Farmer Brown's boy

“ S that venerable and learned poet (whose voluminous works we all think it the correct thing to admire and talk about, but don't read often) most truly says, "the child is father to the man"; a fortiori, therefore, he must be father to the boy. So, as we are going, at any rate, to see Tom Brown through his boyhood, supposing we never get any further (which, if you show a proper sense of the value of this history, there is no knowing but what we may) , let us have a look at the life and environments of the child, in the quiet country village to which we were introduced in the last chapter. ”

“ Bunny Brown started to run after his dog, that had gone out to the barn with Bunker Blue. But his mother caught the little boy by the arm.
"You had better stay right here," she said. "You are too small to go chasing off after tramps, even with Splash. We'll let Papa Brown and grandpa find the bad men, if they are still here."
Daddy Brown and grandpa came back from the barn, where they had been putting away the horses, and they were told of the missing cake, pies and crullers. ”

“ The second year after his marriage, one night in the beginning of winter, John Brown had gone to a neighbour's house: the family at home were preparing the wool of their flocks for hodden grey cloth, to sell at Lowrie's fair in Hamilton. The shepherd carded the black and white wool together, for the women to spin; Janet and the herd-boy were teasing for the carder; the gudewife sat nursing her first-born son at one side of the fire; when the dog, which lay at full length at the other, started up, and ran to the door, barking at the approach of a stranger. ”

“ On the morrow the gift changed hands, and the news spread over the school that “Phil Brown is stuck on Blanche Heath.” Very shortly this information began to crop out in scraggly chalk letters on blank walls and the sides of barns. Initials also appeared, woven with hearts. In Man’s Land such announcements bring pride, joy, congratulations; in Boy’s Land they mean disgrace and shame and bloody noses. Is not this atavism, the boy-code? Do not the primal fighting instincts of our race assert themselves at the age when men and women are only calves and little blue-eyed heifers? ”

“ Brown. "I'll ask the proprietor of the medicine wagon if I can get a chance. But I'll have to do it when the banjo player can't hear, for in case he should be Fred—which I hardly think can be true—but if it should be he, and he heard me asking, he'd run away again."
"Yes, I suppose he would," said Mrs. Brown with a sigh. "Oh, how foolish boys are sometimes. They don't know what is good for them," and she looked at Bunny, as if wondering if the time would ever come when he would not be a "mother's boy." ”

“ The boy knew nothing of all this, but the younger son, who dearly loved his elder brother, noticed what had been done, and hoping to save him a scolding, quietly put his own beans into the basket and took the roasted ones to use himself. Then they went to the fields and each one sowed his plot of ground. After a time their mother sent the boys to see how the crops were doing. “If the beans have not sprouted in either of your fields you need not come home again,” said she. “We do not wish to have useless, lazy children in this house.” ”

“ The boy finds a world in less space than that which bounds his visible horizon; he wanders over his range of field, and exhausts his strength in pursuit of objects, which, in the years that follow, are seen only to be neglected ”

“ Brown. "Bunker, if you'll get out your cot, I'll make it for you, and then you can slide it under the automobile."
"Oh, thank you, Mrs. Brown," replied the big boy, "but I can make my own bunk. I'm used to it."
Mrs. Brown looked through the ice box, and in the cupboard. She wanted to see if she had everything she needed for breakfast. And, as soon as she opened the ice box she exclaimed:
"There! The milk! We won't have any for the children. There's only a little bit left. Where can we get any?" ”

“ He was a hearty, strong boy from the first, given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternizing with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all round the neighborhood. And here, in the quiet, old-fashioned country village, under the shadow of the everlasting hills, Tom Brown was reared, and never left it till he went first to school when nearly eight years of age—for in those days change of air twice a year was not thought absolutely necessary for the health of all her Majesty's lieges. ”

“ One spring day, when the boy was eight years old, his father had said to him:—
"We are going into the country to sleep in a tent, catch our own fish, cook it ourselves, and ask favors of no man."
"Camping!" cried the boy, in ecstasy.
"No; living."
The necessities of a simple life were got together, and supplemented by other greater necessities,—books, pictures, the boy's violin,—and they betook themselves to a spot where the summer visitor was yet unknown, the shore of a lake stretching a silver finger toward the north. ”

“ My escape to a land of freedom now appeared certain, and the prospects of the future occupied a great part of my thoughts. What should be my occupation, was a subject of much anxiety to me; and the next thing what should be my name? I have before stated that my old master, Dr. Young, had no children of his own, but had with him a nephew, the son of his brother, Benjamin Young. When this boy was brought to Dr. Young, his name being William, the same as mine, my mother was ordered to change mine to something else. ”

“ Brown had finished his business. He made several more attempts to find Fred, but could not do so and at last wrote to Mr. Ward, as he had promised, that, as far as could be learned, the missing boy was not in Portland.
"We will keep watch for him on our way back to Bellemere," Mr. Brown said in his letter. "We are returning by a different route from that by which we came. Every chance we get we will look for your boy."
Then the "Ark" was taken from the garage, to the delight of the dogs no less than that of the children, and once more the Browns were on their tour. ”

“ At the same time, I was told of his earnest wish that those sufferings should, for the protection of the rising generation of parish children, be laid before the world. Thus assured, I went to enquire for him, and was much pleased with his conversation. If this young man had not been consigned to a cotton-factory, he would probably have been strong, healthy, and well grown ”

“ Now if the boy is that kind of a boy, let him be like those people who do the best they can without questioning. Let him do the best he can and not question. But if he is different, if he has to think—sometimes I am sure he will have to, for I cannot help seeing he looks out of his eyes like me. His eyes are terrible to me, for they are always asking questions, and that is what Grandmother Raven used to say to me. She used to say: 'You are always asking questions with your eyes. ”

“ Holding the hands of Bunny Brown and his sister Sue, Ben, the strange boy, who had been so queerly found under the straw in the tent, walked toward grandpa's house.
"Well land sakes! Where'd you come from?" asked Grandma Brown, as she saw him. "And such a looking sight! You look as if you'd slept in a barn all night!"
"I did—almost," said Ben, smiling.
"Well, come in and get that clown suit off you," said Mrs. Brown. "Then tell us all about it. What made you run away?"
"I was afraid that man would get me," said Ben. ”

“ His father was a drunkard, and very poor, with a family of five or six children. The father died, and left the mother to take care of and provide for the children as best she might. The eldest was a boy, named Burrill, about thirteen years of age. ”

“ It is not easy to keep this always before one’s mind, that the young “idea” is in a young body, and that healthy growth and harmless passing of the time are more to be cared for than what is vainly called accomplishment. We are preparing him to run his race, and accomplish that which is one of his chief ends; but we are too apt to start him off at his full speed, and he either bolts or breaks down—the worst thing for him generally being to win. In this way a child or boy should be regarded much more as a mean than as an end, and his cultivation should have reference to this ”

“ Young also, wanting money, intimated to his young kinsman that he was about to sell him. This intimation determined William, in conjunction with his mother, to attempt their escape. For ten nights they travelled northwards, hiding themselves in the woods by day. The mother and son at length deemed themselves safe from re-capture, and, although weary and foot-sore, were laying down sanguine plans for the acquisition of a farm in Canada, the purchase of the freedom of the six other members of the family still in slavery, and rejoicing in the anticipated happiness of their free home in Canada. ”

“ Sir CHARLES BUNBURY has warmly expressed his approbation of the Poem; as not only excellent for a Farmer's Boy, but such as would do honour to any person, whatever his education: and he also has much contributed to make it early and advantageously known. Mr. GREEN of IPSWICH has spoken of it as a charming composition: reflecting, in a very natural and vivid manner, the series of interesting images which touch'd the sensibility of a young, an artless, but a most intelligent observer of Nature ”

“ Brown. "He shan't have you!"
"I say I will!" cried the cross man. "That boy hired out to work for me, and I want him!"
"You can't have him," said Mr. Brown quietly. "And I want you to go away from here. This is my camp, and it is a private one. Go. ”

“ And I think, Eagle Feather, your horse is still missing?"
"Him no come back long time," said the Indian. "Stable all ready for him—good bed straw, hay to eat. He no come home. Me t'ink somebody keep him for himself."
"That's what we think, too, Eagle Feather," said Mr. Brown.
"Now there is one person I asked to come here to-night who is absent," he went on.
"The hermit," said some. [Pg 238]
"Bixby," said others.
"I think we all mean the same man," said Mr. Brown.
"Now I have told you about this boy Tom, who was found by my children in a cave near the lake shore," he continued. ”

“ III THE DELIGHTS OF FARMING There are so many bright spots in the life of a farm-boy, that I sometimes think I should like to live the life over again; I should almost be willing to be a girl if it were not for the chores. There is a great comfort to a boy in the amount of work he can get rid of doing. It is sometimes astonishing how slow he can go on an errand, —he who leads the school in a race. The world is new and interesting to him, and there is so much to take his attention off, when he is sent to do anything. ”

“ Brown got breakfast. They saw several footprints, for the children, as well as the grown folks, had been about the tents all day, and Eagle Feather, the Indian, had also been there.
"Who knew that you had a train of cars?" asked Mr. Brown of his son when a long search had failed to find the toy.
"Well, I told the boy who brings the milk, the butter and egg man, and I guess that's all," said Bunny.
"You told Eagle Feather," put in Sue. [Pg 88]
"Yes, but he wouldn't take them," said Bunny. "He thinks they are big medicine for finding his lost cow. ”

“ Some day make bow and arrows for boy, and moccasins for feet of little girl with bear that makes fire eyes at night. Indian glad!"
"Oh, we were only too glad to help you," said Bunny. "Now we must be going back to camp."
"Me come—cow come too," said Eagle Feather, and he led the cow by the broken rope. They were soon back at the tents, telling Mrs. Brown how they had found the lost cow. Eagle Feather spoke much about the toy train and the Teddy bear "medicine," but Mrs. Brown laughed. ”

“ You don't look very strong."
"I'm not. But I didn't have to be so very strong."
"Not strong enough to work on a farm, I guess." [Pg 47]
"Oh, I'm strong enough for that—yes, sir! Feel my muscle!" and the boy bent up his arm. Grandpa Brown put his hand on it.
"Yes, you have some muscle," he said. "Well, maybe you will be all right. Anyhow you'll be better off for a good night's sleep. I'll call Bunker and have him look after you."
The strange boy, who said his name was Ben Hall, went up stairs with Bunker Blue to go to bed. Bunny and Sue were also taken off to their little beds. ”

“ But such a Memoir as this was much wanted, to hand down to posterity, what was the real character of the complaints about the treatment of children in our cotton mills, about which a legislation has taken place, and so much has been said. An amended treatment of children has been made, the apprenticing system having been abandoned by the masters of the mills; but the employment is in itself bad for children—first, as their health—and second, as to their manners and acquirements—the employment being in a bad atmosphere; and the education, from example, being bad ”

“ But, with these general Characters of true Poetry, "The Farmer's Boy" has, as I have said, a character of its own. It is discriminated as much as the circumstances and habits, and situation, and ideas consequently associated, which are so widely diverse in the two Authors, could make it different. Simplicity, sweetness, a natural tenderness, that molle atque facetum which HORACE celebrates in the Eclogues of VIRGIL, will be found to belong to it. ”

“ This home at Mentor was purchased especially for the benefit of the Garfield children, but both father and mother enjoyed the quiet country life far better than the whirl of society at Washington.
"Isn't it strange," exclaimed Garfield, to one of his guests, "how a man will revive his early attachment to farm-life? For twenty-five years I scarcely remained on a farm for a longer period than a few days, but now I am an enthusiast. I can see now what I could not see when I was a boy. It is delightful to watch the growing crops." ”