A Son of the Middle Border. Garland Hamlin

CHAPTER IV

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Father Sells the Farm

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      Green's Coulee was a delightful place for boys. It offered hunting and coasting and many other engrossing sports, but my father, as the seasons went by, became thoroughly dissatisfied with its disadvantages. More and more he resented the stumps and ridges which interrupted his plow. Much of his quarter-section remained unbroken. There were ditches to be dug in the marsh and young oaks to be uprooted from the forest, and he was obliged to toil with unremitting severity. There were times, of course, when field duties did not press, but never a day came when the necessity for twelve hours' labor did not exist.

      Furthermore, as he grubbed or reaped he remembered the glorious prairies he had crossed on his exploring trip into Minnesota before the war, and the oftener he thought of them the more bitterly he resented his up-tilted, horse-killing fields, and his complaining words sank so deep into the minds of his sons that for years thereafter they were unable to look upon any rise of ground as an object to be admired.

      It irked him beyond measure to force his reaper along a steep slope, and he loathed the irregular little patches running up the ravines behind the timbered knolls, and so at last like many another of his neighbors he began to look away to the west as a fairer field for conquest. He no more thought of going east than a liberated eagle dreams of returning to its narrow cage. He loved to talk of Boston, to boast of its splendor, but to live there, to earn his bread there, was unthinkable. Beneath the sunset lay the enchanted land of opportunity and his liberation came unexpectedly.

      Sometime in the spring of 1868, a merchant from LaCrosse, a plump man who brought us candy and was very cordial and condescending, began negotiations for our farm, and in the discussion of plans which followed, my conception of the universe expanded. I began to understand that "Minnesota" was not a bluff but a wide land of romance, a prairie, peopled with red men, which lay far beyond the big river. And then, one day, I heard my father read to my mother a paragraph from the county paper which ran like this, "It is reported that Richard Garland has sold his farm in Green's Coulee to our popular grocer, Mr. Speer. Mr. Speer intends to make of it a model dairy farm."

      This intention seemed somehow to reflect a ray of glory upon us, though I fear it did not solace my mother, as she contemplated the loss of home and kindred. She was not by nature an emigrant—few women are. She was content with the pleasant slopes, the kindly neighbors of Green's Coulee. Furthermore, most of her brothers and sisters still lived just across the ridge in the valley of the Neshonoc, and the thought of leaving them for a wild and unknown region was not pleasant.

      To my father, on the contrary, change was alluring. Iowa was now the place of the rainbow, and the pot of gold. He was eager to push on toward it, confident of the outcome. His spirit was reflected in one of the songs which we children particularly enjoyed hearing our mother sing, a ballad which consisted of a dialogue between a husband and wife on this very subject of emigration. The words as well as its wailing melody still stir me deeply, for they lay hold of my sub-conscious memory—embodying admirably the debate which went on in our home as well as in the homes of other farmers in the valley—only, alas! our mothers did not prevail.

      It begins with a statement of unrest on the part of the husband who confesses that he is about to give up his plow and his cart—

      Away to Colorado a journey I'll go,

       For to double my fortune as other men do,

       While here I must labor each day in the field And the winter consumes all the summer doth yield.

      To this the wife replies:

      Dear husband, I've noticed with a sorrowful heart

       That you long have neglected your plow and your cart,

       Your horses, sheep, cattle at random do run,

       And your new Sunday jacket goes every day on.

       Oh, stay on your farm and you'll suffer no loss, For the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss.

      But the husband insists:

      Oh, wife, let us go; Oh, don't let us wait;

       I long to be there, and I long to be great,

       While you some fair lady and who knows but I

       May be some rich governor long 'fore I die,

       Whilst here I must labor each day in the field, And the winter consumes all the summer doth yield.

      But wife shrewdly retorts:

      Dear husband, remember those lands are so dear

       They will cost you the labor of many a year.

       Your horses, sheep, cattle will all be to buy,

       You will hardly get settled before you must die.

       Oh, stay on the farm—etc.

      The husband then argues that as in that country the lands are all cleared to the plow, and horses and cattle not very dear, they would soon be rich. Indeed, "we will feast on fat venison one-half of the year." Thereupon the wife brings in her final argument:

      Oh, husband, remember those lands of delight

       Are surrounded by Indians who murder by night.

       Your house will be plundered and burnt to the ground

       While your wife and your children lie mangled around.

      This fetches the husband up with a round turn:

      Oh, wife, you've convinced me, I'll argue no more,

       I never once thought of your dying before.

       I love my dear children although they are small

       And you, my dear wife, I love greatest of all.

      Refrain (both together)

      We'll stay on the farm and we'll suffer no loss

       For the stone that keeps rolling will gather no moss.

      This song was not an especial favorite of my father. Its minor strains and its expressions of womanly doubts and fears were antipathetic to his sanguine, buoyant, self-confident nature. He was inclined to ridicule the conclusions of its last verse and to say that the man was a molly-coddle—or whatever the word of contempt was in those days. As an antidote he usually called for "O'er the hills in legions, boys," which exactly expressed his love of exploration and adventure.

      This ballad which dates back to the conquest of the Allegheny mountains opens with a fine uplifting note,

      Cheer up, brothers, as we go

       O'er the mountains, westward ho,