“Neither with praise not with blame shall ye judge the poor farmer”…begins Christopher LaFarge’s novel in verse, Hoxsie Sells His Acres (1934), and continues
“Praise not nor blame not,—but try to recapture the essence,
Tell your children the story, explain the elusive
Troublesome thing that gives to each word that they utter
Something of quality, something of power and dignity:
Barefooted, lazy, grotesque, speaking prables easily,
Capture the essence, and clothe it in need and in poverty,
Clothe it in stubbornness, drape it with weeds from the pastures;
Tell them the story, but praise not, nor blame not….
Soon they will vanish, be gone;
Soon they will vanish.”
There is so much in these lines that reminds me of the people I grew up with, and whom I still know, embracing them at my parties as they step into what must be the alien world of my ambit. SO much! “Speaking parables easily” , stubbornness, “something of power and dignity”.
The farmers LaFarge is writing about are the ones who DIDN’T go West, who stayed on their land in northerly costal regions, specifically in this book, Rhode Island. Agriculture is always hard, dangerous, backbreaking, precarious—but especially in northerly or mountainous climes. Yet they stayed, even after they could no longer farm with any modicum of profit. . “Land-poor”.
I loved this book, but I’m not gonna ask you to read it. ( Long story as to how I discovered this author!) You CAN order a print edition but for its (in its time) better known sequel, Beauty for Ashes, I think you’d have to hope Amazon still has a used copy. I think I bought one of the last couple of ‘em.
Once, when we were having one of our mares “covered” as they say, meaning impregnated by a stallion, I went along to watch. Naturally I had to pee! So (while the farmer in question single-handedly manhandled two huge, sweating straining hormone-crazed animals!) I saw the inside of the farmhouse of the owner, Pocono mountain royalty by lineage. There were no closets in the rooms, not even wooden wardrobes, just a fairly small pile of clothes in the corner of his bedroom, and no pictures on the walls, only framed birth certificates of family members. No, wait, I can guess what you’re thinking: the impression I got was NOT poverty; poverty tends to be slovenly and grubby. This was…Spartan, more like a military barracks or an oblate’s cell. Pride and dignity lived there.
Why am I writing this now? I reckon it’s cuz I picked up the book this morning and read just the prologue, wondering idly if now, after the ravages of death, I still number anyone among my acquaintance who would actually read it through?
Answer: no. But still, if you live in or grew up in Appalachia, in New England, I hope maybe this will resonate with your memories on some level.
ST UnWoked & UnVaxxed! 
I shall look for it. I will like it.
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For those of us who *didn’t* grow up that way, or in that area, dear Hyp, could our parents’ and grandparents’ stories of the Depression give a window into that world?
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I suppose, but, as the title presages, this book is about the people’s relation to their land. This man Walter Hoxsie owns a huge farm, but a lot of his fields are unplanted now. The tension of the book is whether he will sell out to a developer. No suspense: the title tells us he does. But it explores the attitudes of the people in the town, rich parvenues and members of rich old families who already own a lotta land are the most vocal in wanting him NOT to sell his. People more on his economic level have varying reactions, some envy him cuz he can get rich, some think it would be selfish for him to sell. It’s a lot like my Plateau here, a few families owned almost all,the land, but they weren’t wealthy even when they acquired it; it was cheap—but a farm has to be pretty big if you’re gonna get much outta it—and none of the remaining descendants of those families are wealthy now. When I was a kid, big parcels were just beginning to be sold off for subdivision and development. The remaining members of those families, whenever they talk about it now, ALL feel they were cheated, they sold for practically nothing. And land was all they had, their only wealth. One guy told me his grandfather would sell off strips of land for a new pair of boots!
Anyway, finding these 2 books blew me away! I’m a land use lawyer, and to discover TWO novels in VERSE about zoning—UN-believable!!
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Jesse Stuart did that for me, thanks to a discerning “mobile” librarian during my high school days. He made his world come alive for me. His “The Year of My Rebirth” – an account of his recovery from a nearly-fatal heart attack in 1950 – helped me navigate the shoals of adolescence and disability in the bargain. Thanks for this!
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