Ancient, empty farmhouses hold a great fascination for me. If you drive through the countryside and summer, you can see them sitting back from the road, old, dilapidated, and forlorn. The windows have long since been broken by small boys. The doors hang on one hinge and the roof has lost some shingles. The porch railing is broken here and there, and the front steps have been rotted away by time and the elements. I look at these homes and wonder where the family went. What has become of the laughing boys and girls? Where did the rugged farmer and his handsome wife go? When did the laughter and the tears depart? How long has it been since logs crackled in the open hearth and the smell of fresh bread permeated the large rooms? What a pity the ruins of these homes can not tell their stories of new babies born, of crops harvested and crops destroyed by summer hail storms, of Sunday dinners and tables heavy laden with solid food for the threshing crew, of hours spent around the old pump organ when hymns were sung, of weddings, of funerals, of misery's end of joys. Like forgotten ancient sentinels, they stand now –- mute reminders of happier times when people lived out there lives within their four friendly walls. Somehow there is something very sad about a deserted farmhouse and each time I see one, the same questions run through my mind. Where did the family go? Why did they leave? What did they gain that is more precious than this place they have left behind?
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