Brother Bones, we can always afford to pay for things in money rather than in human flesh and blood. That is the most exorbitant price the race can pay for anything, and we have been paying for farm work that way for a long time. If you doubt this statement, I can show you the receipts which have been chiseled in stone and marble in every graveyard. SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JANE BELOVED WIFE OF EDWARD JAMES. AGED 32 YEARS AND 6 MONTHS. Who can estimate the worth of a mother to her family and the community? An old widower, who was reproved for marrying a very young girl for his third wife, exonerated himself from blame by saying: "It would ruin any man to be always buryin', and buryin'." But Brother Bones is not yet satisfied, and he is sure the women will have nothing to do if such a scheme would be followed out, and he tells us that his mother always did these things herself and raised her family, too. "I can tell you," says Brother Bones, "my mother knew something about rearing children; she raised seven and buried seven, and she never lay in bed for more than three days with any of them. Poor mother, she was a very smart woman--at least so I have been told--I don't remember her." That's just the point, Brother Bones. It is a great thing to have the memory of such a self-sacrificing mother, but it would be a greater thing to have your mother live out her days; and then, too, we are thinking of the "seven" she buried. That seems like a wicked and unnecessary waste of young life, of which we should feel profoundly ashamed. Poor little people, who came into life, tired and weak, fretfully complaining, burdened already with the cares of the world and its unending labor-- Your old earth, they say, is very weary; Our young feet, they say, are very weak, and when the measles or whooping-cough assails them they have no strength to battle with it, and so they pass out, and again the Lord is blamed! It is very desirable for the world that people should be born and brought up in the country with its honest, wholesome ways learned in the open; its habits of meditation, which have grown on the people as they have gone about their work in the quiet places. Thought currents in the country are strong and virile, and flow freely. There is an honesty of purpose in the man who strikes out the long furrow, and turns over every inch of the sod, painstakingly and without pretense; for he knows that he cannot cheat nature; he will get back what he puts in; he will reap what he sows--for Nature has no favorites, and no short-cuts, nor can she be deceived, fooled, cajoled or flattered.