Page 139 - some-stuff-i-wrote-and-some-stuff-i-didn't-(2011)-h-morris-williams

Some Stuff I Wrote and Some Stuff I Didn't (2011) H. Morris Williams

So God Made A Farmer

By Paul Harvey, 1978

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said,
“I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows,
work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to

town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God
made a farmer.

“I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet,
gentle enough, to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs,

tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch
until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure

apd come back real soon—and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn

colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’

I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout,

shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of
haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps.

And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour
week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from “tractor-back,’ put in another
seventy-two hours.” So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get
the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet, stop in mid-field and race to

help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made
a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave
bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-

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