The Farmer’s Story

by Mary Kyle Dallas

“Seen you sit on the fence, sir, writing in that little book. I thought perhaps you might be writing poetry. A good many folks come down here of a summer and make poetry about the sheep and the moon. Peggy reads ‘em out to me in the paper, and the stories, too, sir. Do you write stories? Yes? Well, that’s a gift. If I had it I think I could make one about what has happened to me. Peggy says it could be done.

“Now, it’s all plain sailing, nothing out of the common; but I wasn’t always a well-to-do old farmer. Once I was a farmers boy—a hand,—with nothing of my own but a stout heart, and strong limbs and good health.

“Many’s the night, when the stars were in the sky. I used to go out to the great pasture where the sheep browsed all the day, and sit and think thoughts I had no words for, and make beautiful pictures for myself in my mind—not fine ones, sir. This is what I used to see the oftenest: A little cottage with a wide fire-place, such as they had in my day. A dresser with a row of delf upon it, four chairs and a table of white pine. When I had these I was to marry Peggy Grey. But when I should have them, and she her white wedding-gown and the house linen, neither of us knew.

“She put her sixpence into a red earthen savings bank, and I kept mine in an old glove. For two years we were waiting and hoping and were not much nearer than at first. Sometimes I felt down-hearted. Sometimes her little letters were a bit sad. And just as I sat in the meadow I knew she sat before her kitchen fire in the house where she lived in service. Simple folks we were, but, we had hearts, and felt, perhaps, as deeply as greater folks might.

“My master, the farmer, was a close man. He squeezed as much work out of his hands as possible. But it was a steady place, and he paid all he promised; so I [stayed],… Read More