"It  must  be  remembered  that  the  work  was
not  that  of  a  factory;  it  kept  the  boy  out-of-
doors  and  in  close  contact  with  nature,  and  it
was  not  confined  to  any  one  occupation.  The
deadening  effect  of  monotony  was  entirely  ab-
sent; all  the  senses  were  appealed  to  in  turn.
The  smell  of  the  fresh  up-turned  soil,  the  per-
fume of  the  wild  rose,  and  the  odor  of  the  new-
mown  hay  are  still  with  me,  as  are  the  calls  of
the  cat-b'ird,  the  whistle  of  the  bobolink,  the
humming  of  the  bees  and  the  familiar  spec-


1 14     The  Making  and  the  Unmaking  of  a  Dullard

tacle  of  the  prairie  chicken  inviting  death  by
shamming  a  broken  wing  in  order  to  divert
attention  and  avert  danger  from  her  young.
"With  these  sights  and  sounds  of  nature  are
inseparably  entwined  in  the  tangled  skein  of
memory  the  outward  signs  of  a  human  activity
that  blended  with  nature's  processes.  I  can  still
feel  on  my  feet  the  soft,  wet  moss  of  the
meadow  bottoms,  and  see  the  rhythm  of  the
twenty  mowers,  and  hear  the  swish  of  the
scythes  through  the  soft  grass,  and  the  music
of  the  whetstones  on  the  steel  blades.
"The  constant  change  of  work  that  charac-
terized the  farm  labor  of  those  days  must  not
be  put  on  a  level  with  the  unchanging  monot-
ony that  characterizes  the  occupation  of  a  fac-
tory hand.  Another  great  advantage  attaches
to  the  sort  of  training  that  we  received  on  the
farm;  the  work  is  not  done  for  the  sake  of
the  training ;  there  is  no  make-believe  about  it ;
it  is  animated  by  an  earnest  purpose;  some-
thing real  is  being  done  every  hour.
