Side of Old-time Country Life.=--Even in the country life of
twenty-five to fifty years ago, there was a bright and happy side. It
was not all dark, and, in its influence for training the youth to a
strong manhood, we shall probably not look upon its like again. If
strength and welfare rather than pleasure are the chief end of life,
many of the experiences which were undoubtedly hardships were blessings
in disguise. Every boy had his chores and every girl her household
duties to perform. The cows had to be brought home in the evening from
the prairie or the woods; they had to be milked and cared for; calves
and hogs had to be fed; horses had to be cared for both evening and
morning; barns, stables, and sheds had to be looked after. All the
animals of the farm, including the domestic fowls, such as chickens,
ducks, and turkeys, became our friends and each was individually known.

Though all the duties of farm life had to be done honestly and well,
nevertheless the farmer's boy found time to go fishing and hunting,
skating, coasting, and trapping. He learned the ways and the habits of
beasts, birds, and fish. He observed the squirrels garnering their
winter supply in the fall. He watched the shrewd pocket gopher as it
came up and deposited the contents of its cheek pockets upon the pile of
fresh dirt beside his hole. He learned how to trap the muskrat, and woe
to the raccoon that was discovered stealing the corn, for it was tracked
and treed even at midnight. The boy's eyes occasionally caught sight of
a red fox or of a deer; and the call of the dove, the drum of the
pheasant, the welcome "whip-poor-will" and the "to-whit, to-whit,
to-who" of the owl were familiar sounds. He ranged the prairie and the
woods; he climbed trees for nuts and for distant views, and knew every
hill, valley, and stream for miles and miles around. Even his daily and
regular work was of a large and varied kind. It was not like the making
of one tenth of a pin, which has a strong tendency to reduce the worker
to one tenth of a man.

On the farm one usually begins and finishes a piece of work whether it
be a hay-rack or a barn; he sees it through--the whole of it receives
expression in him. It is _his_ piece of work and it faces him as he has
to face it. The tendency is for both to be "honest." If there were so
much brightness and variety in days gone by, when all work was done by
hand, how much better the situation can be now and in the future, whe