Jo.—Yes, I have, for only a short time since I visited a district where I once lived, in the State of New York, and I found that about all who are now living there upon the farms are the old people. The younger ones have nearly all gone into the towns and cities to engage in business, to learn trades and professions. I must say that in the absence of the younger members of the country it gives to it a sad and a dreary look, and in some few cases a very desolate appearance, for I saw a portion of the country which forty years ago was rich farming land, but such is its condition now that if a resident of the sandy sage-brush lands of Colorado or Utah could be transported and placed upon it, he would feel perfectly contented, and would not pine for his Western home.
They tell me also that it is almost impossible to obtain assistance to harvest their crops, and in many cases are compelled to send to New York for foreign laborers. Yes, ’tis evident, William, that great changes have taken place in the past forty years, at least in this portion of the country. Whilst visiting that section of the country I met an old lady, a former school-mate, and she spoke of the changes that had taken place in a sad tone.
“Oh,” said she, “this is not the country that it was in our day, for the young people all leave the farms for the big cities as soon as they get old enough.”
In answer to my inquiry in relation to a few of my former companions she said:
“They all went into the towns and cities; some learned to be doctors and some to be lawyers; some one thing and some another. Do you remember Sam Hobbs? Well, he got to be head engineer in a sausage factory and made lots of money. And then there is Al Peck; you remember him, of course? Well, he was up here on a visit a few years ago dressed up in the finest rig, with his gold watch, and diamond pin and things. He said that he was superintendent of a gin-fizz mill, if you know what that is, for I am sure I don’t. Well, Al is real kind and tender-hearted, for he did sympathize with John so much because he had to rake hay out in the hot sun, and then he pitied us all so much, too, because we were compelled to live way out here in the country so far from the city, that it was really distressing to hear him.
“Ah, yes,” she continued, “but those were happy days. What gay times we had in the winter, and how we all did enjoy piling into the big sleigh and going to the singing-schools and parties around the country, as well as to the apple and the husking bees, too. But all of those pleasant times are past, Jo. I don’t believe that you could get enough young men and girls together now around here in the country to start one of them old-fashioned kissing bees.”
And my old school companion has a good memory, too, William, for she continued by asking:
“Do you remember, Jo, the husking bee that you had in your father’s big barn? ’Twas in ’48, I think, the year before you started for California. I remember well, Jo, how you went the day before and hid away in a handy place a whole bushel of red ears of corn and got more than your share of the fun. How selfish that was in you, wasn’t it, Jo, to go and leave the other boys shivering out in the cold? Oh, well, I suppose you have long since repented of it; havn’t you?”
I told the old lady that I certainly had, but said I:
“Mary, although ’tis a pleasure to recall to mind such pleasing incidents and events of our boyhood days, yet as we advance in years we often have cause to grieve for neglected opportunities in the past, and in recalling to mind the little incident you have mentioned, with its happy surroundings, pretty girls and a bushel of corn, there comes over me a feeling of sadness and of sorrow that I didn’t—”