer.

Alfred promised his wife that he would look after the farming part. The chickens and dairy came under her charge. He therefore, sat down to his desk and wrote out minute instructions as to fields to be planted and designated the crops to sow in each field. He ordered a hill field, near the barn, sowed in buckwheat. The farmer meekly intimated that ten acres of buckwheat and five acres of oats seemed rather disproportional. "Never mind, follow my order," haughtily commanded Alfred. "None of us care for rolled oats and we all like buckwheat cakes." Alfred discharged his regular farmer; he claimed the man got up too early; he got up at four o'clock and threshed around making so much noise nobody could sleep.

The hills had not been plowed in years. The land was shaly, easily washed. It rained from the day the family moved onto the farm until late in June. Seeds of all kinds from the fields above washed down into the bottoms below. Beans, potatoes, egg plant, rye, peas, beets and cow peas grew in the bottom as only noxious weeds and wild crops grow. From this conglomeration sprang the noted bean that Bill Brown and Alfred are forming a company to distribute.

The rain continued. The weather being cool, fires were necessary. Nothing but wood was used as fuel. The wife protested the heat for cooking was not sufficient. It just dried the juices in the meats. A heating plant was put in. Kerosene lamps did not produce sufficient light, so a lighting plant was installed. Springs and well were unhandy. Alfred installed a water plant. Alfred swore you might just as well live in the city if you had all city fixin's. The walks in the yard and across the lawn were inches thick with mud. Pearl and Mrs. Field, by the light of the wood fire, would read Bill Brown's life on the farm, while Alfred watched the barometer. The women began to talk about moving back to town. Alfred was as miserable as life could make him. Day after day the rain fell in torrents. The dam that formed the lake wherein Alfred intended raising fish in summer, and a skating pond in winter, and also to furnish ice, broke, flooding the cow stables, washing out the sweet corn patch and the garden floated.

Alfred was unmercifully berated that he had dragged his family to the country, destroying their happiness and spending all his money for—what, for what? Just to gratify a whim, a boyish illusion.

Alfred felt he must do something to turn the tide. The rain kept falling. He started to the city on his mysterious errand. Returning he proudly hung above the mantle piece this motto:

"It hain't no use to grumble and complain,
It's jest as cheap and easy to rejoice;
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain,
Why, rain's my choice."

The rain ceased. The sun shone, the grasses grew. Happiness came into the family. Ere the summer was over, farm life had so ingratiated itself that they did not relish the idea of moving back to the city.