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A HAPPY BRIDEGROOM--=-A HAPPY FARMER
Happiness consists in having what you want, being busy and
liking your work.
There was a young farmer on the train coming into the city.
Listen to his words, and you will hear the story and the plans
of a man really happy.
He had to talk to somebody.
“*When do we get to town? I ought to be there at ten fifteen.
I am going to be married. The young lady lives there.
‘I am twenty-three years old and she is twenty-one, and we
both like living on a farm.
““I've been on this train since 6 o’clock this morning. I
walked to the Junction. The stars were shining when I left the
house. I didn't want the neighbors to know what I was going to
do. But Isuppose they'll know when I get back—and I guess the
cowbells will ring to-night.
‘Do I like the country? Say, I wouldn't live anywhere else
in the world.
“'lwouldn't live anywhere except on a farm. And I wouldn't
liave any kind of cows except Holsteins—and I'll have only pure
bred cows as soon as I can. Guernseys are better for butter-fat
—but the calves are hard to raise.
“‘ls farming a good life?
‘‘Say, there isn't any other kind of life. Why, look at all
these houses along this track. Say, I'm homesick already. I
wouldn't live in the middle of a city if you'd give me $25,000 if
I had to live all my life there,
‘‘ls work on the farm hard? No; you don't even know
you're working.
““I've been working with my father all this time, and now
I'm going to start on a farm of my own, eighty acres, thirteen
COWS.
“‘l'll keep increasing the cows. And as soon as I can I'll
‘have nothing but pure-bred Holsteins,
‘‘My cousin has a cow that has a record—he does artificial
feeding. She gives seventy pounds of milk a day—you couldn't
buy her for a thousand dollars. .
- ‘"And that cow has a bull calf a month or two old. You
couldn’t buy him for less than five hundred dollars.
‘‘Say, if he was a heifer you couldn’t buy him at all.
**ls milking cows hard work? Of course it's hard work, but
it's the best work in the world.
"'How many can a man milk? Well, twenty night and morn
ing is good milking. But the sooner I have twenty-five to milk
the better I'll like it. ;
DO YOU WANT TO FEEL HOPEFUL?
Our good, great friend and poetical genius, Ella Wheeler
Wilcox, sends us a picture of the first steam train in America and
says, "'I feel as if you should make an editorial on this, you can
do it so much better than I.”’
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THE FIRST STEAM TRAIN IN AMERICA.
IxXcursion “train from Albany to Schen ectary in 1831, on the Mohawk and
Hudson Railroad
I was horn 1825 in Buffalo, N. Y In 1832 I traveled five days on the Lrie
Canal, Buffalo to Schenectady, 313 miles, where 1 took this train for
Albany, N. X Length of railroad, 17 miles
If you are discouraged about yourself, or discouraged about
the future of the human race, which is considerably more impor
tant than yourself, look at this picture of the first steam train in
America.
See he funny locomotive, the big wheels, the man standing on
a board. Looking at that, you could hardly believe that the great
Mogul engine would come in due time—or that the electric engine
would supplant the Mogul.
See the funny old-fashioned characters, imitating the stage
coach with a man in front and a man behind-—like the driver and
the guard on the coach.
And observe that queer little baggage car—a copy of the or
dinary express wagon.
Here was the first railroad train in America. The whole
thing looks like a parody on railroading to-day. Yet it was, up to
that time, the most important thing that ever happened in the
country, when this comical little engine pulled out with its excit
ing load of SIXTEEN passengers.
We have traveled a long way since this was the great rail
road of the United States.
The world has progressed considerably since this express
train, crawling slowly along the rails, announced the beginning
of modern transportation methods.
When you see what has happened in railroad development
since this picture was made, less than a hundred years ago, how
can you doubt the power of the race or the individual in ANY
line of improvement?
~ When they were starting the first steam railroad, wise men
said that nobody could travel at twenty miles an hour for a long
WEEKEY; ##% GEORGIAN
“Wouldn't I get rich if I could sell the milk for 5 cents a
quart? Say, I'd get so rich I wouldn't know what to do with the
money.
““The country’s the only place to live. I tell you it don’t
look natural in a crowded place like this.
‘‘My father sold his farm and he moved in within a quarter
of a mile of our city. Why, it's enough to ruin anybody. How
big is that city? About two thousand inhabitants.
‘“Good-bye; if you ever write to me, give me your address
and I'll write back.”’
The young farmer, in his long brown coat, his gray cap, his
face as brown as a nut, clear gray eyes and powerful handshake
was a pleasant thing to look at in a world of tired, struggling,
nervous human beings.
‘A happy married farming life to you,’’ said the reporter.
““You bet, "’ said the farmer, and was gone.
The reporter will write to him and be very glad to have him
‘“‘write back.’’
To those who live in the big cities we say this:
If you want to envy anybody, don't envy John D. Rocke
feller or Lillian Russell. Envy this young farmer. He likes his
work and he HAS EVERYTHING HE WANTS IN THE
WORLD.
Many a man tied to the city, the miserable flat, the cobble
stones, the crowded cars, the high prices, the soul-killing salary
life, will turn longing eyes toward that farm, with the Holstein
cows, where the young farmer starts to work in the morning at
half-past four, and doesn’t know he’s been working, when he sud
denly finds it too dark to work longer.
He is 2 happy man BECAUSE HE IS AN INDEPENDENT
MAN. The farm is his, the cows are his, the young calves, the
chickens that creep out of their shells, the potatoes growing in
one field, the wheat and the corn in other fields—ALL ARE
HIS. :
He produces something. What he plants grows and he sees
it grow. ,
He is a man to be envied. And this will be an infinitely hap
pier country when the miilions upon millions of acres lying waste
are divided into farms, carefully cultivated, each of those farms
managed by another young farmer and his bride.
The best of luck and happiness to them and their farm and
their cows and everything else on their farm. And may there be
millions more like them in the United States before this century
shall have ended.
“Their houses are safe from feat, neither is the rod of God upon
them. Their bull gendereth and faileth not; their cow calveth and
casteth not her calf.
“They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children
dance.”"—Job:2l:lo.
time—without being killed by the speed. —
We know now that a man could easily go five thousand miles
an hour so far as his own safety were concerned, if the train ,
stayed on the track and he were in a closed car.
An inventor announces—what would have been looked upon
as insanity a few years ago—that he is arranging to cross the
ocean in fifteen hours with a hydro-aeroplane.
The only comment made by the common-sense man is,
""WHY FIFTEEN HOURS? WHY such a LONG time?’’
Fifteen hours to go three thousand miles with a machine
that travels on the air without friction is a ridiculously long
time.
DO NOT FOR A MOMENT DOUBT THAT MEN NOW LIV
ING WILL CROSS THE OCEAN IN THREE HOURS.
The human race is a child, it has just learned to walk. The
steam engine represented the pitiful first walking. The flying
machine means that the child really can walk and is AT LAST
FREE FROM THE, POWER OF THE LAW OF GRAVITA.
TION.
The man who built this old-fashioned train would have
laughed at you if you had suggested going from Atlanta to New
York in a train made of steel, lighted with electricity, cooled by
electric fans, heated by steam, with bathtubs, library, restau
rant, separate beds, covering nearly a thousand miles in a com
paratively few hours,
A few old-fashioned individuals smile if you suggest that the
flying machine will go a thousand miles an hour. But it WILL
do it.
Already a man has traveled hundreds of miles without stop
ping at an average speed of more than a hundred and twenty
four miles an hour in a flying machine.
The trip around the world in twenty-four hours, with the sun
always exactly above your head, will happen before this century
shall have ended. And that will be the BEGINNING of man's
conquest of this planet. He will be able to go out and look over
his posession, the earth, between sunrise and sunrise, as a big
farmer looks over his farm between sunrise and sunset. -
When you see what wonderful changes, achievements,
"‘miracles’’ are possible in material things, why do you despair of
the human race and its possibilities in any direction?
If we can overcome the law of gravitation, shall we not over
come poverty, injustice, misery, drunkenness and ignorance?
If man can do what he has done for the engine, the flying
machine and the other material things, will he not do as much
understand himself and develop himself?
proportionately FOR HIMSELF when he shall have learned to
This is a world of hope, of wonderful, sudden, miraculous
growth and improvement.
And this funny old picture sent by our young and vivacious
contributor Ella Wheeler Wilcox PBgVES IT.
Week Ending
Mar. 10, 1914.