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The Home Circle

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Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1880

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 44.

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The Home Circle.

NEIGHBOR JONES.

I'm thinking, wife, of neighbor Jones, the man with a stalwart arm—
He lives in peace and plenty on a forty-acre farm,
When men are all around us, with hearts and hands a-sore,
Who own two hundred acres, and still are wanting more.
He has a pretty little farm, a pretty little house;
He has a loving wife within as quiet as a mouse;
His children play around the door, their father's heart to charm,
And just as neat and tidy as the tidy little farm.
No weeds are in the corn-field, no thistles in the oats,
The horses show good keeping by their fine and glossy coats;
The cows within the meadow, resting 'neath the beachen shade,
Learn all their gentle manners from a gentle milking-maid.
He never had a lawsuit to take him to the town,
For the very simple reason there are no fences down;
The bar-room in the village for him has not a charm;
I can always find my neighbor on his forty-acre farm.
His acres are so few that he plows them very deep;
'Tis his own hands that turn the sod; 'tis his own hands that reap;
He has a place for everything, and everything in place;
The sunshine smiles upon his fields, contentment on his face
May we not learn a lesson, wife, from the prudent neighbor Jones,
And not sigh for what we haven't got—give vent to sighs and groans?
The rich aren't always happy, nor free from life's alarms;
But blest are those who live content, though small may be their farms.
—Atlanta Constitution.