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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10593-0.txt b/10593-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..929a596 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4350 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10593 *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +Great Possessions + +David Grayson + +[Illustration] + + +Contents + + CHAPTER I. THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH + CHAPTER II. OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS + CHAPTER III. FOLLOW YOUR NOSE! + CHAPTER IV. THE GREEN PEOPLE + CHAPTER V. PLACES OF RETIREMENT + CHAPTER VI. NO TRESPASS + CHAPTER VII. LOOK AT THE WORLD! + CHAPTER VIII. A GOOD APPLE + CHAPTER IX. I GO TO THE CITY + CHAPTER X. THE OLD STONE MASON + CHAPTER XI. AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES + CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE + CHAPTER XIII. HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS + CHAPTER XIV. ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH + + +“Sweet as Eden is the air + And Eden-sweet the ray. +No Paradise is lost for them +Who foot by branching root and stem, +And lightly with the woodland share + The change of night and day.” + +For these many years, since I have lived here in the country, I have +had it in my mind to write something about the odour and taste of this +well-flavoured earth. The fact is, both the sense of smell and the +sense of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of +the senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, +and sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family, is keen upon the +business of seizing the entire inheritance, while smell, like hairy +Esau, comes late to the blessing, hungry from the hills, and willing to +trade its inheritance for a mess of pottage. + +I have always had a kind of errant love for the improvident and +adventurous Esaus of the Earth. I think they smell a wilder fragrance +than I do, and taste sweeter things, and I have thought, therefore, of +beginning a kind of fragrant autobiography, a chronicle of all the good +odours and flavours that ever I have had in my life. + +As I grow older, a curious feeling comes often to me in the spring, as +it comes this spring more poignantly than ever before, a sense of the +temporariness of all things, the swiftness of life, the sadness of a +beauty that vanishes so soon, and I long to lay hold upon it as it +passes by all the handles that I can. I would not only see it and hear +it, but I would smell it and taste it and touch it, and all with a new +kind of intensity and eagerness. + +Harriet says I get more pleasure out of the smell of my supper than I +get out of the supper itself. + +“I never need to ring for you,” says she, “but only open the kitchen +door. In a few minutes I’ll see you straighten up, lift your head, +sniff a little, and come straight for the house.” + +“The odour of your suppers, Harriet,” I said, “after a day in the +fields, would lure a man out of purgatory.” + +My father before me had a singularly keen nose. I remember well when I +was a boy and drove with him in the wild North Country, often through +miles of unbroken forest, how he would sometimes break a long silence, +lift his head with sudden awareness, and say to me: + +“David, I smell open fields.” + +In a few minutes we were sure to come to a settler’s cabin, a log barn, +or a clearing. Among the free odours of the forest he had caught, afar +off, the common odours of the work of man. + +When we were tramping or surveying in that country, I have seen him +stop suddenly, draw in a long breath, and remark: + +“Marshes,” or, “A stream yonder.” + +Part of this strange keenness of sense, often noted by those who knew +that sturdy old cavalryman, may have been based, as so many of our +talents are, upon a defect. My father gave all the sweet sounds of the +world, the voices of his sons, the songs of his daughters, to help free +the Southern slaves. He was deaf. + +It is well known that when one sense is defective the others fly to the +rescue, and my father’s singular development of the sense of smell may +have been due in part to this defect, though I believe it to have been, +to a far larger degree, a native gift. Me had a downright good nose. +All his life long he enjoyed with more than ordinary keenness the odour +of flowers, and would often pick a sprig of wild rose and carry it +along with him in his hand, sniffing at it from time to time, and he +loved the lilac, as I do after him. To ill odours he was not less +sensitive, and was impatient of rats in the barn, and could smell them, +among other odours, the moment the door was opened. He always had a +peculiar sensitiveness to the presence of animals, as of dogs, cats, +muskrats, cattle, horses, and the like, and would speak of them long +before he had seen them or could know that they were about. + +I recall once on a wild Northern lake, when we were working along the +shore in a boat, how he stopped suddenly and exclaimed: + +“David, do you hear anything?”—for I, a boy, was ears for him in those +wilderness places. + +“No, Father. What is it?” + +“Indians.” + +And, sure enough, in a short time I heard the barking of their dogs and +we came soon upon their camp, where, I remember, they were drying deer +meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that +the smoky smell of the Indians, tanned buckskin, parched wild rice, and +the like, were odours that carried far and could not be mistaken. + +My father had a big, hooked nose with long, narrow nostrils, I suppose +that this has really nothing to do with the matter, although I have +come, after these many years, to look with a curious interest upon +people’s noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are. +My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses go—but I think +I inherited from my father something of the power of enjoyment he had +from that sense, though I can never hope to become the accomplished +smeller he was. + +I am moved to begin this chronicle because of my joy this morning +early—a May morning!—just after sunrise, when the shadows lay long and +blue to the west and the dew was still on the grass, and I walked in +the pleasant spaces of my garden. It was so still...so still...that +birds afar off could be heard singing, and once through the crystal air +came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the +silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the +lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries. +Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well knew the +way of the wind, for if I stood to the north of them the odour was less +rich and free than to the south, and I thought I might pose as a +prophet of wind and weather upon the basis of this easy magic, and +predict that the breezes of the day would be from the north—as, indeed, +they later appeared to be. + +I went from clump to clump of the lilacs testing and comparing them +with great joy and satisfaction. They vary noticeably in odour; the +white varieties being the most delicate, while those tending to deep +purple are the richest. Some of the newer double varieties seem less +fragrant—and I have tested them now many times—than the old-fashioned +single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our +smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of +selection for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist has cheated us +of our rightful heritage of fragrance. I have a mind some time to +practise the art of burbankry or other kind of wizardy upon the old +lilac stock and select for odour alone, securing ravishing original +varieties—indeed, whole new gamuts of fragrance. + +I should devise the most animating names for my creations, such as the +Double Delicious, the Air of Arcady, the Sweet Zephyr, and others even +more inviting, which I should enjoy inventing. Though I think surely I +could make my fortune out of this interesting idea, I present it freely +to a scent-hungry world—here it is, gratis!—for I have my time so fully +occupied during all of this and my next two or three lives that I +cannot attend to it. + +I have felt the same defect in the cultivated roses. While the odours +are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white +roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the +fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in +old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some +unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a +feeling—light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny +air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the +wild rose will bring back in all the poignancy of sad happiness a train +of ancient memories old faces, old scenes, old loves—and the wild +thoughts I had when a boy. The first week of the wild-rose blooming, +beginning here about the twenty-fifth of June, is always to me a +memorable time. + +I was a long time learning how to take hold of nature, and think now +with some sadness of all the life I lost in former years. The +impression the earth gave me was confused: I was as one only half +awake. A fine morning made me dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the +heat of the day, and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I +could have explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I +looked about me I began to ask myself, “Why is it that the sight of +these common hills and fields gives me such exquisite delight? And if +it is beauty, why is it beautiful? And if I am so richly rewarded by +mere glimpses, can I not increase my pleasure with longer looks?” + +I tried longer looks both at nature and at the friendly human creatures +all about me. I stopped often in the garden where I was working, or +loitered a moment in the fields, or sat down by the roadside, and +thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully +surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great +Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are +when we penetrate them, and consisted merely in shutting out all other +impressions, feelings, thoughts, and concentrating the full energy of +the attention upon what it was that I saw or heard at that instant. + +At one moment I would let in all the sounds of the earth, at another +all the sights. So we practise the hand at one time, the foot at +another, or learn how to sit or to walk, and so acquire new grace for +the whole body. Should we do less in acquiring grace for the spirit? It +will astonish one who has not tried it how full the world is of sounds +commonly unheard, and of sights commonly unseen, but in their nature, +like the smallest blossoms, of a curious perfection and beauty. + +Out of this practice grew presently, and as it seems to me +instinctively, for I cannot now remember the exact time of its +beginning, a habit of repeating under my breath, or even aloud, and in +a kind of singsong voice, fragmentary words and sentences describing +what it was that I saw or felt at the moment, as, for example: + +“The pink blossoms of the wild crab-apple trees I see from the hill.... +The reedy song of the wood thrush among the thickets of the wild +cherry.... The scent of peach leaves, the odour of new-turned soil in +the black fields.... The red of the maples in the marsh, the white of +apple trees in bloom.... I cannot find Him out—nor know why I am +here....” + +Some form of expression, however crude, seemed to reenforce and +intensify the gatherings of the senses; and these words, afterward +remembered, or even written down in the little book I sometimes carried +in my pocket, seemed to awaken echoes, however faint, of the exaltation +of that moment in the woods or fields, and enabled me to live twice +where formerly I had been able to live but once. + +It was by this simple process of concentrating upon what I saw or heard +that I increased immeasurably my own joy of my garden and fields and +the hills and marshes all about. A little later, for I was a slow +learner, I began to practise the same method with the sense of smell, +and still later with the sense of taste. I said to myself, “I will no +longer permit the avid and eager eye to steal away my whole attention. +I will learn to enjoy more completely all the varied wonders of the +earth.” + +So I tried deliberately shutting the doorways of both sight and +hearing, and centring the industry of my spirit upon the flavours of +the earth. I tested each odour narrowly, compared it well with +remembered odours, and often turned the impression I had into such poor +words as I could command. + +What a new and wonderful world opened to me then! My takings of nature +increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with +my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around +about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. I cannot +explain it rightly, but it was as though I had found a new earth here +within the old one, but more spacious and beautiful than any I had +known before. I have thought, often and often, that this world we live +in so dumbly, so carelessly, would be more glorious than the tinsel +heaven of the poets if only we knew how to lay hold upon it, if only we +could win that complete command of our own lives which is the end of +our being. + +At first, as I said, I stopped my work, or loitered as I walked, in +order to see, or hear, or smell—and do so still, for I have entered +only the antechamber of the treasure-house; but as I learned better the +modest technic of these arts I found that the practice of them went +well with the common tasks of the garden or farm, especially with those +that were more or less monotonous, like cultivating corn, hoeing +potatoes, and the like. + +The air is just as full of good sights and good odours for the worker +as for the idler, and it depends only upon the awareness, the +aliveness, of our own spirits whether we toil like dumb animals or +bless our labouring hours with the beauty of life. Such enjoyment and a +growing command of our surroundings are possible, after a little +practice, without taking much of that time we call so valuable and +waste so sinfully. “I haven’t time,” says the farmer, the banker, the +professor, with a kind of disdain for the spirit of life, when, as a +matter of fact, he has all the time there is, all that anybody has—to +wit, _this_ moment, this great and golden moment!—but knows not how to +employ it. He creeps when he might walk, walks when he might run, runs +when he might fly—and lives like a woodchuck in the dark body of +himself. + +Why, there are men in this valley who scout the idea that farming, +carpentry, merchantry, are anything but drudgery, defend all the evils +known to humankind with the argument that “a man must live,” and laugh +at any one who sees beauty or charm in being here, in working with the +hands, or, indeed, in just living! While they think of themselves +cannily as “practical” men, I think them the most impractical men I +know, for in a world full of boundless riches they remain obstinately +poor. They are unwilling to invest even a few of their dollars unearned +in the real wealth of the earth. For it is only the sense of the spirit +of life, whether in nature or in other human beings, that lifts men +above the beasts and curiously leads them to God, who is the spirit +both of beauty and of friendliness. I say truly, having now reached the +point in my life where it seems to me I care only for writing that +which is most deeply true for me, that I rarely walk in my garden or +upon the hills of an evening without thinking of God. It is in my +garden that all things become clearer to me, even that miracle whereby +one who has offended may still see God; and this I think a wonderful +thing. In my garden I understand dimly why evil is in the world, and in +my garden learn how transitory it is. + +Just now I have come in from work, and will note freshly one of the +best odours I have had to-day. As I was working in the corn, a lazy +breeze blew across the meadows from the west, and after loitering a +moment among the blackberry bushes sought me out where I was busiest. +Do you know the scent of the blackberry? Almost all the year round it +is a treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; but +it reaches crescendo in blossom time when, indeed, I like it least, for +being too strong. It has a curious fragrance, once well called by a +poet “the hot scent of the brier,” and aromatically hot it is and sharp +like the briers themselves. At times I do not like it at all, for it +gives me a kind of faintness, while at other times, as to-day, it fills +me with a strange sense of pleasure as though it were the very breath +of the spicy earth. It is also a rare friend of the sun, for the hotter +and brighter the day, the hotter and sharper the scent of the brier. + +Many of the commonest and least noticed of plants, flowers, trees, +possess a truly fragrant personality if once we begin to know them. I +had an adventure in my own orchard, only this spring, and made a fine +new acquaintance in a quarter least of all expected. I had started down +the lane through the garden one morning in the most ordinary way, with +no thought of any special experience, when I suddenly caught a whiff of +pure delight that stopped me short. + +“What now can _that_ be?” and I thought to myself that nature had +played some new prank on me. + +I turned into the orchard, following my nose. It was not the peach +buds, nor the plums, nor the cherries, nor yet the beautiful new +coloured leaves of the grape, nor anything I could see along the grassy +margin of the pasture. There were other odours all about, old friends +of mine, but this was some shy and pleasing stranger come venturing +upon my land. + +A moment later I discovered a patch of low green verdure upon the +ground, and dismissed it scornfully as one of my ancient enemies. But +it is this way with enemies, once we come to know them, they often turn +out to have a fragrance that is kindly. + +Well, this particular fierce enemy was a patch of chickweed. Chickweed! +Invader of the garden, cossack of the orchard! I discovered, however, +that it was in full bloom and covered with small, star-like white +blossoms. + +“Well, now,” said I, “are you the guilty rascal?” + +So I knelt there and took my delight of it and a rare, delicate good +odour it was. For several days afterward I would not dig out the patch, +for I said to myself, “What a cheerful claim it makes these early days, +when most of the earth is still cold and dead, for a bit of +immortality.” + +The bees knew the secret already, and the hens and the blackbirds! And +I thought it no loss, but really a new and valuable pleasure, to divert +my path down the lane for several days that I might enjoy more fully +this new odour, and make a clear acquaintance with something fine upon +the earth I had not known before. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II. +OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS + + +Of all times of the day for good odours I think the early morning the +very best, although the evening just after sunset, if the air falls +still and cool, is often as good. Certain qualities or states of the +atmosphere seem to favour the distillation of good odours and I have +known times even at midday when the earth was very wonderful to smell. +There is a curious, fainting fragrance that comes only with sunshine +and still heat. Not long ago I was cutting away a thicket of wild +spiraea which was crowding in upon the cultivated land. It was a hot +day and the leaves wilted quickly, giving off such a penetrating, +fainting fragrance that I let the branches lie where they fell the +afternoon through and came often back to smell of them, for it was a +fine thing thus to discover an odour wholly new to me. + +I like also the first wild, sweet smell of new-cut meadow grass, not +the familiar odour of new-mown hay, which comes a little later, and is +worthy of its good report, but the brief, despairing odour of grass +just cut down, its juices freshly exposed to the sun. One, as it richly +in the fields at the mowing. I like also the midday smell of peach +leaves and peach-tree bark at the summer priming: and have never let +any one else cut out the old canes from the blackberry rows in my +garden for the goodness of the scents which wait upon that work. + +Another odour I have found animating is the odour of burning wastage in +new clearings or in old fields, especially in the evening when the +smoke drifts low along the land and takes to itself by some strange +chemical process the tang of earthy things. It is a true saying that +nothing will so bring back the emotion of a past time as a remembered +odour. I have had from a whiff of fragrance caught in a city street +such a vivid return of an old time and an old, sad scene that I have +stopped, trembling there, with an emotion long spent and I thought +forgotten. + +Once in a foreign city, passing a latticed gateway that closed in a +narrow court, I caught the odour of wild sweet balsam. I do not know +now where it came from, or what could have caused it—but it stopped me +short where I stood, and the solid brick walls of that city rolled +aside like painted curtains, and the iron streets dissolved before my +eyes, and with the curious dizziness of nostalgia, I was myself upon +the hill of my youth—with the gleaming river in the valley, and a hawk +sailing majestically in the high blue of the sky, and all about and +everywhere the balsams—and the balsams—full of the sweet, wild odours +of the north, and of dreaming boyhood. + +And there while my body, the shell of me, loitered in that strange +city, I was myself four thousand miles and a quarter of a century away, +reliving, with a conscious passion that boyhood never knew, a moment +caught up, like a torch, out of the smouldering wreckage of the past. + +Do not tell me that such things die! They all remain with us-all the +sights, and sounds, and thoughts of by-gone times awaiting only the +whiff from some latticed gateway, some closed-in court to spring again +into exuberant life. If only we are ready for the great moment! + +As for the odour of the burning wastage of the fields at evening I +scarcely know if I dare say it. I find it produces in the blood of me a +kind of primitive emotion, as though it stirred memories older than my +present life. Some drowsy cells of the brain awaken to a familiar +stimulus—the odour of the lodge-fire of the savage, the wigwam of the +Indian. Racial memories! + +But it is not the time of the day, nor the turn of the season, nor yet +the way of the wind that matters most but the ardour and glow we +ourselves bring to the fragrant earth. It is a sad thing to reflect +that in a world so overflowing with goodness of smell, of fine sights +and sweet sounds, we pass by hastily and take so little of them. Days +pass when we see no beautiful sight, hear no sweet sound, smell no +memorable odour: when we exchange no single word of deeper +understanding with a friend. We have lived a day and added nothing to +our lives! A blind, grubbing, senseless life—that! + +It is a strange thing, also, that instead of sharpening the tools by +which we take hold of life we make studied efforts to dull them. We +seem to fear life and early begin to stop our ears and close our eyes +lest we hear and see too much: we clog our senses and cloud our minds. +We seek dull security and ease and cease longer to desire adventure and +struggle. And then—the tragedy of it—the poet we all have in us in +youth begins to die, the philosopher in us dies, the martyr in us dies, +so that the long, long time beyond youth with so many of us becomes a +busy death. And this I think truer of men than of women: beyond forty +many women just begin to awaken to power and beauty, but most men +beyond that age go on dying. The task of the artist, whether poet, or +musician, or painter, is to keep alive the perishing spirit of free +adventure in men: to nourish the poet, the prophet, the martyr, we all +have in us. + +One’s sense of smell, like the sense of taste, is sharpest when he is +hungry, and I am convinced also that one sees and hears best when +unclogged with food, undulled with drink, undrugged with smoke. For me, +also, weariness, though not exhaustion, seems to sharpen all the +senses. Keenness goes with leanness. When I have been working hard or +tramping the country roads in the open air and come in weary and hungry +at night and catch the fragrance of the evening along the road or upon +the hill, or at barn-doors smell the unmilked cows, or at the doorway, +the comfortable odours of cooking supper how good that all is! At such +times I know Esau to the core: the forthright, nature-loving, simple +man he was, coming in dabbled with the blood of hunted animals and +hungry for the steaming pottage. + +It follows that if we take excessive joys of one sense, as of taste, +nature, ever seeking just balances, deprives us of the full enjoyment +of the others, “I am stuffed, cousin,” cries Beatrice in the play, “I +cannot smell.” “I have drunk,” remarks the Clown in Arcady, “what are +roses to me?” We forget that there are five chords in the great scale +of life—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and—few of us ever master +the chords well enough to get the full symphony of life, but are +something like little pig-tailed girls playing Peter Piper with one +finger while all the music of the universe is in the Great Instrument, +and all to be had for the taking. + +Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or +unnecessary: and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in +spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even +welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place. Some smells, evil +at first, become through usage not unpleasant. I once stopped with a +wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside +when I came in. He said it was “good and strong” and sniffed it with +appreciation. I agreed with him that it was strong. To him it was not +unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge. All +nature seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of +decay she is speeding decay: and a manured field produces later the +best of all odours. Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire +an evil odour: and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be +plenty of sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of +men. If they are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER III. +FOLLOW YOUR NOSE! + + +“Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn— +Look to this day! For it is Life, +The very Life of Life!” + +On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, +lift his head to the sky—and follow his nose.... + +It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down +the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh +begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was +fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were +drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into +faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence. + +It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, +so airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine +and spring morning—so that one’s spirit dissolved in it, became a part +of it. Such a morning! Such a morning! + +From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land. + +It was the time of all times for good odours—soon after sunrise—before +the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night. + +In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon +the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could +not at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from +the general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across +the moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that +the faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly +again, and just as I was saying to myself, “I’ve got it, I’ve got +it!”—for it is a great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the +fields—I saw, near the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry +bushes, a thorn-apple tree in full bloom. + +“So there you are!” I said. + +I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its +fragrance. The sun, looking over the taller trees to the east, had +crowned the top of it with gold, so that it was beautiful to see; and +it was full of honey bees as excited as I. + +A score of feet onward toward the wind, beyond the thorn-apple tree, I +passed wholly out of the range of its fragrance into another world, and +began trying for some new odour. After one or two false scents, for +this pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour +long known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. +It led me still a little distance northward to a sunny slope just +beyond a bit of marsh, and, sure enough, I found an old friend, the +wild sweet geranium, a world of it, in full bloom, and I sat down there +for some time to enjoy it fully. + +Beyond that, and across a field wild with tangles of huckleberry bushes +and sheep laurel where the bluets and buttercups were blooming, and in +shady spots the shy white violet, I searched for the odour of a certain +clump of pine trees I discovered long ago. I knew that I must come upon +it soon, but could not tell just when or where. I held up a moistened +finger to make sure of the exact direction of the wind, and bearing, +then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it—as a hunter might +surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and +through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose +for an instant the scent I was following—even though I stopped in a low +spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom—and +came thus to the pines I was seeking. They are not great trees, nor +noble, but gnarled and angular and stunted, for the soil in that place +is poor and thin, and the winds in winter keen; but the brown blanket +of needles they spread and the shade they offer the traveller are not +less hospitable; nor the fragrance they give off less enchanting. The +odour of the pine is one I love. + +I sat down there in a place I chose long ago—a place already as +familiar with pleasing memories as a favourite room—so that I wonder +that some of the notes I have written there do not of themselves exhale +the very odour of the pines. + +And all about was hung a fair tapestry of green, and the earthy floor +was cleanly carpeted with brown, and the roof above was in arched +mosaic, the deep, deep blue of the sky seen through the gnarled and +knotted branches of the pines. Through a little opening among the +trees, as through a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide +meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the +open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I +heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing +up quickly I saw my early visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you +please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far +out on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, +like a sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked—a +downy woodpecker. + +“Good morning, sir,” I said. + +He stopped for scarcely a second, cocked one eye at me, and went back +to his work again. Who was I that I should interrupt his breakfast? + +And I was glad I was there, and I began enumerating, as though I were +the accredited reporter for the _Woodland Gazette_, all the good news +of the day. + +“The beech trees.” said aloud, “have come at last to full leafage. The +wild blackberries are ready to bloom, the swamp roses are budded. Brown +planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from +their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I +do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the +drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for +Walt the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the +pine is as sweet—” + +At that moment, like a flame for clearness, I understood some of the +deep and simple things of life, as that we are to be like the friendly +pines, and the elm trees, and the open fields, and reject no man and +judge no man. Once, a long time ago, I read a sober treatise by one who +tried to prove with elaborate knowledge that, upon the whole, good was +triumphant in this world, and that probably there was a God, and I +remember going out dully afterward upon the hill, for I was weighed +down with a strange depression, and the world seemed to me a hard, +cold, narrow place where good must be heavily demonstrated in books. +And as I sat there the evening fell, a star or two came out in the +clear blue of the sky, and suddenly it became all simple to me, so that +I laughed aloud at that laborious big-wig for spending so many futile +years in seeking doubtful proof of what he might have learned in one +rare home upon my hill. And far more than he could prove far more. + +As I came away from that place I knew I should never again be quite the +same person I was before. + +[Illustration] + +Well, we cannot remain steadily upon the heights. At least I cannot, +and would not if I could. After I have been out about so long on such +an adventure as this, something lets go inside of me, and I come down +out of the mountain—and yet know deeply that I have been where the bush +was burning; and have heard the Voice in the Fire. + +So it was yesterday morning. I realized suddenly that I was +hungry—commonly, coarsely hungry. My whole attention, I was going to +say my whole soul, shifted to the thought of ham and eggs! This may +seem a tremendous anti-climax, but it is, nevertheless, a sober report +of what happened. At the first onset of this new mood, the ham-and-eggs +mood, let us call it, I was a little ashamed or abashed at the +remembrance of my wild flights, and had a laugh at the thought of +myself floundering around in the marshes and fields a mile from home, +when Harriet, no doubt, had breakfast waiting for me! What absurd, +contradictory, inconsistent, cowardly creatures we are, anyway! + +The house seemed an inconceivable distance away, and the only real +thing in the world the gnawing emptiness under my belt. And I was wet +to my knees, and the tangled huckleberry bushes and sheep laurel and +hardback I had passed through so joyously a short time before now clung +heavily about my legs as I struggled through them. And the sun was hot +and high—and there were innumerable small, black buzzing flies. + +To cap the climax, whom should I meet as I was crossing the fence into +the lower land but my friend Horace, He had been out early looking for +a cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them +slowly up the lane, the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, +the calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about upon uncertain legs. + +“Takin’ the air, David?” + +I amuse Horace. Horace is an important man in this community. He has +big, solid barns, and money in the bank, and a reputation for +hardheadedness. He is also known as a “driver”; and has had sore +trouble with a favourite son. He believes in “goin’ it slow” and +“playin’ safe,” and he is convinced that “ye can’t change human +nature.” + +His question came to me with a kind of shock. I imagined with a +vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered +him squarely and honestly, if I were to say: + +“I’ve been down in the marshes following my nose—enjoying the thorn +apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting +the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper.” + +I was hungry, and in a mood to smile at myself anyway (good-humouredly +and forgivingly as we always smile at ourselves!) before I met Horace, +and the flashing vision I had of Horace’s dry, superior smile finished +me. Was there really anything in this world but cows and calves, and +great solid barns, and oatcrops, and cash in the bank? + +“Been in the brook?” asked Horace, observing my wet legs. + +Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to +the courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest +things we have in us! I was not equal to it. + +“Oh, I’ve been down for a tramp in the marsh,” I said, trying to put +him off. + +But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to +chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them +ultimately with the impression that they are somehow less sound, +sensible, practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because +he is right, but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy +halt-beliefs and half-believers he is without doubts. + +“What ye find down there?” asked Horace. + +“Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on.” + +“Hm-m,” said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he +continued, “Often git out in the morning as early as this?” + +“Yes,” I said, “often.” + +“And do you find things any different now from what they would be later +in the day?” + +At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to +revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can’t laugh, we +do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we +can fight! And be honest! + +“Horace,” I said, “I know what you are thinking about.” + +Horace’s face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of +curiosity in his eye. + +“You’ve been thinking I’ve been wasting my time beating around down +there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things—which you +wouldn’t do. You think I’m a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don’t +you, Horace? I’ll warrant you’ve told your wife just that more than +once. Come, now!” + +I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and +a little foolish. + +“Come now, honest!” I laughed and looked him in the eye. + +“Waal, now, ye see—” + +“Of course you do, and I don’t mind it in the least.” + +A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye. + +“Ain’t ye?” + +It’s a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend. + +“No,” I said, “I’m the practical man and you’re the dreamer. I’ve +rarely known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you +are, nor a more impractical one.” + +Horace laughed. + +“How do ye make that out?” + +With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as +good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the +offensive. + +“Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?” + +This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred +human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying, +thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why. + +“Why, to make a living—same as you,” said Horace. + +“Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor +neighbour of mine, that’s you, Horace, was just making his living, that +he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you +working for? It’s something more than a mere living.” + +“Waal, now, I’ll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I’m layin’ aside a +little something for a rainy day.” + +“A little something!” this in the exact inflection of irony by which +here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a +good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also +in the exact manner of one so complimented. + +“Horace, what are you going to do with that thirty thousand dollars?” + +“Thirty thousand!” Horace looks at me and smiles, and I look at Horace +and smile. + +“Honest now!” + +“Waal, I’ll tell ye—a little peace and comfort for me and Josie in our +old age, and a little something to make the children remember us when +we’re gone. Isn’t that worth working for?” + +He said this with downright seriousness. I did not press him further, +but if I had tried I could probably have got the even deeper admission +of that faith that lies, like bed rock, in the thought of most men—that +honesty and decency here will not be without its reward there, however +they may define the “there.” Some “prophet’s paradise to come!” + +“I knew it!” I said. “Horace, you’re a dreamer, too. You are dreaming +of peace and comfort in your old age, a little quiet house in town +where you won’t have to labour as hard as you do now, where you won’t +be worried by crops and weather, and where Mrs. Horace will be able to +rest after so many years of care and work and sorrow—a kind of earthly +heaven! And you are dreaming of leaving a bit to your children and +grandchildren, and dreaming of the gratitude they will express. All +dreams, Horace!” + +“Oh, waal——” + +“The fact is, you are working for a dream, and living on dreams—isn’t +that true?” + +“Waal, now, if you mean it that way——” + +“I see I haven’t got you beaten yet, Horace!” + +He smiled broadly, + +“We are all amiable enough with our own dreams. You think that what you +are working for—your dream—is somehow sounder and more practical than +what I am working for.” + +Horace started to reply, but had scarcely debouched from his trenches +when I opened on him with one of my twenty-fours. + +“How do you know that you are ever going to be old?” + +It hit. + +“And if you do grow old, how do you know that thirty thousand +dollars—oh, we’ll call it that—is really enough, provided you don’t +lose it before, to buy peace and comfort for you, or that what you +leave your children will make either you or them any happier? Peace and +comfort and happiness are terribly expensive, Horace—and prices have +been going up fast since this war began!” + +Horace looked at me uncomfortably, as men do in the world when you +shake the foundations of the tabernacle. I have thought since that I +probably pressed him too far; but these things go deep with me. + +“No, Horace,” I said, “you are the dreamer—and the impractical dreamer +at that!” + +For a moment Horace answered nothing; and we both stood still there in +the soft morning sunshine with the peaceful fields and woods all about +us, two human atoms struggling hotly with questions too large for us. +The cow and the new calf were long out of sight. Horace made a motion +as if to follow them up the lane, but I held him with my glittering +eye—as I think of it since, not without a kind of amusement at my own +seriousness. + +“I’m the practical man, Horace, for I want my peace now, and my +happiness now, and my God now. I can’t wait. My barns may burn or my +cattle die, or the solid bank where I keep my deferred joy may fail, or +I myself by to-morrow be no longer here.” + +So powerfully and vividly did this thought take possession of me that I +cannot now remember to have said a decent good-bye to Horace (never +mind, he knows me!). At least when I was halfway up the hill I found +myself gesticulating with one clenched fist and saying to myself with a +kind of passion: “Why wait to be peaceful? Why not be peaceful now? Why +not be happy now? Why not be rich now?” + +For I think it truth that a life uncommanded now is uncommanded; a life +unenjoyed now is unenjoyed; a life not lived wisely now is not lived +wisely: for the past is gone and no one knows the future. + +As for Horace is he convinced that he is an impractical dreamer. Not a +bit of it! He was merely flurried for a moment in his mind, and +probably thinks me now, more than ever before, just what I think him. +Absurd place, isn’t it, this world? + +So I reached home at last. You have no idea, unless you have tried it +yourself, how good breakfast tastes alter a three-mile tramp in the +sharp morning air. The odour of ham and eggs, and new muffins, and +coffee, as you come up the hill, there is an odour for you! And it was +good to see Harriet. + +“Harriet,” I said, “you are a sight for tired eyes.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE GREEN PEOPLE + + +I have always had a fondness, when upon my travels about the world of +the near-by woods and fields, for nipping a bit of a twig here and +there and tasting the tart or bitter quality of it. I suppose the +instinct descends to me from the herbivorous side of my distant +ancestry. I love a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet +inside bark, or a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a +spike of timothy grass drawn slowly from its close-fitting sheath, or a +twig of the birch that tastes like wintergreen. + +I think this no strange or unusual instinct, for I have seen many other +people doing it, especially farmers around here, who go through the +fields nipping the new oats, testing the red-top, or chewing a bit of +sassafras bark. I have in mind a clump of shrubbery in the town road, +where an old house once stood, of the kind called here by some the +“sweet-scented shrub,” and the brandies of it nearest the road are +quite clipped and stunted I’m being nipped at by old ladies who pass +that way and take to it like cat to catnip. + +For a long time this was a wholly unorganized, indeed all but +unconscious, pleasure, a true pattern of the childish way we take hold +of the earth; but when I began to come newly alive to all things as I +have already related—I chanced upon this curious, undeveloped instinct. + +“What is it I have here?” I asked myself, for I thought this might be a +new handle for getting hold of nature. + +Along one edge of my field is a natural hedge of wild cherry, young +elms and ashes, dogwood, black raspberry bushes and the like, which has +long been a pleasure to the eye, especially in the early morning when +the shadows of it lie long and cool upon the meadow. Many times I have +walked that way to admire it, or to listen for the catbirds that nest +there, or to steal upon a certain gray squirrel who comes out from his +home in the chestnut tree on a fine morning to inspect his premises. + +It occurred to me one day that I would make the acquaintance of this +hedge in a new way; so I passed slowly along it where the branches of +the trees brushed my shoulder and picked a twig here and there and bit +it through. “This is cherry,” I said; “this is elm, this is dogwood.” +And it was a fine adventure to know old friends in new ways, for I had +never thought before to test the trees and shrubs by their taste and +smell. After that, whenever I passed that way, I closed my eyes and +tried for further identifications by taste, and was soon able to tell +quickly half a dozen other varieties of trees, shrubs, and smaller +plants along that bit of meadow. + +Presently, as one who learns to navigate still water near shore longs +for more thrilling voyages, I tried the grassy old roads in the woods, +where young trees and other growths were to be found in great variety: +and had a joy of it I cannot describe, for old and familiar places were +thus made new and wonderful to me. And when I think of those places, +now, say in winter, I grasp them more vividly and strongly than ever I +did before, for I think not only how they look, but how they taste and +smell, and I even know many of the growing things by the touch of them. +It is certain that our grasp of life is in direct proportion to the +variety and warmth of the ways in which we lay hold of it. No thought +no beauty and no joy. + +On these excursions I have often reflected that if I were blind, I +should still find here unexplored joys of life, and should make it a +point to know all the friendly trees and shrubs around about by the +taste or smell or touch of them. I think seriously that this method of +widening the world of the blind, and increasing their narrower joys, +might well be developed, though it would be wise for such as do take it +to borrow first the eyes of a friend to see that no poison ivy, which +certain rascally birds plant along our fences and hedges, is lurking +about. + +Save for this precaution I know of nothing that will injure the taster, +though he must be prepared, here and there, for shocks and thrills of +bitterness. A lilac leaf, for example, and to a scarcely lesser degree +the willow and the poplar are, when bitten through, of a penetrating +and intense bitterness; but do no harm, and will daunt no one who is +really adventurous. There is yet to be written a botany, or, better +yet, a book of nature, for the blind. + +It is by knowing human beings that we come to understand them, and by +understanding them come to love them, and so it is with the green +people. When I was a boy in the wild north country trees were enemies +to be ruthlessly fought—to be cut down, sawed, split, burned—anything +to be rid of them. The ideal in making a home place was to push the +forest as far away from it as possible. But now, when I go to the +woods, it is like going among old and treasured friends, and with riper +acquaintance the trees come to take on, curiously, a kind of +personality, so that I am much fonder of some trees than of others, and +instinctively seek out the companionship of certain trees in certain +moods, as one will his friends. + +I love the unfolding beeches in spring, and the pines in winter; the +elms I care for afar off, like great aloof men, whom I can admire; but +for friendly confidences give me an apple tree in an old green meadow. + +[Illustration] + +In this more complete understanding I have been much aided by getting +hold of my friends of the hedges and hills in the new ways I have +described. At times I even feel that I have become a fully accepted +member of the Fraternity of the Living Earth, for I have already +received many of the benefits which go with that association; and I +know now for a certainty that it makes no objection to its members +because they are old, or sad, or have sinned, but welcomes them all +alike. + +The essential taste of the cherry and peach and all their numerous +relatives is, in variation, that of the peach pit, so that the whole +tribe may be easily recognized, though it was some time before I could +tell with certainty the peach from the cherry. The oak shoot, when +chewed a little, tastes exactly like the smell of new oak lumber; the +maple has a peculiar taste and smell of its own that I can find no +comparison for, and the poplar is one of the bitterest trees that ever +I have tasted. The trees—pines, spruces, hemlocks, balsams, cedars—are +to me about the pleasantest of all, both in taste and odour, and though +the spruces and pines taste and smell much alike at first, one soon +learns to distinguish them. The elm has a rather agreeable, +nondescript, bitterish taste, but the linden is gummy and of a mediocre +quality, like the tree itself, which I dislike. Some of the sweetest +flowering shrubs, such as the lilac, have the bitterest of leaves and +twigs or, like certain kinds of clematis, have a seed that when green +is sharper than cayenne pepper, while others, like the rose, are +pleasanter in flavour. The ash tree is not too bitter and a little +sour. + +I give here only a few of the commoner examples, for I wish to make +this no tedious catalogue of the flavours of the green people. I am not +a scientist, nor would wish to be taken for one. Only last winter I had +my pretensions sadly shocked when I tasted twigs cut from various trees +and shrubs and tried to identify them by taste or by smell, and while +it was a pleasing experiment I found I could not certainly place above +half of them; partly, no doubt, because many growing things keep their +flavours well wrapped up in winter. No, I have not gone far upon this +pleasant road, but neither am I in any great hurry; for there yet +remains much time in this and my future lives to conquer the secrets of +the earth. I plan to devote at least one entire life to science, and +may find I need several! + +One great reason why the sense of taste and the sense of smell have not +the same honour as the sense of sight or of hearing is that no way has +yet been found to make a true art of either. For sight, we have +painting, sculpturing, photography, architecture, and the like; and for +hearing, music; and for both, poetry and the drama. But the other +senses are more purely personal, and have not only been little studied +or thought about, but are the ones least developed, and most dimmed and +clogged by the customs of our lives. + +For the sense of smell we have, indeed, the perfumer’s art, but a poor +rudimentary art it is, giving little freedom for the artist who would +draw his inspirations freshly from nature. I can, indeed, describe +poorly in words the odours of this June morning—the mingled lilacs, +late wild cherries, new-broken soil, and the fragrance of the sun on +green verdure, for there are here both lyrical and symphonic odours—but +how inadequate it is! I can tell you what I feel and smell and taste, +and give you, perhaps, a desire another spring to spend the months of +May and June in the country, but I can scarcely make you live again the +very moment of life I have lived, which is the magic quality of the +best art. The art of the perfumer which, like all crude art, thrives +upon blatancy, does not make us go to gardens, or love the rose, but +often instils in us a kind of artificiality, so that perfumes, so far +from being an inspiration to us, increasing our lives, become often the +badge of the abnormal, used by those unsatisfied with simple, clean, +natural things. + +And as a people deficient in musical art delights in ragtime tunes, so +a people deficient in the true art of tasting and smelling delights in +ragtime odours and ragtime tastes. + +I do not know that the three so-called lesser senses will ever be +organized to the point where they are served by well-established arts, +but this I do know—that there are three great ways of entering upon a +better understanding of this magic earth which are now neglected. + +I think we have come upon hasty and heated days, and are too much +mastered by the god of hurry and the swift and greedy eye. We accept +flashing pictures of life for life itself; we rush here and rush there +and, having arrived, rush away again—to what sensible purpose? Be still +a little! Be still! + +I do not mean by stillness, stagnation not yet lazy contentment, but +life more deeply thought about, more intensely realized, an activity so +concentrated that it is quiet. Be still then! + +So it is that, though I am no worshipper of the old, I think the older +gardeners had in some ways a better practice of the art than we have, +for they planted not for the eye alone but for the nose and the sense +of taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb’s tongue, to +gratify, curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, +and appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am +greatly fond of, and like to snip a leaf as I go by to smell or taste; +but many of them, I here confess, have for me a rank and culinary +odour—as sage and thyme and the bold scarlet monarda, sometimes called +bergamot. + +But if their actual fragrance is not always pleasing, and their uses +are now grown obscure, I love well the names of many of them—whether +from ancient association or because the words themselves fall +pleasantly upon the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, +anise and summer savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! +Cumin! And “there’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, +remember,... there’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for +you: and here’s some for me—” All sweet names that one loves to roll +under his tongue. + +I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when +I go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names +as I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well +enough. + +It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We +are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy +ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather +than for life. + +And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who +lives not a thousand miles from here—I must not tell his name—whose +greatest word is “proportion.” At this moment, as I write, I can hear +the roll of his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r—prop-o-rtion. +He is the kind of man good to know and to trust. + +If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is +a fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his +eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally: +“Well—well!” + +He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing +up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there’s nothing +more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in +daylight! And he inquires into their ancestry, makes them run out their +tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that +they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for +their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a +church, a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashion, lest he see +something else too small; but will have everything, as he says, in true +proportion. If he occasionally favours a little that which is old, +solid, well-placed, it is scarcely to be measured to him as a fault in +an age so overwhelmed with the shiny new. + +He is a fine, up-standing, hearty old gentleman with white hair and +rosy cheeks, and the bright eyes of one who has lived all his life with +temperance. One incident I cannot resist telling, though it has nothing +directly to do with this story, but it will let you know what kind of a +man my old friend is, and when all is said, it would be a fine thing to +know about any man. Not long ago he was afflicted with a serious loss, +a loss that would have crushed some men, but when I met him not long +afterward, though the lines around his eyes were grown deeper, he +greeted me in his old serene, courtly manner, When I would have +comforted him with my sympathy, for I felt myself near enough to speak +of his loss, he replied calmly: + +“How can we know whether a thing is evil until we reach the end of it? +It may be good!” + +One of the events I esteem among the finest of the whole year is my old +friend’s birthday party. Every winter, on the twenty-sixth of February, +a party of his friends drop in to see him. Some of us go out of habit, +drawn by our affection for the old gentleman; others, I think, he +invites, for he knows to perfection the delicate shadings of +companionship which divide those who come unbidden from those, not less +loved but shyer, who must be summoned. + +Now this birthday gathering has one historic ceremony which none of us +would miss, because it expresses so completely the essence of our +friend’s generous and tolerant, but just, nature. He is, as I have +said, a temperate man, and dislikes as much as any one I know the whole +alcohol business; but living in a community where the struggle for +temperance has often been waged intemperately, and where there is a +lurking belief that cudgelling laws can make men virtuous, he publishes +abroad once a year his declaration of independence. + +After we have been with our friend for an hour or so, and are well +warmed and happy with the occasion, he rises solemnly and goes to the +toby-closet at the end of his generous fireplace, where the apple-log +specially cut for the occasion is burning merrily, and as we all fall +silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from +the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he +gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too. +Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive glasses +that have been polished until they shine for the great occasion, and, +having filled them all with the ripe liquor, he passes them around to +each of us. We have all risen and are becomingly solemn as he now +proposes the toast of the year—and it is always the same toast: + +“Here’s to moderation—in all things!” + +He takes a sip or two, and continues: + +“Here’s to temperance—the queen of the virtues.” + +So we all drink off our glasses. Our mellow old friend smacks his lips, +corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his toby-closet, where it +reposes undisturbed for another year. + +“And now, gentlemen,” he says, heartily, “let us go in to dinner.”... + +As I think of it, now that it is written, this story bears no very +close relationship to my original subject, and yet it seemed to follow +naturally enough as I set it down, and to belong with the simple and +well-flavoured things of the garden and fields; and recalling the +advice of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, “never to alter +a thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely +to pass into that of another more readily and with more effect than +anything which you can by reflection invent,” I leave it here just as I +wrote it, hoping that the kinship of my genial old friend with simple +and natural and temperate things may plainly appear. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER V. +PLACES OF RETIREMENT + + +“Good God, how sweet are all things here! +How beautiful the fields appear! + How cleanly do we feed and lie! +Lord, what good hours do we keep! +How quietly we sleep!” + + +CHARLES COTTON (a friend of Izaak Walton) + + +_April 29th_. + +I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out +with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was +myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from +me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling +of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of +frogs from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests +attention. Of odours, a-plenty! Just behind me, so that by turning my +head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock +trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet. All the earth the +very earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell. + +These things have been here a thousand years a million years and yet +they are not stale, but are ever fresh, ever serene, ever here to +loosen one’s crabbed spirit and make one quietly happy. It seems to me +I could not live if it were not possible often to come thus alone to +the woods. + +...On later walking I discover that here and there on warm southern +slopes the dog-tooth violet is really in bloom, and worlds of hepatica, +both lavender and white, among the brown leaves. One of the notable +sights of the hillsides at this time of the year is the striped maple, +the long wands rising straight and chaste among thickets of +less-striking young birches and chestnuts, and having a bud of a +delicate pink—a marvel of minute beauty. A little trailing arbutus I +found and renewed my joy with one of the most exquisite odours of all +the spring; Solomon’s seal thrusting up vivid green cornucopias from +the lifeless earth, and often near a root or stone the red partridge +berries among their bright leaves. The laurel on the hills is sharply +visible, especially when among deciduous trees, and along the old brown +roads are patches of fresh wintergreen. In a cleft of the hills near +the top of Norwottuck, though the day is warm, I found a huge +snowbank—the last held trench of old winter, the last guerilla of the +cold, driven to the fastnesses of the hills.... I have enjoyed this day +without trying. After the first hour or so of it all the worries +dropped away, all the ambitions, all the twisted thoughts— + +It is strange how much thrilling joy there is in the discovery of the +ages-old miracle of returning life in the woods: each green adventurer, +each fragrant joy, each bird-call—and the feel of the soft, warm +sunshine upon one’s back after months of winter. On any terms life is +good. The only woe, the only Great Woe, is the woe of never having been +born. Sorrow, yes; failure, yes; weakness, yes the sad loss of dear +friends—yes! But oh, the good God: I still live! + +Being alone without feeling alone is one of the great experiences of +life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable +possession. People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all +the happiness they find there they must take with them. Thus they +divert and distract that within them which creates power and joy, until +by flying always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from +without rather than from within, they become infinitely boresome to +themselves, so that they can scarcely bear a moment of their own +society. + +But if once a man have a taste of true and happy retirement, though it +be but a short hour, or day, now and then, he has found, or is +beginning to find, a sure place of refuge, of blessed renewal, toward +which in the busiest hours he will find his thoughts wistfully +stealing. How stoutly will he meet the buffets of the world if he knows +he has such a place of retirement where all is well-ordered and full of +beauty, and right counsels prevail, and true things are noted. + +As a man grows older, if he cultivate the art of retirement, not indeed +as an end in itself, but as a means of developing a richer and freer +life, he will find his reward growing surer and greater until in time +none of the storms or shocks of life any longer disturbs him. He might +in time even reach the height attained by Diogenes, of whom Epictetus +said, “It was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man +the means of laying hold upon him to enslave him. He had everything +easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his +property, he would rather have let it go and be yours than he would +have followed you for it; if you laid hold of his leg he would have let +go his leg: if all of his body, all his poor body; his intimates, +friends, country, just the same. For he knew from whence he had them, +and from whom and on what conditions.” + +The best partners of solitude are books. I like to take a book with me +in my pocket, although I find the world so full of interesting +things—sights, sounds, odours—that often I never read a word in it. It +is like having a valued friend with you, though you walk for miles +without saying a word to him or he to you: but if you really know your +friend, it is a curious thing how, subconsciously, you are aware of +what he is thinking and feeling about this hillside or that distant +view. And so it is with books. It is enough to have this writer in your +pocket, for the very thought of him and what he would say to these old +fields and pleasant trees is ever freshly delightful. And he never +interrupts at inconvenient moments, nor intrudes his thoughts upon +yours unless you desire it. + +I do not want long books and least of all story books in the +woods—these are for the library—but rather scraps and extracts and +condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and +carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all +kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled “Traveller’s Joy,” another, +“Songs of Nature,” and I have lately found the best one I know called +“The Spirit of Man” by Robert Bridges, the English laureate. Other +little books that fit well in the pocket on a tramp, because they are +truly companionable, are Ben Jonson’s “Timber,” one of the very best, +and William Penn’s “Fruits of Solitude.” An anthology of Elizabethan +verse, given me by a friend, is also a good companion. + +It is not a discourse or a narrative we want as we walk abroad, but +conversation. Neither do we want people or facts or stories, but a +person. So I open one of these little books and read therein the +thoughtful remark of a wise companion. This I may reply to, or merely +enjoy, as I please. I am in no hurry, as I might be with a living +companion, for my book friend, being long dead, is not impatient and +gives me time to reply, and is not resentful if I make no reply at all. +Submitted to such a test as this few writers, old or new, give +continued profit or delight. To be considered in the presence of the +great and simple things of nature, or worn long in the warm places of +the spirit, a writer must have supreme qualities of sense or humour, a +great sensitiveness to beauty, or a genuine love of goodness—but above +all he must somehow give us the flavour of personality. He must be a +true companion of the spirit. + +There is an exercise given to young soldiers which consists in raising +the hands slowly above the head, taking in a full breath at the same +time, and then letting them down in such a way as to square the +shoulders. This leaves the body erect, the head high, the eyes straight +ahead, the lungs full of good air. It is the attitude that every man at +arms should wish to take, After a day in the woods I feel some such +erectness of spirit, a life of the head, and a clearer and calmer +vision, for I have raised up my hands to the heavens, and drawn in the +odours and sights and sounds of the good earth. + +One of the great joys of such times of retirement perhaps the greatest +of the joys is the return, freshened and sweetened, to the common life. +How good then appear the things of the garden and farm, the house and +shop, that weariness had staled; how good the faces of friends. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +NO TRESPASS + + +I live in a country of beautiful hills, and in the last few years, +since I have been here with Harriet, I have made familiar and pleasant +acquaintance with several of them.... + +One hill I know is precious to me for a peculiar reason. Upon the side +of it, along the town road, are two or three old farms with lilacs like +trees about their doorways, and ancient apple orchards with great +gnarly branches, and one has an old garden of hollyhocks, larkspurs, +zinnias, mignonette, and I know not how many other old-fashioned +flowers. Wild grapes there are along the neglected walls, and in a +corner of one of them, by a brook, a mass of sweet currant which in +blossom time makes all that bit of valley a bower of fragrance, I have +gone that way often in spring for the sheer joy of the friendly odours +I had across the ancient stone fences. + +The largest and stoniest of the farms is owned by an old man named +Howieson. A strange, brown-clad, crooked, crabbed old man, I have seen +him often creeping across his fields with his horses. An ineffective +worker all his life long, he has scarcely made a living from his stony +acres. His farm is tipped up behind upon the hill and runs below to the +brook, and the buildings are old and worn, and a rocky road goes by to +the town. Once, in more prosperous days, before the factories took over +the winter work of these hill farms, the busy families finished shoes, +and wove cloth, and plaited straw hats—and one I know was famous for +wooden bowls craftily hollowed out of maple knots—and the hill people +relied upon their stony fields for little more than their food. But in +these later days, the farm industries are gone, the houses are no +longer overflowing with children, for there is nothing for children to +do, and those who remain are old or discouraged. Some homes have +entirely disappeared, so that all that remains is a clump of lilacs or +a wild tangle of rose bushes about a grass-covered or bush-grown cellar +wall. The last thing to disappear is not that which the old farmers +most set their hearts upon, their fine houses and barns or their +cultivated fields, but the one touch of beauty they left—lilac clump or +rose-tangle. + +Old Howieson, with that passion for the sense of possession which +thrives best when the realities of possession are slipping away, has +posted all his fields with warnings against intrusion. You may not +enter this old field, nor walk by this brook, nor climb this hill, for +all this belongs, in fee simple, to James Howieson! + +[Illustration] + +For a long time I did not meet James Howieson face to face, though I +had often seen his signs, and always with a curious sense of the +futility of them. I did not need to enter his fields, nor climb his +hill, nor walk by his brook, but as the springs passed and the autumns +whitened into winter, I came into more and more complete possession of +all those fields that he so jealously posted. I looked with strange joy +upon his hill, saw April blossom in his orchard, and May colour the +wild grape leaves along his walls. June I smelled in the sweet vernal +of his hay fields, and from the October of his maples and beeches I +gathered rich crops and put up no hostile signs of ownership, paid no +taxes, worried over no mortgage, and often marvelled that he should be +so poor within his posted domain and I so rich without. + +One who loves a hill, or a bit of valley, will experiment long until he +finds the best spot to take his joy of it; and this is no more than the +farmer himself does when he experiments year after year to find the +best acres for his potatoes, his corn, his oats, his hay. Intensive +cultivation is as important in these wider fields of the spirit as in +any other. If I consider the things that I hear and see and smell, and +the thoughts that go with them or grow out of them, as really valuable +possessions, contributing to the wealth of life, I cannot see why I +should not willingly give to them a tenth or a hundredth part of the +energy and thought I give to my potatoes or my blackberries or to the +writing I do. + +I chose a place in a field just below Old Howieson’s farm, where there +is a thorn-apple tree to sit or lie under. From the thorn-apple tree, +by turning my head in one direction, I can look up at the crown of the +hill with its green hood of oaks and maples and chestnuts, and high +above it I can see the clouds floating in the deep sky, or, if I turn +my head the other way, for I am a kind of monarch there on the hill and +command the world to delight me, I can look off across the pleasant +valley with its spreading fields and farmsteads set about with trees, +and the town slumbering by the riverside. I come often with a little +book in one pocket to read from, and a little book in the other to +write in, but I rarely use either the one or the other, for there is +far too much to see and think about. + +From this spot I make excursions round about, and have had many strange +and interesting adventures: and now find thoughts of mine, like +lichens, upon all the boulders and old walls and oak trees of that +hillside. Sometimes I climb to the top of the hill. If I am in a +leisurely mood I walk lawfully around Old Howieson’s farm by a kind of +wood lane that leads to the summit, but often I cross his walls, all +regardless of his trespass signs, and go that way to the top. + +[Illustration] + +It was on one of these lawless excursions in Old Howieson’s field that +I first saw that strange old fellow who is known hereabout as the +Herbman. I came upon him so suddenly that I stopped short, curiously +startled, as one is startled at finding anything human that seems less +than human. He was kneeling there among the low verdure of a shallow +valley, and looked like an old gray rock or some prehistoric animal. I +stopped to look at him, but he paid no heed, and seemed only to shrink +into himself as though, if he kept silent, he might be taken for stock +or stone. I addressed him but he made no answer. I went nearer, with a +sensation of uncanny wonder; but he did not so much as glance up at me, +though he knew I was there. His old brown basket was near him and the +cane beside it. He was gathering pennyroyal. + +“Another man who is taking an unexpected crop from Old Howieson’s +acres,” I thought to myself. + +I watched him for some moments, quite still, as one might watch a +turtle or a woodchuck—and left him there. + +Since then I have heard something about him, and seen him once or +twice. A strange old man, a wanderer upon the face of the fragrant +earth. Spring and summer he wears always an old overcoat, and carries a +basket with double covers, very much worn and brown with usage. His +cane is of hickory with a crooked root for a handle, this also shiny +with age. He gathers bitter-bark, tansy; ginseng, calamus, smartweed, +and slippery elm, and from along old fences and barnyards, catnip and +boneset, I suppose he lives somewhere, a hole in a log, or the limb of +a tree, but no one knows where it is, or how he dries or cures his +findings. No one knows his name: perhaps he has forgotten it himself. A +name is no great matter anyway. He is called simply the Herbman. He +drifts into our valley in the spring, is seen here and there on the +hills or in the fields, like the crows or the blackbirds, and +disappears in the fall with the robins and the maple leaves. Perhaps he +is one of those favoured souls to whom life is all spring and summer. + +The age has passed him by, and except for certain furtive old women, +few care now for his sovereign remedies. + +I met him once in the town road, and he stopped humbly without lifting +his eyes, and opening his basket let out into the air such a fragrance +of ancient simples as I never smelled before. He said nothing at all; +but took out dry bundles of catnip, sassafras, slippery elm, to show +me. He had also pennyroyal for healing teas, and calamus and +bitter-bark for miseries. I selected a choice assortment of his wares +to take home to Harriet, but could get him to name no price. He took +what I gave without objection and without thanks, and went his way. A +true man of the hills. + +As I said, I came often to the field below Old Howieson’s farm. I think +the old man saw me coming and going, for the road winds along the side +of the hill within sight of his house, skirts a bit of wood, and with +an unexpected turn comes out triumphantly to the top of the ridge +beyond. + +At the turn of the road I always disappeared, for I crossed the wall +into the field below Old Howieson’s farm, and mysteriously failed to +appear to the watchful eye upon the ridge beyond. What could be more +provoking or suspicious! To go in at one end of a well-travelled road +and not to come out in the regular and expected way at the other! Or to +be suspected of not being deferential toward trespass signs, or +observant of closed ways! How disturbing to all those who dwell +tremulously within posted enclosures of whatever sort, or those who +base their sense of possession upon stumped paper, or take their God +from a book. Men have been crucified for less. + +Sooner or later those who cross boundaries clash with those who defend +boundaries: and those who adventure offend those who seek security; but +it was a long time before I came face to face with Old Man Howieson. + +This was the way of it: Well back of Howieson’s buildings and reaching +upward upon the face of the hill stretches a long and narrow field, a +kind of barren back pasture with boulders in it, and gnarly hawthorn +trees, and a stunted wild apple or so. A stone fence runs down one side +of the cleared land and above it rises the hill. It is like a great +trough or ravine which upon still spring evenings gathers in all the +varied odours of Old Howieson’s farm and orchard and brings them down +to me as I sit in the field below. I need no book then, nor sight of +the distant town, nor song of birds, for I have a singular and +incomparable album of the good odours of the hill. This is one reason +why I chose this particular spot in the fields for my own, and it has +given me a secret name for the place which I will not here disclose. If +ever you should come this way in May, my friend, I might take you there +of an evening, but could warrant you no joy of it that you yourself +could not take. But you need not come here, or go there, but stop where +you are at this moment, and I here assure you that if you look up, and +look in, you, also, will see something of the glory of the world. + +One evening I had been upon the hill to seek again the pattern and +dimensions of my tabernacle, and to receive anew the tables of the Jaw. +I had crossed Old Howieson’s field so often that I had almost forgotten +it was not my own. It was indeed mine by the same inalienable right +that it belonged to the crows that flew across it, or to the partridges +that nested in its coverts, or the woodchucks that lived in its walls, +or the squirrels in its chestnut trees. It was mine by the final test +of all possession—that I could use it. + +He came out of a thicket of hemlocks like a wraith of the past, a gray +and crabbed figure, and confronted me there in the wide field. I +suppose he thought he had caught me at last. I was not at all startled +or even surprised, for as I look back upon it now I know that I had +always been expecting him. Indeed, I felt a lift of the spirit, the +kind of jauntiness with which one meets a crucial adventure. + +He stood there for a moment quite silent, a grim figure of denial, and +I facing him. + +“You are on my land, sir,” he said. + +I answered him instantly and in a way wholly unexpected to myself: + +“You are breathing my air, sir.” + +He looked at me dully, but with a curious glint of fear in his eye, +fear and anger, too. + +“Did you see the sign down there? This land is posted.” + +“Yes,” I said, “I have seen your signs. But let me ask you: If I were +not here would you own this land any more than you do now? Would it +yield you any better crops?” + +It is never the way of those who live in posted enclosures, of whatever +sort, to reason. They assert. + +“This land is posted,” said the old man doggedly. + +“Are you sure you own it?” I asked. “Is it really yours?” + +“My father owned this farm before me,” he said, “and my grandfather +cleared this field and built these walls. I was born in that house and +have lived there all my life.” + +“Well, then, I must be going—and I will not come here again,” I said. +“I am sorry I walked on your land—” + +I started to go down the hill, but stopped, and said, as though it were +an afterthought: + +“I have made some wonderful discoveries upon your land, and that hill +there. You don’t seem to know how valuable this field is.... Good-bye.” + +With that I took two or three steps down the hill—but felt the old +man’s hand on my arm. + +“Say, mister,” he asked, “are you one of the electric company men? Is +that high-tension line comin’ across here?” + +“No,” I said, “it is something more valuable than that!” + +I walked onward a few steps, as though I was quite determined to get +out of his field, but he followed close behind me. + +“It ain’t the new trolley line, is it?” + +“No,” I said, “it isn’t the trolley line.” + +“What is it, then?” + +In that question, eager and shrill, spoke the dry soul of the old man, +the lifelong hope that his clinging ownership of those barren acres +would bring him from the outside some miraculous profit. + +His whole bearing had changed. He had ceased to be truculent or even +fearful, but was now shrilly beseeching, A great wave of compassion +came over me, I was sorry for him, imprisoned there within the walls of +his own making, and expecting wealth from the outside when there was +wealth in plenty within and everywhere about him. + +But how could I help him? You can give no valuable thing to any man who +has not the vision to take it. If I had told him what I found upon his +hill or in his fields he would have thought me—well, crazy; or he would +have suspected that under cover of such a quest I hid some evil design. +As well talk adventure to an old party man, or growth to a set +churchman. + +So I left him there within his walls. So often when we think we are +barring other people out, we are only barring ourselves in. The last I +saw of him as I turned into the road was a gray and crabbed figure +standing alone, looking after me, and not far off his own sign: + +[Illustration] + +Sometime, I thought, this old farm will be owned by a man who is also +capable of possessing it. More than one such place I know already has +been taken by those who value the beauty of the hills and the old +walls, and the boulder-strewn fields. One I know is really possessed by +a man who long ago had a vision of sheep feeding on fields too +infertile to produce profitable crops, and many others have been taken +by men who saw forests growing where forests ought to grow. For real +possession is not a thing of inheritance or of documents, but of the +spirit; and passes by vision and imagination. Sometimes, indeed, the +trespass signs stand long—so long that we grow impatient—but nature is +in no hurry. Nature waits, and presently the trespass signs rot away, +one arm falls off, and lo! where the adventurer found only denial +before he is now invited to—“pass.” The old walls are conquered by the +wild cherries and purple ivy and blackberry bushes, and the old +Howiesons sleep in calm forgetfulness of their rights upon the hills +they thought they possessed, and all that is left is a touch of +beauty—lilac clump and wild-rose tangle. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +LOOK AT THE WORLD! + + +“Give me to struggle with weather and wind; + Give me to stride through the snow; +Give me the feel of the chill on my cheeks, + And the glow and the glory within!” + + +_March 17th._ + +The joy of winter: the downright joy of winter! I tramped to-day +through miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the +roads or ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of +adventure as I cannot describe. + +Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts of +snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly +like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled a path the heaps +are nearly as high as my shoulder.... + +This perfect morning a faint purplish haze is upon all the hills, with +bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke +rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with +unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure heaps around the +barns. All the hillsides glisten and sparkle like cloth of gold, each +glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the +long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses’ feet +crunch upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the +creamery—the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white +scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly, +and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of +superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow +their wood sled. They are bantering one another noisily. I see a man +shovelling snow from his barn doors; as each shovelful rises and +scatters, the sun catches it for an instant and it falls, a silvery +shower. ... I tramped to-day through miles of it: and whether in broken +roads or spotless fields, had great joy of it. It was good to stride +through opposing drifts and to catch the tingling air upon one’s face. +The spring is beautiful indeed, and one is happy at autumn, but of all +the year no other mornings set the blood to racing like these; none +gives a greater sense of youth, strength, or of the general goodness of +the earth. + +Give me the winter: give me the winter! Not all winter, but just winter +enough, just what nature sends. + +...Dry air in the throat so cold at first as to make one cough; and +dry, sharp, tingling air in the nostrils; frost on beard and eyebrows; +cheeks red and crusty, so that to wrinkle them hurts: but all the body +within aglow with warmth and health. Twice the ordinary ozone in the +air, so that one wishes to whistle or sing, and if the fingers grow +chill, what are shoulders for but to beat them around! + +It is a strange and yet familiar experience how all things present +their opposites. Do you enjoy the winter? Your neighbour loathes or +fears it. Do you enjoy life? To your friend it is a sorrow and a +heaviness. Even to you it is not always alike. Though the world itself +is the same to-day as it was yesterday and will be to-morrow—the same +snowy fields and polar hills, the same wintry stars, the same +infinitely alluring variety of people—yet to-day you, that were a god, +have become a grieving child. + +Even at moments when we are well pleased with the earth we often have a +wistful feeling that we should conceal it lest it hurt those borne down +by circumstances too great or too sad for them. What is there to offer +one who cannot respond gladly to the beauty of the fields, or opens his +heart widely to the beckoning of friends? And we ask ourselves: Have I +been tried as this man has? Would I be happy then? Have I been wrung +with sorrow, worn down by ill-health, buffeted with injustice as this +man has? Would I be happy then? + +I saw on my walk to-day an old woman with a crossed shawl upon her +breast creeping out painfully to feed her hens. She lives on a small, +ill-kept farm I have known for years. She is old and poor and +asthmatic, and the cold bites through her with the sharpness of knives. +The path to the hen-house is a kind of via dolorosa, a terror of +slipperiness and cold. She might avoid it: her son, worthless as he is, +might do it for her, but she clings to it as she clings to her life. It +is the last reason for staying here! But the white fields and drifted +roads are never joyfully met, never desired. She spends half the summer +dreading the return of winter from the severities of which she cannot +escape. + +Nor is it all mere poverty, though she is poor, for there are those who +would help to send her away, but she will not go. She is wrapped about +with Old Terrors, Ancient Tyrannies—that Terror of the Unknown which is +more painful even than the Terror of the Known: those Tyrannies of +Habit and of Place which so often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of +the old. She clings desperately to the few people she knows (“’tis hard +to die among strangers!”) and the customs she has followed all her +life. Against the stark power of her tragic helplessness neither the +good nor the great of the earth may prevail. This reality too.... + +I had a curious experience not long ago: One of those experiences which +light up as in a flash some of the fundamental things of life. I met a +man in the town road whom I have come to know rather more than +slightly. He is a man of education and has been “well-off” in the +country sense, is still, so far as I know, but he has a sardonic +outlook upon life. He is discouraged about human nature. Thinks that +politics are rotten, and that the prices of potatoes and bread are +disgraceful. The state of the nation, and of the world, is quite beyond +temperate expression. Few rays of joy seem to illuminate his pathway. + +As we approached in the town road I called out to him: + +“Good morning.” + +He paused and, to my surprise, responded: + +“Are you happy?” + +It had not occurred to me for some time whether I was happy or not, so +I replied: + +“I don’t know; why do you ask?” + +He looked at me in a questioning, and I thought rather indignant, way. + +“Why shouldn’t a man be happy?” I pressed him. + +“Why _should_ he be? Answer me that!” he responded, “Why should he be? +Look at the world!” + +With that he passed onward with a kind of crushing dignity. + +I have laughed since when I have recalled the tone of his voice as he +said, “Look at the world!” Gloomy and black it was. It evidently made +him indignant to be here. + +But at the moment his bitter query, the essential attitude of spirit +which lay behind it, struck into me with a poignancy that stopped me +where I stood. Was I, then, all wrong about the world? I actually had a +kind of fear lest when I should look up again I should find the earth +grown wan and bleak and unfriendly, so that I should no longer desire +it. + +“Look at the world!” I said aloud. + +And with that I suddenly looked all around me and it is a strange, deep +thing, as I have thought of it since, how the world came back upon me +with a kind of infinite, calm assurance, as beautiful as ever it was. +There were the hills and the fields and the great still trees—and the +open sky above. And even as I looked down the road and saw my sardonic +old friend plodding through the snow—his very back frowning—I had a +sense that he belonged in the picture, too—and couldn’t help himself. +That he even had a kind of grace, and gave a human touch to that wintry +scene! He had probably said a great deal more than he meant! + +_Look at the world_! + +Well, look at it. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +A GOOD APPLE + + +“I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible +goods.” + +I have just had one of the pleasant experiences of life. From time to +time, these brisk winter days, I like to walk across the fields to +Horace’s farm. I take a new way each time and make nothing of the snow +in the fields or the drifts along the fences.... + +“Why,” asks Harriet, “do you insist on struggling through the snow when +there’s a good beaten road around?” + +“Harriet,” I said, “why should any one take a beaten road when there +are new and adventurous ways to travel?” + +When I cross the fields I never know at what moment I may come upon +some strange or surprising experience, what new sights I may see, what +new sounds I may hear, and I have the further great advantage of +appearing unexpectedly at Horace’s farm. Sometimes I enter by the cow +lane, sometimes by way of the old road through the wood-lot, or I +appear casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or +I let Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle +fence. I have come to love doing this, for unexpectedness in visitors, +as in religion and politics, is disturbing to Horace and, as sand-grits +in oysters produce pearls, my unexpected appearances have more than +once astonished new thoughts in Horace, or yielded pearly bits of +native humour. + +Ever since I have known him, Horace has been rather high-and-mighty +with me; but I know he enjoys my visits, for I give him always, I +think, a pleasantly renewed sense of his own superiority. When he sees +me his eye lights up with the comfortable knowledge that he can plough +so much better than I can, that his corn grows taller than mine, and +his hens lay more eggs. He is a wonderfully practical man, is Horace; +hard-headed, they call it here. And he never feels so superior, I +think, as when he finds me sometimes of a Sunday or an evening walking +across the fields where my land joins his, or sitting on a stone fence, +or lying on my back in the pasture under a certain friendly thorn-apple +tree. This he finds it difficult to understand, and thinks it highly +undisciplined, impractical, no doubt reprehensible. + +One incident of the sort I shall never forget. It was on a June day +only a year or so after I came here, and before Horace knew me as well +as he does now. I had climbed the hill to look off across his own +high-field pasture, where the white daisies, the purple fleabane, and +the buttercups made a wild tangle of beauty among the tall herd’s +grass. Light airs moved billowing across the field, bobolinks and +meadow larks were singing, and all about were the old fences, each with +its wild hedgerow of choke cherry, young elms, and black raspberry +bushes, and beyond, across miles and miles of sunny green countryside, +the mysterious blue of the ever-changing hills. It was a spot I loved +then, and have loved more deeply every year since. + +Horace found me sitting on the stone fence which there divides our +possessions; I think he had been observing me with amusement for some +time before I saw him, for when I looked around his face wore a +comfortably superior, half-disdainful smile. + +“David,” said he, “what ye doin’ here?” + +“Harvesting my crops,” I said. + +He looked at me sharply to see if I was joking, but I was perfectly +sober. + +“Harvestin’ yer crops?” + +“Yes,” I said, the fancy growing suddenly upon me, “and just now I’ve +been taking a crop from the field you think you own.” + +I waved my hand to indicate his high-field pasture. + +“Don’t I own it?” + +“No, Horace, I’m sorry to say, not all of it. To be frank with you, +since I came here, I’ve quietly acquired an undivided interest in that +land. I may as well tell you first as last. I’m like you, Horace, I’m +reaching out in all directions.” + +I spoke in as serious a voice as I could command: the tone I use when I +sell potatoes. Horace’s smile wholly disappeared. A city feller like me +was capable of anything! + +“How’s that?” he exclaimed sharply. “What do you mean? That field came +down to me from my grandfather Jamieson.” + +I continued to look at Horace with great calmness and gravity. + +“Judging from what I now know of your title, Horace,” said I, “neither +your grandfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field. +And I’ve now acquired that part of it, in fee simple, that neither they +nor you ever really had.” + +At this Horace began to look seriously worried. The idea that any one +could get away from him anything that he possessed, especially without +his knowledge, was terrible to him. + +“What do you mean, Mr. Grayson?” + +He had been calling me “David,” but he now returned sharply to +“Mister.” In our country when we “Mister” a friend something serious is +about to happen. It’s the signal for general mobilization. + +I continued to look Horace rather coldly and severely in the eye. + +“Yes,” said I, “I’ve acquired a share in that field which I shall not +soon surrender.” + +An unmistakable dogged look came into Horace’s face, the look inherited +from generations of land-owning, home-defending, fighting ancestors. +Horace is New England of New England. + +“Yes,” I said, “I have already had two or three crops from that field.” + +“Huh!” said Horace. “I’ve cut the grass and I’ve cut the rowen every +year since you bin here. What’s more, I’ve got the money fer it in the +bank.” + +He tapped his fingers on the top of the wall. + +“Nevertheless, Horace,” said I, “I’ve got my crops, also, from that +field, and a steady income, too.” + +“What crops?” + +“Well, Eve just now been gathering in one of them. What do you think of +the value of the fleabane, and the daisies, and the yellow five-finger +in that field?” + +“Huh!” said Horace. + +“Well, I’ve just been cropping them. And have you observed the wind in +the grass—and those shadows along the southern wall? Aren’t they +valuable?” + +“Huh!” said Horace. + +“I’ve rarely seen anything more beautiful,” I said, “than this field +and the view across it—I’m taking that crop now, and later I shall +gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of +the maple trees—and store it all away in _my_ bank—to live on next +winter.” + +It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from +the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; +and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with +his hand in a way he has. + +“Is that all!” said Horace. + +I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me. +Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered +crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content +with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our +farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their +lands without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious +crops of the good earth go to waste. + +After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and +his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession. + +“S’pose you think that’s your field,” he’d say. + +“The best part of it,” I’d return, “but you can have all I’ve taken, +and there’ll still be enough for both of us.” + +“You’re a queer one!” he’d say, and then add sometimes, dryly, “but +there’s one crop ye don’t git, David,” and he’d tap his pocket where he +carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. “And as fer feelin’s, it +can’t be beat.” + +So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world +desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or +eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will +haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to +the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, +intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a +feverish world the unknown great possessions. + +So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus +bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him: + +“Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?” + +“Off that one little piece,” he replied, “I figger fifty-two dollars.” + +“Well, Horace,” said I, “I have beaten you. I got more out of it this +year than you did.” + +“Oh, I know what you mean——” + +“No, Horace, you don’t. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash, +dollars.” + +“How’s that, now?” + +“Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the +grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the +timothy, and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week——” I +leaned over toward Horace and whispered behind my hand—in just the way +he tells me the price he gets for his pigs. + +“What!” he exclaimed. + +Horace had long known that I was “a kind of literary feller,” but his +face was now a study in astonishment. + +“_What?_” + +Horace scratched his head, as he is accustomed to do when puzzled, with +one finger just under the rim of his hat. + +“Well, I vum!” said he. + +Here I have been wandering all around Horace’s barn—in the snow—getting +at the story I really started to tell, which probably supports Horace’s +conviction that I am an impractical and unsubstantial person. If I had +the true business spirit I should have gone by the beaten road from my +house to Horace’s, borrowed the singletree I went for, and hurried +straight home. Life is so short when one is after dollars! I should not +have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the top of the hill to +look for a moment across the beautiful wintry earth—gray sky and bare +wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely smoke rising from the +chimneys—I should merely have brought home a singletree—and missed the +glory of life! As I reflect upon it now, I believe it took me no longer +to go by the fields than by the road; and I’ve got the singletree as +securely with me as though I had not looked upon the beauty of the +eternal hills, nor reflected, as I tramped, upon the strange ways of +man. + +Oh, my friend, is it the settled rule of life that we are to accept +nothing not expensive? It is not so settled for me; that which is +freest, cheapest, seems somehow more valuable than anything I pay for; +that which is given better than that which is bought; that which passes +between you and me in the glance of an eye, a touch of the hand, is +better than minted money! + +I found Horace upon the March day I speak of just coming out of his new +fruit cellar. Horace is a progressive and energetic man, a leader in +this community, and the first to have a modern fruit cellar. By this +means he ministers profitably to that appetite of men which craves most +sharply that which is hardest to obtain: he supplies the world with +apples in March. + +It being a mild and sunny day, the door of the fruit cellar was open, +and as I came around the corner I had such of whiff of fragrance as I +cannot describe. It seemed as though the vials of the earth’s most +precious odours had been broken there in Horace’s yard! The smell of +ripe apples! + +In the dusky depths of the cellar, down three steps, I could see +Horace’s ruddy face. + +“How are ye, David,” said he. “Will ye have a Good Apple?” + +So he gave me a good apple. It was a yellow Bellflower without a +blemish, and very large and smooth. The body of it was waxy yellow, but +on the side where the sun had touched it, it blushed a delicious deep +red. Since October it had been in the dark, cool storage-room, and +Horace, like some old monkish connoisseur of wines who knows just when +to bring up the bottles of a certain vintage, had chosen the exact +moment in all the year when the vintage of the Bellflower was at its +best. As he passed it to me I caught, a scent as of old crushed apple +blossoms, or fancied I did or it may have been the still finer aroma of +friendship which passed at the touching of our fingers. + +It was a hand-filling apple and likewise good for tired eyes, an +antidote for winter, a remedy for sick souls. + +“A wonderful apple!” I said to Horace, holding it off at arm’s length. + +“No better grown anywhere,” said he, with scarcely restrained pride. + +I took my delight of it more nearly; and the odour was like new-cut +clover in an old orchard, or strawberry leaves freshly trod upon, or +the smell of peach wood at the summer pruning—how shall one describe +it? at least a compound or essence of all the good odours of summer. + +“Shall I eat it?” I asked myself, for I thought such a perfection of +nature should be preserved for the blessing of mankind. As I hesitated, +Horace remarked: + +“It was grown to be eaten.” + +So I bit into it, a big liberal mouthful, which came away with a +rending sound such as one hears sometimes in a winter’s ice-pond. The +flesh within, all dewy with moisture, was like new cream, except a rim +near the surface where the skin had been broken; here it was of a +clear, deep yellow. + +New odours came forth and I knew for the first time how perfect in +deliciousness such an apple could be. A mild, serene, ripe, rich +bouquet, compounded essence of the sunshine from these old +Massachusetts hills, of moisture drawn from our grudging soil, of all +the peculiar virtues of a land where the summers make up in the passion +of growth for the long violence of winter; the compensatory aroma of a +life triumphant, though hedged about by severity, was in the bouquet of +this perfect Bellflower. + +Like some of the finest of wines and the warmest of friends it was of +two flavours, and was not to be eaten for mere nourishment, but was to +be tasted and enjoyed. The first of the flavours came readily in a +sweetness, richness, a slight acidity, that it might not cloy; but the +deeper, more delicate flavour came later—if one were not crudely +impatient—and was, indeed, the very soul of the fruit. One does not +quickly arrive at souls either in apples or in friends. And I said to +Horace with solemnity, for this was an occasion not to be lightly +treated: + +“I have never in my life tasted a fine apple.” + +“There is no finer apple,” said Horace with conviction. + +With that we fell to discussing the kinds and qualities of all the +apples grown this side China, and gave our more or less slighting +opinions of Ben Davises and Greenings and Russets, and especially of +trivial summer apples of all sorts, and came to the conclusion at last +that it must have been just after God created this particular “tree +yielding fruit” that he desisted from his day’s work and remarked that +what he saw was good. The record is silent upon the point, and Moses is +not given to adjectives, but I have often wondered what He would have +said if He had not only seen the product of His creation, but _tasted_ +it. + +I forgot to say that when I would have slurred the excellence of the +Baldwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to +interpose objections, and defended the excellence and perfection of +that variety. + +...He has fifty barrels of Baldwins in his cellar. + +While we talked with much enjoyment of the lore of apples and +apple-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said to +Horace as I reluctantly tossed aside the stem and three seeds: + +“Surely this has been one of the rare moments of life.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +I GO TO THE CITY + + +“Surely man is a wonderfull divers and varying subject: It is very hard +to ground and directly constant and uniforme judgement upon him.” + +Though I live most of the time in the country, as I love best to do, +sometimes I go to the city and find there much that is strange and +amusing. I like to watch the inward flow of the human tide in the +morning, and the ebb at evening, and sometimes in the slack tide of +noon I drift in one of the eddies where the restless life of the city +pauses a moment to refresh itself. One of the eddies I like best of all +is near the corner of Madison Square, where the flood of Twenty-third +Street swirls around the bulkhead of the Metropolitan tower to meet the +transverse currents of Madison Avenue. Here, of a bright morning when +Down-at-Heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and +Old Defeat watches Young Hurry striding by, one has a royal choice of +refreshment: a “red-hot” enfolded in a bun from the dingy sausage wagon +at the curb, or a plum for a penny from the Italian with the trundle +cart, or news of the world in lurid gulps from the noon edition of the +paper—or else a curious idea or so flung out stridently over the heads +of the crowd by a man on a soap box. + +I love this corner of the great city; I love the sense of the warm +human tide flowing all about me. I love to look into the strange, dark, +eager, sensitive, blunt faces. + +The other noon, drifting there in that human eddy, I stopped to listen +to a small, shabby man who stood in transitory eminence upon his soap +box, half his body reaching above the knobby black soil of human heads +around him—black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring +sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. He had ruddy cheeks and a tuft +of curly hair set like an upholstery button on each side of his bald +head. The front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, and as he opened +his mouth one could see the ample lining of red flannel. + +He raised his voice penetratingly to overcome the noise of the world, +straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply +and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life +depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to +that close-packed crowd that there was no God. + +From time to time he offered for sale pamphlets by R.G. Ingersoll and +Frederic Harrison, with grimy back numbers of a journal called the +“Truth-Seeker.” + +By the slant and timbre of his speech he was an Englishman; he had a +gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual +pugilist with skilful blows between the eyes: and his grammar was bad. + +I stood for some time listening to him while he proved with excellent +logic, basing his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was +no God. His audience cheered with glee his clever hits, and held up +their hands for the books he had for sale. + +“Who is this speaker?” I asked the elbowing helper who came through the +crowd to deliver the speaker’s wares and collect the silver for them. +“Who is this speaker who says there is no God?” + +“Henry Moore,” he responded. + +“And who,” I asked, “is Henry Moore?” + +“He is an Englishman and was brought up a Presbyterian—but he seen the +light.” + +“And no longer thinks there is any God?” + +“Nope.” + +“And these books prove the same thing?” + +“Yep.” + +So I bought one of them, thinking it wonderful that proof of so +momentous a conclusion could be had for so small a sum. + +This Henry Moore could fling arguments like thunderbolts; he could +marshall his authorities like an army; he could talk against the roar +of the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not +believe in God he had complete faith in Haeckel and Jacques Loeb, and +took at face value the lightest utterances of John Stuart Mill. + +I enjoyed listening to Henry Moore. I enjoyed looking into the faces +all around me—mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young +faces, and idle faces, and curious faces, and faces that drank in, and +faces that disdainfully rejected. + +After a time, however, I grew unaccountably weary of the vehemence of +Henry Moore and of the adroit helper who hawked his books. And suddenly +I looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. A pigeon was +flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting +on its wings. I saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and +the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the +heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, +contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter +century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the +Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself grandly to +the heavens, and all about I suddenly heard and felt the roar and surge +of the mighty city, the mighty, careless, busy city, thousands of +people stirring about me, souls full of hot hopes and mad desires, +unsatisfied longings, unrealized ideals. And I stepped out of the group +who were gathered around the man who said there was no God.... + +But I still drifted in the eddy, thinking how wonderful and strange all +these things were, and came thus to another group, close gathered at +the curb. It was much smaller than the other, and at the centre stood a +patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. He was +leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the +free-thinker’s audience, freshly stuffed with arguments, had engaged +him hotly. Just as I approached he drew from his pocket a worn, +leather-covered Bible, and said, tapping it with one finger: + +“For forty years I have carried this book with me. It contains more +wisdom than any other book in the world. Your friend there can talk +until he is hoarse—it will do no harm—but the world will continue to +follow the wisdom of this book.” + +A kind of exaltation gleamed in his eye, and he spoke with an +earnestness equal to that of Henry Moore. He, too, was a street +speaker, waiting with his box at his side to begin. He would soon be +standing up there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there +was a God. He, also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads +with the share of his vehement faith. The two women were with him to +sing their belief, and one had a basket to take up a collection, and +the other, singling me out as I listened with eagerness, gave me a +printed tract, a kind of advertisement of God. + +I looked at the title of it. It was called: “God in His World.” + +“Does this prove that God is really in the world?” I asked. + +“Yes,” she said. “Will you read it?” + +“Yes,” I said, “I am glad to get it. It is wonderful that so great a +truth can be established in so small a pamphlet, and all for nothing.” + +She looked at me curiously, I thought, and I put the tract by the side +of the pamphlet I had bought from the freethinker, and drifted again in +the eddy. + +The largest crowd of all was close packed about a swarthy young chap +whose bushy hair waved in response to the violence of his oratory. He, +too, was perspiring with his ideas. He had a marvellous staccato method +of question and answer. He would shoot a question like a rifle bullet +at the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, +both clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any +one could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. +As I edged my way nearer to him I discovered that he, also, had a +little pile of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily +selling. How well-established the technic of this art of the city +eddies! How well-studied the psychology! + +I thought this example the most perfect of them all, and watched with +eagerness the play of the argument as it was mirrored in the intent +faces all about me. And gradually I grew interested in what the man was +saying, and thought of many good answers I could give to his +questionings if he were not so cunning with answers of his own. +Finally, in the midst of one of his loftiest flights, he demanded, +hotly: + +“Are you not, every one of you, a slave of the capitalist class?” + +It was perfectly still for a second after he spoke, and before I knew +what I was doing, I responded: + +“Why, no, I’m not.” + +It seemed to astonish the group around me: white faces turned my way. + +But it would have been difficult to dash that swarthy young man. He was +as full of questions as a porcupine is full of quills. + +“Well, sir,” said he, “if I can prove to you that you are a slave, will +you believe it?” + +“No,” I said, “unless you make me feel like a slave, too! No man is a +slave who does not feel slavish.” + +But I was no match for that astonishing young orator; and he had the +advantage over me of a soap box! Moreover, at that moment, the +keen-eyed assistant, never missing an opportunity, offered me one of +his little red books. + +“If you can read this without feeling a slave,” he remarked, “you’re +John D. himself in disguise.” + +I bought his little red book and put it with the pamphlet of the +freethinker, and the tract of the God-fearing man, and stepped out of +that group, feeling no more servile than when I went in. And I said to +myself: + +“This, surely, is a curious place to be in.” + +For I was now strangely interested in these men of the eddy. + +“There are more gods preached here,” I said, “than ever were known on +the Acropolis.” + +Up the square a few paces I saw a covered wagon with a dense crowd +around it. And in front of it upon a little platform which raised the +speaker high above the heads of the audience stood a woman, speaking +with shrill ardour. Most of the hearers were men; and she was telling +them with logic and authority that the progress of civilization waited +upon the votes of women. The army of the world stood still until the +rear rank of its women could be brought into line! Morals languished, +religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! If +only women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful +and charming place! Oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she +made me desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my +share of the power in this Government to provide each woman with a +vote. And just as I had reached this compliant stage there came a girl +smiling and passing her little basket. The sheer art of it! So I +dropped in my coin and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it +side by side with the other literature of my accumulating library. + +And so I came away from those hot little groups with their perspiring +orators, and felt again the charm of the tall buildings and the wide +sunny square, and the park with Down-at-Heels warming his ragged +shanks, and the great city clanging heedlessly by. How serious they all +were there in their eddies! Is there no God? Will woman suffrage or +socialism cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we +would not be without? Is a belief for forty years in the complete +wisdom of the Book the final solution? Why do not all of the seeking +and suffering thousands flowing by in Twenty-third Street stop here in +the eddies to seek the solution of their woes, the response to their +hot desires? + +So I came home to the country, thinking of what I had seen and heard, +asking myself, “What is the truth, after all? What _is_ real?” + +And I was unaccountably glad to be at home again. As I came down the +hill through the town road the valley had a quiet welcome for me, and +the trees I know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and +the meadows ripe with hay. I know of nothing more comforting to the +questioning spirit than the sight of distant hills.... + +I found that Bill had begun the hay cutting. I saw him in the lower +field as I came by in the road. There he was, stationed high on the +load, and John, the Pole, was pitching on. When he saw me he lifted one +arm high in the air and waved his hand—and I in return gave him the +sign of the Free Fields. + +“Harriet,” I said, “it seems to me I was never so glad before to get +home.” + +“It’s what you always say,” she remarked placidly. + +“This time it’s true!” And I put the pamphlets I had accumulated in the +city eddies upon the pile of documents which I fully intend to read but +rarely get to. + +The heavenly comfort of an old shirt! The joy of an old hat! + +As I walked down quickly into the field with my pitchfork on my +shoulder to help Bill with the hay, I was startled to see, hanging upon +a peach tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black +clothes. Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a +white shirt and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable +black hat. It was as though the peach tree had suddenly, on that bright +day, gone into mourning. + +I laughed to myself. + +“Bill,” I said, “what does this mean?” + +Bill is a stout jolly chap with cheeks that look, after half a day’s +haying, like raw beef-steaks. He paused on his load, smiling broadly, +his straw hat set like a halo on the back of his head. + +“Expected a funeral,” he said cheerfully. + +Bill is the undertaker’s assistant, and is always on call in cases of +emergency. + +“What happened, Bill?” + +“They thought they’d bury ’im this afternoon, but they took an’ kep’ +’im over till to-morrow.” + +“But you came prepared.” + +“Yas, no time to go home in hayin’. The pump fer me, and the black +togs.” + +Bill calls the first rakings of the hay “tumbles,” and the scattered +re-rakings, which he despises, he calls “scratchings.” I took one side +of the load and John, the Pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls +from the tumbles which Bill placed skilfully at the corners and sides +of the load, using the scratchings for the centre. + +John, the Pole, watched the load from below. “Tank he too big here,” he +would say, or, “Tank you put more there”; but Bill told mostly by the +feel of the load under his feet or by the “squareness of his eye.” +John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the +load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but +gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main +strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork +through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a +twinkling—an admirable, deft performance. + +Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting +its clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very +heavy, to throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt +and dry in the burning sun—all full of good odours—the horse-rake draws +it neatly into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll +the billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was +not this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. +Then the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, +and John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the +excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best +methods of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders +and stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of ’98 when two men +and one team saved four acres of hay by working all night—“with +lanterns, I jing”—much talk of how she goes on, “she” being the hay, +and no end of observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, +and excesses of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, +half hidden by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the +tumbles as they go by. + +Then the proud moment when Bill the driver, with legs apart, almost +pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill. + +“Go it, Dick. Let ’er out, Daisy. Stiddy, ol’ boy. Whoa, there. Ease +down now. Hey, there, John, block the wheel—block the wheel I tell ye. +Ah-h now, jes’ breathe a bit. I jing, it’s hot.” + +And then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses +thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in +the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, +dusty “pitching off” and “mowing in”—a fine process, an _honest_ +process: men sweating for what they get. + +As I came in from the field that night the sun was low in the hills, +and a faint breeze had begun to blow, sweetly cool after the burning +heat of the day. And I felt again that curious deep sense I have so +often here in the country, of the soundness and reality of the plain +things of life. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER X. +THE OLD STONE MASON + + +Of well-flavoured men, I know none better than those who live close to +the soil or work in common things. Men are like roses and lilacs, +which, too carefully cultivated to please the eye, lose something of +their native fragrance. One of the best-flavoured men I know is my +friend, the old stone mason. + +To-day I rode over with the old stone mason to select some wide stones +for steps in my new building. The old man loves stones. All his life +long—he is now beyond seventy years old—he has lived among stones, +lifted stones, fitted stones. He knows all the various kinds, shapes, +sizes, and where they will go best in a wall. He can tell at a glance +where to strike a stone to make it fit a particular place, and out of a +great pile he can select with a shrewd eye the stone for the exact +opening he has to fill. He will run his stubby rough hand over a stone +and remark: + +“Fine face that. Ye don’t see many such stones these days,” as though +he were speaking of the countenance of a friend. + +I veritably believe there are stones that smile at him, stones that +frown at him, stones that appear good or ill-humoured to him as he +bends his stocky strong body to lift or lay them. He is a slow man, a +slow, steady, geologic man, as befits one who works with the elemental +stuff of nature. His arms are short and his hands powerful. He has been +a servant of stones in this neighbourhood alone for upward of fifty +years. + +He loves stones and can no more resist a good stone than I a good book. +When going about the country, if he sees comely stones in a wayside +pile, or in a fine-featured old fence he will have them, whether or no, +and dickers for them with all the eagerness, sly pride, and +half-concealed cunning with which a lover of old prints chaffers for a +Seymour Haden in a second-hand book shop. And when he has bought them +he takes the first idle day he has, and with his team of old horses +goes into the hills, or wherever it may be, and brings them down. He +has them piled about his barn and even in his yard, as another man +might have flower beds. And he can tell you, as he told me to-day, just +where a stone of such a size and such a face can be found, though it be +at the bottom of a pile. No book lover with a feeling sense for the +place in his cases where each of his books may be found has a sharper +instinct than he. In his pocket he carries a lump of red chalk, and +when we had made our selections he marked each stone with a broad red +cross. + +I think it good fortune that I secured the old stone mason to do my +work, and take to myself some credit for skill in enticing him. He is +past seventy years old, though of a ruddy fresh countenance and a clear +bright eye, and takes no more contracts, and is even reluctantly +persuaded to do the ordinary stone work of the neighbourhood. He is +“well enough off,” as the saying goes, to rest during the remainder of +his years, for he has lived a temperate and frugal life, owns his own +home with the little garden behind it, and has money in the bank. But +he can be prevailed upon, like an old artist who has reached the time +of life when it seems as important to enjoy as to create, he can +sometimes be prevailed upon to lay a wall for the joy of doing it. + +So I had the stone hauled onto the ground, the best old field stone I +could find, and I had a clean, straight foundation dug, and when all +was ready I brought the old man over to look at it. I said I wanted his +advice. No sooner did his glance light upon the stone, no sooner did he +see the open and ready earth than a new light came in his eye. His step +quickened and as he went about he began to hum an old tune under his +breath. I knew then that I had him! He had taken fire. I could see that +his eye was already selecting the stones that should “go down,” the +fine square stones to make the corners or cap the wall, and measuring +with a true eye the number of little stones for the fillers. In no time +at all he had agreed to do my work; indeed, would have felt aggrieved +if I had not employed him. + +I enjoyed the building of the wall, I think, as much as he did, and +helped him what I could by rolling the larger stones close down to the +edge of the wall. As the old man works he talks, if any one cares to +listen, or if one does not care to listen he is well content to remain +silent among his stones. But I enjoyed listening, for nothing in this +world is so fascinating to me as the story of how a man has come to be +what he is. When we think of it there are no abstract adventures in +this world, but only your adventure and my adventure, and it is only as +we come to know a man that we can see how wonderful his life has been. + +He told me all about the great walls and the little walls—miles and +miles of them—he has built in the course of fifty years. He told of +crude boyhood walls when he was a worker for wages only, he told of +proud manhood walls when he took contracts for foundations, retaining +walls, and even for whole buildings, such as churches, where the work +was mostly of stone; he told me of thrilling gains and profits, and of +depressing losses; and he told me of his calm later work, again on +wages, for which he is chosen as a master of his craft. A whole long +lifetime of it—and the last years the best of all! + +As we drove up yesterday to select the steps from his piles of old +field stone, riding behind his great, slow, hairy-hoofed horse, in the +battered and ancient wagon, he pointed with his stubby whip to this or +that foundation, the work of his hands. + +“Fine job, that,” said he, and I looked for the first time in my life +at the beautiful stonework beneath the familiar home of a friend. I had +seen the house a thousand times, and knew well the people in it, but my +unobservant eye had never before rested consciously upon that bit of +basement wall. How we go through life, losing most of the beauties of +it from sheer inability to see! But the old man, as he drives about, +rarely sees houses at all, especially wooden houses, and for all modern +stucco and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty contempt. Sham +work of a hasty and unskilled age! He never, I think, put in a +shovelful of cement except in the place where it belongs, as a mortar +for good walls, and never will do so as long as he lives. So long as he +lives the standards of high art will never be debased! + +He built that foundation, and this chimney, he worked on the tower of +the Baptist church in the town, “and never yet has there been a crack +in her, winter or summer”; and more than forty years ago he laid the +cornerstone of the old schoolhouse, the foundation walls of which stand +to-day as sound and strong as they were when they were put down. + +In dry walls I think the old stone mason takes the greatest pride of +all: for it is in the dry wall—I mean by that a wall laid without +mortar—that the sheer art of the mason comes most into play. Any one +can throw a wall together if he has mortar to make it stick, but a dry +wall must stand out for what it is, built solid from the bottom up, +each stone resting securely upon those below it, and braced and nested +in by the sheer skill of the mason. The art of the dry wall is the +ancient heritage of New England and speaks not only of the sincerity +and the conscientiousness of the old Puritan spirit but strikes the +higher note of beauty. Many of the older walls I know are worth going +far to see, for they exhibit a rare sense of form and proportion, and +are sometimes set in the landscape with a skill that only the +Master-Artist himself could exceed. Those old, hard-wrought stone +fences of the Burnham Hills and Crewsbury, the best of them, were +honestly built, and built to last a thousand years. A beautiful art—and +one that is passing away! It is the dry wall that stands of itself that +the old stone mason loves best of all. + +As we drove along the road the old man pointed out to me with his +stubby whip so many examples of his work that it seemed finally as if +he had borne a hand in nearly everything done in this neighbourhood in +the last half-century. He has literally built himself into the country +and into the town, and at seventy years of age he can look back upon it +all with honest pride. It stands. No jerry-work anywhere. No cracks. It +stands. + +I never realized before how completely the neighbourhood rests upon the +work of this simple old man. He _founded_ most of the homes here, and +upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the +schools of the countryside. I see again how important each man is to +the complete fabric of civilization and know that we are to leave no +one out, despise no one, look down upon no one. + +He told me stories of this ancient settler and of that. + +He was a powerful queer man—he wanted the moss left on his stones when +I put ’em in; never a hammer touched the facings of _his_ wall... + +“That is properly a woman’s wall. She was the boss, you might call it, +and wanted stone, but _he_ wanted brick. So you see the front, where +people can see it, is of stone, but the sides is all brick.” + +Thus like the true artist that he is, he has not only built himself his +own honesty, truth, skill, into the town, but he has built in the +inexhaustible peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the +loves, of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age +in stone. He knows the town, indeed, better than most of us, having a +kind of stone-age knowledge of it—the fundamental things men build in +when they set about building permanently. + +“And that is what you might call a spite-wall,” said he, showing me a +long wall leading between two shady homes, making one of them a prison +on the south, and the other a prison on the north. He told me the story +of an ancient and bitter quarrel between two old friends, a story which +sounded to-day among spring blossoms like the account of some ancient +baronial feud. + +But if the old stone mason has built walls to keep enemies apart how +many more walls has he built to keep friends together? How many times +has he been consulted by shy lovers seeking a foundation for a new +home, a new family, how many times by Darby and Joan planning a resting +place for the sunny closing years of their lives! He could point, +indeed, to one wall that symbolized hatred; all the others meant homes, +roof-trees, families, or they were the foundations for the working +places of men, or else, like the tower of the church, they pointed +heavenward and were built to the glory of God. + +The old stone mason has not the slightest idea that he has done +anything unusual or wonderful. He is as simple and honest a man as ever +I knew; and if he has pride, simple and honest also in that. He was +anxious not to charge me too much for the stone I bought—in an age like +this! I have never talked with him about God, or about religion: I had +no need to. + +[Illustration] + +He has done his duty in other ways by his time and his place. He has +brought up a large family of children; and has known sorrow and loss, +as well as happiness and contentment. Two of his children were taken in +one day with pneumonia. He told me about it with a quaver in his old +voice. + +“How long ago was it?” I asked. + +“Twenty-seven years.” + +He has sons and daughters left, and two of the sons he has well trained +as stone masons after him. They are good as young men go in a +degenerate age. They insist on working in cement! He has grandchildren +in school, and spoils them. + +He is also a man of public interests and upon town-meeting day puts on +his good clothes and sits modestly toward the back of the hall. Though +he rarely says anything he always has a strong opinion, an opinion as +sound and hard as stones and as simple, upon most of the questions that +come up. And he votes as he thinks, though the only man in meeting who +votes that way. For when a man works in the open, laying walls true to +lines and measurements, being honest with natural things, he comes +clear, sane, strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his +judgment upon matters that are really important as between man and man, +and man and God, than I would trust the town lawyer. And if he has +grown a little testy with some of the innovations of modern life, and +thinks they did everything better forty years ago—and says so—he +speaks, at least, his honest conviction. + +If I can lay my walls as true as he does, if I can build myself a third +part as firmly into any neighbourhood as he has into this, if at +seventy years of age—if ever I live to lay walls with joy at that time +of life—if I can look back upon _my_ foundations, _my_ heaven-pointing +towers, and find no cracks or strains in them, I shall feel that I have +made a great success of my life.... + +I went out just now: the old man was stooping to lift a heavy stone. +His hat was off and the full spring sunshine struck down warmly upon +the ruddy bald spot on the top of his head, the white hair around about +it looking silvery in that light. As he placed the stone in the wall, +he straightened up and rubbed his stubby hand along it. + +“A fine stone that!” said he. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES + + +“I would not paint a face + Or rocks or streams or trees +Mere semblances of things— + But something more than these.” + +“I would not play a tune + Upon the sheng or lute +Which did not also sing + Meanings that else were mute.” + +John Templeton died on the last day of August, but it was not until +some weeks later that his daughter Julida, that hard-favoured woman, +set a time for the auction. It fell happily upon a mellow autumn day, +and as I drove out I saw the apples ripening in all the orchards along +the road, and the corn was beginning to look brown, and the meadows by +the brook were green with rowen. It was an ideal day for an auction, +and farmers and townsmen came trooping from all parts of the country, +for the Templeton antiques were to be sold. + +John Templeton lived in one house for seventy-eight years; he was born +there, and you will find the like of that in few places in America. It +was a fine house for its time, for any time, and not new when John +Templeton was born. A great, solid, square structure, such as they +built when the Puritan spirit was virile in New England, with an almost +Greek beauty of measured lines. It has a fanlight over the front door, +windows exquisitely proportion, and in the center a vast brick chimney. +Even now, though weathered and unpainted, it stands four-square upon +the earth with a kind of natural dignity. A majestic chestnut tree +grows near it, and a large old barn and generous sheds, now somewhat +dilapidated, ramble away to the rear. + +Enclosing the fields around about are stone fences representing the +infinite labour of John Templeton’s forebears. More toil has gone into +the stone fences of New England, free labour of a free people, than +ever went into the slave-driven building of the Pyramids of Egypt. + +I knew John Templeton in his old age—a stiff, weather-beaten old man +driving to town in a one-horse buggy. + +“How are you, Mr. Templeton?” + +“Comin’ on, comin’ on.” This was his invariable reply. + +He had the old New England pronunciation, now disappearing. He said +“rud” for road, “daown” for down, and gave an indescribable twist to +the word garden, best spelled “gardin.” He had also the old New England +ways. He was forehanded with his winter woodpile, immaculately neat +with his dooryard, determined in his Sunday observance, and if he put +the small apples in the middle of the barrel he refused to raise +tobacco, lest it become a cause of stumbling to his neighbour. He paid +his debts, disciplined his children, and in an age which has come to +look chummily upon God, he dreaded His wrath. + +He grew a peculiar, very fine variety of sweet apple which I have never +seen anywhere else. He called it the Pumpkin Sweet, for it was of a +rich yellow. I can see him yet, driving into town with a shallow wagon +box half full of this gold of the orchard; can see him turn stiffly to +get one of the apples for me; can hear him say in the squeaky voice of +age: + +“Ye won’t find no sweeter apples hereabout, I can tell ye that.” + +He was a dyed-in-the-wool abolition Republican and took the Boston +_Transcript_ for forty-six years. He left two cords of them piled up in +a back storeroom. He loved to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte and the +Battle of Waterloo, and how, if there had not been that delay of half +an hour, the history of the world might have been different. I can see +him saying, with the words puffing out his loose cheeks: + +“And then Blooker kem up—” + +To the very last, even when his eyes were too dim to read and his voice +was cracked, he would start up, like some old machine set a-whirring +when you touched the rusty lever, and talk about the Battle of +Waterloo. + +No one, so far as I know, ever heard him complain, or bemoan his age, +or regret the change in the times; and when his day came, he lay down +upon his bed and died. + +“Positively nothing will be reserved,” were the familiar words of the +poster, and they have a larger meaning in an old country neighbourhood +than the mere sale of the last pan and jug and pig and highboy. Though +we live with our neighbours for fifty years we still secretly wonder +about them. We still suspect that something remains covered, something +kept in and hidden away, some bits of beauty unappreciated—as they are, +indeed, with ourselves. But death snatches away the last friendly +garment of concealment; and after the funeral the auction. We may enter +now. The doors stand at last flung widely open; all the attics have +been ransacked; all the chests have been turned out; a thousand +privacies stand glaringly revealed in the sunny open spaces of the +yard. Positively nothing will be reserved; everything will be knocked +down to the highest bidder. What wonder that the neighbourhood gathers, +what wonder that it nods its head, leaves sentences half uttered, +smiles enigmatically. + +Nearly all the contents of the house had been removed to the yard, +under the great chesnut tree. A crowd of people, mostly women, were +moving about among the old furniture, the old furniture that had been +in John Templeton’s family for no one knows how long—old highboys and +lowboys, a beautifully simple old table or so, and beds with carved +posts, and hand-wrought brasses, and an odd tall clock that struck with +sonorous dignity. These things, which had been temptingly advertised as +“antiques,” a word John Templeton never knew, were only the common +serviceable things of uncounted years of family life. + +Nothing about the place was of any great value except the antiques, and +it was these that drew the well-dressed women in automobiles from as +far away as Hempfield and Nortontown; and yet there were men in plenty +to poke the pigs, look sarcastically at the teeth of the two old +horses, and examine with calculating and rather jeering eyes John +Templeton’s ancient buggy, and the harness and the worn plough and +cultivator and mowing machine. Everything seems so cheap, so poor, so +unprotected, when the spirit has departed. + +Under the chestnut tree the swarthy auctioneer with his amiable +countenance and ironical smile acquired through years of dispassionate +observation of the follies of human emotion, the mutability of human +affairs, the brevity of human endeavour, that brought everything at +last under his hammer—there by the chestnut tree the auctioneer had +taken his stand in temporary eminence upon an old chest, with an +ancient kitchen cupboard near him which served at once as a pulpit for +exhortation, and a block for execution. Already the well-worn smile had +come pat to his countenance, and the well-worn witticisms were ready to +his tongue. + +“Now, gentlemen, if you’ll give me such attention as you can spare from +the ladies, we have here to-day——” + +But I could not, somehow, listen to him: the whole scene, the whole +deep event, had taken hold upon me strangely. It was so full of human +meaning, human emotion, human pathos. I drifted away from the crowd and +stepped in at the open door of the old house, and walked through the +empty, resounding rooms with their curious old wallpaper and low +ceilings and dusty windows. And there were the old fireplaces where the +heavy brick had been eaten away by the pokings and scrapings of a +century; and the thresholds worn by the passage of many feet, the +romping feet of children, the happy feet of youth the bride passed here +on her wedding night with her arm linked in the arm of the groom; the +sturdy, determined feet of maturity; the stumbling feet of old age +creeping in; the slow, pushing feet of the bearers with the last +burden, crowding out— + +The air of the house had a musty, shut-in odour, ironically cut +through, as all old things are, by the stinging odour of the new: the +boiling of the auction coffee in the half-dismantled kitchen, the +epochal moment in the life of Julia Templeton. I could hear, +occasionally, her high, strident worried voice ordering a helper about. +Such a hard-favoured woman! + +It is the studied and profitable psychology of the auction that the +rubbish must be sold first—pots and bottles and jugs at five-cent bids, +and hoes at ten—and after that, the friction of the contest having +warmed in the bidders an amiable desire to purchase goods they do not +want and cannot use, the auctioneer gradually puts forth the treasures +of the day. + +As I came out of the old house I could see that the mystic web had been +spun, that the great moment of the sale was arriving. The auctioneer +was leaning forward now upon the tall cupboard with an air of command, +and surveying the assembled crowd with a lordly eye. + +“Now, Jake, careful there—pass it along—steady.... We come now to the +cheff dooves of the day, the creem delly creems of this sale. Gentleman +_and_ ladies, it is a great moment in the life of an auctioneer when he +can offer, for sale, free and without reservation, such treasures as +these....” + +I could feel the warming interest of the crowd gathering in more +closely about Mr. Harpworth, the furtive silences of shrewd bargainers, +eagerness masked as indifference, and covetousness cloaking itself with +smiling irony. It is in the auction that trade glorifies itself finally +as an Art. + +“Here, gentlemen _and_ ladies, is a genuine antique, hand-wrought and +solid all the way through. Just enough worn to give the flavour and +distinction of age. Well built in the first place, plain, simple lines, +but, ladies, _beautiful_.” + +It was the tall four-post bed he was selling and he now put his hand +upon this object—a hardy service with a cunningly simulated air of +deference. It was to be profaned by no irreverent handling! + +“What am I offered for this heirloom of the Templeton family? Ten? Ten! +Fifteen over there, thank you, Mr. Cody. Why, gentlemen, that bed +cannot be duplicated in America! A real product of Colonial art! Look +at the colour of it! Where will you find such depth of colour in any +modern piece? Age varnished it, gentlemen, age and use—the use of a +hundred years.... Twenty over there, twenty I hear, twenty, twenty, +make it thirty.... Speak up now, Ike, we know you’ve come here to-day +to make your fortune—do I hear thirty?” + +No sooner had the great bed been sold (“it’s yours, Mrs. Craigie, a +treasure and dirt cheap”) there came an ancient pair of hand-wrought +andirons, and a spider-legged table, and a brass warming-pan, and a +banjo clock.... + +I scarcely know how to explain it, but the sale of these inanimate +antiques, so charged with the restrained grace, the reticent beauty, +the serviceable strength, of a passing age, took hold upon me with +strange intensity. In times of high emotion the veil between sight and +insight slips aside and that which lies about us suddenly achieves a +higher reality. We are conscious of + +“Something beside the form +Something beyond the sound.” + +It came to me with a thrill that this was no mere sale of antique wood +and brass and iron, but a veritable auction, here symbolized, of the +decaying fragments of a sternly beautiful civilization. + +I looked off across the stony fields, now softly green in the sunlight, +from which three generations of the Templeton family had wrung an +heroic living; I looked up at the majestic old house where they had +lived and married and died.... + +As my eye came back to the busy scene beneath the chestnut tree it +seemed to me, how vividly I cannot describe—that beside or behind the +energetic and perspiring Mr. Harpworth there stood Another Auctioneer. +And I thought he had flowing locks and a patriarchal beard, and a +scythe for a sign of the uncertainty of life, and a glass to mark the +swiftness of its passage. He was that Great Auctioneer who brings all +things at last under his inexorable hammer. + +After that, though Mr. Harpworth did his best, he claimed my attention +only intermittently from that Greater Sale which was going on at his +side, from that Greater Auctioneer who was conducting it with such +consummate skill—for _he_ knew that nothing is for sale but life. The +mahogany highboy, so much packed and garnered life cut into inanimate +wood; the andirons, so much life; the bookshelves upon which John +Templeton kept his “Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” so much life. Life for +sale, gentlemen! What am I offered to-day for this bit of life—and +this—and this— + +Mr. Harpworth had paused, for even an auctioneer, in the high moment of +his art, remains human; and in the silence following the cessation of +the metallic click of his voice, “Thirty, thirty, thirt, thirt—make it +thirty-five—thank you—forty,” one could hear the hens gossiping in the +distant yard. + +“There were craftsmen in those days, gentlemen,” he was resuming; “look +at this example of their art—there is quality here and durability——” + +At this point the Great Auctioneer broke in upon my attention and +caught up Mr. Harpworth’s words: + +“Yes, quality and durability—quality and durability. I also have here +to-day, and will offer you, gentlemen, a surpassing antique, not built +of wood nor fashioned in brass or iron, but a thing long attached to +these acres and this house. I present for your consideration the +married life of John Templeton and Hannah his wife. They lived together +forty years, and the record scarcely shows a dent. In all that time +hardly a word of love passed between them; but never a word of hatred, +either. They had a kind of hard and fast understanding, like the laws +of Moses. He did the work of the fields and she did the work of the +house, from sunrise to sunset. On Sunday they went to church together. +He got out at five o’clock to milk and harness up; and it made double +work for her, what with getting the children cleaned, and the milk +taken care of, and the Sunday dinner made ready. But neither he nor she +every doubted or complained. It was the Lord’s way. She bore him eight +children. She told him before the last one came that she was not equal +to it.... After that she was an invalid for seventeen years until she +died. And there was loss of children to bear between them, and +sickness, and creeping age, but this bit of furniture held firm to the +last. Gentlemen, it was mad solid, no veneer, a good job all the way +through.” + +As he spoke I thought that his roving eye (perhaps it was only my own!) +fell upon Johnny Holcomb, whose married life has been full of +vicissitudes. + +“John, take this home with you; _you_ can use it.” + +“Nope, no such married life for me,” I thought I could hear him +responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer. + +“Do I hear any bids?” the Great Auctioneer was saying, almost in the +words of Mr. Harpworth. “_What!_ No one wants n married life like this? +Well, put it aside, Jake. It isn’t wanted. Too old-fashioned.” + +It was Julia Templeton herself who now appeared with certain of the +intimate and precious “bedroom things”—a wonderful old linen bedspread, +wrought upon with woollen figures, and exaling an ancient and exquisite +odour of lavender, and a rag rug or so, and a little old rocking chair +with chintz coverings in which more than one Templeton mother had +rocked her baby to sleep. Julia herself—— + +I saw Julia, that hard-favoured woman, for the first time at that +moment, really saw her. How fiercely she threw down the spread and the +rugs! How bold and unweeping her eyes! How hard and straight the lines +of her mouth! + +“Here they are, Mr. Harpworth!” + +How shrill her voice; and how quickly she turned back to the noisy +kitchen! I could see the angular form, the streakings of gray in her +hair. ... + +“What am I offered now for this precious antique? This hand-made +spread? Everything sold without reserve! Come, now, don’t let this +opportunity slip by.” He leaned forward confidentially and +persuasively: “Fellah citizens, styles change and fashions pass away, +but things made like these, good lines, strong material, honest work, +they never grow old....” + +Here the Shadowy Auctioneer broke in again and lifted me out of that +limited moment. + +“A true word!” he was saying. “Styles change and fashions pass away, +and only those things that are well made, and made for service the +beautiful things remain. I am offering to-day, without reservation, +another precious antique. What will you give for such a religious faith +as that of John Templeton? Worn for a lifetime and sound to the end. He +read the Bible every Sunday morning of his life, went to church, and +did his religious duty by his children. Do you remember young Joe +Templeton? Wouldn’t learn his chapter one Sunday, and the old gentleman +prayed about it and then beat him with a hitching strap. Joe ran away +from home and made his fortune in Minnesota. Nearly broke the mother’s +heart, and old John’s, too; but he thought it right, and never repented +it. Gentlemen, an honest man who feared God and lived righteously all +his days! What am I offered for this durable antique, this +characteristic product of New England? Do I hear a bid?” + +At this I felt coming over me that strange urge of the auction, to bid +and to buy. A rare possession indeed, not without a high, stern kind of +beauty! It would be wonderful to possess such a faith; but what had I +to offer that Shadowy Auctioneer? What coin that would redeem past +times and departed beliefs? + +It was curious how the words of Mr. Harpworth fitted into the fabric of +my imaginings. When he next attracted my attention he was throwing up +his hands in a fine semblance of despair. We were such obtuse +purchasers! + +“I think,” said Mr. Harpworth, “that this crowd came here to-day only +to eat Julia Templeton’s auction luncheon. What’s the matter with this +here generation? You don’t want things that are well made and durable, +but only things that are cheap and flashy. Put ’er aside, Jake. We’ll +sell ’er yet to some historical museum devoted to the habits and +customs of the early Americans.” + +He was plainly disgusted with us, and we felt it keenly, and were glad +and pleased when, a moment later, he gave evidence of being willing to +go on with us, paltry as we were. + +“Jake, pass up that next treasure.” + +His spirits were returning; his eyes gleamed approvingly upon the newly +presented antique. He looked at us with fresh confidence; he was still +hopeful that we would rise to his former good opinion of us. + +“And now before I sell the hail clock by Willard, date of 1822, I am +going to offer what is possibly the best single piece in this sale....” + +Here again the Old Auctioneer, having caught his * broke in. When he +spoke, who could listen to Mr. Harpworth: + +“... the best single piece in this sale, gentlemen! I offer you now the +Templeton family pride! A choice product of old New England. A little +battered, but still good and sound. The Templetons! They never did +anything notable except to work, work early and late, summer and +winter, for three generations. They were proud of any one who bore the +Templeton name; they were proud even of Jim, simple Jim, who got a job +driving the delivery wagon at the hill store, and drove it for +twenty-two years and was drowned in Mill River. I’ll tell you what +family pride meant to old John Templeton....” + +I thought he leaned forward to take us into his confidence, motioning +at the same time toward the house. + +“You know Julia Templeton——” + +Know her? Of course we knew her! Knew her as only the country knows its +own. + +“When Julia ran away with that sewing-machine agent—it was her only +chance!—old John Templeton drove his best cow into town and sold her, +he mortgaged his team of horses, and went after the girl and brought +her home with him. They were firm and strong and as righteous as God +with her; and they paid off, without whining, the mortgages on the +horses, and never spoke of the loss of the cow—but never forgot it. +They held up their heads to the end. Gentlemen, what am I offered for +this interesting antique, this rare work of art?” + +The auction was considered, upon the whole, a great success. Mr. +Harpworth himself said so. Ike, the Jewish dealer, bought the family +clock and the spring-tooth harrow, and even bid on the family crayon +portraits (the frames could be sold for something or other); a Swede +bought the pigs and the old buggy; an Irish teamster bid in John +Templeton’s horses, and a Pole, a good man, I know him well, bought the +land, and will no doubt keep his geese in the summer kitchen, and get +rich from the cultivation of the ancient fields. While old John +Templeton bowed himself humbly before a wrathful God he would never go +down on his knees, as the Poles do, to the fertile earth. And—I +forgot—an Italian from Nortontown bought for a song the apple and +chestnut crops, and busy third generation Americans loaded in the +antiques and drove off with them to the city. + +The last I saw of Julia Templeton, that hard-favoured woman, she was +standing, an angular figure, in the midst of the wreck of the luncheon +dishes, one arm wrapped in her apron, the other hand shading her eyes +while she watched the company, in wagons and automobiles, trailing away +to the westward, and the towns.... + +The sale was over; but the most valuable antiques of all found no +purchasers: they were left behind with Julia Templeton: only she could +use them. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE + + +We have an Astonishing Woman in this community. She acts in a way that +no one expects, and while we are intensely interested in everything she +does, and desire to know about it to the uttermost detail, we are +inclined to speak of her in bated breath. + +Some Woman to Talk About in a country neighbourhood is a kind of public +necessity. She fills one of the stated functions like the town +assessor, or the president of the Dorcas Society; and if ever the +office falls vacant we have immediate resort to one of those silent +elections at which we choose our town celebrities. There are usually +several candidates, and the campaign is accompanied by much heated +argument and exemplification. We have our staunch party men and our +irresponsible independents on whom you can never put your finger; and +if we are sometimes a little vague in our discussion of principles and +issues we share with our national political leaders an intense interest +in personalities. Prominent citizens “come out” for this candidate or +that, we “spring surprises,” and launch new booms, and often, at the +last moment, we are taken off our feet by the circulation of comebacks. +I take a pardonable pride, however, in saying, to the credit of our +democratic institutions that most of the candidates elected are chosen +strictly upon merit. + +I shall never forget the afternoon, now more than a year ago, that +Harriet came up the road bearing the news which, beyond a doubt, placed +the present incumbent in office; and has served to keep her there, +despite the efforts in certain quarters, which shall be nameless, to +use that pernicious instrument of radicalism, the recall. + +I can always tell when Harriet brings important news. She has a +slightly quicker step, carries her head a little more firmly, and when +she speaks impresses her message upon me with a lowered voice. When +Harriet looks at me severely and drops down an octave I prepare for the +worst. + +“David,” she said, “Mary Starkweather has gone to live in the barn!” + +“In the _barn_!” + +“In the barn.” + +I don’t know quite why it is, but I dislike being surprised, and do my +best to cover it up, and, besides, I have always liked Mary +Starkweather. So I remarked, as casually as I could: + +“Why not? It’s a perfectly good barn.” + +“David Grayson!” + +“Well, it is. It’s a better building to-day than many of the people of +this town live in. Why shouldn’t Mary Starkweather live in the barn if +she wants to? It’s her barn.” + +“But, _David_—there are her children—and her husband!” + +“There always are, when anybody wants to live in a barn.” + +“I shall not talk with you any more,” said Harriet, “until you can be +serious.” + +I had my punishment, as I richly deserved to have, in the gnawing of +unsatisfied curiosity, which is almost as distressing as a troubled +conscience. + +Within the next few days, I remember, I heard the great news buzzing +everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted +for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, +our sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary +Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country, +and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books, +to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children’s maid +going to live in her barn! I leave it to you if there was not a valid +reason for our commotion. + +It must have been two weeks later that I went to town by the upper hill +road in order to pass the Starkweather place. It is a fine old estate, +the buildings, except the barn, set well back from the road with a +spacious garden near them, and pleasant fields stretching away on every +hand. As I skirted the shoulder of the hill I looked eagerly for the +first glimpse of the barn. I confess that I had woven a thousand +stories to explain the mystery, and had reached the point where I could +no longer resist seeing if I could solve it. + +Well, the barn was transformed. Two or three new windows, a door with a +little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting +an inquiring eyebrow—and what was once a barn had become a charming +cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a +personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off +and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple +arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. +You felt at once a kind of fondness for it. + +I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a +trowel in her hand. + +“How are you, David Grayson?” she called out when I stopped. + +“I have been planning for several days,” I said, “to happen casually by +your new house.” + +“Have you?” + +“You don’t know how you have stirred our curiosity. We haven’t had a +good night’s rest since you moved in.” + +“I’ve no doubt of it,” she laughed. “Won’t you come in? I’d like to +tell you all about it.” + +“I also prepared to make excuses for not stopping,” I said, “and +thought up various kinds of urgent business, such as buying a new snow +shovel to use next winter, but after making these excuses I intended to +stop—if I were sufficiently urged.” + +“You are more than urged: you are commanded.” + +As I followed her up the walk she said earnestly: + +“Will you do me a favour? When you come in will you tell me the first +impression my living-room gives you? No second thoughts. Tell me +instantly.” + +“I’ll do it.” I said, my mind leaping eagerly to all manner of +mysterious surprises. + +At the centre of the room she turned toward me and with a sweeping +backward motion of the arms, made me a bow—a strong figure instinct +with confident grace: a touch of gray in the hair, a fleeting look of +old sadness about the eyes. + +“Now, David Grayson,” she said, “quick!” + +It was not that the room itself was so remarkable as that it struck me +as being confusingly different from the heavily comfortable rooms of +the old Starkweather house with their crowded furnishings, their +overloaded mantels, their plethoric bookcases. + +“I cannot think of you yet,” I stumbled, “as being here.” + +“Isn’t it _like_ me?” + +“It is a beautiful room—” I groped lamely. + +“I was afraid you would say that.” + +“But it is. It really is.” + +“Then I’ve failed, after all.” + +She said it lightly enough, but there was an undertone of real +disappointment in her voice. + +“I’m in rather the predicament,” I said, “of old Abner Coates. You +probably don’t know Abner. He sells nursery stock, and each spring when +he comes around and I tell him that the peach trees or the raspberry +bushes I bought of him the year before have not done well, he says, +with the greatest astonishment, ‘Wal, now, ye ain’t said what I hoped +ye would.’ I see that I haven’t said what you hoped I would.” + +It was too serious a matter, however, for Mary Starkweather to joke +about. + +“But, David Grayson,” she said, “isn’t it _simple_?” + +I glanced around me with swift new comprehension. + +“Why, yes, it _is_ simple.” + +I saw that my friend was undergoing some deep inner change of which +this room, this renovated barn, were mere symbols. + +“Tell me,” I said, “how you came to such a right-about-face.” + +“It’s just that!” she returned earnestly, “It _is_ a right-about-face. +I think I am really in earnest for the first time in my life.” + +I had a moment of flashing wonder if her marriage had not been in +earnest, a flashing picture of Richard Starkweather with his rather +tired, good-humoured face, and I wondered if her children were not +earnest realities to her, if her busy social life had meant nothing. +Then I reflected that we all have such moments, when the richest +experiences of the past seem as nothing in comparison with the fervour +of this glowing moment. + +“Everything in my life in the past,” she was saying, “seems to have +happened to me. Life has done things _for_ me; I have had so few +chances of doing anything for myself.” + +“And now you are expressing yourself.” + +“Almost for the first time in my life!” + +She paused. “All my life, it seems to me, I have been smothered with +things. Just things! Too much of everything. All my time has been taken +up in caring for things and none in enjoying them.” + +“I understand!” I said with a warm sense of corroboration and sympathy. + +“I had so many pictures on my walls that I never saw, really saw, any +of them. I saw the dust on them, I saw the cracks in the frames, that +needed repairing, I even saw better ways of arranging them, but I very +rarely saw, with the inner eye, what the artists were trying to tell +me. And how much time I have wasted on mere food and clothing—it is +appalling! I had become nothing short of a slave to my house and my +things.” + +“I see now,” I said, “why you have just one rose on your table.” + +“Yes”—she returned eagerly—“isn’t it a beauty! I spent half an hour +this morning looking for the best and most perfect rose in the garden, +and there it is!” + +She was now all alight with her idea, and I saw her, as we sometimes +see our oldest friends, as though I had not seen her before. She was +that phenomenon of the modern world—the free woman of forty-five. + +When a woman reaches the old age of youth, the years between forty and +forty-five, she either surrenders or revolts. In the older days in +America it was nearly always surrender. Those women of a past +generation bore many children: how many graves there are in our hill +cemeteries of women of forty to fifty who died leading families of five +or eight or ten children! How many second and third wives there were, +often with second and third families. Or if they did not die, how +terribly they toiled, keeping the house, clothing the children, cooking +the food. Or if they bore no children, yet they were bound down by a +thousand chains of convention and formality. + +But in these days we have a woman of forty-five who has not +surrendered. She is a vigorous, experienced, active-minded human being, +just beginning to look restlessly around her and take a new interest in +the world. Such a woman was Mary Starkweather; and this was her first +revolt. + +“You cannot imagine,” she was saying, “what a joy it has been to +unaccumulate! To get rid of things! To select.” + +“To become an artist in life!” + +“Yes! At last! What a lot of perfectly worthless trash accumulates +around us. Not beautiful, not even useful! And it is not only the lives +of the well-to-do that are choked and cluttered with things. I wish you +could see the house of our Polish farmer. He’s been saving money, and +filling up his house with perfectly worthless ornaments—ornate clocks, +gorgeous plush furniture, impossible rugs—and yet he is only doing what +we are all doing on a more elaborate scale.” + +I laughed. + +“That reminds me of a family of squirrels that lives in an oak tree on +my hill,” I said. “I am never tired of watching them. In the fall they +work desperately, stealing all the hickory nuts and chestnuts on my +neighbour Horace’s back pastures, five times as many as they need, and +then they forget, half the time, where they’ve hidden them. We’re all +more or less in the squirrel stage of civilization.” + +“Yes,” she responded. “There are my books! I gathered up books for +years, just squirrel fashion, until I forgot what I had or where I put +them. You cannot know what joy I’m going to have in selecting just the +essential books, the ones I want by me for daily companions. All the +others, I see now, are temporary rubbish.” + +“And you’ve made your selections?” + +“No, but I’m making them. You’ll laugh when you come next time and I +show them to you. Oh, I am going to be stern with myself. I’m not going +to put a single book in that case for show, nor a single one to give +the impression that I’m profoundly interested in Egypt or Maeterlinck +or woman suffrage, when I’m positively not.” + +“It’s terribly risky,” I said. + +“And I’m terribly reckless,” she responded. + +As I went onward toward the town I looked back from the hilltop beyond +the big house for a last glimpse of the reconstructed barn, and with a +curious warm sense of having been admitted to a new adventure. Here was +life changing under my eyes! Here was a human being struggling with one +of the deep common problems that come to all of us. The revolt from +things! The struggle with superfluities! + +And yet as I walked along the cool aisles of the woods with the quiet +fields opening here and there to the low hill ridges, and saw the +cattle feeding, and heard a thrush singing in a thicket, I found myself +letting go—how can I explain it?—relaxing! I had been keyed up to a +high pitch there in that extraordinary room, Yes, it _was_ +beautiful—and yet as I thought of the sharp little green gate, the new +gable, the hard, clean mantel with the cloisonne vase, it wanted +something.... + +As I was gathering the rowen crop of after-enjoyment which rewards us +when we reflect freshly upon our adventures, whom should I meet but +Richard Starkweather himself in his battered machine. The two boys, one +of whom was driving, and the little girl, were with him. + +“How are you, David?” he called out. “Whoa, there! Draw up, Jamie.” + +We looked at each other for a moment with that quizzical, half-humorous +look that so often conveys, better than any spoken words, the +sympathetic greeting of friends. I like Richard Starkweather. + +He had come up from the city looking rather worn, for the weather had +been trying. He has blue, honest, direct-gazing eyes with small humour +wrinkles at the corners. I never knew a man with fewer theories, or +with a simpler devotion to the thing at hand, whatever it may be. At +everything else he smiles, not cynically, for he is too modest in his +regard for his own knowledge; he smiles at everything else because it +doesn’t seem quite real to him. + +“Been up to see Mary’s new house?” he asked. + +“Yes,” And for the life of me I couldn’t help smiling in response. + +“It’s a wonder isn’t it?” + +He thought his wife a very extraordinary woman. I remember his saying +to me once, “David, she’s got the soul of a poet and the brain of a +general.” + +“It _is_ a wonder,” I responded. + +“I can’t decide yet what chair to sit in, nor just what she wants the +kids to do.” + +I still smiled. + +“I expect she hasn’t determined yet,” he went drawling on, “in what +chair I will look most decorative.” + +He ruminated. + +“You know, she’s got the idea that there’s too much of everything. I +guess there is, too—and that she ought to select only those things that +an essential. I’ve been wondering, if she had more than one husband +whether or not she’d select me——” + +The restless young Jamie was now starting the machine, and Richard +Starkweather leaned out and said to me in parting: + +“isn’t she a wonder! Did all the planning herself—wouldn’t have an +architect—wouldn’t have a decorator—all I could do—” + +As he turned around I saw him throw one arm carelessly about the +shoulders of the sturdy younger boy who sat next him. + +When I got home I told Harriet all about what I had seen and heard. I +think I must feel when I am retailing such fascinating neighbourhood +events to Harriet—how she _does_ enjoy them!—I must feel very much as +she does when she is urging me to have just a little more of the new +gingerbread. + +In the next few months I watched with indescribable interest the +unfolding of the drama of Mary Starkweather. I saw her from time to +time that summer and she seemed, and I think she was, happier than ever +she had been before in her whole life. Making over her garden, +selecting the “essential books,” choosing the best pictures for her +rooms, even reforming the clothing of the boys, all with an emphasis +upon perfect simplicity—her mind was completely absorbed. Occasionally +Richard appeared upon the stage, a kind of absurd Greek chorus of one, +who remarked what a wonderful woman this was and poked fun at himself +and at the new house, and asserted that Mary could be as simple as ever +she liked, he insisted on thick soup for dinner and would not sacrifice +his beloved old smoking jacket upon the altar of any new idea. + +“She’s a wonder, David,” he’d wind up: “but this simple life is getting +more complicated every day.” + +It was in December, about the middle of the month, as I remember, that +I had a note one day from Mary Starkweather. + +“The next time you go to town,” it ran, “stop in and see me. I’ve made +a discovery.” + +With such a note as that us my hand it appeared imperative that I go to +town at once. I discovered, to Harriet’s astonishment, that we were +running out of all sorts of necessaries. + +“Now, David,” she said, “you know perfectly well that you’re just +making up to call on Mary Starkweather.” + +“That,” I said, “relieves my conscience of a great burden.” + +As I went out of the door I heard her saying: “Why Mary Starkweather +should _care_ to live in her barn....” + +It was a sparkling cold day, sun on the snow and the track crunching +under one’s feet, and I walked swiftly and with a warm sense of coming +adventure. + +To my surprise there was no smoke in the cottage chimney, and when I +reached the door I found a card pinned upon it: + +PLEASE CALL AT THE HOUSE + +Mary Starkweather herself opened the door—she had seen me coming—and +took me into the big comfortable old living-room, the big, cluttered, +overfurnished living-room, with the two worn upholstered chairs at the +fireplace, in which a bright log fire was now burning. There was a +pleasant litter of books and magazines, and a work basket on the table, +and in the bay window an ugly but cheerful green rubber plant in a tub. + +“Well!” I exclaimed. + +“Don’t smile—not yet.” + +As I looked at her I felt not at all like smiling. + +“I know,” she was saying, “it does have a humorous side. I can see +that. Dick has seen it all along. Do you know, although Dick pretends +to pooh-pooh everything intellectual, he has a really penetrating +mind.” + +I had a sudden vision of Dick in his old smoking jacket, standing in +the midst of the immaculate cottage that was once a barn, holding his +pipe with one finger crooked around the stem just in front of his nose +in the way he had, and smiling across at me. + +“Have you deserted the cottage entirely?” + +“Oh, we may possibly go back in the spring———” She paused and looked +into the fire, her fine, strong face a little sad in composure, full of +thought. + +“I am trying to be honest with myself David. Honest above everything +else. That’s fundamental. It seems to me I have wanted most of all to +learn how to live my life more freely and finely.... I thought I was +getting myself free of things when, as a matter of fact, I was devoting +more time to them than ever before-and, besides that, making life more +or less uncomfortable for Dick and the children. So I’ve taken my +courage squarely in my hands and come back here into this blessed old +home, this blessed, ugly, stuffy old home—I’ve learned _that_ lesson.” + +At this, she glanced up at me with that rare smile which sometimes +shines out of her very nature: the smile that is herself. + +“I found,” she said, “that when I had finished the work of becoming +simple—there was nothing else left to do.” + +I laughed outright, for I couldn’t help it, and she joined me. How we +do like people who can laugh at themselves. + +“But,” I said, “there was sound sense in a great deal that you were +trying to do.” + +“The fireplace smoked; and the kitchen sink froze up; and the cook left +because we couldn’t keep her room warm.” + +“But you were right,” I interrupted, “and I am not going to be put off +by smoking fireplaces or chilly cooks; you were right. We do have too +much, we are smothered in things, we don’t enjoy what we do have—” + +I paused. + +“And you were making a beautiful thing, a beautiful house.” + +“The trouble with making a beautiful thing,” she replied, “is that when +you have got it done you must straightway make another. Now I don’t +want to keep on building houses or furnishing rooms. I am not after +beauty—I mean primarily—what I want is to _live_, live simply, live +greatly.” + +She was desperately in earnest. + +“Perhaps,” I said, feeling as though I were treading on dangerous +ground, “you were trying to be simple for the sake of being simple. I +wonder if true simplicity is ever any thing but a by-product. If we aim +directly for it, it eludes us: but if we are on fire with some great +interest that absorbs on lives to the uttermost, we forget ourselves +into simplicity, Everything falls into simple lines around us, like a +worn garment.” + +I had the rather uncomfortable feeling on the way home that I had been +preachy; and the moment you became preachy begin to build up barriers +between yourself and your friends: but that’s a defect of character +I’ve never been able, quite, to overcome. I keep thinking I’ve got the +better of it, but along will come a beautiful temptation and down I +go—and come out as remorseful as I was that afternoon on the way home +from Mary Starkweather’s. + +A week or two later I happened to meet Richard Starkweather on the +street in Hempfield. He was on his way home. + +“Yes,” he said, “we’re in the old house again until spring, anyway. I +haven’t been so comfortable in a year. And, say,” here he looked at me +quizzically, “Mary has joined the new cemetery association; you know +they’re trying to improve the resting places of the forefathers, and, +by George, if they didn’t elect her chairman at the first meeting. +She’s a wonder!” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS + + +Well, I have just been having an amusing and delightful adventure and +have come to know a Great Common Person. His name is Bill Richards, and +he is one of the hereditary monarchs of America. He belongs to our +ruling dynasty. + +I first saw Bill about two weeks ago, and while I was strongly +interested in him I had no idea, at the time, that I should ever come +to know him well. It was a fine June day, and I was riding on the new +trolley line that crosses the hills to Hewlett—a charming trip through +a charming country—and there in the open car just in front of me sat +Bill himself. One huge bare forearm rested on the back of the seat, the +rich red blood showing through the weathered brown of the skin. His +clean brown neck rose strongly from the loose collar of his shirt, +which covered but could not hide the powerful lines of his shoulders. +He wore blue denim and khaki, and a small round felt hat tipped up +jauntily at the back. He had crisp, coarse light hair rather thin—not +by age, but by nature—so that the ruddy scalp could be seen through it, +and strong jaws and large firm features, and if the beard was two days +old, his face was so brown, so full of youthful health, that it gave no +ill impression. + +He could not sit still for the very life that was in him. He seemed to +have some grand secret with the conductor and frequently looked around +at him, his eyes full of careless laughter, and once or twice he called +out—some jocose remark. He helped the conductor, in pantomime, to pull +the cord and stop or start the car, and he watched with the liveliest +interest each passenger getting on or getting off. A rather mincing +young girl with a flaring red ribbon at her throat was to him the +finest comedy in the world, so that he had to wink a telegram to the +conductor about her. An old woman with a basket of vegetables who +delayed the car was exquisitely funny. + +I set him down as being about twenty-two years old and some kind of +outdoor workman, not a farmer. + +When he got off, which was before the car stopped, so that he had to +jump and run with it, he gave a wild flourish with both arms, grimaced +at the conductor, and went off down the road whistling for all he was +worth. How I enjoyed the sight of him! He was so charged with youthful +energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely +contain himself. What a fine place the world was to him! And what +comical and interesting people it contained! I was sorry when he got +off. + +Two or three days later I was on my way up the town road north of my +farm when I was astonished and delighted to see Bill for the second +time. He was coming down the road pulling a wire over the crosspiece of +a tall telephone pole (the company is rebuilding and enlarging its +system through our town). He was holding the wire close drawn over his +right shoulder, his strong hands gripped and pressed upon his breast. +The veins stood out in his brown neck where the burlap shoulder pad he +wore was drawn aside by the wire. He leaned forward, stepping first on +his toe, which he dug into the earth and then, heavily letting down his +heel, he drew the other foot forward somewhat stiffly. The muscles +stood out in his powerful shoulders and thighs. His legs were +double-strapped with climbing spurs. He was a master lineman. + +As I came alongside he turned a good-humoured sweaty face toward me. + +“It’s dang hot,” said he. + +“It is,” said I. + +There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a +strong workman in the full swing of his work, something—yes, beautiful! +A hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could +be finer to see? And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth and easy +strength! + +I watched him for some time, curiously interested, and thought I should +like well to know him, but could not see just how to go about it. + +The man astride the cross-arm who was heaving the wire forward from the +spool on the distant truck suddenly cried out: + +“Ease up there, Bill, she’s caught.” + +So Bill eased up and drew his arm across his dripping face. + +“How many wires are you putting up?” I asked, fencing for some opening. + +“Three,” said Bill. + +Before I could get in another stroke the man on the pole shouted: + +“Let ’er go, Bill.” And Bill let ’er go, and buckled down again to his +job. + +“Gee, but it’s hot,” said he. + +In the country there are not so many people passing our way that we +cannot be interested in all of them. That evening I could not help +thinking about Bill, the lineman, wondering where he came from, how he +happened to be what he was, who and what sort were the friends he made, +and the nature of his ambitions, if he had any. Talk about going to the +North Pole! It is not to be compared, for downright fascination, with +the exploration of an undiscovered human being. + +With that I began to think how I might get at Bill, the lineman, and +not merely weather talk, or wages talk, or work talk, but at Bill +himself. He was a character quite unusual in our daily lives here in +the country. I wondered what his interests could be, surely not mine +nor Horace’s nor the Starkweathers’. As soon as I began trying to +visualize what his life might be, I warmed up to a grand scheme of +capturing him, if by chance he was to be found the next day upon the +town road. + +All this may seem rather absurd in the telling, but I found it a +downright good adventure for a quiet evening, and fully believe I felt +for the moment like General Joffre planning to meet the Germans on the +Marne. + +“I have it!” I said aloud. + +“You have what?” asked Harriet, somewhat startled. + +“The grandest piece of strategy ever devised in this town,” said I. + +With that I went delving in a volume of universal information I keep +near me, one of those knowing books that tells you how tall the great +Pryamid is and why a hen cackles after laying an egg, and having found +what I wanted I asked Harriet if she could find a tape measure around +the place. She is a wonderful person and knows where everything is. +When she handed me the tape measure she asked me what in the world I +was so mysterious about. + +“Harriet,” I said, “I’m going on a great adventure. I’ll tell you all +about it to-morrow.” + +“Nonsense,” said Harriet. + +It is this way with the fancies of the evening—they often look flat and +flabby and gray the next morning. Quite impossible! But if I’d acted on +half the good and grand schemes I’ve had o’ nights I might now be quite +a remarkable person. + +I went about my work the next morning just as usual. I even avoided +looking at the little roll of tape on the corner of the mantel as I +went out. It seemed a kind of badge of my absurdity. But about the +middle of the fore-noon, while I was in my garden, I heard a tremendous +racket up the road. Rattle—bang, zip, toot! As I looked up I saw the +boss lineman and his crew careering up the road in their truck, and the +bold driver was driving like Jehu, the son of Nimshi. And there were +ladders and poles clattering out behind, and rolls of wire on upright +spools rattling and flashing in the sunshine, and the men of the crew +were sitting along the sides of the truck with hats off and hair flying +as they came bumping and bounding up the road. It was a brave thing to +see going by on a spring morning! + +As they passed, whom should I see but Bill himself, at the top of the +load, with a broad smile on his face. When his eye fell on me he threw +up one arm, and gave me the railroad salute. + +“Hey, there!” he shouted. + +“Hey there, yourself,” I shouted in return—and could not help it. + +I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd +of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load. + +It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and +taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though +it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as +adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet +but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay +that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning. + +Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little +valley near the far corner of Horace’s farm, I found the truck, and +Bill just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped +pennies and Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools +while the others went down to the mill pond in the valley below. + +“How are you?” said I. + +“How are _you_?” said he. + +I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind. + +“Fine day,” said I. + +“You bet,” said he. + +He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the +roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below +into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and +somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing. + +“Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?” I asked. + +He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest. + +“No, did you?” + +“Or Bob Fitzsimmons?” + +“Nope—but I was mighty near it once. I’ve seen ’em both in the movies.” + +“Well, sir,” said I, “that’s interesting. I should like to see them +myself. Do you know what made me speak of them?” + +He had spread down a newspaper and was taking the luncheon out of his +“bucket,” as he called it, including a large bottle of coffee; but he +paused and looked at me with keen interest. + +“Well,” said I, “when I saw you dragging that wire yesterday I took you +to be a pretty husky citizen yourself.” + +He grinned and took a big mouthful from one of his sandwiches. I could +see that my shot had gone home. + +“So when I got back last night,” I said, “I looked up the arm +measurements of Sullivan and Fitzsimmons in a book I have and got to +wondering how they compared with mine and yours. They were considerably +larger than mine—” + +Bill thought this a fine joke and laughed out in great good humour. + +“But I imagine you’d not be far behind either of them.” + +He looked at me a little suspiciously, as if doubtful what I was +driving at or whether or not I was joking him. But I was as serious as +the face of nature; and proceeded at once to get out my tape measure. + +“I get very much interested in such things,” I said, “and I had enough +curiosity to want to see how big your arm really was.” + +He smiled broadly. + +“You’re a queer one,” said he. + +But he took another bite of sandwich, and clenching his great fist drew +up his forearm until the biceps muscles looked like a roll of Vienna +bread—except that they had the velvety gleam of life. So I measured +first one arm, then the other. + +“By George!” said I, “you’re ahead of Fitzsimmons, but not quite up to +Sullivan.” + +“Fitz wasn’t a heavy man,” said Bill, “but a dead game fighter.” + +I saw then that I had him! So I sat down on the grass near by and we +had great talk about the comparative merits of Fitzsimmons and Sullivan +and Corbett and Jack Johnson, a department of knowledge in which he +out-distanced me. He even told me of an exploit or two of his own, +which showed that he was able to take care of himself. + +While we talked he ate his luncheon, and a downright gargantuan +luncheon it was, backed by an appetite which if it were offered to the +highest bidder on the New York Stock Exchange would, I am convinced, +bring at least ten thousand dollars in cash. It even made me envious. + +There were three huge corned-beef sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a +pickle six inches long and fat to boot, four doughnuts so big that they +resembled pitching quoits, a bottle of coffee and milk, a quarter of a +pie, and, to cap the climax, an immense raw onion. It was worth a long +journey to see Bill eat that onion. He took out his clasp knife, and +after stripping off the papery outer shell, cut the onion into thick +dewy slices. Then he opened one of the sandwiches and placed several of +them on the beef, afterward sprinkling them with salt from a small +paper parcel. Having restored the top slice of bread he took a +moon-shaped bite out of one end of this glorified sandwich. + +“I like onions,” said he. + +When we first sat down he had offered to share his luncheon with me but +I told him I had just been to dinner, and I observed that he had no +difficulty in taking care of every crumb in his “bucket.” It was +wonderful to see. + +Having finished his luncheon he went down to the brook and got a drink, +and then sat down comfortably with his back among the ferns of the +roadside, crossed his legs, and lit his pipe. There was a healthy and +wholesome flush in his face, and as he blew off the first cloud of +smoke he drew a sigh of complete comfort and looked around at me with a +lordly air such as few monarchs, no matter how well fed, could have +bettered. He had worked and sweat for what he got, and was now taking +his ease in his roadside inn. I wonder sometimes if anybody in the +world experiences keener joys than unwatched common people. + +How we talked! From pugilists we proceeded to telephones, and from that +to wages, hours, and strikes, and from that we leaped easily to Alaska +and gold-mining, and touched in passing upon Theodore Roosevelt. + +“I was just thinking,” I said, “that you and I can enjoy some things +that were beyond the reach of the greatest kings of the world.” + +“How’s that?” said he. + +“Why, Napoleon never saw a telephone nor talked through one.” + +“That’s so!” he laughed. + +“And Caesar couldn’t have dreamed that such a thing as you are doing +now was a possibility—nor George Washington, either.” + +“Say, that’s so. I never thought o’ that.” + +“Why,” I said, “the world is only half as big as it was before you +fellows came along stringing your wires! I can get to town now from my +farm in two minutes, when it used to take me an hour.” + +I really believe I gave him more of his own business than ever he had +before, for he listened so intently that his pipe went out. + +I found that Bill was from Ohio, and that he had been as far south as +Atlanta and as far west as Denver. He got his three dollars and a half +a day, rain or shine, and thought it wonderful pay; and besides, he was +seein’ the country “free, gratis, fer nothing.” + +He got his coat out of the truck and took from the pocket a +many-coloured folder. + +“Say, Mister, have you ever been to the Northwest?” + +“No,” said I. + +“Well, it’s a great country, and I’m goin’ up there.” + +He spread out the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a +spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere this side of the Rockies. + +“How’ll you do it?” I asked. + +“Oh, a lineman can go anywhere,” said he with a flourish, “A lineman +don’t have to beg a job. Besides, I got eighty dollars sewed up.” + +Talk about freedom! Never have I got a clearer impression of it than +Bill gave me that day. No millionaire, no potentate, could touch him. + +The crew came back all too soon for me. Bill knocked the ashes out of +his pipe on his boot heel, and put his “bucket” back in the truck. Five +minutes later he was climbing a tall pole with legs bowed out, striking +in his spikes at each step. From the cross-arm, up among the hemlock +tops, he called out to me: + +“Good-bye, pard.” + +“Stop in, Bill, and see me when you come by my place,” said I. + +“You bet,” said he. + +And he did, the next day, and I showed him off to Harriet, who brought +him a plate of her best doughnuts and asked him about his mother. + +Yesterday I saw him again careering by in the truck. The job was +finished. He waved his hand at me. + +“I’m off,” said he. + +“Where?” I shouted. + +“Canada.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY + + +“Why risk with men your hard won gold? +Buy grain and sow—your Brother Dust +Will pay you back a hundred fold— +The earth commits no breach of trust.” + + +_Hindu Proverb, Translated by Arthur Guiterman_. + +It is astonishing how many people there are in cities and towns who +have a secret longing to get back into quiet country places, to own a +bit of the soil of the earth, and to cultivate it. To some it appears +as a troublesome malady only in spring and will be relieved by a whirl +or two in country roads, by a glimpse of the hills, or a day by the +sea; but to others the homesickness is deeper seated and will be +quieted by no hasty visits. These must actually go home. + +I have had, in recent years, many letters from friends asking about +life in the country, but the longer I remain here, the more I know +about it, the less able I am to answer them—at least briefly. It is as +though one should come and ask: “Is love worth trying?” or, “How about +religion?” For country life is to each human being a fresh, strange, +original adventure. We enjoy it, or we do not enjoy it, or more +probably, we do both. It is packed and crowded with the zest of +adventure, or it is dull and miserable. We may, if we are skilled +enough, make our whole living from the land, or only a part of it, or +we may find in a few cherished acres the inspiration and power for +other work, whatever it may be. There is many a man whose strength is +renewed like that of the wrestler of Irassa, every time his feet touch +the earth. + +Of all places in the world where life can be lived to its fullest and +freest, where it can be met in its greatest variety and beauty, I am +convinced that there is none to equal the open country, or the country +town. For all country people in these days may have the city—some city +or town not too far away: but there are millions of men and women in +America who have no country and no sense of the country. What do they +not lose out of life! + +I know well the disadvantages charged against country life at its +worst. At its worst there are long hours and much lonely labour and an +income pitifully small. Drudgery, yes, especially for the women, and +loneliness. But where is there not drudgery when men are poor—where +life is at its worst? I have never seen drudgery in the country +comparable for a moment to the dreary and lonely drudgery of city +tenements, city mills, factories, and sweat shops. And in recent years +both the drudgery and loneliness of country life have been disappearing +before the motor and trolley car, the telephone, the rural post, the +gasoline engine. I have seen a machine plant as many potatoes in one +day as a man, at hand work, could have planted in a week. While there +is, indeed, real drudgery in the country, much that is looked upon as +drudgery by people who long for easy ways and a soft life, is only +good, honest, wholesome hard work—the kind of work that makes for fiber +in a man or in a nation, the kind that most city life in no wise +provides. + +There are a thousand nuisances and annoyances that men must meet who +come face to face with nature itself. You have set out your upper acres +to peach trees: and the deer come down from the hills at night and +strip the young foliage; or the field mice in winter, working under the +snow, girdle and kill them. The season brings too much rain and the +potatoes rot in the ground, the crows steal the corn, the bees swarm +when no out is watching, the cow smothers her calf, the hens’ eggs +prove infertile, and a storm in a day ravages a crop that has been +growing all summer. A constant warfare with insects and blights and +fungi—a real, bitter warfare, which can cease neither summer nor +winter! + +It is something to meet, year after year, the quiet implacability of +the land. While it is patient, it never waits long for you. There is a +chosen time for planting, a time for cultivating, a time for +harvesting. You accept the gauge thrown down—well and good, you shall +have a chance to fight! You do not accept it? There is no complaint. +The land cheerfully springs up to wild yellow mustard and dandelion and +pig-weed—and will be productive and beautiful in spite of you. + +Nor can you enter upon the full satisfaction of cultivating even a +small piece of land at second hand. To be accepted as One Who Belongs, +there must be sweat and weariness. + +The other day I was digging with Dick in a ditch that is to run down +through the orchard and connect finally with the land drain we put in +four years ago. We laid the tile just in the gravel below the silt, +about two feet deep, covering the openings with tar paper and then +throwing in gravel. It was a bright, cool afternoon. In the field below +a ploughman was at work: I could see the furrows of the dark earth +glisten as he turned it over. The grass in the meadow was a full rich +green, the new chickens were active in their yards, running to the +cluck of the hens, already the leaves of the orchard trees showed +green. And as I worked there with Dick I had the curious deep feeling +of coming somehow into a new and more intimate possession of my own +land. For titles do not really pass with signatures and red seals, nor +with money changing from one hand to another, but for true possession +one must work and serve according to the most ancient law. There is no +mitigation and no haggling of price. Those who think they can win the +greatest joys of country life on any easier terms are mistaken. + +But if one has drained his land, and ploughed it, and fertilized it, +and planted it and harvested it—even though it be only a few acres— how +he comes to know and to love every rod of it. He knows the wet spots, +and the stony spots, and the warmest and most fertile spots —until his +acres have all the qualities of a personality, whose every +characteristic he knows. It is so also that he comes to know his horses +and cattle and pigs and hens. It is a fine thing, on a warm day in +early spring, to bring out the bee-hives and let the bees have their +first flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to +see them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is +a fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, +with us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard +seems still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for +the first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing—one +of the finest of all—to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after +weeks of drought. How it comes softly out of gray skies, the first +drops throwing up spatters of dust and losing themselves in the dry +soil. Then the clouds sweep forward up the valley, darkening the +meadows and blotting out the hills, and then there is the whispering of +the rain as it first sweeps across the corn-field. At once what a stir +of life! What rustling of the long green leaves. What joyful shaking +and swaying of the tassels! And have you watched how eagerly the +grooved leaves catch the early drops, and, lest there be too little +rain after all, conduct them jealously down the stalks where they will +soonest reach the thirsty roots? What a fine thing is this to see! + +One who thus takes part in the whole process of the year comes soon to +have an indescribable affection for his land, his garden, his animals. +There are thoughts of his in every tree: memories in every fence +corner. Just now, the fourth of June, I walked down past my blackberry +patch, now come gorgeously into full white bloom—and heavy with +fragrance. I set out these plants with my own hands, I have fed them, +cultivated them, mulched them, pruned them, trellised them, and helped +every year to pick the berries. How could they be otherwise than full +of associations! They bear a fruit more beautiful than can be found in +any catalogue: and stranger and wilder than in any learned botany book! + +Why, one who comes thus to love a bit of countryside may enjoy it all +the year round. When he awakens in the middle of a long winter night he +may send his mind out to the snowy fields—I’ve done it a thousand +times!—and visit each part in turn, stroll through the orchard and pay +his respects to each tree—in a small orchard one comes to know +familiarly every tree as he knows his friends—stop at the strawberry +bed, consider the grape trellises, feel himself opening the door of the +warm, dark stable and listening to the welcoming whicker of his horses, +or visiting his cows, his pigs, his sheep, his hens, or so many of them +as he may have. + +So much of the best in the world seems to have come fragrant out of +fields, gardens, and hillsides. So many truths spoken by the Master +Poet come to us exhaling the odours of the open country. His stories +were so often of sowers, husbandmen, herdsmen: his similes and +illustrations so often dealt with the common and familiar beauty of the +fields. “Consider the lilies how they grow.” It was on a hillside that +he preached his greatest Sermon, and when in the last agony he sought a +place to meet his God, where did he go but to a garden? A carpenter you +say? Yes, but of this one may be sure: there were gardens and fields +all about: he knew gardens, and cattle, and the simple processes of the +land: he must have worked in a garden and loved it well. + +A country life rather spoils one for the so-called luxuries. A farmer +or gardener may indeed have a small cash income, but at least he eats +at the first table. He may have the sweetest of the milk, there are +thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women in America who have never +in their lives tasted really sweet milk and the freshest of eggs, and +the ripest of fruit. One does not know how good strawberries or +raspberries are when picked before breakfast and eaten with the dew +still on them. And while he must work and sweat for what he gets, he +may have all these things in almost unmeasured abundance, and without a +thought of what they cost. A man from the country is often made +uncomfortable, upon visiting the city, to find two cans of sweet corn +served for twenty or thirty cents, or a dish of raspberries at +twenty-five or forty—and neither, even at their best, equal in quality +to those he may have fresh from the garden every day. One need say this +in no boastful spirit, but as a simple statement of the fact: for +fruits sent to the city are nearly always picked before they are fully +ripe—and lose that last perfection of flavour which the sun and the +open air impart: and both fruits and vegetables, as well as milk and +eggs, suffer more than most people think from handling and shipment. +These things can be set down as one of the make-weights against the +familiar presentation of the farmer’s life as a hard one. + +One of the greatest curses of mill or factory work and with much city +work of all kinds, is its interminable monotony: the same process +repeated hour after hour and day after day. In the country there is +indeed monotonous work but rarely monotony. No task continues very +long: everything changes infinitely with the seasons. Processes are not +repetitive but creative. Nature hates monotony, is ever changing and +restless, brings up a storm to drive the haymakers from their hurried +work in the fields, sends rain to stop the ploughing, or a frost to +hurry the apple harvest. Everything is full of adventure and +vicissitude! A man who has been a farmer for two hours at the mowing +must suddenly turn blacksmith when his machine breaks down and tinker +with wrench and hammer; and later in the day he becomes dairyman, +farrier, harness-maker, merchant. No kind of wheat but is grist to his +mill, no knowledge that he cannot use! And who is freer to be a citizen +than he: freer to take his part in town meeting and serve his state in +some one of the innumerable small offices which form the solid blocks +of organization beneath our commonwealth. + +I thought last fall that corn-husking came as near being monotonous +work, as any I had ever done in the country. I presume in the great +corn-fields of the West, where the husking goes on for weeks at a time, +it probably does grow really monotonous. But I soon found that there +was a curious counter-reward attending even a process as repetitive as +this. + +I remember one afternoon in particular. It was brisk and cool with +ragged clouds like flung pennants in a poverty-stricken sky, and the +hills were a hazy brown, rather sad to see, and in one of the apple +trees at the edge of the meadow the crows were holding their mournful +autumn parliament. + +At such work as this one’s mind often drops asleep, or at least goes +dreaming, except for the narrow margin of awareness required for the +simple processes of the hands. Its orders have indeed been given: you +must kneel here, pull aside the stalks one by one, rip down the husks, +and twist off the ear—and there is the pile for the stripped stalks, +and here the basket for the gathered corn, and these processes +infinitely repeated. + +While all this is going on, the mind itself wanders off to its own far +sweet pastures, upon its own dear adventures—or rests, or plays. It is +in these times that most of the airy flying things of this beautiful +world come home to us—things that heavy-footed reason never quite +overtakes, nor stodgy knowledge ever knows. I think sometimes (as +Sterne says) we thus intercept thoughts never intended for us at all, +or uncover strange primitive memories of older times than these—racial +memories. + +At any rate, the hours pass and suddenly the mind comes home again, it +comes home from its wanderings refreshed, stimulated, happy. And +nowhere, whether in cities, or travelling in trains, or sailing upon +the sea, have I so often felt this curious enrichment as I have upon +this hillside, working alone in field, or garden, or orchard, It seems +to come up out of the soil, or respond to the touch of growing things. + +What makes any work interesting is the fact that one can make +experiments, try new things, develop specialties and _grow_. And where +can he do this with such success as on the land and in direct contact +with nature. The possibilities are here infinite new machinery, +spraying, seed testing, fertilizers, experimentation with new +varieties. A thousand and one methods, all creative, which may be tried +out in that great essential struggle of the farmer or gardener to +command all the forces of nature. + +Because there are farmers, and many of them, who do not experiment and +do not grow, but make their occupation a veritable black drudgery, this +is no reason for painting a sombre-hued picture of country life. Any +calling, the law, the ministry, the medical profession, can be blasted +by fixing one’s eyes only upon its ugliest aspects. And farming, at its +best, has become a highly scientific, extraordinarily absorbing, and +when all is said, a profitable, profession. Neighbours of mine have +developed systems of overhead irrigation to make rain when there is no +rain, and have covered whole fields with cloth canopies to increase the +warmth and to protect the crops from wind and hail, and by the analysis +of the soil and exact methods of feeding it with fertilizers, have come +as near a complete command of nature as any farmers in the world. What +independent, resourceful men they are! And many of them have also grown +rich in money. It is not what nature does with a man that matters but +what he does with nature. + +Nor is it necessary in these days for the farmer or the country dweller +to be uncultivated or uninterested in what are often called, with no +very clear definition, the “finer things of life.” Many educated men +are now on the farms and have their books and magazines, and their +music and lectures and dramas not too far off in the towns. A great +change in this respect has come over American country life in twenty +years. The real hardships of pioneering have passed away, and with good +roads and machinery, and telephones, and newspapers every day by rural +post, the farmer may maintain as close a touch with the best things the +world has to offer as any man. And if he really have such broader +interests the winter furnishes him time and leisure that no other class +of people can command. + +I do not know, truly, what we are here for upon this wonderful and +beautiful earth, this incalculably interesting earth, unless it is to +crowd into a few short years—when all is said, terribly short +years!—every possible fine experience and adventure: unless it is to +live our lives to the uttermost: unless it is to seize upon every fresh +impression, develop every latent capacity: to grow as much as ever we +have it in our power to grow. What else can there be? If there is no +life beyond this one, we have lived _here_ to the uttermost. We’ve had +what we’ve had! But if there is more life, and still more life, beyond +this one, and above and under this one, and around and through this +one, we shall be well prepared for that, whatever it may be. + +The real advantages of country life have come to be a strong lure to +many people in towns and cities: but no one should attempt to “go back +to the land” with the idea that it is an easy way to escape the real +problems and difficulties of life. The fact is, there is no escape. The +problems and the difficulties must be boldly met whether in city or +country. Farming in these days is not “easy living,” but a highly +skilled profession, requiring much knowledge, and actual manual labour +and plenty of it. So many come to the country too light-heartedly, buy +too much land, attempt unfamiliar crops, expect to hire the work +done—and soon find themselves facing discouragement and failure. Any +city man who would venture on this new way of life should try it first +for a year or so before he commits himself—try himself out against the +actual problems. Or, by moving to the country, still within reach of +his accustomed work, he can have a garden or even a small farm to +experiment with. The shorter work-day has made this possible for a +multitude of wage-workers, and I know many instances in which life +because of this opportunity to get to the soil has become a very +different and much finer thing for them. + +It is easy also for many men who are engaged in professional work to +live where they can get their hands into the soil for part of the time +at least: and this may be made as real an experience as far as it goes +as though they owned wider acres and devoted their whole time to the +work. + +A man who thus faces the problem squarely will soon see whether country +life is the thing for him; if he finds it truly so, he can be as nearly +assured of “living happily ever after” as any one outside of a +story-book can ever be. Out of it all is likely to come some of the +greatest rewards that men can know, a robust body, a healthy appetite, +a serene and cheerful spirit! + +And finally there is one advantage not so easy to express. Long ago I +read a story of Tolstoi’s called “The Candle”—how a peasant Russian +forced to plough on Easter Day lighted a candle to his Lord and kept it +burning on his plough as he worked through the sacred day. When I see a +man ploughing in his fields I often think of Tolstoi’s peasant, and +wonder if this is not as true a way as any of worshipping God. I wonder +if any one truly worships God who sets about it with deliberation, or +knows quite why he does it. + +“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, +as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass.” + +THE END + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10593 *** diff --git a/10593-h/10593-h.htm b/10593-h/10593-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82aedde --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/10593-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4497 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> +<title>Great Possessions | Project Gutenberg</title> + +<style> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10593 ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/01.jpg" width="320" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<h1>Great Possessions</h1> + +<h2>David Grayson</h2> + +<hr> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/02.jpg" width="400" height="290" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. THE GREEN PEOPLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. PLACES OF RETIREMENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. NO TRESPASS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. LOOK AT THE WORLD!</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. A GOOD APPLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. I GO TO THE CITY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE OLD STONE MASON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/03.jpg" width="400" height="240" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br> +THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Sweet as Eden is the air<br> + And Eden-sweet the ray.<br> +No Paradise is lost for them<br> +Who foot by branching root and stem,<br> +And lightly with the woodland share<br> + The change of night and day.” +</p> + +<p>For these many years, since I have lived here in the country, I have had +it in my mind to write something about the odour and taste of this +well-flavoured earth. The fact is, both the sense of smell and the sense +of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of the +senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, and +sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family, is keen upon the +business of seizing the entire inheritance, while smell, like hairy +Esau, comes late to the blessing, hungry from the hills, and willing to +trade its inheritance for a mess of pottage.</p> + +<p>I have always had a kind of errant love for the improvident and +adventurous Esaus of the Earth. I think they smell a wilder fragrance +than I do, and taste sweeter things, and I have thought, therefore, of +beginning a kind of fragrant autobiography, a chronicle of all the good +odours and flavours that ever I have had in my life.</p> + +<p>As I grow older, a curious feeling comes often to me in the spring, as +it comes this spring more poignantly than ever before, a sense of the +temporariness of all things, the swiftness of life, the sadness of a +beauty that vanishes so soon, and I long to lay hold upon it as it +passes by all the handles that I can. I would not only see it and hear +it, but I would smell it and taste it and touch it, and all with a new +kind of intensity and eagerness.</p> + +<p>Harriet says I get more pleasure out of the smell of my supper than I +get out of the supper itself.</p> + +<p>“I never need to ring for you,” says she, “but only open the kitchen +door. In a few minutes I'll see you straighten up, lift your head, sniff +a little, and come straight for the house.”</p> + +<p>“The odour of your suppers, Harriet,” I said, “after a day in the +fields, would lure a man out of purgatory.”</p> + +<p>My father before me had a singularly keen nose. I remember well when I +was a boy and drove with him in the wild North Country, often through +miles of unbroken forest, how he would sometimes break a long silence, +lift his head with sudden awareness, and say to me:</p> + +<p>“David, I smell open fields.”</p> + +<p>In a few minutes we were sure to come to a settler's cabin, a log barn, +or a clearing. Among the free odours of the forest he had caught, afar +off, the common odours of the work of man.</p> + +<p>When we were tramping or surveying in that country, I have seen him stop +suddenly, draw in a long breath, and remark:</p> + +<p>“Marshes,” or, “A stream yonder.”</p> + +<p>Part of this strange keenness of sense, often noted by those who knew +that sturdy old cavalryman, may have been based, as so many of our +talents are, upon a defect. My father gave all the sweet sounds of the +world, the voices of his sons, the songs of his daughters, to help free +the Southern slaves. He was deaf.</p> + +<p>It is well known that when one sense is defective the others fly to the +rescue, and my father's singular development of the sense of smell may +have been due in part to this defect, though I believe it to have been, +to a far larger degree, a native gift. Me had a downright good nose. All +his life long he enjoyed with more than ordinary keenness the odour of +flowers, and would often pick a sprig of wild rose and carry it along +with him in his hand, sniffing at it from time to time, and he loved the +lilac, as I do after him. To ill odours he was not less sensitive, and +was impatient of rats in the barn, and could smell them, among other +odours, the moment the door was opened. He always had a peculiar +sensitiveness to the presence of animals, as of dogs, cats, muskrats, +cattle, horses, and the like, and would speak of them long before he had +seen them or could know that they were about.</p> + +<p>I recall once on a wild Northern lake, when we were working along the +shore in a boat, how he stopped suddenly and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“David, do you hear anything?”—for I, a boy, was ears for him in those +wilderness places.</p> + +<p>“No, Father. What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Indians.”</p> + +<p>And, sure enough, in a short time I heard the barking of their dogs and +we came soon upon their camp, where, I remember, they were drying deer +meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that the +smoky smell of the Indians, tanned buckskin, parched wild rice, and the +like, were odours that carried far and could not be mistaken.</p> + +<p>My father had a big, hooked nose with long, narrow nostrils, I suppose +that this has really nothing to do with the matter, although I have +come, after these many years, to look with a curious interest upon +people's noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are. +My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses go—but I think +I inherited from my father something of the power of enjoyment he had +from that sense, though I can never hope to become the accomplished +smeller he was.</p> + +<p>I am moved to begin this chronicle because of my joy this morning +early—a May morning!—just after sunrise, when the shadows lay long +and blue to the west and the dew was still on the grass, and I walked in +the pleasant spaces of my garden. It was so still...so still...that +birds afar off could be heard singing, and once through the crystal air +came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the +silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the +lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries. +Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well knew the +way of the wind, for if I stood to the north of them the odour was less +rich and free than to the south, and I thought I might pose as a prophet +of wind and weather upon the basis of this easy magic, and predict that +the breezes of the day would be from the north—as, indeed, they later +appeared to be.</p> + +<p>I went from clump to clump of the lilacs testing and comparing them with +great joy and satisfaction. They vary noticeably in odour; the white +varieties being the most delicate, while those tending to deep purple +are the richest. Some of the newer double varieties seem less +fragrant—and I have tested them now many times—than the old-fashioned +single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our +smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of selection +for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist has cheated us of our +rightful heritage of fragrance. I have a mind some time to practise the +art of burbankry or other kind of wizardy upon the old lilac stock and +select for odour alone, securing ravishing original varieties—indeed, +whole new gamuts of fragrance.</p> + +<p>I should devise the most animating names for my creations, such as the +Double Delicious, the Air of Arcady, the Sweet Zephyr, and others even +more inviting, which I should enjoy inventing. Though I think surely I +could make my fortune out of this interesting idea, I present it freely +to a scent-hungry world—here it is, gratis!—for I have my time so +fully occupied during all of this and my next two or three lives that I +cannot attend to it.</p> + +<p>I have felt the same defect in the cultivated roses. While the odours +are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white +roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the +fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in +old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some +unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a +feeling—light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny +air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the +wild rose will bring back in all the poignancy of sad happiness a train +of ancient memories old faces, old scenes, old loves—and the wild +thoughts I had when a boy. The first week of the wild-rose blooming, +beginning here about the twenty-fifth of June, is always to me a +memorable time.</p> + +<p>I was a long time learning how to take hold of nature, and think now +with some sadness of all the life I lost in former years. The impression +the earth gave me was confused: I was as one only half awake. A fine +morning made me dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the heat of the day, +and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I could have +explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I looked about me +I began to ask myself, “Why is it that the sight of these common hills +and fields gives me such exquisite delight? And if it is beauty, why is +it beautiful? And if I am so richly rewarded by mere glimpses, can I not +increase my pleasure with longer looks?”</p> + +<p>I tried longer looks both at nature and at the friendly human creatures +all about me. I stopped often in the garden where I was working, or +loitered a moment in the fields, or sat down by the roadside, and +thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully +surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great +Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are +when we penetrate them, and consisted merely in shutting out all other +impressions, feelings, thoughts, and concentrating the full energy of +the attention upon what it was that I saw or heard at that instant.</p> + +<p>At one moment I would let in all the sounds of the earth, at another all +the sights. So we practise the hand at one time, the foot at another, or +learn how to sit or to walk, and so acquire new grace for the whole +body. Should we do less in acquiring grace for the spirit? It will +astonish one who has not tried it how full the world is of sounds +commonly unheard, and of sights commonly unseen, but in their nature, +like the smallest blossoms, of a curious perfection and beauty.</p> + +<p>Out of this practice grew presently, and as it seems to me +instinctively, for I cannot now remember the exact time of its +beginning, a habit of repeating under my breath, or even aloud, and in a +kind of singsong voice, fragmentary words and sentences describing what +it was that I saw or felt at the moment, as, for example:</p> + +<p>“The pink blossoms of the wild crab-apple trees I see from the hill.... +The reedy song of the wood thrush among the thickets of the wild +cherry.... The scent of peach leaves, the odour of new-turned soil in +the black fields.... The red of the maples in the marsh, the white of +apple trees in bloom.... I cannot find Him out—nor know why I am +here....”</p> + +<p>Some form of expression, however crude, seemed to reenforce and +intensify the gatherings of the senses; and these words, afterward +remembered, or even written down in the little book I sometimes carried +in my pocket, seemed to awaken echoes, however faint, of the exaltation +of that moment in the woods or fields, and enabled me to live twice +where formerly I had been able to live but once.</p> + +<p>It was by this simple process of concentrating upon what I saw or heard +that I increased immeasurably my own joy of my garden and fields and +the hills and marshes all about. A little later, for I was a slow +learner, I began to practise the same method with the sense of smell, +and still later with the sense of taste. I said to myself, “I will no +longer permit the avid and eager eye to steal away my whole attention. I +will learn to enjoy more completely all the varied wonders of the +earth.”</p> + +<p>So I tried deliberately shutting the doorways of both sight and hearing, +and centring the industry of my spirit upon the flavours of the earth. I +tested each odour narrowly, compared it well with remembered odours, and +often turned the impression I had into such poor words as I could +command.</p> + +<p>What a new and wonderful world opened to me then! My takings of nature +increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with +my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around +about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. I cannot +explain it rightly, but it was as though I had found a new earth here +within the old one, but more spacious and beautiful than any I had known +before. I have thought, often and often, that this world we live in so +dumbly, so carelessly, would be more glorious than the tinsel heaven of +the poets if only we knew how to lay hold upon it, if only we could win +that complete command of our own lives which is the end of our being.</p> + +<p>At first, as I said, I stopped my work, or loitered as I walked, in +order to see, or hear, or smell—and do so still, for I have entered +only the antechamber of the treasure-house; but as I learned better the +modest technic of these arts I found that the practice of them went well +with the common tasks of the garden or farm, especially with those that +were more or less monotonous, like cultivating corn, hoeing potatoes, +and the like.</p> + +<p>The air is just as full of good sights and good odours for the worker as +for the idler, and it depends only upon the awareness, the aliveness, of +our own spirits whether we toil like dumb animals or bless our labouring +hours with the beauty of life. Such enjoyment and a growing command of +our surroundings are possible, after a little practice, without taking +much of that time we call so valuable and waste so sinfully. “I haven't +time,” says the farmer, the banker, the professor, with a kind of +disdain for the spirit of life, when, as a matter of fact, he has all +the time there is, all that anybody has—to wit, <i>this</i> moment, this +great and golden moment!—but knows not how to employ it. He creeps when +he might walk, walks when he might run, runs when he might fly—and +lives like a woodchuck in the dark body of himself.</p> + +<p>Why, there are men in this valley who scout the idea that farming, +carpentry, merchantry, are anything but drudgery, defend all the evils +known to humankind with the argument that “a man must live,” and laugh +at any one who sees beauty or charm in being here, in working with the +hands, or, indeed, in just living! While they think of themselves +cannily as “practical” men, I think them the most impractical men I +know, for in a world full of boundless riches they remain obstinately +poor. They are unwilling to invest even a few of their dollars unearned +in the real wealth of the earth. For it is only the sense of the spirit +of life, whether in nature or in other human beings, that lifts men +above the beasts and curiously leads them to God, who is the spirit both +of beauty and of friendliness. I say truly, having now reached the point +in my life where it seems to me I care only for writing that which is +most deeply true for me, that I rarely walk in my garden or upon the +hills of an evening without thinking of God. It is in my garden that all +things become clearer to me, even that miracle whereby one who has +offended may still see God; and this I think a wonderful thing. In my +garden I understand dimly why evil is in the world, and in my garden +learn how transitory it is.</p> + +<p>Just now I have come in from work, and will note freshly one of the best +odours I have had to-day. As I was working in the corn, a lazy breeze +blew across the meadows from the west, and after loitering a moment +among the blackberry bushes sought me out where I was busiest. Do you +know the scent of the blackberry? Almost all the year round it is a +treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; but it +reaches crescendo in blossom time when, indeed, I like it least, for +being too strong. It has a curious fragrance, once well called by a poet +“the hot scent of the brier,” and aromatically hot it is and sharp like +the briers themselves. At times I do not like it at all, for it gives me +a kind of faintness, while at other times, as to-day, it fills me with a +strange sense of pleasure as though it were the very breath of the spicy +earth. It is also a rare friend of the sun, for the hotter and brighter +the day, the hotter and sharper the scent of the brier.</p> + +<p>Many of the commonest and least noticed of plants, flowers, trees, +possess a truly fragrant personality if once we begin to know them. I +had an adventure in my own orchard, only this spring, and made a fine +new acquaintance in a quarter least of all expected. I had started down +the lane through the garden one morning in the most ordinary way, with +no thought of any special experience, when I suddenly caught a whiff of +pure delight that stopped me short.</p> + +<p>“What now can <i>that</i> be?” and I thought to myself that nature had played +some new prank on me.</p> + +<p>I turned into the orchard, following my nose. It was not the peach buds, +nor the plums, nor the cherries, nor yet the beautiful new coloured +leaves of the grape, nor anything I could see along the grassy margin of +the pasture. There were other odours all about, old friends of mine, but +this was some shy and pleasing stranger come venturing upon my land.</p> + +<p>A moment later I discovered a patch of low green verdure upon the +ground, and dismissed it scornfully as one of my ancient enemies. But +it is this way with enemies, once we come to know them, they often turn +out to have a fragrance that is kindly.</p> + +<p>Well, this particular fierce enemy was a patch of chickweed. Chickweed! +Invader of the garden, cossack of the orchard! I discovered, however, +that it was in full bloom and covered with small, star-like white +blossoms.</p> + +<p>“Well, now,” said I, “are you the guilty rascal?”</p> + +<p>So I knelt there and took my delight of it and a rare, delicate good +odour it was. For several days afterward I would not dig out the patch, +for I said to myself, “What a cheerful claim it makes these early days, +when most of the earth is still cold and dead, for a bit of +immortality.”</p> + +<p>The bees knew the secret already, and the hens and the blackbirds! And I +thought it no loss, but really a new and valuable pleasure, to divert my +path down the lane for several days that I might enjoy more fully this +new odour, and make a clear acquaintance with something fine upon the +earth I had not known before.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/04.jpg" width="400" height="390" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br> +OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS</h2> + +<p>Of all times of the day for good odours I think the early morning the +very best, although the evening just after sunset, if the air falls +still and cool, is often as good. Certain qualities or states of the +atmosphere seem to favour the distillation of good odours and I have +known times even at midday when the earth was very wonderful to smell. +There is a curious, fainting fragrance that comes only with sunshine and +still heat. Not long ago I was cutting away a thicket of wild spiraea +which was crowding in upon the cultivated land. It was a hot day and +the leaves wilted quickly, giving off such a penetrating, fainting +fragrance that I let the branches lie where they fell the afternoon +through and came often back to smell of them, for it was a fine thing +thus to discover an odour wholly new to me.</p> + +<p>I like also the first wild, sweet smell of new-cut meadow grass, not the +familiar odour of new-mown hay, which comes a little later, and is +worthy of its good report, but the brief, despairing odour of grass just +cut down, its juices freshly exposed to the sun. One, as it richly in +the fields at the mowing. I like also the midday smell of peach leaves +and peach-tree bark at the summer priming: and have never let any one +else cut out the old canes from the blackberry rows in my garden for the +goodness of the scents which wait upon that work.</p> + +<p>Another odour I have found animating is the odour of burning wastage in +new clearings or in old fields, especially in the evening when the smoke +drifts low along the land and takes to itself by some strange chemical +process the tang of earthy things. It is a true saying that nothing will +so bring back the emotion of a past time as a remembered odour. I have +had from a whiff of fragrance caught in a city street such a vivid +return of an old time and an old, sad scene that I have stopped, +trembling there, with an emotion long spent and I thought forgotten.</p> + +<p>Once in a foreign city, passing a latticed gateway that closed in a +narrow court, I caught the odour of wild sweet balsam. I do not know now +where it came from, or what could have caused it—but it stopped me +short where I stood, and the solid brick walls of that city rolled aside +like painted curtains, and the iron streets dissolved before my eyes, +and with the curious dizziness of nostalgia, I was myself upon the hill +of my youth—with the gleaming river in the valley, and a hawk sailing +majestically in the high blue of the sky, and all about and everywhere +the balsams—and the balsams—full of the sweet, wild odours of the +north, and of dreaming boyhood.</p> + +<p>And there while my body, the shell of me, loitered in that strange city, +I was myself four thousand miles and a quarter of a century away, +reliving, with a conscious passion that boyhood never knew, a moment +caught up, like a torch, out of the smouldering wreckage of the past.</p> + +<p>Do not tell me that such things die! They all remain with us-all the +sights, and sounds, and thoughts of by-gone times awaiting only the +whiff from some latticed gateway, some closed-in court to spring again +into exuberant life. If only we are ready for the great moment!</p> + +<p>As for the odour of the burning wastage of the fields at evening I +scarcely know if I dare say it. I find it produces in the blood of me a +kind of primitive emotion, as though it stirred memories older than my +present life. Some drowsy cells of the brain awaken to a familiar +stimulus—the odour of the lodge-fire of the savage, the wigwam of the +Indian. Racial memories!</p> + +<p>But it is not the time of the day, nor the turn of the season, nor yet +the way of the wind that matters most but the ardour and glow we +ourselves bring to the fragrant earth. It is a sad thing to reflect that +in a world so overflowing with goodness of smell, of fine sights and +sweet sounds, we pass by hastily and take so little of them. Days pass +when we see no beautiful sight, hear no sweet sound, smell no memorable +odour: when we exchange no single word of deeper understanding with a +friend. We have lived a day and added nothing to our lives! A blind, +grubbing, senseless life—that!</p> + +<p>It is a strange thing, also, that instead of sharpening the tools by +which we take hold of life we make studied efforts to dull them. We seem +to fear life and early begin to stop our ears and close our eyes lest we +hear and see too much: we clog our senses and cloud our minds. We seek +dull security and ease and cease longer to desire adventure and +struggle. And then—the tragedy of it—the poet we all have in us in +youth begins to die, the philosopher in us dies, the martyr in us dies, +so that the long, long time beyond youth with so many of us becomes a +busy death. And this I think truer of men than of women: beyond forty +many women just begin to awaken to power and beauty, but most men beyond +that age go on dying. The task of the artist, whether poet, or musician, +or painter, is to keep alive the perishing spirit of free adventure in +men: to nourish the poet, the prophet, the martyr, we all have in us.</p> + +<p>One's sense of smell, like the sense of taste, is sharpest when he is +hungry, and I am convinced also that one sees and hears best when +unclogged with food, undulled with drink, undrugged with smoke. For me, +also, weariness, though not exhaustion, seems to sharpen all the +senses. Keenness goes with leanness. When I have been working hard or +tramping the country roads in the open air and come in weary and hungry +at night and catch the fragrance of the evening along the road or upon +the hill, or at barn-doors smell the unmilked cows, or at the doorway, +the comfortable odours of cooking supper how good that all is! At such +times I know Esau to the core: the forthright, nature-loving, simple man +he was, coming in dabbled with the blood of hunted animals and hungry +for the steaming pottage.</p> + +<p>It follows that if we take excessive joys of one sense, as of taste, +nature, ever seeking just balances, deprives us of the full enjoyment of +the others, “I am stuffed, cousin,” cries Beatrice in the play, “I +cannot smell.” “I have drunk,” remarks the Clown in Arcady, “what are +roses to me?” We forget that there are five chords in the great scale of +life—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and—few of us ever master +the chords well enough to get the full symphony of life, but are +something like little pig-tailed girls playing Peter Piper with one +finger while all the music of the universe is in the Great Instrument, +and all to be had for the taking.</p> + +<p>Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or +unnecessary: and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in +spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even +welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place. Some smells, evil +at first, become through usage not unpleasant. I once stopped with a +wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside +when I came in. He said it was “good and strong” and sniffed it with +appreciation. I agreed with him that it was strong. To him it was not +unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge. All nature +seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of decay she +is speeding decay: and a manured field produces later the best of all +odours. Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire an evil odour: +and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be plenty of +sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of men. If they +are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/05.jpg" width="400" height="140" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br> +FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn—<br> +Look to this day! For it is Life,<br> +The very Life of Life!”</p> + +<p>On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, lift +his head to the sky—and follow his nose....</p> + +<p>It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down +the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh +begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was +fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were +drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into +faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, so +airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine +and spring morning—so that one's spirit dissolved in it, became a part +of it. Such a morning! Such a morning!</p> + +<p>From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land.</p> + +<p>It was the time of all times for good odours—soon after sunrise—before +the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night.</p> + +<p>In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon +the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could not +at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from the +general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the +moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the +faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and +just as I was saying to myself, “I've got it, I've got it!”—for it is a +great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields—I saw, near +the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple +tree in full bloom.</p> + +<p>“So there you are!” I said.</p> + +<p>I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its +fragrance. The sun, looking over the taller trees to the east, had +crowned the top of it with gold, so that it was beautiful to see; and it +was full of honey bees as excited as I.</p> + +<p>A score of feet onward toward the wind, beyond the thorn-apple tree, I +passed wholly out of the range of its fragrance into another world, and +began trying for some new odour. After one or two false scents, for this +pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour long +known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. It led +me still a little distance northward to a sunny slope just beyond a bit +of marsh, and, sure enough, I found an old friend, the wild sweet +geranium, a world of it, in full bloom, and I sat down there for some +time to enjoy it fully.</p> + +<p>Beyond that, and across a field wild with tangles of huckleberry bushes +and sheep laurel where the bluets and buttercups were blooming, and in +shady spots the shy white violet, I searched for the odour of a certain +clump of pine trees I discovered long ago. I knew that I must come upon +it soon, but could not tell just when or where. I held up a moistened +finger to make sure of the exact direction of the wind, and bearing, +then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it—as a hunter might +surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and +through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose for +an instant the scent I was following—even though I stopped in a low +spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom—and +came thus to the pines I was seeking. They are not great trees, nor +noble, but gnarled and angular and stunted, for the soil in that place +is poor and thin, and the winds in winter keen; but the brown blanket of +needles they spread and the shade they offer the traveller are not less +hospitable; nor the fragrance they give off less enchanting. The odour +of the pine is one I love.</p> + +<p>I sat down there in a place I chose long ago—a place already as +familiar with pleasing memories as a favourite room—so that I wonder +that some of the notes I have written there do not of themselves exhale +the very odour of the pines.</p> + +<p>And all about was hung a fair tapestry of green, and the earthy floor +was cleanly carpeted with brown, and the roof above was in arched +mosaic, the deep, deep blue of the sky seen through the gnarled and +knotted branches of the pines. Through a little opening among the +trees, as through a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide +meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the +open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I +heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing up +quickly I saw my early visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you +please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far out +on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, like a +sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked—a downy +woodpecker.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, sir,” I said.</p> + +<p>He stopped for scarcely a second, cocked one eye at me, and went back to +his work again. Who was I that I should interrupt his breakfast?</p> + +<p>And I was glad I was there, and I began enumerating, as though I were +the accredited reporter for the <i>Woodland Gazette</i>, all the good news of +the day.</p> + +<p>“The beech trees.” said aloud, “have come at last to full leafage. The +wild blackberries are ready to bloom, the swamp roses are budded. Brown +planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from +their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I +do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the +drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for Walt +the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the pine is +as sweet—”</p> + +<p>At that moment, like a flame for clearness, I understood some of the +deep and simple things of life, as that we are to be like the friendly +pines, and the elm trees, and the open fields, and reject no man and +judge no man. Once, a long time ago, I read a sober treatise by one who +tried to prove with elaborate knowledge that, upon the whole, good was +triumphant in this world, and that probably there was a God, and I +remember going out dully afterward upon the hill, for I was weighed down +with a strange depression, and the world seemed to me a hard, cold, +narrow place where good must be heavily demonstrated in books. And as I +sat there the evening fell, a star or two came out in the clear blue of +the sky, and suddenly it became all simple to me, so that I laughed +aloud at that laborious big-wig for spending so many futile years in +seeking doubtful proof of what he might have learned in one rare home +upon my hill. And far more than he could prove far more.</p> + +<p>As I came away from that place I knew I should never again be quite the +same person I was before.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/06.jpg" width="350" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>Well, we cannot remain steadily upon the heights. At least I cannot, +and would not if I could. After I have been out about so long on such an +adventure as this, something lets go inside of me, and I come down out +of the mountain—and yet know deeply that I have been where the bush was +burning; and have heard the Voice in the Fire.</p> + +<p>So it was yesterday morning. I realized suddenly that I was +hungry—commonly, coarsely hungry. My whole attention, I was going to +say my whole soul, shifted to the thought of ham and eggs! This may seem +a tremendous anti-climax, but it is, nevertheless, a sober report of +what happened. At the first onset of this new mood, the ham-and-eggs +mood, let us call it, I was a little ashamed or abashed at the +remembrance of my wild flights, and had a laugh at the thought of myself +floundering around in the marshes and fields a mile from home, when +Harriet, no doubt, had breakfast waiting for me! What absurd, +contradictory, inconsistent, cowardly creatures we are, anyway!</p> + +<p>The house seemed an inconceivable distance away, and the only real thing +in the world the gnawing emptiness under my belt. And I was wet to my +knees, and the tangled huckleberry bushes and sheep laurel and hardback +I had passed through so joyously a short time before now clung heavily +about my legs as I struggled through them. And the sun was hot and +high—and there were innumerable small, black buzzing flies.</p> + +<p>To cap the climax, whom should I meet as I was crossing the fence into +the lower land but my friend Horace, He had been out early looking for a +cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them +slowly up the lane, the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, the +calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about upon uncertain legs.</p> + +<p>“Takin' the air, David?”</p> + +<p>I amuse Horace. Horace is an important man in this community. He has +big, solid barns, and money in the bank, and a reputation for +hardheadedness. He is also known as a “driver”; and has had sore trouble +with a favourite son. He believes in “goin' it slow” and “playin' safe,” +and he is convinced that “ye can't change human nature.”</p> + +<p>His question came to me with a kind of shock. I imagined with a +vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered +him squarely and honestly, if I were to say:</p> + +<p>“I've been down in the marshes following my nose—enjoying the thorn +apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting +the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper.”</p> + +<p>I was hungry, and in a mood to smile at myself anyway (good-humouredly +and forgivingly as we always smile at ourselves!) before I met Horace, +and the flashing vision I had of Horace's dry, superior smile finished +me. Was there really anything in this world but cows and calves, and +great solid barns, and oatcrops, and cash in the bank?</p> + +<p>“Been in the brook?” asked Horace, observing my wet legs.</p> + +<p>Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to the +courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest things +we have in us! I was not equal to it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I've been down for a tramp in the marsh,” I said, trying to put him +off.</p> + +<p>But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to +chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them ultimately +with the impression that they are somehow less sound, sensible, +practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because he is right, +but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy halt-beliefs and +half-believers he is without doubts.</p> + +<p>“What ye find down there?” asked Horace.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on.”</p> + +<p>“Hm-m,” said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he continued, +“Often git out in the morning as early as this?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “often.”</p> + +<p>“And do you find things any different now from what they would be later +in the day?”</p> + +<p>At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to +revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we +do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we +can fight! And be honest!</p> + +<p>“Horace,” I said, “I know what you are thinking about.”</p> + +<p>Horace's face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of +curiosity in his eye.</p> + +<p>“You've been thinking I've been wasting my time beating around down +there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things—which +you wouldn't do. You think I'm a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don't +you, Horace? I'll warrant you've told your wife just that more than +once. Come, now!”</p> + +<p>I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and +a little foolish.</p> + +<p>“Come now, honest!” I laughed and looked him in the eye.</p> + +<p>“Waal, now, ye see—”</p> + +<p>“Of course you do, and I don't mind it in the least.”</p> + +<p>A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye.</p> + +<p>“Ain't ye?”</p> + +<p>It's a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend.</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “I'm the practical man and you're the dreamer. I've rarely +known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you are, nor a +more impractical one.”</p> + +<p>Horace laughed.</p> + +<p>“How do ye make that out?”</p> + +<p>With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as +good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the +offensive.</p> + +<p>“Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?”</p> + +<p>This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred +human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying, +thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why.</p> + +<p>“Why, to make a living—same as you,” said Horace.</p> + +<p>“Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor +neighbour of mine, that's you, Horace, was just making his living, that +he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you +working for? It's something more than a mere living.”</p> + +<p>“Waal, now, I'll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I'm layin' aside a +little something for a rainy day.”</p> + +<p>“A little something!” this in the exact inflection of irony by which +here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a +good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also +in the exact manner of one so complimented.</p> + +<p>“Horace, what are you going to do with that thirty thousand dollars?”</p> + +<p>“Thirty thousand!” Horace looks at me and smiles, and I look at Horace +and smile.</p> + +<p>“Honest now!”</p> + +<p>“Waal, I'll tell ye—a little peace and comfort for me and Josie in our +old age, and a little something to make the children remember us when +we're gone. Isn't that worth working for?”</p> + +<p>He said this with downright seriousness. I did not press him further, +but if I had tried I could probably have got the even deeper admission +of that faith that lies, like bed rock, in the thought of most men—that +honesty and decency here will not be without its reward there, however +they may define the “there.” Some “prophet's paradise to come!”</p> + +<p>“I knew it!” I said. “Horace, you're a dreamer, too. You are dreaming of +peace and comfort in your old age, a little quiet house in town where +you won't have to labour as hard as you do now, where you won't be +worried by crops and weather, and where Mrs. Horace will be able to rest +after so many years of care and work and sorrow—a kind of earthly +heaven! And you are dreaming of leaving a bit to your children and +grandchildren, and dreaming of the gratitude they will express. All +dreams, Horace!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, waal——”</p> + +<p>“The fact is, you are working for a dream, and living on dreams—isn't +that true?”</p> + +<p>“Waal, now, if you mean it that way——”</p> + +<p>“I see I haven't got you beaten yet, Horace!”</p> + +<p>He smiled broadly,</p> + +<p>“We are all amiable enough with our own dreams. You think that what you +are working for—your dream—is somehow sounder and more practical than +what I am working for.”</p> + +<p>Horace started to reply, but had scarcely debouched from his trenches +when I opened on him with one of my twenty-fours.</p> + +<p>“How do you know that you are ever going to be old?”</p> + +<p>It hit.</p> + +<p>“And if you do grow old, how do you know that thirty thousand +dollars—oh, we'll call it that—is really enough, provided you don't +lose it before, to buy peace and comfort for you, or that what you leave +your children will make either you or them any happier? Peace and +comfort and happiness are terribly expensive, Horace—and prices have +been going up fast since this war began!”</p> + +<p>Horace looked at me uncomfortably, as men do in the world when you shake +the foundations of the tabernacle. I have thought since that I probably +pressed him too far; but these things go deep with me.</p> + +<p>“No, Horace,” I said, “you are the dreamer—and the impractical dreamer +at that!”</p> + +<p>For a moment Horace answered nothing; and we both stood still there in +the soft morning sunshine with the peaceful fields and woods all about +us, two human atoms struggling hotly with questions too large for us. +The cow and the new calf were long out of sight. Horace made a motion as +if to follow them up the lane, but I held him with my glittering eye—as +I think of it since, not without a kind of amusement at my own +seriousness.</p> + +<p>“I'm the practical man, Horace, for I want my peace now, and my +happiness now, and my God now. I can't wait. My barns may burn or my +cattle die, or the solid bank where I keep my deferred joy may fail, or +I myself by to-morrow be no longer here.”</p> + +<p>So powerfully and vividly did this thought take possession of me that I +cannot now remember to have said a decent good-bye to Horace (never +mind, he knows me!). At least when I was halfway up the hill I found +myself gesticulating with one clenched fist and saying to myself with a +kind of passion: “Why wait to be peaceful? Why not be peaceful now? Why +not be happy now? Why not be rich now?”</p> + +<p>For I think it truth that a life uncommanded now is uncommanded; a life +unenjoyed now is unenjoyed; a life not lived wisely now is not lived +wisely: for the past is gone and no one knows the future.</p> + +<p>As for Horace is he convinced that he is an impractical dreamer. Not a +bit of it! He was merely flurried for a moment in his mind, and probably +thinks me now, more than ever before, just what I think him. Absurd +place, isn't it, this world?</p> + +<p>So I reached home at last. You have no idea, unless you have tried it +yourself, how good breakfast tastes alter a three-mile tramp in the +sharp morning air. The odour of ham and eggs, and new muffins, and +coffee, as you come up the hill, there is an odour for you! And it was +good to see Harriet.</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “you are a sight for tired eyes.”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/07.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br> +THE GREEN PEOPLE</h2> + +<p>I have always had a fondness, when upon my travels about the world of +the near-by woods and fields, for nipping a bit of a twig here and there +and tasting the tart or bitter quality of it. I suppose the instinct +descends to me from the herbivorous side of my distant ancestry. I love +a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark, or a +pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy grass +drawn slowly from its close-fitting sheath, or a twig of the birch that +tastes like wintergreen.</p> + +<p>I think this no strange or unusual instinct, for I have seen many other +people doing it, especially farmers around here, who go through the +fields nipping the new oats, testing the red-top, or chewing a bit of +sassafras bark. I have in mind a clump of shrubbery in the town road, +where an old house once stood, of the kind called here by some the +“sweet-scented shrub,” and the brandies of it nearest the road are quite +clipped and stunted I'm being nipped at by old ladies who pass that way +and take to it like cat to catnip.</p> + +<p>For a long time this was a wholly unorganized, indeed all but +unconscious, pleasure, a true pattern of the childish way we take hold +of the earth; but when I began to come newly alive to all things as I +have already related—I chanced upon this curious, undeveloped instinct.</p> + +<p>“What is it I have here?” I asked myself, for I thought this might be a +new handle for getting hold of nature.</p> + +<p>Along one edge of my field is a natural hedge of wild cherry, young elms +and ashes, dogwood, black raspberry bushes and the like, which has long +been a pleasure to the eye, especially in the early morning when the +shadows of it lie long and cool upon the meadow. Many times I have +walked that way to admire it, or to listen for the catbirds that nest +there, or to steal upon a certain gray squirrel who comes out from his +home in the chestnut tree on a fine morning to inspect his premises.</p> + +<p>It occurred to me one day that I would make the acquaintance of this +hedge in a new way; so I passed slowly along it where the branches of +the trees brushed my shoulder and picked a twig here and there and bit +it through. “This is cherry,” I said; “this is elm, this is dogwood.” +And it was a fine adventure to know old friends in new ways, for I had +never thought before to test the trees and shrubs by their taste and +smell. After that, whenever I passed that way, I closed my eyes and +tried for further identifications by taste, and was soon able to tell +quickly half a dozen other varieties of trees, shrubs, and smaller +plants along that bit of meadow.</p> + +<p>Presently, as one who learns to navigate still water near shore longs +for more thrilling voyages, I tried the grassy old roads in the woods, +where young trees and other growths were to be found in great variety: +and had a joy of it I cannot describe, for old and familiar places were +thus made new and wonderful to me. And when I think of those places, +now, say in winter, I grasp them more vividly and strongly than ever I +did before, for I think not only how they look, but how they taste and +smell, and I even know many of the growing things by the touch of them. +It is certain that our grasp of life is in direct proportion to the +variety and warmth of the ways in which we lay hold of it. No thought no +beauty and no joy.</p> + +<p>On these excursions I have often reflected that if I were blind, I +should still find here unexplored joys of life, and should make it a +point to know all the friendly trees and shrubs around about by the +taste or smell or touch of them. I think seriously that this method of +widening the world of the blind, and increasing their narrower joys, +might well be developed, though it would be wise for such as do take it +to borrow first the eyes of a friend to see that no poison ivy, which +certain rascally birds plant along our fences and hedges, is lurking +about.</p> + +<p>Save for this precaution I know of nothing that will injure the taster, +though he must be prepared, here and there, for shocks and thrills of +bitterness. A lilac leaf, for example, and to a scarcely lesser degree +the willow and the poplar are, when bitten through, of a penetrating and +intense bitterness; but do no harm, and will daunt no one who is really +adventurous. There is yet to be written a botany, or, better yet, a book +of nature, for the blind.</p> + +<p>It is by knowing human beings that we come to understand them, and by +understanding them come to love them, and so it is with the green +people. When I was a boy in the wild north country trees were enemies to +be ruthlessly fought—to be cut down, sawed, split, burned—anything to +be rid of them. The ideal in making a home place was to push the forest +as far away from it as possible. But now, when I go to the woods, it is +like going among old and treasured friends, and with riper acquaintance +the trees come to take on, curiously, a kind of personality, so that I +am much fonder of some trees than of others, and instinctively seek out +the companionship of certain trees in certain moods, as one will his +friends.</p> + +<p>I love the unfolding beeches in spring, and the pines in winter; the +elms I care for afar off, like great aloof men, whom I can admire; but +for friendly confidences give me an apple tree in an old green meadow.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/08.jpg" width="380" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p> +In this more complete understanding I have been much aided by getting +hold of my friends of the hedges and hills in the new ways I have +described. At times I even feel that I have become a fully accepted +member of the Fraternity of the Living Earth, for I have already +received many of the benefits which go with that association; and I know +now for a certainty that it makes no objection to its members because +they are old, or sad, or have sinned, but welcomes them all alike.</p> + +<p>The essential taste of the cherry and peach and all their numerous +relatives is, in variation, that of the peach pit, so that the whole +tribe may be easily recognized, though it was some time before I could +tell with certainty the peach from the cherry. The oak shoot, when +chewed a little, tastes exactly like the smell of new oak lumber; the +maple has a peculiar taste and smell of its own that I can find no +comparison for, and the poplar is one of the bitterest trees that ever I +have tasted. The trees—pines, spruces, hemlocks, balsams, cedars—are +to me about the pleasantest of all, both in taste and odour, and though +the spruces and pines taste and smell much alike at first, one soon +learns to distinguish them. The elm has a rather agreeable, nondescript, +bitterish taste, but the linden is gummy and of a mediocre quality, like +the tree itself, which I dislike. Some of the sweetest flowering +shrubs, such as the lilac, have the bitterest of leaves and twigs or, +like certain kinds of clematis, have a seed that when green is sharper +than cayenne pepper, while others, like the rose, are pleasanter in +flavour. The ash tree is not too bitter and a little sour.</p> + +<p>I give here only a few of the commoner examples, for I wish to make this +no tedious catalogue of the flavours of the green people. I am not a +scientist, nor would wish to be taken for one. Only last winter I had my +pretensions sadly shocked when I tasted twigs cut from various trees and +shrubs and tried to identify them by taste or by smell, and while it was +a pleasing experiment I found I could not certainly place above half of +them; partly, no doubt, because many growing things keep their flavours +well wrapped up in winter. No, I have not gone far upon this pleasant +road, but neither am I in any great hurry; for there yet remains much +time in this and my future lives to conquer the secrets of the earth. I +plan to devote at least one entire life to science, and may find I need +several!</p> + +<p>One great reason why the sense of taste and the sense of smell have not +the same honour as the sense of sight or of hearing is that no way has +yet been found to make a true art of either. For sight, we have +painting, sculpturing, photography, architecture, and the like; and for +hearing, music; and for both, poetry and the drama. But the other senses +are more purely personal, and have not only been little studied or +thought about, but are the ones least developed, and most dimmed and +clogged by the customs of our lives.</p> + +<p>For the sense of smell we have, indeed, the perfumer's art, but a poor +rudimentary art it is, giving little freedom for the artist who would +draw his inspirations freshly from nature. I can, indeed, describe +poorly in words the odours of this June morning—the mingled lilacs, +late wild cherries, new-broken soil, and the fragrance of the sun on +green verdure, for there are here both lyrical and symphonic odours—but +how inadequate it is! I can tell you what I feel and smell and taste, +and give you, perhaps, a desire another spring to spend the months of +May and June in the country, but I can scarcely make you live again the +very moment of life I have lived, which is the magic quality of the best +art. The art of the perfumer which, like all crude art, thrives upon +blatancy, does not make us go to gardens, or love the rose, but often +instils in us a kind of artificiality, so that perfumes, so far from +being an inspiration to us, increasing our lives, become often the badge +of the abnormal, used by those unsatisfied with simple, clean, natural +things.</p> + +<p>And as a people deficient in musical art delights in ragtime tunes, so a +people deficient in the true art of tasting and smelling delights in +ragtime odours and ragtime tastes.</p> + +<p>I do not know that the three so-called lesser senses will ever be +organized to the point where they are served by well-established arts, +but this I do know—that there are three great ways of entering upon a +better understanding of this magic earth which are now neglected.</p> + +<p>I think we have come upon hasty and heated days, and are too much +mastered by the god of hurry and the swift and greedy eye. We accept +flashing pictures of life for life itself; we rush here and rush there +and, having arrived, rush away again—to what sensible purpose? Be still +a little! Be still!</p> + +<p>I do not mean by stillness, stagnation not yet lazy contentment, but +life more deeply thought about, more intensely realized, an activity so +concentrated that it is quiet. Be still then!</p> + +<p>So it is that, though I am no worshipper of the old, I think the older +gardeners had in some ways a better practice of the art than we have, +for they planted not for the eye alone but for the nose and the sense of +taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb's tongue, to gratify, +curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, and +appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am +greatly fond of, and like to snip a leaf as I go by to smell or taste; +but many of them, I here confess, have for me a rank and culinary +odour—as sage and thyme and the bold scarlet monarda, sometimes called +bergamot.</p> + +<p>But if their actual fragrance is not always pleasing, and their uses are +now grown obscure, I love well the names of many of them—whether from +ancient association or because the words themselves fall pleasantly upon +the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, anise and summer +savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! Cumin! And +“there's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember,... +there's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you: and here's +some for me—” All sweet names that one loves to roll under his tongue.</p> + +<p>I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when I +go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names as +I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well enough.</p> + +<p>It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We +are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy +ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather +than for life.</p> + +<p>And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who lives +not a thousand miles from here—I must not tell his name—whose greatest +word is “proportion.” At this moment, as I write, I can hear the roll of +his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r—prop-o-rtion. He is the +kind of man good to know and to trust.</p> + +<p>If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is a +fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his +eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally: +“Well—well!”</p> + +<p>He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing +up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there's nothing +more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in +daylight! And he inquires into their ancestry, makes them run out their +tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that +they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for +their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a church, +a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashion, lest he see something +else too small; but will have everything, as he says, in true +proportion. If he occasionally favours a little that which is old, +solid, well-placed, it is scarcely to be measured to him as a fault in +an age so overwhelmed with the shiny new.</p> + +<p>He is a fine, up-standing, hearty old gentleman with white hair and rosy +cheeks, and the bright eyes of one who has lived all his life with +temperance. One incident I cannot resist telling, though it has nothing +directly to do with this story, but it will let you know what kind of a +man my old friend is, and when all is said, it would be a fine thing to +know about any man. Not long ago he was afflicted with a serious loss, a +loss that would have crushed some men, but when I met him not long +afterward, though the lines around his eyes were grown deeper, he +greeted me in his old serene, courtly manner, When I would have +comforted him with my sympathy, for I felt myself near enough to speak +of his loss, he replied calmly:</p> + +<p>“How can we know whether a thing is evil until we reach the end of it? +It may be good!”</p> + +<p>One of the events I esteem among the finest of the whole year is my old +friend's birthday party. Every winter, on the twenty-sixth of February, +a party of his friends drop in to see him. Some of us go out of habit, +drawn by our affection for the old gentleman; others, I think, he +invites, for he knows to perfection the delicate shadings of +companionship which divide those who come unbidden from those, not less +loved but shyer, who must be summoned.</p> + +<p>Now this birthday gathering has one historic ceremony which none of us +would miss, because it expresses so completely the essence of our +friend's generous and tolerant, but just, nature. He is, as I have said, +a temperate man, and dislikes as much as any one I know the whole +alcohol business; but living in a community where the struggle for +temperance has often been waged intemperately, and where there is a +lurking belief that cudgelling laws can make men virtuous, he publishes +abroad once a year his declaration of independence.</p> + +<p>After we have been with our friend for an hour or so, and are well +warmed and happy with the occasion, he rises solemnly and goes to the +toby-closet at the end of his generous fireplace, where the apple-log +specially cut for the occasion is burning merrily, and as we all fall +silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from +the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he +gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too. +Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive glasses +that have been polished until they shine for the great occasion, and, +having filled them all with the ripe liquor, he passes them around to +each of us. We have all risen and are becomingly solemn as he now +proposes the toast of the year—and it is always the same toast:</p> + +<p>“Here's to moderation—in all things!”</p> + +<p>He takes a sip or two, and continues:</p> + +<p>“Here's to temperance—the queen of the virtues.”</p> + +<p>So we all drink off our glasses. Our mellow old friend smacks his lips, +corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his toby-closet, where it +reposes undisturbed for another year.</p> + +<p>“And now, gentlemen,” he says, heartily, “let us go in to dinner.”...</p> + +<p>As I think of it, now that it is written, this story bears no very close +relationship to my original subject, and yet it seemed to follow +naturally enough as I set it down, and to belong with the simple and +well-flavoured things of the garden and fields; and recalling the advice +of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, “never to alter a +thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely to +pass into that of another more readily and with more effect than +anything which you can by reflection invent,” I leave it here just as I +wrote it, hoping that the kinship of my genial old friend with simple +and natural and temperate things may plainly appear.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/09.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br> +PLACES OF RETIREMENT</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Good God, how sweet are all things here!<br> +How beautiful the fields appear!<br> + How cleanly do we feed and lie!<br> +Lord, what good hours do we keep!<br> +How quietly we sleep!” +</p> + +<p class="right"> +C<small>HARLES</small> C<small>OTTON</small> (a friend of Izaak Walton)</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>April 29th</i>.</p> + +<p>I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out +with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was +myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from +me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling +of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of frogs +from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests +attention. Of odours, a-plenty! Just behind me, so that by turning my +head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock +trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet. All the earth the very +earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell.</p> + +<p>These things have been here a thousand years a million years and yet +they are not stale, but are ever fresh, ever serene, ever here to loosen +one's crabbed spirit and make one quietly happy. It seems to me I could +not live if it were not possible often to come thus alone to the woods.</p> + +<p>...On later walking I discover that here and there on warm southern +slopes the dog-tooth violet is really in bloom, and worlds of hepatica, +both lavender and white, among the brown leaves. One of the notable +sights of the hillsides at this time of the year is the striped maple, +the long wands rising straight and chaste among thickets of +less-striking young birches and chestnuts, and having a bud of a +delicate pink—a marvel of minute beauty. A little trailing arbutus I +found and renewed my joy with one of the most exquisite odours of all +the spring; Solomon's seal thrusting up vivid green cornucopias from the +lifeless earth, and often near a root or stone the red partridge berries +among their bright leaves. The laurel on the hills is sharply visible, +especially when among deciduous trees, and along the old brown roads are +patches of fresh wintergreen. In a cleft of the hills near the top of +Norwottuck, though the day is warm, I found a huge snowbank—the last +held trench of old winter, the last guerilla of the cold, driven to the +fastnesses of the hills.... I have enjoyed this day without trying. +After the first hour or so of it all the worries dropped away, all the +ambitions, all the twisted thoughts—</p> + +<p>It is strange how much thrilling joy there is in the discovery of the +ages-old miracle of returning life in the woods: each green adventurer, +each fragrant joy, each bird-call—and the feel of the soft, warm +sunshine upon one's back after months of winter. On any terms life is +good. The only woe, the only Great Woe, is the woe of never having been +born. Sorrow, yes; failure, yes; weakness, yes the sad loss of dear +friends—yes! But oh, the good God: I still live!</p> + +<p>Being alone without feeling alone is one of the great experiences of +life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable +possession. People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all the +happiness they find there they must take with them. Thus they divert and +distract that within them which creates power and joy, until by flying +always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from without rather +than from within, they become infinitely boresome to themselves, so that +they can scarcely bear a moment of their own society.</p> + +<p>But if once a man have a taste of true and happy retirement, though it +be but a short hour, or day, now and then, he has found, or is beginning +to find, a sure place of refuge, of blessed renewal, toward which in the +busiest hours he will find his thoughts wistfully stealing. How stoutly +will he meet the buffets of the world if he knows he has such a place of +retirement where all is well-ordered and full of beauty, and right +counsels prevail, and true things are noted.</p> + +<p>As a man grows older, if he cultivate the art of retirement, not indeed +as an end in itself, but as a means of developing a richer and freer +life, he will find his reward growing surer and greater until in time +none of the storms or shocks of life any longer disturbs him. He might +in time even reach the height attained by Diogenes, of whom Epictetus +said, “It was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man +the means of laying hold upon him to enslave him. He had everything +easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his +property, he would rather have let it go and be yours than he would have +followed you for it; if you laid hold of his leg he would have let go +his leg: if all of his body, all his poor body; his intimates, friends, +country, just the same. For he knew from whence he had them, and from +whom and on what conditions.”</p> + +<p>The best partners of solitude are books. I like to take a book with me +in my pocket, although I find the world so full of interesting +things—sights, sounds, odours—that often I never read a word in it. It +is like having a valued friend with you, though you walk for miles +without saying a word to him or he to you: but if you really know your +friend, it is a curious thing how, subconsciously, you are aware of +what he is thinking and feeling about this hillside or that distant +view. And so it is with books. It is enough to have this writer in your +pocket, for the very thought of him and what he would say to these old +fields and pleasant trees is ever freshly delightful. And he never +interrupts at inconvenient moments, nor intrudes his thoughts upon yours +unless you desire it.</p> + +<p>I do not want long books and least of all story books in the +woods—these are for the library—but rather scraps and extracts and +condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and +carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all +kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled “Traveller's Joy,” another, +“Songs of Nature,” and I have lately found the best one I know called +“The Spirit of Man” by Robert Bridges, the English laureate. Other +little books that fit well in the pocket on a tramp, because they are +truly companionable, are Ben Jonson's “Timber,” one of the very best, +and William Penn's “Fruits of Solitude.” An anthology of Elizabethan +verse, given me by a friend, is also a good companion.</p> + +<p>It is not a discourse or a narrative we want as we walk abroad, but +conversation. Neither do we want people or facts or stories, but a +person. So I open one of these little books and read therein the +thoughtful remark of a wise companion. This I may reply to, or merely +enjoy, as I please. I am in no hurry, as I might be with a living +companion, for my book friend, being long dead, is not impatient and +gives me time to reply, and is not resentful if I make no reply at all. +Submitted to such a test as this few writers, old or new, give continued +profit or delight. To be considered in the presence of the great and +simple things of nature, or worn long in the warm places of the spirit, +a writer must have supreme qualities of sense or humour, a great +sensitiveness to beauty, or a genuine love of goodness—but above all he +must somehow give us the flavour of personality. He must be a true +companion of the spirit.</p> + +<p>There is an exercise given to young soldiers which consists in raising +the hands slowly above the head, taking in a full breath at the same +time, and then letting them down in such a way as to square the +shoulders. This leaves the body erect, the head high, the eyes straight +ahead, the lungs full of good air. It is the attitude that every man at +arms should wish to take, After a day in the woods I feel some such +erectness of spirit, a life of the head, and a clearer and calmer +vision, for I have raised up my hands to the heavens, and drawn in the +odours and sights and sounds of the good earth.</p> + +<p>One of the great joys of such times of retirement perhaps the greatest +of the joys is the return, freshened and sweetened, to the common life. +How good then appear the things of the garden and farm, the house and +shop, that weariness had staled; how good the faces of friends.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/10.jpg" width="400" height="190" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br> +NO TRESPASS</h2> + +<p>I live in a country of beautiful hills, and in the last few years, since +I have been here with Harriet, I have made familiar and pleasant +acquaintance with several of them....</p> + +<p>One hill I know is precious to me for a peculiar reason. Upon the side +of it, along the town road, are two or three old farms with lilacs like +trees about their doorways, and ancient apple orchards with great gnarly +branches, and one has an old garden of hollyhocks, larkspurs, zinnias, +mignonette, and I know not how many other old-fashioned flowers. Wild +grapes there are along the neglected walls, and in a corner of one of +them, by a brook, a mass of sweet currant which in blossom time makes +all that bit of valley a bower of fragrance, I have gone that way often +in spring for the sheer joy of the friendly odours I had across the +ancient stone fences.</p> + +<p>The largest and stoniest of the farms is owned by an old man named +Howieson. A strange, brown-clad, crooked, crabbed old man, I have seen +him often creeping across his fields with his horses. An ineffective +worker all his life long, he has scarcely made a living from his stony +acres. His farm is tipped up behind upon the hill and runs below to the +brook, and the buildings are old and worn, and a rocky road goes by to +the town. Once, in more prosperous days, before the factories took over +the winter work of these hill farms, the busy families finished shoes, +and wove cloth, and plaited straw hats—and one I know was famous for +wooden bowls craftily hollowed out of maple knots—and the hill people +relied upon their stony fields for little more than their food. But in +these later days, the farm industries are gone, the houses are no longer +overflowing with children, for there is nothing for children to do, and +those who remain are old or discouraged. Some homes have entirely +disappeared, so that all that remains is a clump of lilacs or a wild +tangle of rose bushes about a grass-covered or bush-grown cellar wall. +The last thing to disappear is not that which the old farmers most set +their hearts upon, their fine houses and barns or their cultivated +fields, but the one touch of beauty they left—lilac clump or +rose-tangle.</p> + +<p>Old Howieson, with that passion for the sense of possession which +thrives best when the realities of possession are slipping away, has +posted all his fields with warnings against intrusion. You may not enter +this old field, nor walk by this brook, nor climb this hill, for all +this belongs, in fee simple, to James Howieson!</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/11.jpg" width="200" height="120" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>For a long time I did not meet James Howieson face to face, though I had +often seen his signs, and always with a curious sense of the futility of +them. I did not need to enter his fields, nor climb his hill, nor walk +by his brook, but as the springs passed and the autumns whitened into +winter, I came into more and more complete possession of all those +fields that he so jealously posted. I looked with strange joy upon his +hill, saw April blossom in his orchard, and May colour the wild grape +leaves along his walls. June I smelled in the sweet vernal of his hay +fields, and from the October of his maples and beeches I gathered rich +crops and put up no hostile signs of ownership, paid no taxes, worried +over no mortgage, and often marvelled that he should be so poor within +his posted domain and I so rich without.</p> + +<p>One who loves a hill, or a bit of valley, will experiment long until he +finds the best spot to take his joy of it; and this is no more than the +farmer himself does when he experiments year after year to find the best +acres for his potatoes, his corn, his oats, his hay. Intensive +cultivation is as important in these wider fields of the spirit as in +any other. If I consider the things that I hear and see and smell, and +the thoughts that go with them or grow out of them, as really valuable +possessions, contributing to the wealth of life, I cannot see why I +should not willingly give to them a tenth or a hundredth part of the +energy and thought I give to my potatoes or my blackberries or to the +writing I do.</p> + +<p>I chose a place in a field just below Old Howieson's farm, where there +is a thorn-apple tree to sit or lie under. From the thorn-apple tree, by +turning my head in one direction, I can look up at the crown of the hill +with its green hood of oaks and maples and chestnuts, and high above it +I can see the clouds floating in the deep sky, or, if I turn my head the +other way, for I am a kind of monarch there on the hill and command the +world to delight me, I can look off across the pleasant valley with its +spreading fields and farmsteads set about with trees, and the town +slumbering by the riverside. I come often with a little book in one +pocket to read from, and a little book in the other to write in, but I +rarely use either the one or the other, for there is far too much to see +and think about.</p> + +<p>From this spot I make excursions round about, and have had many strange +and interesting adventures: and now find thoughts of mine, like lichens, +upon all the boulders and old walls and oak trees of that hillside. +Sometimes I climb to the top of the hill. If I am in a leisurely mood I +walk lawfully around Old Howieson's farm by a kind of wood lane that +leads to the summit, but often I cross his walls, all regardless of his +trespass signs, and go that way to the top.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/12.jpg" width="320" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>It was on one of these lawless excursions in Old Howieson's field that I +first saw that strange old fellow who is known hereabout as the Herbman. +I came upon him so suddenly that I stopped short, curiously startled, as +one is startled at finding anything human that seems less than human. He +was kneeling there among the low verdure of a shallow valley, and looked +like an old gray rock or some prehistoric animal. I stopped to look at +him, but he paid no heed, and seemed only to shrink into himself as +though, if he kept silent, he might be taken for stock or stone. I +addressed him but he made no answer. I went nearer, with a sensation of +uncanny wonder; but he did not so much as glance up at me, though he +knew I was there. His old brown basket was near him and the cane beside +it. He was gathering pennyroyal.</p> + +<p>“Another man who is taking an unexpected crop from Old Howieson's +acres,” I thought to myself.</p> + +<p>I watched him for some moments, quite still, as one might watch a turtle +or a woodchuck—and left him there.</p> + +<p>Since then I have heard something about him, and seen him once or +twice. A strange old man, a wanderer upon the face of the fragrant +earth. Spring and summer he wears always an old overcoat, and carries a +basket with double covers, very much worn and brown with usage. His cane +is of hickory with a crooked root for a handle, this also shiny with +age. He gathers bitter-bark, tansy; ginseng, calamus, smartweed, and +slippery elm, and from along old fences and barnyards, catnip and +boneset, I suppose he lives somewhere, a hole in a log, or the limb of a +tree, but no one knows where it is, or how he dries or cures his +findings. No one knows his name: perhaps he has forgotten it himself. A +name is no great matter anyway. He is called simply the Herbman. He +drifts into our valley in the spring, is seen here and there on the +hills or in the fields, like the crows or the blackbirds, and disappears +in the fall with the robins and the maple leaves. Perhaps he is one of +those favoured souls to whom life is all spring and summer.</p> + +<p>The age has passed him by, and except for certain furtive old women, few +care now for his sovereign remedies.</p> + +<p>I met him once in the town road, and he stopped humbly without lifting +his eyes, and opening his basket let out into the air such a fragrance +of ancient simples as I never smelled before. He said nothing at all; +but took out dry bundles of catnip, sassafras, slippery elm, to show me. +He had also pennyroyal for healing teas, and calamus and bitter-bark for +miseries. I selected a choice assortment of his wares to take home to +Harriet, but could get him to name no price. He took what I gave without +objection and without thanks, and went his way. A true man of the hills.</p> + +<p>As I said, I came often to the field below Old Howieson's farm. I think +the old man saw me coming and going, for the road winds along the side +of the hill within sight of his house, skirts a bit of wood, and with an +unexpected turn comes out triumphantly to the top of the ridge beyond.</p> + +<p>At the turn of the road I always disappeared, for I crossed the wall +into the field below Old Howieson's farm, and mysteriously failed to +appear to the watchful eye upon the ridge beyond. What could be more +provoking or suspicious! To go in at one end of a well-travelled road +and not to come out in the regular and expected way at the other! Or to +be suspected of not being deferential toward trespass signs, or +observant of closed ways! How disturbing to all those who dwell +tremulously within posted enclosures of whatever sort, or those who base +their sense of possession upon stumped paper, or take their God from a +book. Men have been crucified for less.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later those who cross boundaries clash with those who defend +boundaries: and those who adventure offend those who seek security; but +it was a long time before I came face to face with Old Man Howieson.</p> + +<p>This was the way of it: Well back of Howieson's buildings and reaching +upward upon the face of the hill stretches a long and narrow field, a +kind of barren back pasture with boulders in it, and gnarly hawthorn +trees, and a stunted wild apple or so. A stone fence runs down one side +of the cleared land and above it rises the hill. It is like a great +trough or ravine which upon still spring evenings gathers in all the +varied odours of Old Howieson's farm and orchard and brings them down to +me as I sit in the field below. I need no book then, nor sight of the +distant town, nor song of birds, for I have a singular and incomparable +album of the good odours of the hill. This is one reason why I chose +this particular spot in the fields for my own, and it has given me a +secret name for the place which I will not here disclose. If ever you +should come this way in May, my friend, I might take you there of an +evening, but could warrant you no joy of it that you yourself could not +take. But you need not come here, or go there, but stop where you are at +this moment, and I here assure you that if you look up, and look in, +you, also, will see something of the glory of the world.</p> + +<p>One evening I had been upon the hill to seek again the pattern and +dimensions of my tabernacle, and to receive anew the tables of the Jaw. +I had crossed Old Howieson's field so often that I had almost forgotten +it was not my own. It was indeed mine by the same inalienable right that +it belonged to the crows that flew across it, or to the partridges that +nested in its coverts, or the woodchucks that lived in its walls, or the +squirrels in its chestnut trees. It was mine by the final test of all +possession—that I could use it.</p> + +<p>He came out of a thicket of hemlocks like a wraith of the past, a gray +and crabbed figure, and confronted me there in the wide field. I +suppose he thought he had caught me at last. I was not at all startled +or even surprised, for as I look back upon it now I know that I had +always been expecting him. Indeed, I felt a lift of the spirit, the kind +of jauntiness with which one meets a crucial adventure.</p> + +<p>He stood there for a moment quite silent, a grim figure of denial, and I +facing him.</p> + +<p>“You are on my land, sir,” he said.</p> + +<p>I answered him instantly and in a way wholly unexpected to myself:</p> + +<p>“You are breathing my air, sir.”</p> + +<p>He looked at me dully, but with a curious glint of fear in his eye, fear +and anger, too.</p> + +<p>“Did you see the sign down there? This land is posted.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “I have seen your signs. But let me ask you: If I were +not here would you own this land any more than you do now? Would it +yield you any better crops?”</p> + +<p>It is never the way of those who live in posted enclosures, of whatever +sort, to reason. They assert.</p> + +<p>“This land is posted,” said the old man doggedly.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure you own it?” I asked. “Is it really yours?”</p> + +<p>“My father owned this farm before me,” he said, “and my grandfather +cleared this field and built these walls. I was born in that house and +have lived there all my life.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I must be going—and I will not come here again,” I said. +“I am sorry I walked on your land—”</p> + +<p>I started to go down the hill, but stopped, and said, as though it were +an afterthought:</p> + +<p>“I have made some wonderful discoveries upon your land, and that hill +there. You don't seem to know how valuable this field is.... Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>With that I took two or three steps down the hill—but felt the old +man's hand on my arm.</p> + +<p>“Say, mister,” he asked, “are you one of the electric company men? Is +that high-tension line comin' across here?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “it is something more valuable than that!”</p> + +<p>I walked onward a few steps, as though I was quite determined to get out +of his field, but he followed close behind me.</p> + +<p>“It ain't the new trolley line, is it?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “it isn't the trolley line.”</p> + +<p>“What is it, then?”</p> + +<p>In that question, eager and shrill, spoke the dry soul of the old man, +the lifelong hope that his clinging ownership of those barren acres +would bring him from the outside some miraculous profit.</p> + +<p>His whole bearing had changed. He had ceased to be truculent or even +fearful, but was now shrilly beseeching, A great wave of compassion came +over me, I was sorry for him, imprisoned there within the walls of his +own making, and expecting wealth from the outside when there was wealth +in plenty within and everywhere about him.</p> + +<p>But how could I help him? You can give no valuable thing to any man who +has not the vision to take it. If I had told him what I found upon his +hill or in his fields he would have thought me—well, crazy; or he would +have suspected that under cover of such a quest I hid some evil design. +As well talk adventure to an old party man, or growth to a set +churchman.</p> + +<p>So I left him there within his walls. So often when we think we are +barring other people out, we are only barring ourselves in. The last I +saw of him as I turned into the road was a gray and crabbed figure +standing alone, looking after me, and not far off his own sign:</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/11.jpg" width="200" height="120" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>Sometime, I thought, this old farm will be owned by a man who is also +capable of possessing it. More than one such place I know already has +been taken by those who value the beauty of the hills and the old walls, +and the boulder-strewn fields. One I know is really possessed by a man +who long ago had a vision of sheep feeding on fields too infertile to +produce profitable crops, and many others have been taken by men who saw +forests growing where forests ought to grow. For real possession is not +a thing of inheritance or of documents, but of the spirit; and passes by +vision and imagination. Sometimes, indeed, the trespass signs stand +long—so long that we grow impatient—but nature is in no hurry. Nature +waits, and presently the trespass signs rot away, one arm falls off, and +lo! where the adventurer found only denial before he is now invited +to—“pass.” The old walls are conquered by the wild cherries and purple +ivy and blackberry bushes, and the old Howiesons sleep in calm +forgetfulness of their rights upon the hills they thought they +possessed, and all that is left is a touch of beauty—lilac clump and +wild-rose tangle.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/13.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br> +LOOK AT THE WORLD!</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Give me to struggle with weather and wind;<br> + Give me to stride through the snow;<br> +Give me the feel of the chill on my cheeks,<br> + And the glow and the glory within!” +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>March 17th.</i></p> + +<p>The joy of winter: the downright joy of winter! I tramped to-day through +miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the roads or +ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of adventure +as I cannot describe.</p> + +<p>Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts of +snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly +like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled a path the heaps +are nearly as high as my shoulder....</p> + +<p>This perfect morning a faint purplish haze is upon all the hills, with +bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke +rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with +unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure heaps around the +barns. All the hillsides glisten and sparkle like cloth of gold, each +glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the +long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses' feet +crunch upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the +creamery—the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white +scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly, +and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of +superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow +their wood sled. They are bantering one another noisily. I see a man +shovelling snow from his barn doors; as each shovelful rises and +scatters, the sun catches it for an instant and it falls, a silvery +shower. ... I tramped to-day through miles of it: and whether in broken +roads or spotless fields, had great joy of it. It was good to stride +through opposing drifts and to catch the tingling air upon one's face. +The spring is beautiful indeed, and one is happy at autumn, but of all +the year no other mornings set the blood to racing like these; none +gives a greater sense of youth, strength, or of the general goodness of +the earth.</p> + +<p>Give me the winter: give me the winter! Not all winter, but just winter +enough, just what nature sends.</p> + +<p>...Dry air in the throat so cold at first as to make one cough; and +dry, sharp, tingling air in the nostrils; frost on beard and eyebrows; +cheeks red and crusty, so that to wrinkle them hurts: but all the body +within aglow with warmth and health. Twice the ordinary ozone in the +air, so that one wishes to whistle or sing, and if the fingers grow +chill, what are shoulders for but to beat them around!</p> + +<p>It is a strange and yet familiar experience how all things present their +opposites. Do you enjoy the winter? Your neighbour loathes or fears it. +Do you enjoy life? To your friend it is a sorrow and a heaviness. Even +to you it is not always alike. Though the world itself is the same +to-day as it was yesterday and will be to-morrow—the same snowy fields +and polar hills, the same wintry stars, the same infinitely alluring +variety of people—yet to-day you, that were a god, have become a +grieving child.</p> + +<p>Even at moments when we are well pleased with the earth we often have a +wistful feeling that we should conceal it lest it hurt those borne down +by circumstances too great or too sad for them. What is there to offer +one who cannot respond gladly to the beauty of the fields, or opens his +heart widely to the beckoning of friends? And we ask ourselves: Have I +been tried as this man has? Would I be happy then? Have I been wrung +with sorrow, worn down by ill-health, buffeted with injustice as this +man has? Would I be happy then?</p> + +<p>I saw on my walk to-day an old woman with a crossed shawl upon her +breast creeping out painfully to feed her hens. She lives on a small, +ill-kept farm I have known for years. She is old and poor and asthmatic, +and the cold bites through her with the sharpness of knives. The path to +the hen-house is a kind of via dolorosa, a terror of slipperiness and +cold. She might avoid it: her son, worthless as he is, might do it for +her, but she clings to it as she clings to her life. It is the last +reason for staying here! But the white fields and drifted roads are +never joyfully met, never desired. She spends half the summer dreading +the return of winter from the severities of which she cannot escape.</p> + +<p>Nor is it all mere poverty, though she is poor, for there are those who +would help to send her away, but she will not go. She is wrapped about +with Old Terrors, Ancient Tyrannies—that Terror of the Unknown which is +more painful even than the Terror of the Known: those Tyrannies of Habit +and of Place which so often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of the old. +She clings desperately to the few people she knows (“'tis hard to die +among strangers!”) and the customs she has followed all her life. +Against the stark power of her tragic helplessness neither the good nor +the great of the earth may prevail. This reality too....</p> + +<p>I had a curious experience not long ago: One of those experiences which +light up as in a flash some of the fundamental things of life. I met a +man in the town road whom I have come to know rather more than slightly. +He is a man of education and has been “well-off” in the country sense, +is still, so far as I know, but he has a sardonic outlook upon life. He +is discouraged about human nature. Thinks that politics are rotten, and +that the prices of potatoes and bread are disgraceful. The state of the +nation, and of the world, is quite beyond temperate expression. Few rays +of joy seem to illuminate his pathway.</p> + +<p>As we approached in the town road I called out to him:</p> + +<p>“Good morning.”</p> + +<p>He paused and, to my surprise, responded:</p> + +<p>“Are you happy?”</p> + +<p>It had not occurred to me for some time whether I was happy or not, so I +replied:</p> + +<p>“I don't know; why do you ask?”</p> + +<p>He looked at me in a questioning, and I thought rather indignant, way.</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn't a man be happy?” I pressed him.</p> + +<p>“Why <i>should</i> he be? Answer me that!” he responded, “Why should he be? +Look at the world!”</p> + +<p>With that he passed onward with a kind of crushing dignity.</p> + +<p>I have laughed since when I have recalled the tone of his voice as he +said, “Look at the world!” Gloomy and black it was. It evidently made +him indignant to be here.</p> + +<p>But at the moment his bitter query, the essential attitude of spirit +which lay behind it, struck into me with a poignancy that stopped me +where I stood. Was I, then, all wrong about the world? I actually had a +kind of fear lest when I should look up again I should find the earth +grown wan and bleak and unfriendly, so that I should no longer desire +it.</p> + +<p>“Look at the world!” I said aloud.</p> + +<p>And with that I suddenly looked all around me and it is a strange, deep +thing, as I have thought of it since, how the world came back upon me +with a kind of infinite, calm assurance, as beautiful as ever it was. +There were the hills and the fields and the great still trees—and the +open sky above. And even as I looked down the road and saw my sardonic +old friend plodding through the snow—his very back frowning—I had a +sense that he belonged in the picture, too—and couldn't help himself. +That he even had a kind of grace, and gave a human touch to that wintry +scene! He had probably said a great deal more than he meant!</p> + +<p><i>Look at the world</i>!</p> + +<p>Well, look at it.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/14.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br> +A GOOD APPLE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible +goods.”</p> + +<p>I have just had one of the pleasant experiences of life. From time to +time, these brisk winter days, I like to walk across the fields to +Horace's farm. I take a new way each time and make nothing of the snow +in the fields or the drifts along the fences....</p> + +<p>“Why,” asks Harriet, “do you insist on struggling through the snow when +there's a good beaten road around?”</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “why should any one take a beaten road when there +are new and adventurous ways to travel?”</p> + +<p>When I cross the fields I never know at what moment I may come upon some +strange or surprising experience, what new sights I may see, what new +sounds I may hear, and I have the further great advantage of appearing +unexpectedly at Horace's farm. Sometimes I enter by the cow lane, +sometimes by way of the old road through the wood-lot, or I appear +casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or I let +Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle fence. I +have come to love doing this, for unexpectedness in visitors, as in +religion and politics, is disturbing to Horace and, as sand-grits in +oysters produce pearls, my unexpected appearances have more than once +astonished new thoughts in Horace, or yielded pearly bits of native +humour.</p> + +<p>Ever since I have known him, Horace has been rather high-and-mighty with +me; but I know he enjoys my visits, for I give him always, I think, a +pleasantly renewed sense of his own superiority. When he sees me his eye +lights up with the comfortable knowledge that he can plough so much +better than I can, that his corn grows taller than mine, and his hens +lay more eggs. He is a wonderfully practical man, is Horace; +hard-headed, they call it here. And he never feels so superior, I think, +as when he finds me sometimes of a Sunday or an evening walking across +the fields where my land joins his, or sitting on a stone fence, or +lying on my back in the pasture under a certain friendly thorn-apple +tree. This he finds it difficult to understand, and thinks it highly +undisciplined, impractical, no doubt reprehensible.</p> + +<p>One incident of the sort I shall never forget. It was on a June day only +a year or so after I came here, and before Horace knew me as well as he +does now. I had climbed the hill to look off across his own high-field +pasture, where the white daisies, the purple fleabane, and the +buttercups made a wild tangle of beauty among the tall herd's grass. +Light airs moved billowing across the field, bobolinks and meadow larks +were singing, and all about were the old fences, each with its wild +hedgerow of choke cherry, young elms, and black raspberry bushes, and +beyond, across miles and miles of sunny green countryside, the +mysterious blue of the ever-changing hills. It was a spot I loved then, +and have loved more deeply every year since.</p> + +<p>Horace found me sitting on the stone fence which there divides our +possessions; I think he had been observing me with amusement for some +time before I saw him, for when I looked around his face wore a +comfortably superior, half-disdainful smile.</p> + +<p>“David,” said he, “what ye doin' here?”</p> + +<p>“Harvesting my crops,” I said.</p> + +<p>He looked at me sharply to see if I was joking, but I was perfectly +sober.</p> + +<p>“Harvestin' yer crops?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, the fancy growing suddenly upon me, “and just now I've +been taking a crop from the field you think you own.”</p> + +<p>I waved my hand to indicate his high-field pasture.</p> + +<p>“Don't I own it?”</p> + +<p>“No, Horace, I'm sorry to say, not all of it. To be frank with you, +since I came here, I've quietly acquired an undivided interest in that +land. I may as well tell you first as last. I'm like you, Horace, I'm +reaching out in all directions.”</p> + +<p>I spoke in as serious a voice as I could command: the tone I use when I +sell potatoes. Horace's smile wholly disappeared. A city feller like me +was capable of anything!</p> + +<p>“How's that?” he exclaimed sharply. “What do you mean? That field came +down to me from my grandfather Jamieson.”</p> + +<p>I continued to look at Horace with great calmness and gravity.</p> + +<p>“Judging from what I now know of your title, Horace,” said I, “neither +your grandfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field. +And I've now acquired that part of it, in fee simple, that neither they +nor you ever really had.”</p> + +<p>At this Horace began to look seriously worried. The idea that any one +could get away from him anything that he possessed, especially without +his knowledge, was terrible to him.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Mr. Grayson?”</p> + +<p>He had been calling me “David,” but he now returned sharply to “Mister.” +In our country when we “Mister” a friend something serious is about to +happen. It's the signal for general mobilization.</p> + +<p>I continued to look Horace rather coldly and severely in the eye.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said I, “I've acquired a share in that field which I shall not +soon surrender.”</p> + +<p>An unmistakable dogged look came into Horace's face, the look inherited +from generations of land-owning, home-defending, fighting ancestors. +Horace is New England of New England.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “I have already had two or three crops from that field.”</p> + +<p>“Huh!” said Horace. “I've cut the grass and I've cut the rowen every +year since you bin here. What's more, I've got the money fer it in the +bank.”</p> + +<p>He tapped his fingers on the top of the wall.</p> + +<p>“Nevertheless, Horace,” said I, “I've got my crops, also, from that +field, and a steady income, too.”</p> + +<p>“What crops?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Eve just now been gathering in one of them. What do you think of +the value of the fleabane, and the daisies, and the yellow five-finger +in that field?”</p> + +<p>“Huh!” said Horace.</p> + +<p>“Well, I've just been cropping them. And have you observed the wind in +the grass—and those shadows along the southern wall? Aren't they +valuable?”</p> + +<p>“Huh!” said Horace.</p> + +<p>“I've rarely seen anything more beautiful,” I said, “than this field +and the view across it—I'm taking that crop now, and later I shall +gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of +the maple trees—and store it all away in <i>my</i> bank—to live on next +winter.”</p> + +<p>It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from +the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; +and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with his +hand in a way he has.</p> + +<p>“Is that all!” said Horace.</p> + +<p>I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me. +Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered +crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content +with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our +farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their lands +without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious crops of +the good earth go to waste.</p> + +<p>After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and +his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession.</p> + +<p>“S'pose you think that's your field,” he'd say.</p> + +<p>“The best part of it,” I'd return, “but you can have all I've taken, and +there'll still be enough for both of us.”</p> + +<p>“You're a queer one!” he'd say, and then add sometimes, dryly, “but +there's one crop ye don't git, David,” and he'd tap his pocket where he +carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. “And as fer feelin's, it +can't be beat.”</p> + +<p>So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world +desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or +eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will +haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to +the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, +intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a feverish +world the unknown great possessions.</p> + +<p>So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus +bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him:</p> + +<p>“Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?”</p> + +<p>“Off that one little piece,” he replied, “I figger fifty-two dollars.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Horace,” said I, “I have beaten you. I got more out of it this +year than you did.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know what you mean——”</p> + +<p>“No, Horace, you don't. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash, +dollars.”</p> + +<p>“How's that, now?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the +grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the timothy, +and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week——” I leaned +over toward Horace and whispered behind my hand—in just the way he +tells me the price he gets for his pigs.</p> + +<p>“What!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Horace had long known that I was “a kind of literary feller,” but his +face was now a study in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“<i>What?</i>”</p> + +<p>Horace scratched his head, as he is accustomed to do when puzzled, with +one finger just under the rim of his hat.</p> + +<p>“Well, I vum!” said he.</p> + +<p>Here I have been wandering all around Horace's barn—in the +snow—getting at the story I really started to tell, which probably +supports Horace's conviction that I am an impractical and unsubstantial +person. If I had the true business spirit I should have gone by the +beaten road from my house to Horace's, borrowed the singletree I went +for, and hurried straight home. Life is so short when one is after +dollars! I should not have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the +top of the hill to look for a moment across the beautiful wintry +earth—gray sky and bare wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely +smoke rising from the chimneys—I should merely have brought home a +singletree—and missed the glory of life! As I reflect upon it now, I +believe it took me no longer to go by the fields than by the road; and +I've got the singletree as securely with me as though I had not looked +upon the beauty of the eternal hills, nor reflected, as I tramped, upon +the strange ways of man.</p> + +<p>Oh, my friend, is it the settled rule of life that we are to accept +nothing not expensive? It is not so settled for me; that which is +freest, cheapest, seems somehow more valuable than anything I pay for; +that which is given better than that which is bought; that which passes +between you and me in the glance of an eye, a touch of the hand, is +better than minted money!</p> + +<p>I found Horace upon the March day I speak of just coming out of his new +fruit cellar. Horace is a progressive and energetic man, a leader in +this community, and the first to have a modern fruit cellar. By this +means he ministers profitably to that appetite of men which craves most +sharply that which is hardest to obtain: he supplies the world with +apples in March.</p> + +<p>It being a mild and sunny day, the door of the fruit cellar was open, +and as I came around the corner I had such of whiff of fragrance as I +cannot describe. It seemed as though the vials of the earth's most +precious odours had been broken there in Horace's yard! The smell of +ripe apples!</p> + +<p>In the dusky depths of the cellar, down three steps, I could see +Horace's ruddy face.</p> + +<p>“How are ye, David,” said he. “Will ye have a Good Apple?”</p> + +<p>So he gave me a good apple. It was a yellow Bellflower without a +blemish, and very large and smooth. The body of it was waxy yellow, but +on the side where the sun had touched it, it blushed a delicious deep +red. Since October it had been in the dark, cool storage-room, and +Horace, like some old monkish connoisseur of wines who knows just when +to bring up the bottles of a certain vintage, had chosen the exact +moment in all the year when the vintage of the Bellflower was at its +best. As he passed it to me I caught, a scent as of old crushed apple +blossoms, or fancied I did or it may have been the still finer aroma of +friendship which passed at the touching of our fingers.</p> + +<p>It was a hand-filling apple and likewise good for tired eyes, an +antidote for winter, a remedy for sick souls.</p> + +<p>“A wonderful apple!” I said to Horace, holding it off at arm's length.</p> + +<p>“No better grown anywhere,” said he, with scarcely restrained pride.</p> + +<p>I took my delight of it more nearly; and the odour was like new-cut +clover in an old orchard, or strawberry leaves freshly trod upon, or the +smell of peach wood at the summer pruning—how shall one describe it? at +least a compound or essence of all the good odours of summer.</p> + +<p>“Shall I eat it?” I asked myself, for I thought such a perfection of +nature should be preserved for the blessing of mankind. As I hesitated, +Horace remarked:</p> + +<p>“It was grown to be eaten.”</p> + +<p>So I bit into it, a big liberal mouthful, which came away with a rending +sound such as one hears sometimes in a winter's ice-pond. The flesh +within, all dewy with moisture, was like new cream, except a rim near +the surface where the skin had been broken; here it was of a clear, deep +yellow.</p> + +<p>New odours came forth and I knew for the first time how perfect in +deliciousness such an apple could be. A mild, serene, ripe, rich +bouquet, compounded essence of the sunshine from these old Massachusetts +hills, of moisture drawn from our grudging soil, of all the peculiar +virtues of a land where the summers make up in the passion of growth for +the long violence of winter; the compensatory aroma of a life +triumphant, though hedged about by severity, was in the bouquet of this +perfect Bellflower.</p> + +<p>Like some of the finest of wines and the warmest of friends it was of +two flavours, and was not to be eaten for mere nourishment, but was to +be tasted and enjoyed. The first of the flavours came readily in a +sweetness, richness, a slight acidity, that it might not cloy; but the +deeper, more delicate flavour came later—if one were not crudely +impatient—and was, indeed, the very soul of the fruit. One does not +quickly arrive at souls either in apples or in friends. And I said to +Horace with solemnity, for this was an occasion not to be lightly +treated:</p> + +<p>“I have never in my life tasted a fine apple.”</p> + +<p>“There is no finer apple,” said Horace with conviction.</p> + +<p>With that we fell to discussing the kinds and qualities of all the +apples grown this side China, and gave our more or less slighting +opinions of Ben Davises and Greenings and Russets, and especially of +trivial summer apples of all sorts, and came to the conclusion at last +that it must have been just after God created this particular “tree +yielding fruit” that he desisted from his day's work and remarked that +what he saw was good. The record is silent upon the point, and Moses is +not given to adjectives, but I have often wondered what He would have +said if He had not only seen the product of His creation, but <i>tasted</i> +it.</p> + +<p>I forgot to say that when I would have slurred the excellence of the +Baldwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to +interpose objections, and defended the excellence and perfection of that +variety.</p> + +<p>...He has fifty barrels of Baldwins in his cellar.</p> + +<p>While we talked with much enjoyment of the lore of apples and +apple-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said to +Horace as I reluctantly tossed aside the stem and three seeds:</p> + +<p>“Surely this has been one of the rare moments of life.”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/15.jpg" width="380" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br> +I GO TO THE CITY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Surely man is a wonderfull divers and varying subject: It is very hard +to ground and directly constant and uniforme judgement upon him.”</p> + +<p>Though I live most of the time in the country, as I love best to do, +sometimes I go to the city and find there much that is strange and +amusing. I like to watch the inward flow of the human tide in the +morning, and the ebb at evening, and sometimes in the slack tide of noon +I drift in one of the eddies where the restless life of the city pauses +a moment to refresh itself. One of the eddies I like best of all is near +the corner of Madison Square, where the flood of Twenty-third Street +swirls around the bulkhead of the Metropolitan tower to meet the +transverse currents of Madison Avenue. Here, of a bright morning when +Down-at-Heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and Old +Defeat watches Young Hurry striding by, one has a royal choice of +refreshment: a “red-hot” enfolded in a bun from the dingy sausage wagon +at the curb, or a plum for a penny from the Italian with the trundle +cart, or news of the world in lurid gulps from the noon edition of the +paper—or else a curious idea or so flung out stridently over the heads +of the crowd by a man on a soap box.</p> + +<p>I love this corner of the great city; I love the sense of the warm human +tide flowing all about me. I love to look into the strange, dark, eager, +sensitive, blunt faces.</p> + +<p>The other noon, drifting there in that human eddy, I stopped to listen +to a small, shabby man who stood in transitory eminence upon his soap +box, half his body reaching above the knobby black soil of human heads +around him—black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring +sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. He had ruddy cheeks and a tuft +of curly hair set like an upholstery button on each side of his bald +head. The front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, and as he opened +his mouth one could see the ample lining of red flannel.</p> + +<p>He raised his voice penetratingly to overcome the noise of the world, +straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply +and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life +depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to +that close-packed crowd that there was no God.</p> + +<p>From time to time he offered for sale pamphlets by R.G. Ingersoll and +Frederic Harrison, with grimy back numbers of a journal called the +“Truth-Seeker.”</p> + +<p>By the slant and timbre of his speech he was an Englishman; he had a +gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual +pugilist with skilful blows between the eyes: and his grammar was bad.</p> + +<p>I stood for some time listening to him while he proved with excellent +logic, basing his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was +no God. His audience cheered with glee his clever hits, and held up +their hands for the books he had for sale.</p> + +<p>“Who is this speaker?” I asked the elbowing helper who came through the +crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the silver for them. +“Who is this speaker who says there is no God?”</p> + +<p>“Henry Moore,” he responded.</p> + +<p>“And who,” I asked, “is Henry Moore?”</p> + +<p>“He is an Englishman and was brought up a Presbyterian—but he seen the +light.”</p> + +<p>“And no longer thinks there is any God?”</p> + +<p>“Nope.”</p> + +<p>“And these books prove the same thing?”</p> + +<p>“Yep.”</p> + +<p>So I bought one of them, thinking it wonderful that proof of so +momentous a conclusion could be had for so small a sum.</p> + +<p>This Henry Moore could fling arguments like thunderbolts; he could +marshall his authorities like an army; he could talk against the roar of +the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not +believe in God he had complete faith in Haeckel and Jacques Loeb, and +took at face value the lightest utterances of John Stuart Mill.</p> + +<p>I enjoyed listening to Henry Moore. I enjoyed looking into the faces all +around me—mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young faces, +and idle faces, and curious faces, and faces that drank in, and faces +that disdainfully rejected.</p> + +<p>After a time, however, I grew unaccountably weary of the vehemence of +Henry Moore and of the adroit helper who hawked his books. And suddenly +I looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. A pigeon was +flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting +on its wings. I saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and +the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the +heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, +contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter +century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the +Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself grandly to +the heavens, and all about I suddenly heard and felt the roar and surge +of the mighty city, the mighty, careless, busy city, thousands of people +stirring about me, souls full of hot hopes and mad desires, unsatisfied +longings, unrealized ideals. And I stepped out of the group who were +gathered around the man who said there was no God....</p> + +<p>But I still drifted in the eddy, thinking how wonderful and strange all +these things were, and came thus to another group, close gathered at +the curb. It was much smaller than the other, and at the centre stood a +patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. He was +leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the +free-thinker's audience, freshly stuffed with arguments, had engaged him +hotly. Just as I approached he drew from his pocket a worn, +leather-covered Bible, and said, tapping it with one finger:</p> + +<p>“For forty years I have carried this book with me. It contains more +wisdom than any other book in the world. Your friend there can talk +until he is hoarse—it will do no harm—but the world will continue to +follow the wisdom of this book.”</p> + +<p>A kind of exaltation gleamed in his eye, and he spoke with an +earnestness equal to that of Henry Moore. He, too, was a street speaker, +waiting with his box at his side to begin. He would soon be standing up +there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there was a God. He, +also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads with the share +of his vehement faith. The two women were with him to sing their belief, +and one had a basket to take up a collection, and the other, singling +me out as I listened with eagerness, gave me a printed tract, a kind of +advertisement of God.</p> + +<p>I looked at the title of it. It was called: “God in His World.”</p> + +<p>“Does this prove that God is really in the world?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said. “Will you read it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “I am glad to get it. It is wonderful that so great a +truth can be established in so small a pamphlet, and all for nothing.”</p> + +<p>She looked at me curiously, I thought, and I put the tract by the side +of the pamphlet I had bought from the freethinker, and drifted again in +the eddy.</p> + +<p>The largest crowd of all was close packed about a swarthy young chap +whose bushy hair waved in response to the violence of his oratory. He, +too, was perspiring with his ideas. He had a marvellous staccato method +of question and answer. He would shoot a question like a rifle bullet at +the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, both +clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any one +could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. As I +edged my way nearer to him I discovered that he, also, had a little pile +of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily selling. How +well-established the technic of this art of the city eddies! How +well-studied the psychology!</p> + +<p>I thought this example the most perfect of them all, and watched with +eagerness the play of the argument as it was mirrored in the intent +faces all about me. And gradually I grew interested in what the man was +saying, and thought of many good answers I could give to his +questionings if he were not so cunning with answers of his own. Finally, +in the midst of one of his loftiest flights, he demanded, hotly:</p> + +<p>“Are you not, every one of you, a slave of the capitalist class?”</p> + +<p>It was perfectly still for a second after he spoke, and before I knew +what I was doing, I responded:</p> + +<p>“Why, no, I'm not.”</p> + +<p>It seemed to astonish the group around me: white faces turned my way.</p> + +<p>But it would have been difficult to dash that swarthy young man. He was +as full of questions as a porcupine is full of quills.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” said he, “if I can prove to you that you are a slave, will +you believe it?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “unless you make me feel like a slave, too! No man is a +slave who does not feel slavish.”</p> + +<p>But I was no match for that astonishing young orator; and he had the +advantage over me of a soap box! Moreover, at that moment, the keen-eyed +assistant, never missing an opportunity, offered me one of his little +red books.</p> + +<p>“If you can read this without feeling a slave,” he remarked, “you're +John D. himself in disguise.”</p> + +<p>I bought his little red book and put it with the pamphlet of the +freethinker, and the tract of the God-fearing man, and stepped out of +that group, feeling no more servile than when I went in. And I said to +myself:</p> + +<p>“This, surely, is a curious place to be in.”</p> + +<p>For I was now strangely interested in these men of the eddy.</p> + +<p>“There are more gods preached here,” I said, “than ever were known on +the Acropolis.”</p> + +<p>Up the square a few paces I saw a covered wagon with a dense crowd +around it. And in front of it upon a little platform which raised the +speaker high above the heads of the audience stood a woman, speaking +with shrill ardour. Most of the hearers were men; and she was telling +them with logic and authority that the progress of civilization waited +upon the votes of women. The army of the world stood still until the +rear rank of its women could be brought into line! Morals languished, +religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! If only +women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful and +charming place! Oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she made me +desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my share of +the power in this Government to provide each woman with a vote. And just +as I had reached this compliant stage there came a girl smiling and +passing her little basket. The sheer art of it! So I dropped in my coin +and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it side by side with the +other literature of my accumulating library.</p> + +<p>And so I came away from those hot little groups with their perspiring +orators, and felt again the charm of the tall buildings and the wide +sunny square, and the park with Down-at-Heels warming his ragged shanks, +and the great city clanging heedlessly by. How serious they all were +there in their eddies! Is there no God? Will woman suffrage or socialism +cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we would not +be without? Is a belief for forty years in the complete wisdom of the +Book the final solution? Why do not all of the seeking and suffering +thousands flowing by in Twenty-third Street stop here in the eddies to +seek the solution of their woes, the response to their hot desires?</p> + +<p>So I came home to the country, thinking of what I had seen and heard, +asking myself, “What is the truth, after all? What <i>is</i> real?”</p> + +<p>And I was unaccountably glad to be at home again. As I came down the +hill through the town road the valley had a quiet welcome for me, and +the trees I know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and +the meadows ripe with hay. I know of nothing more comforting to the +questioning spirit than the sight of distant hills....</p> + +<p>I found that Bill had begun the hay cutting. I saw him in the lower +field as I came by in the road. There he was, stationed high on the +load, and John, the Pole, was pitching on. When he saw me he lifted one +arm high in the air and waved his hand—and I in return gave him the +sign of the Free Fields.</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “it seems to me I was never so glad before to get +home.”</p> + +<p>“It's what you always say,” she remarked placidly.</p> + +<p>“This time it's true!” And I put the pamphlets I had accumulated in the +city eddies upon the pile of documents which I fully intend to read but +rarely get to.</p> + +<p>The heavenly comfort of an old shirt! The joy of an old hat!</p> + +<p>As I walked down quickly into the field with my pitchfork on my shoulder +to help Bill with the hay, I was startled to see, hanging upon a peach +tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black clothes. +Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a white shirt +and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable black hat. It +was as though the peach tree had suddenly, on that bright day, gone into +mourning.</p> + +<p>I laughed to myself.</p> + +<p>“Bill,” I said, “what does this mean?”</p> + +<p>Bill is a stout jolly chap with cheeks that look, after half a day's +haying, like raw beef-steaks. He paused on his load, smiling broadly, +his straw hat set like a halo on the back of his head.</p> + +<p>“Expected a funeral,” he said cheerfully.</p> + +<p>Bill is the undertaker's assistant, and is always on call in cases of +emergency.</p> + +<p>“What happened, Bill?”</p> + +<p>“They thought they'd bury 'im this afternoon, but they took an' kep' 'im +over till to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“But you came prepared.”</p> + +<p>“Yas, no time to go home in hayin'. The pump fer me, and the black +togs.”</p> + +<p>Bill calls the first rakings of the hay “tumbles,” and the scattered +re-rakings, which he despises, he calls “scratchings.” I took one side +of the load and John, the Pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls +from the tumbles which Bill placed skilfully at the corners and sides of +the load, using the scratchings for the centre.</p> + +<p>John, the Pole, watched the load from below. “Tank he too big here,” he +would say, or, “Tank you put more there”; but Bill told mostly by the +feel of the load under his feet or by the “squareness of his eye.” +John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the +load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but +gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main +strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork +through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a +twinkling—an admirable, deft performance.</p> + +<p>Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting its +clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very heavy, to +throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt and dry in +the burning sun—all full of good odours—the horse-rake draws it neatly +into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll the +billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was not +this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then +the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and +John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the +excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods +of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and +stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of '98 when two men and +one team saved four acres of hay by working all night—“with lanterns, I +jing”—much talk of how she goes on, “she” being the hay, and no end of +observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, and excesses +of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, half hidden +by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the tumbles as they go +by.</p> + +<p>Then the proud moment when Bill the driver, with legs apart, almost +pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill.</p> + +<p>“Go it, Dick. Let 'er out, Daisy. Stiddy, ol' boy. Whoa, there. Ease +down now. Hey, there, John, block the wheel—block the wheel I tell ye. +Ah-h now, jes' breathe a bit. I jing, it's hot.”</p> + +<p>And then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses +thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in +the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, +dusty “pitching off” and “mowing in”—a fine process, an <i>honest</i> +process: men sweating for what they get.</p> + +<p>As I came in from the field that night the sun was low in the hills, +and a faint breeze had begun to blow, sweetly cool after the burning +heat of the day. And I felt again that curious deep sense I have so +often here in the country, of the soundness and reality of the plain +things of life.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/16.jpg" width="320" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br> +THE OLD STONE MASON</h2> + +<p>Of well-flavoured men, I know none better than those who live close to +the soil or work in common things. Men are like roses and lilacs, which, +too carefully cultivated to please the eye, lose something of their +native fragrance. One of the best-flavoured men I know is my friend, the +old stone mason.</p> + +<p>To-day I rode over with the old stone mason to select some wide stones +for steps in my new building. The old man loves stones. All his life +long—he is now beyond seventy years old—he has lived among stones, +lifted stones, fitted stones. He knows all the various kinds, shapes, +sizes, and where they will go best in a wall. He can tell at a glance +where to strike a stone to make it fit a particular place, and out of a +great pile he can select with a shrewd eye the stone for the exact +opening he has to fill. He will run his stubby rough hand over a stone +and remark:</p> + +<p>“Fine face that. Ye don't see many such stones these days,” as though he +were speaking of the countenance of a friend.</p> + +<p>I veritably believe there are stones that smile at him, stones that +frown at him, stones that appear good or ill-humoured to him as he bends +his stocky strong body to lift or lay them. He is a slow man, a slow, +steady, geologic man, as befits one who works with the elemental stuff +of nature. His arms are short and his hands powerful. He has been a +servant of stones in this neighbourhood alone for upward of fifty years.</p> + +<p>He loves stones and can no more resist a good stone than I a good book. +When going about the country, if he sees comely stones in a wayside +pile, or in a fine-featured old fence he will have them, whether or no, +and dickers for them with all the eagerness, sly pride, and +half-concealed cunning with which a lover of old prints chaffers for a +Seymour Haden in a second-hand book shop. And when he has bought them he +takes the first idle day he has, and with his team of old horses goes +into the hills, or wherever it may be, and brings them down. He has them +piled about his barn and even in his yard, as another man might have +flower beds. And he can tell you, as he told me to-day, just where a +stone of such a size and such a face can be found, though it be at the +bottom of a pile. No book lover with a feeling sense for the place in +his cases where each of his books may be found has a sharper instinct +than he. In his pocket he carries a lump of red chalk, and when we had +made our selections he marked each stone with a broad red cross.</p> + +<p>I think it good fortune that I secured the old stone mason to do my +work, and take to myself some credit for skill in enticing him. He is +past seventy years old, though of a ruddy fresh countenance and a clear +bright eye, and takes no more contracts, and is even reluctantly +persuaded to do the ordinary stone work of the neighbourhood. He is +“well enough off,” as the saying goes, to rest during the remainder of +his years, for he has lived a temperate and frugal life, owns his own +home with the little garden behind it, and has money in the bank. But he +can be prevailed upon, like an old artist who has reached the time of +life when it seems as important to enjoy as to create, he can sometimes +be prevailed upon to lay a wall for the joy of doing it.</p> + +<p>So I had the stone hauled onto the ground, the best old field stone I +could find, and I had a clean, straight foundation dug, and when all was +ready I brought the old man over to look at it. I said I wanted his +advice. No sooner did his glance light upon the stone, no sooner did he +see the open and ready earth than a new light came in his eye. His step +quickened and as he went about he began to hum an old tune under his +breath. I knew then that I had him! He had taken fire. I could see that +his eye was already selecting the stones that should “go down,” the fine +square stones to make the corners or cap the wall, and measuring with a +true eye the number of little stones for the fillers. In no time at all +he had agreed to do my work; indeed, would have felt aggrieved if I had +not employed him.</p> + +<p>I enjoyed the building of the wall, I think, as much as he did, and +helped him what I could by rolling the larger stones close down to the +edge of the wall. As the old man works he talks, if any one cares to +listen, or if one does not care to listen he is well content to remain +silent among his stones. But I enjoyed listening, for nothing in this +world is so fascinating to me as the story of how a man has come to be +what he is. When we think of it there are no abstract adventures in this +world, but only your adventure and my adventure, and it is only as we +come to know a man that we can see how wonderful his life has been.</p> + +<p>He told me all about the great walls and the little walls—miles and +miles of them—he has built in the course of fifty years. He told of +crude boyhood walls when he was a worker for wages only, he told of +proud manhood walls when he took contracts for foundations, retaining +walls, and even for whole buildings, such as churches, where the work +was mostly of stone; he told me of thrilling gains and profits, and of +depressing losses; and he told me of his calm later work, again on +wages, for which he is chosen as a master of his craft. A whole long +lifetime of it—and the last years the best of all!</p> + +<p>As we drove up yesterday to select the steps from his piles of old field +stone, riding behind his great, slow, hairy-hoofed horse, in the +battered and ancient wagon, he pointed with his stubby whip to this or +that foundation, the work of his hands.</p> + +<p>“Fine job, that,” said he, and I looked for the first time in my life at +the beautiful stonework beneath the familiar home of a friend. I had +seen the house a thousand times, and knew well the people in it, but my +unobservant eye had never before rested consciously upon that bit of +basement wall. How we go through life, losing most of the beauties of it +from sheer inability to see! But the old man, as he drives about, rarely +sees houses at all, especially wooden houses, and for all modern stucco +and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty contempt. Sham work of a +hasty and unskilled age! He never, I think, put in a shovelful of cement +except in the place where it belongs, as a mortar for good walls, and +never will do so as long as he lives. So long as he lives the standards +of high art will never be debased!</p> + +<p>He built that foundation, and this chimney, he worked on the tower of +the Baptist church in the town, “and never yet has there been a crack in +her, winter or summer”; and more than forty years ago he laid the +cornerstone of the old schoolhouse, the foundation walls of which stand +to-day as sound and strong as they were when they were put down.</p> + +<p>In dry walls I think the old stone mason takes the greatest pride of +all: for it is in the dry wall—I mean by that a wall laid without +mortar—that the sheer art of the mason comes most into play. Any one +can throw a wall together if he has mortar to make it stick, but a dry +wall must stand out for what it is, built solid from the bottom up, each +stone resting securely upon those below it, and braced and nested in by +the sheer skill of the mason. The art of the dry wall is the ancient +heritage of New England and speaks not only of the sincerity and the +conscientiousness of the old Puritan spirit but strikes the higher note +of beauty. Many of the older walls I know are worth going far to see, +for they exhibit a rare sense of form and proportion, and are sometimes +set in the landscape with a skill that only the Master-Artist himself +could exceed. Those old, hard-wrought stone fences of the Burnham Hills +and Crewsbury, the best of them, were honestly built, and built to last +a thousand years. A beautiful art—and one that is passing away! It is +the dry wall that stands of itself that the old stone mason loves best +of all.</p> + +<p>As we drove along the road the old man pointed out to me with his stubby +whip so many examples of his work that it seemed finally as if he had +borne a hand in nearly everything done in this neighbourhood in the last +half-century. He has literally built himself into the country and into +the town, and at seventy years of age he can look back upon it all with +honest pride. It stands. No jerry-work anywhere. No cracks. It stands.</p> + +<p>I never realized before how completely the neighbourhood rests upon the +work of this simple old man. He <i>founded</i> most of the homes here, and +upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the +schools of the countryside. I see again how important each man is to the +complete fabric of civilization and know that we are to leave no one +out, despise no one, look down upon no one.</p> + +<p>He told me stories of this ancient settler and of that.</p> + +<p>He was a powerful queer man—he wanted the moss left on his stones +when I put 'em in; never a hammer touched the facings of <i>his</i> wall...</p> + +<p>“That is properly a woman's wall. She was the boss, you might call it, +and wanted stone, but <i>he</i> wanted brick. So you see the front, where +people can see it, is of stone, but the sides is all brick.”</p> + +<p>Thus like the true artist that he is, he has not only built himself his +own honesty, truth, skill, into the town, but he has built in the +inexhaustible peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the loves, +of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age in +stone. He knows the town, indeed, better than most of us, having a kind +of stone-age knowledge of it—the fundamental things men build in when +they set about building permanently.</p> + +<p>“And that is what you might call a spite-wall,” said he, showing me a +long wall leading between two shady homes, making one of them a prison +on the south, and the other a prison on the north. He told me the story +of an ancient and bitter quarrel between two old friends, a story which +sounded to-day among spring blossoms like the account of some ancient +baronial feud.</p> + +<p>But if the old stone mason has built walls to keep enemies apart how +many more walls has he built to keep friends together? How many times +has he been consulted by shy lovers seeking a foundation for a new home, +a new family, how many times by Darby and Joan planning a resting place +for the sunny closing years of their lives! He could point, indeed, to +one wall that symbolized hatred; all the others meant homes, roof-trees, +families, or they were the foundations for the working places of men, or +else, like the tower of the church, they pointed heavenward and were +built to the glory of God.</p> + +<p>The old stone mason has not the slightest idea that he has done anything +unusual or wonderful. He is as simple and honest a man as ever I knew; +and if he has pride, simple and honest also in that. He was anxious not +to charge me too much for the stone I bought—in an age like this! I +have never talked with him about God, or about religion: I had no need +to.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/17.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>He has done his duty in other ways by his time and his place. He has +brought up a large family of children; and has known sorrow and loss, +as well as happiness and contentment. Two of his children were taken in +one day with pneumonia. He told me about it with a quaver in his old +voice.</p> + +<p>“How long ago was it?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Twenty-seven years.”</p> + +<p>He has sons and daughters left, and two of the sons he has well trained +as stone masons after him. They are good as young men go in a degenerate +age. They insist on working in cement! He has grandchildren in school, +and spoils them.</p> + +<p>He is also a man of public interests and upon town-meeting day puts on +his good clothes and sits modestly toward the back of the hall. Though +he rarely says anything he always has a strong opinion, an opinion as +sound and hard as stones and as simple, upon most of the questions that +come up. And he votes as he thinks, though the only man in meeting who +votes that way. For when a man works in the open, laying walls true to +lines and measurements, being honest with natural things, he comes +clear, sane, strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his judgment +upon matters that are really important as between man and man, and man +and God, than I would trust the town lawyer. And if he has grown a +little testy with some of the innovations of modern life, and thinks +they did everything better forty years ago—and says so—he speaks, at +least, his honest conviction.</p> + +<p>If I can lay my walls as true as he does, if I can build myself a third +part as firmly into any neighbourhood as he has into this, if at seventy +years of age—if ever I live to lay walls with joy at that time of +life—if I can look back upon <i>my</i> foundations, <i>my</i> heaven-pointing +towers, and find no cracks or strains in them, I shall feel that I have +made a great success of my life....</p> + +<p>I went out just now: the old man was stooping to lift a heavy stone. His +hat was off and the full spring sunshine struck down warmly upon the +ruddy bald spot on the top of his head, the white hair around about it +looking silvery in that light. As he placed the stone in the wall, he +straightened up and rubbed his stubby hand along it.</p> + +<p>“A fine stone that!” said he.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/18.jpg" width="400" height="340" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br> +AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“I would not paint a face<br> + Or rocks or streams or trees<br> +Mere semblances of things—<br> + But something more than these.”<br> +<br> +“I would not play a tune<br> + Upon the sheng or lute<br> +Which did not also sing<br> + Meanings that else were mute.” +</p> + +<p>John Templeton died on the last day of August, but it was not until some +weeks later that his daughter Julida, that hard-favoured woman, set a +time for the auction. It fell happily upon a mellow autumn day, and as I +drove out I saw the apples ripening in all the orchards along the road, +and the corn was beginning to look brown, and the meadows by the brook +were green with rowen. It was an ideal day for an auction, and farmers +and townsmen came trooping from all parts of the country, for the +Templeton antiques were to be sold.</p> + +<p>John Templeton lived in one house for seventy-eight years; he was born +there, and you will find the like of that in few places in America. It +was a fine house for its time, for any time, and not new when John +Templeton was born. A great, solid, square structure, such as they built +when the Puritan spirit was virile in New England, with an almost Greek +beauty of measured lines. It has a fanlight over the front door, windows +exquisitely proportion, and in the center a vast brick chimney. Even +now, though weathered and unpainted, it stands four-square upon the +earth with a kind of natural dignity. A majestic chestnut tree grows +near it, and a large old barn and generous sheds, now somewhat +dilapidated, ramble away to the rear.</p> + +<p>Enclosing the fields around about are stone fences representing the +infinite labour of John Templeton's forebears. More toil has gone into +the stone fences of New England, free labour of a free people, than ever +went into the slave-driven building of the Pyramids of Egypt.</p> + +<p>I knew John Templeton in his old age—a stiff, weather-beaten old man +driving to town in a one-horse buggy.</p> + +<p>“How are you, Mr. Templeton?”</p> + +<p>“Comin' on, comin' on.” This was his invariable reply.</p> + +<p>He had the old New England pronunciation, now disappearing. He said +“rud” for road, “daown” for down, and gave an indescribable twist to the +word garden, best spelled “gardin.” He had also the old New England +ways. He was forehanded with his winter woodpile, immaculately neat with +his dooryard, determined in his Sunday observance, and if he put the +small apples in the middle of the barrel he refused to raise tobacco, +lest it become a cause of stumbling to his neighbour. He paid his debts, +disciplined his children, and in an age which has come to look chummily +upon God, he dreaded His wrath.</p> + +<p>He grew a peculiar, very fine variety of sweet apple which I have never +seen anywhere else. He called it the Pumpkin Sweet, for it was of a rich +yellow. I can see him yet, driving into town with a shallow wagon box +half full of this gold of the orchard; can see him turn stiffly to get +one of the apples for me; can hear him say in the squeaky voice of age:</p> + +<p>“Ye won't find no sweeter apples hereabout, I can tell ye that.”</p> + +<p>He was a dyed-in-the-wool abolition Republican and took the Boston +<i>Transcript</i> for forty-six years. He left two cords of them piled up in +a back storeroom. He loved to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte and the +Battle of Waterloo, and how, if there had not been that delay of half an +hour, the history of the world might have been different. I can see him +saying, with the words puffing out his loose cheeks:</p> + +<p>“And then Blooker kem up—”</p> + +<p>To the very last, even when his eyes were too dim to read and his voice +was cracked, he would start up, like some old machine set a-whirring +when you touched the rusty lever, and talk about the Battle of Waterloo.</p> + +<p>No one, so far as I know, ever heard him complain, or bemoan his age, or +regret the change in the times; and when his day came, he lay down upon +his bed and died.</p> + +<p>“Positively nothing will be reserved,” were the familiar words of the +poster, and they have a larger meaning in an old country neighbourhood +than the mere sale of the last pan and jug and pig and highboy. Though +we live with our neighbours for fifty years we still secretly wonder +about them. We still suspect that something remains covered, something +kept in and hidden away, some bits of beauty unappreciated—as they are, +indeed, with ourselves. But death snatches away the last friendly +garment of concealment; and after the funeral the auction. We may enter +now. The doors stand at last flung widely open; all the attics have been +ransacked; all the chests have been turned out; a thousand privacies +stand glaringly revealed in the sunny open spaces of the yard. +Positively nothing will be reserved; everything will be knocked down to +the highest bidder. What wonder that the neighbourhood gathers, what +wonder that it nods its head, leaves sentences half uttered, smiles +enigmatically.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the contents of the house had been removed to the yard, under +the great chesnut tree. A crowd of people, mostly women, were moving +about among the old furniture, the old furniture that had been in John +Templeton's family for no one knows how long—old highboys and lowboys, +a beautifully simple old table or so, and beds with carved posts, and +hand-wrought brasses, and an odd tall clock that struck with sonorous +dignity. These things, which had been temptingly advertised as +“antiques,” a word John Templeton never knew, were only the common +serviceable things of uncounted years of family life.</p> + +<p>Nothing about the place was of any great value except the antiques, and +it was these that drew the well-dressed women in automobiles from as far +away as Hempfield and Nortontown; and yet there were men in plenty to +poke the pigs, look sarcastically at the teeth of the two old horses, +and examine with calculating and rather jeering eyes John Templeton's +ancient buggy, and the harness and the worn plough and cultivator and +mowing machine. Everything seems so cheap, so poor, so unprotected, +when the spirit has departed.</p> + +<p>Under the chestnut tree the swarthy auctioneer with his amiable +countenance and ironical smile acquired through years of dispassionate +observation of the follies of human emotion, the mutability of human +affairs, the brevity of human endeavour, that brought everything at last +under his hammer—there by the chestnut tree the auctioneer had taken +his stand in temporary eminence upon an old chest, with an ancient +kitchen cupboard near him which served at once as a pulpit for +exhortation, and a block for execution. Already the well-worn smile had +come pat to his countenance, and the well-worn witticisms were ready to +his tongue.</p> + +<p>“Now, gentlemen, if you'll give me such attention as you can spare from +the ladies, we have here to-day——”</p> + +<p>But I could not, somehow, listen to him: the whole scene, the whole deep +event, had taken hold upon me strangely. It was so full of human +meaning, human emotion, human pathos. I drifted away from the crowd and +stepped in at the open door of the old house, and walked through the +empty, resounding rooms with their curious old wallpaper and low +ceilings and dusty windows. And there were the old fireplaces where the +heavy brick had been eaten away by the pokings and scrapings of a +century; and the thresholds worn by the passage of many feet, the +romping feet of children, the happy feet of youth the bride passed here +on her wedding night with her arm linked in the arm of the groom; the +sturdy, determined feet of maturity; the stumbling feet of old age +creeping in; the slow, pushing feet of the bearers with the last burden, +crowding out—</p> + +<p>The air of the house had a musty, shut-in odour, ironically cut through, +as all old things are, by the stinging odour of the new: the boiling of +the auction coffee in the half-dismantled kitchen, the epochal moment in +the life of Julia Templeton. I could hear, occasionally, her high, +strident worried voice ordering a helper about. Such a hard-favoured +woman!</p> + +<p>It is the studied and profitable psychology of the auction that the +rubbish must be sold first—pots and bottles and jugs at five-cent bids, +and hoes at ten—and after that, the friction of the contest having +warmed in the bidders an amiable desire to purchase goods they do not +want and cannot use, the auctioneer gradually puts forth the treasures +of the day.</p> + +<p>As I came out of the old house I could see that the mystic web had been +spun, that the great moment of the sale was arriving. The auctioneer was +leaning forward now upon the tall cupboard with an air of command, and +surveying the assembled crowd with a lordly eye.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jake, careful there—pass it along—steady.... We come now to the +cheff dooves of the day, the creem delly creems of this sale. Gentleman +<i>and</i> ladies, it is a great moment in the life of an auctioneer when he +can offer, for sale, free and without reservation, such treasures as +these....”</p> + +<p>I could feel the warming interest of the crowd gathering in more closely +about Mr. Harpworth, the furtive silences of shrewd bargainers, +eagerness masked as indifference, and covetousness cloaking itself with +smiling irony. It is in the auction that trade glorifies itself finally +as an Art.</p> + +<p>“Here, gentlemen <i>and</i> ladies, is a genuine antique, hand-wrought and +solid all the way through. Just enough worn to give the flavour and +distinction of age. Well built in the first place, plain, simple lines, +but, ladies, <i>beautiful</i>.”</p> + +<p>It was the tall four-post bed he was selling and he now put his hand +upon this object—a hardy service with a cunningly simulated air of +deference. It was to be profaned by no irreverent handling!</p> + +<p>“What am I offered for this heirloom of the Templeton family? Ten? Ten! +Fifteen over there, thank you, Mr. Cody. Why, gentlemen, that bed cannot +be duplicated in America! A real product of Colonial art! Look at the +colour of it! Where will you find such depth of colour in any modern +piece? Age varnished it, gentlemen, age and use—the use of a hundred +years.... Twenty over there, twenty I hear, twenty, twenty, make it +thirty.... Speak up now, Ike, we know you've come here to-day to make +your fortune—do I hear thirty?”</p> + +<p>No sooner had the great bed been sold (“it's yours, Mrs. Craigie, a +treasure and dirt cheap”) there came an ancient pair of hand-wrought +andirons, and a spider-legged table, and a brass warming-pan, and a +banjo clock....</p> + +<p>I scarcely know how to explain it, but the sale of these inanimate +antiques, so charged with the restrained grace, the reticent beauty, the +serviceable strength, of a passing age, took hold upon me with strange +intensity. In times of high emotion the veil between sight and insight +slips aside and that which lies about us suddenly achieves a higher +reality. We are conscious of</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Something beside the form<br> +Something beyond the sound.”</p> + +<p>It came to me with a thrill that this was no mere sale of antique wood +and brass and iron, but a veritable auction, here symbolized, of the +decaying fragments of a sternly beautiful civilization.</p> + +<p>I looked off across the stony fields, now softly green in the sunlight, +from which three generations of the Templeton family had wrung an heroic +living; I looked up at the majestic old house where they had lived and +married and died....</p> + +<p>As my eye came back to the busy scene beneath the chestnut tree it +seemed to me, how vividly I cannot describe—that beside or behind the +energetic and perspiring Mr. Harpworth there stood Another Auctioneer. +And I thought he had flowing locks and a patriarchal beard, and a scythe +for a sign of the uncertainty of life, and a glass to mark the swiftness +of its passage. He was that Great Auctioneer who brings all things at +last under his inexorable hammer.</p> + +<p>After that, though Mr. Harpworth did his best, he claimed my attention +only intermittently from that Greater Sale which was going on at his +side, from that Greater Auctioneer who was conducting it with such +consummate skill—for <i>he</i> knew that nothing is for sale but life. The +mahogany highboy, so much packed and garnered life cut into inanimate +wood; the andirons, so much life; the bookshelves upon which John +Templeton kept his “Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” so much life. Life for +sale, gentlemen! What am I offered to-day for this bit of life—and +this—and this—</p> + +<p>Mr. Harpworth had paused, for even an auctioneer, in the high moment of +his art, remains human; and in the silence following the cessation of +the metallic click of his voice, “Thirty, thirty, thirt, thirt—make it +thirty-five—thank you—forty,” one could hear the hens gossiping in the +distant yard.</p> + +<p>“There were craftsmen in those days, gentlemen,” he was resuming; “look +at this example of their art—there is quality here and durability——”</p> + +<p>At this point the Great Auctioneer broke in upon my attention and caught +up Mr. Harpworth's words:</p> + +<p>“Yes, quality and durability—quality and durability. I also have here +to-day, and will offer you, gentlemen, a surpassing antique, not built +of wood nor fashioned in brass or iron, but a thing long attached to +these acres and this house. I present for your consideration the married +life of John Templeton and Hannah his wife. They lived together forty +years, and the record scarcely shows a dent. In all that time hardly a +word of love passed between them; but never a word of hatred, either. +They had a kind of hard and fast understanding, like the laws of Moses. +He did the work of the fields and she did the work of the house, from +sunrise to sunset. On Sunday they went to church together. He got out at +five o'clock to milk and harness up; and it made double work for her, +what with getting the children cleaned, and the milk taken care of, and +the Sunday dinner made ready. But neither he nor she every doubted or +complained. It was the Lord's way. She bore him eight children. She told +him before the last one came that she was not equal to it.... After that +she was an invalid for seventeen years until she died. And there was +loss of children to bear between them, and sickness, and creeping age, +but this bit of furniture held firm to the last. Gentlemen, it was mad +solid, no veneer, a good job all the way through.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke I thought that his roving eye (perhaps it was only my own!) +fell upon Johnny Holcomb, whose married life has been full of +vicissitudes.</p> + +<p>“John, take this home with you; <i>you</i> can use it.”</p> + +<p>“Nope, no such married life for me,” I thought I could hear him +responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer.</p> + +<p>“Do I hear any bids?” the Great Auctioneer was saying, almost in the +words of Mr. Harpworth. “<i>What!</i> No one wants n married life like this? +Well, put it aside, Jake. It isn't wanted. Too old-fashioned.”</p> + +<p>It was Julia Templeton herself who now appeared with certain of the +intimate and precious “bedroom things”—a wonderful old linen +bedspread, wrought upon with woollen figures, and exaling an ancient and +exquisite odour of lavender, and a rag rug or so, and a little old +rocking chair with chintz coverings in which more than one Templeton +mother had rocked her baby to sleep. Julia herself——</p> + +<p>I saw Julia, that hard-favoured woman, for the first time at that +moment, really saw her. How fiercely she threw down the spread and the +rugs! How bold and unweeping her eyes! How hard and straight the lines +of her mouth!</p> + +<p>“Here they are, Mr. Harpworth!”</p> + +<p>How shrill her voice; and how quickly she turned back to the noisy +kitchen! I could see the angular form, the streakings of gray in her +hair. ...</p> + +<p>“What am I offered now for this precious antique? This hand-made spread? +Everything sold without reserve! Come, now, don't let this opportunity +slip by.” He leaned forward confidentially and persuasively: “Fellah +citizens, styles change and fashions pass away, but things made like +these, good lines, strong material, honest work, they never grow +old....”</p> + +<p>Here the Shadowy Auctioneer broke in again and lifted me out of that +limited moment.</p> + +<p>“A true word!” he was saying. “Styles change and fashions pass away, and +only those things that are well made, and made for service the beautiful +things remain. I am offering to-day, without reservation, another +precious antique. What will you give for such a religious faith as that +of John Templeton? Worn for a lifetime and sound to the end. He read the +Bible every Sunday morning of his life, went to church, and did his +religious duty by his children. Do you remember young Joe Templeton? +Wouldn't learn his chapter one Sunday, and the old gentleman prayed +about it and then beat him with a hitching strap. Joe ran away from home +and made his fortune in Minnesota. Nearly broke the mother's heart, and +old John's, too; but he thought it right, and never repented it. +Gentlemen, an honest man who feared God and lived righteously all his +days! What am I offered for this durable antique, this characteristic +product of New England? Do I hear a bid?”</p> + +<p>At this I felt coming over me that strange urge of the auction, to bid +and to buy. A rare possession indeed, not without a high, stern kind of +beauty! It would be wonderful to possess such a faith; but what had I to +offer that Shadowy Auctioneer? What coin that would redeem past times +and departed beliefs?</p> + +<p>It was curious how the words of Mr. Harpworth fitted into the fabric of +my imaginings. When he next attracted my attention he was throwing up +his hands in a fine semblance of despair. We were such obtuse +purchasers!</p> + +<p>“I think,” said Mr. Harpworth, “that this crowd came here to-day only to +eat Julia Templeton's auction luncheon. What's the matter with this here +generation? You don't want things that are well made and durable, but +only things that are cheap and flashy. Put 'er aside, Jake. We'll sell +'er yet to some historical museum devoted to the habits and customs of +the early Americans.”</p> + +<p>He was plainly disgusted with us, and we felt it keenly, and were glad +and pleased when, a moment later, he gave evidence of being willing to +go on with us, paltry as we were.</p> + +<p>“Jake, pass up that next treasure.”</p> + +<p>His spirits were returning; his eyes gleamed approvingly upon the newly +presented antique. He looked at us with fresh confidence; he was still +hopeful that we would rise to his former good opinion of us.</p> + +<p>“And now before I sell the hail clock by Willard, date of 1822, I am +going to offer what is possibly the best single piece in this sale....”</p> + +<p>Here again the Old Auctioneer, having caught his * broke in. When he +spoke, who could listen to Mr. Harpworth:</p> + +<p>“... the best single piece in this sale, gentlemen! I offer you now the +Templeton family pride! A choice product of old New England. A little +battered, but still good and sound. The Templetons! They never did +anything notable except to work, work early and late, summer and winter, +for three generations. They were proud of any one who bore the Templeton +name; they were proud even of Jim, simple Jim, who got a job driving the +delivery wagon at the hill store, and drove it for twenty-two years and +was drowned in Mill River. I'll tell you what family pride meant to old +John Templeton....”</p> + +<p>I thought he leaned forward to take us into his confidence, motioning +at the same time toward the house.</p> + +<p>“You know Julia Templeton——”</p> + +<p>Know her? Of course we knew her! Knew her as only the country knows its +own.</p> + +<p>“When Julia ran away with that sewing-machine agent—it was her only +chance!—old John Templeton drove his best cow into town and sold her, +he mortgaged his team of horses, and went after the girl and brought her +home with him. They were firm and strong and as righteous as God with +her; and they paid off, without whining, the mortgages on the horses, +and never spoke of the loss of the cow—but never forgot it. They held +up their heads to the end. Gentlemen, what am I offered for this +interesting antique, this rare work of art?”</p> + +<p>The auction was considered, upon the whole, a great success. Mr. +Harpworth himself said so. Ike, the Jewish dealer, bought the family +clock and the spring-tooth harrow, and even bid on the family crayon +portraits (the frames could be sold for something or other); a Swede +bought the pigs and the old buggy; an Irish teamster bid in John +Templeton's horses, and a Pole, a good man, I know him well, bought the +land, and will no doubt keep his geese in the summer kitchen, and get +rich from the cultivation of the ancient fields. While old John +Templeton bowed himself humbly before a wrathful God he would never go +down on his knees, as the Poles do, to the fertile earth. And—I +forgot—an Italian from Nortontown bought for a song the apple and +chestnut crops, and busy third generation Americans loaded in the +antiques and drove off with them to the city.</p> + +<p>The last I saw of Julia Templeton, that hard-favoured woman, she was +standing, an angular figure, in the midst of the wreck of the luncheon +dishes, one arm wrapped in her apron, the other hand shading her eyes +while she watched the company, in wagons and automobiles, trailing away +to the westward, and the towns....</p> + +<p>The sale was over; but the most valuable antiques of all found no +purchasers: they were left behind with Julia Templeton: only she could +use them.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/19.jpg" width="400" height="200" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br> +A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE</h2> + +<p>We have an Astonishing Woman in this community. She acts in a way that +no one expects, and while we are intensely interested in everything she +does, and desire to know about it to the uttermost detail, we are +inclined to speak of her in bated breath.</p> + +<p>Some Woman to Talk About in a country neighbourhood is a kind of public +necessity. She fills one of the stated functions like the town assessor, +or the president of the Dorcas Society; and if ever the office falls +vacant we have immediate resort to one of those silent elections at +which we choose our town celebrities. There are usually several +candidates, and the campaign is accompanied by much heated argument and +exemplification. We have our staunch party men and our irresponsible +independents on whom you can never put your finger; and if we are +sometimes a little vague in our discussion of principles and issues we +share with our national political leaders an intense interest in +personalities. Prominent citizens “come out” for this candidate or that, +we “spring surprises,” and launch new booms, and often, at the last +moment, we are taken off our feet by the circulation of comebacks. I +take a pardonable pride, however, in saying, to the credit of our +democratic institutions that most of the candidates elected are chosen +strictly upon merit.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the afternoon, now more than a year ago, that +Harriet came up the road bearing the news which, beyond a doubt, placed +the present incumbent in office; and has served to keep her there, +despite the efforts in certain quarters, which shall be nameless, to use +that pernicious instrument of radicalism, the recall.</p> + +<p>I can always tell when Harriet brings important news. She has a slightly +quicker step, carries her head a little more firmly, and when she speaks +impresses her message upon me with a lowered voice. When Harriet looks +at me severely and drops down an octave I prepare for the worst.</p> + +<p>“David,” she said, “Mary Starkweather has gone to live in the barn!”</p> + +<p>“In the <i>barn</i>!”</p> + +<p>“In the barn.”</p> + +<p>I don't know quite why it is, but I dislike being surprised, and do my +best to cover it up, and, besides, I have always liked Mary +Starkweather. So I remarked, as casually as I could:</p> + +<p>“Why not? It's a perfectly good barn.”</p> + +<p>“David Grayson!”</p> + +<p>“Well, it is. It's a better building to-day than many of the people of +this town live in. Why shouldn't Mary Starkweather live in the barn if +she wants to? It's her barn.”</p> + +<p>“But, <i>David</i>—there are her children—and her husband!”</p> + +<p>“There always are, when anybody wants to live in a barn.”</p> + +<p>“I shall not talk with you any more,” said Harriet, “until you can be +serious.”</p> + +<p>I had my punishment, as I richly deserved to have, in the gnawing of +unsatisfied curiosity, which is almost as distressing as a troubled +conscience.</p> + +<p>Within the next few days, I remember, I heard the great news buzzing +everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted +for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, our +sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary +Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country, +and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books, +to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children's maid +going to live in her barn! I leave it to you if there was not a valid +reason for our commotion.</p> + +<p>It must have been two weeks later that I went to town by the upper hill +road in order to pass the Starkweather place. It is a fine old estate, +the buildings, except the barn, set well back from the road with a +spacious garden near them, and pleasant fields stretching away on every +hand. As I skirted the shoulder of the hill I looked eagerly for the +first glimpse of the barn. I confess that I had woven a thousand stories +to explain the mystery, and had reached the point where I could no +longer resist seeing if I could solve it.</p> + +<p>Well, the barn was transformed. Two or three new windows, a door with a +little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting +an inquiring eyebrow—and what was once a barn had become a charming +cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a +personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off +and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple +arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. You +felt at once a kind of fondness for it.</p> + +<p>I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a +trowel in her hand.</p> + +<p>“How are you, David Grayson?” she called out when I stopped.</p> + +<p>“I have been planning for several days,” I said, “to happen casually by +your new house.”</p> + +<p>“Have you?”</p> + +<p>“You don't know how you have stirred our curiosity. We haven't had a +good night's rest since you moved in.”</p> + +<p>“I've no doubt of it,” she laughed. “Won't you come in? I'd like to tell +you all about it.”</p> + +<p>“I also prepared to make excuses for not stopping,” I said, “and thought +up various kinds of urgent business, such as buying a new snow shovel to +use next winter, but after making these excuses I intended to stop—if +I were sufficiently urged.”</p> + +<p>“You are more than urged: you are commanded.”</p> + +<p>As I followed her up the walk she said earnestly:</p> + +<p>“Will you do me a favour? When you come in will you tell me the first +impression my living-room gives you? No second thoughts. Tell me +instantly.”</p> + +<p>“I'll do it.” I said, my mind leaping eagerly to all manner of +mysterious surprises.</p> + +<p>At the centre of the room she turned toward me and with a sweeping +backward motion of the arms, made me a bow—a strong figure instinct +with confident grace: a touch of gray in the hair, a fleeting look of +old sadness about the eyes.</p> + +<p>“Now, David Grayson,” she said, “quick!”</p> + +<p>It was not that the room itself was so remarkable as that it struck me +as being confusingly different from the heavily comfortable rooms of the +old Starkweather house with their crowded furnishings, their overloaded +mantels, their plethoric bookcases.</p> + +<p>“I cannot think of you yet,” I stumbled, “as being here.”</p> + +<p>“Isn't it <i>like</i> me?”</p> + +<p>“It is a beautiful room—” I groped lamely.</p> + +<p>“I was afraid you would say that.”</p> + +<p>“But it is. It really is.”</p> + +<p>“Then I've failed, after all.”</p> + +<p>She said it lightly enough, but there was an undertone of real +disappointment in her voice.</p> + +<p>“I'm in rather the predicament,” I said, “of old Abner Coates. You +probably don't know Abner. He sells nursery stock, and each spring when +he comes around and I tell him that the peach trees or the raspberry +bushes I bought of him the year before have not done well, he says, with +the greatest astonishment, 'Wal, now, ye ain't said what I hoped ye +would.' I see that I haven't said what you hoped I would.”</p> + +<p>It was too serious a matter, however, for Mary Starkweather to joke +about.</p> + +<p>“But, David Grayson,” she said, “isn't it <i>simple</i>?”</p> + +<p>I glanced around me with swift new comprehension.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, it <i>is</i> simple.”</p> + +<p>I saw that my friend was undergoing some deep inner change of which this +room, this renovated barn, were mere symbols.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” I said, “how you came to such a right-about-face.”</p> + +<p>“It's just that!” she returned earnestly, “It <i>is</i> a right-about-face. +I think I am really in earnest for the first time in my life.”</p> + +<p>I had a moment of flashing wonder if her marriage had not been in +earnest, a flashing picture of Richard Starkweather with his rather +tired, good-humoured face, and I wondered if her children were not +earnest realities to her, if her busy social life had meant nothing. +Then I reflected that we all have such moments, when the richest +experiences of the past seem as nothing in comparison with the fervour +of this glowing moment.</p> + +<p>“Everything in my life in the past,” she was saying, “seems to have +happened to me. Life has done things <i>for</i> me; I have had so few chances +of doing anything for myself.”</p> + +<p>“And now you are expressing yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Almost for the first time in my life!”</p> + +<p>She paused. “All my life, it seems to me, I have been smothered with +things. Just things! Too much of everything. All my time has been taken +up in caring for things and none in enjoying them.”</p> + +<p>“I understand!” I said with a warm sense of corroboration and sympathy.</p> + +<p>“I had so many pictures on my walls that I never saw, really saw, any of +them. I saw the dust on them, I saw the cracks in the frames, that +needed repairing, I even saw better ways of arranging them, but I very +rarely saw, with the inner eye, what the artists were trying to tell me. +And how much time I have wasted on mere food and clothing—it is +appalling! I had become nothing short of a slave to my house and my +things.”</p> + +<p>“I see now,” I said, “why you have just one rose on your table.”</p> + +<p>“Yes”—she returned eagerly—“isn't it a beauty! I spent half an hour +this morning looking for the best and most perfect rose in the garden, +and there it is!”</p> + +<p>She was now all alight with her idea, and I saw her, as we sometimes see +our oldest friends, as though I had not seen her before. She was that +phenomenon of the modern world—the free woman of forty-five.</p> + +<p>When a woman reaches the old age of youth, the years between forty and +forty-five, she either surrenders or revolts. In the older days in +America it was nearly always surrender. Those women of a past +generation bore many children: how many graves there are in our hill +cemeteries of women of forty to fifty who died leading families of five +or eight or ten children! How many second and third wives there were, +often with second and third families. Or if they did not die, how +terribly they toiled, keeping the house, clothing the children, cooking +the food. Or if they bore no children, yet they were bound down by a +thousand chains of convention and formality.</p> + +<p>But in these days we have a woman of forty-five who has not surrendered. +She is a vigorous, experienced, active-minded human being, just +beginning to look restlessly around her and take a new interest in the +world. Such a woman was Mary Starkweather; and this was her first +revolt.</p> + +<p>“You cannot imagine,” she was saying, “what a joy it has been to +unaccumulate! To get rid of things! To select.”</p> + +<p>“To become an artist in life!”</p> + +<p>“Yes! At last! What a lot of perfectly worthless trash accumulates +around us. Not beautiful, not even useful! And it is not only the lives +of the well-to-do that are choked and cluttered with things. I wish you +could see the house of our Polish farmer. He's been saving money, and +filling up his house with perfectly worthless ornaments—ornate clocks, +gorgeous plush furniture, impossible rugs—and yet he is only doing what +we are all doing on a more elaborate scale.”</p> + +<p>I laughed.</p> + +<p>“That reminds me of a family of squirrels that lives in an oak tree on +my hill,” I said. “I am never tired of watching them. In the fall they +work desperately, stealing all the hickory nuts and chestnuts on my +neighbour Horace's back pastures, five times as many as they need, and +then they forget, half the time, where they've hidden them. We're all +more or less in the squirrel stage of civilization.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she responded. “There are my books! I gathered up books for +years, just squirrel fashion, until I forgot what I had or where I put +them. You cannot know what joy I'm going to have in selecting just the +essential books, the ones I want by me for daily companions. All the +others, I see now, are temporary rubbish.”</p> + +<p>“And you've made your selections?”</p> + +<p>“No, but I'm making them. You'll laugh when you come next time and I +show them to you. Oh, I am going to be stern with myself. I'm not going +to put a single book in that case for show, nor a single one to give the +impression that I'm profoundly interested in Egypt or Maeterlinck or +woman suffrage, when I'm positively not.”</p> + +<p>“It's terribly risky,” I said.</p> + +<p>“And I'm terribly reckless,” she responded.</p> + +<p>As I went onward toward the town I looked back from the hilltop beyond +the big house for a last glimpse of the reconstructed barn, and with a +curious warm sense of having been admitted to a new adventure. Here was +life changing under my eyes! Here was a human being struggling with one +of the deep common problems that come to all of us. The revolt from +things! The struggle with superfluities!</p> + +<p>And yet as I walked along the cool aisles of the woods with the quiet +fields opening here and there to the low hill ridges, and saw the cattle +feeding, and heard a thrush singing in a thicket, I found myself letting +go—how can I explain it?—relaxing! I had been keyed up to a high pitch +there in that extraordinary room, Yes, it <i>was</i> beautiful—and yet as I +thought of the sharp little green gate, the new gable, the hard, clean +mantel with the cloisonne vase, it wanted something....</p> + +<p>As I was gathering the rowen crop of after-enjoyment which rewards us +when we reflect freshly upon our adventures, whom should I meet but +Richard Starkweather himself in his battered machine. The two boys, one +of whom was driving, and the little girl, were with him.</p> + +<p>“How are you, David?” he called out. “Whoa, there! Draw up, Jamie.”</p> + +<p>We looked at each other for a moment with that quizzical, half-humorous +look that so often conveys, better than any spoken words, the +sympathetic greeting of friends. I like Richard Starkweather.</p> + +<p>He had come up from the city looking rather worn, for the weather had +been trying. He has blue, honest, direct-gazing eyes with small humour +wrinkles at the corners. I never knew a man with fewer theories, or with +a simpler devotion to the thing at hand, whatever it may be. At +everything else he smiles, not cynically, for he is too modest in his +regard for his own knowledge; he smiles at everything else because it +doesn't seem quite real to him.</p> + +<p>“Been up to see Mary's new house?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” And for the life of me I couldn't help smiling in response.</p> + +<p>“It's a wonder isn't it?”</p> + +<p>He thought his wife a very extraordinary woman. I remember his saying to +me once, “David, she's got the soul of a poet and the brain of a +general.”</p> + +<p>“It <i>is</i> a wonder,” I responded.</p> + +<p>“I can't decide yet what chair to sit in, nor just what she wants the +kids to do.”</p> + +<p>I still smiled.</p> + +<p>“I expect she hasn't determined yet,” he went drawling on, “in what +chair I will look most decorative.”</p> + +<p>He ruminated.</p> + +<p>“You know, she's got the idea that there's too much of everything. I +guess there is, too—and that she ought to select only those things that +an essential. I've been wondering, if she had more than one husband +whether or not she'd select me——”</p> + +<p>The restless young Jamie was now starting the machine, and Richard +Starkweather leaned out and said to me in parting:</p> + +<p>“isn't she a wonder! Did all the planning herself—wouldn't have an +architect—wouldn't have a decorator—all I could do—”</p> + +<p>As he turned around I saw him throw one arm carelessly about the +shoulders of the sturdy younger boy who sat next him.</p> + +<p>When I got home I told Harriet all about what I had seen and heard. I +think I must feel when I am retailing such fascinating neighbourhood +events to Harriet—how she <i>does</i> enjoy them!—I must feel very much as +she does when she is urging me to have just a little more of the new +gingerbread.</p> + +<p>In the next few months I watched with indescribable interest the +unfolding of the drama of Mary Starkweather. I saw her from time to time +that summer and she seemed, and I think she was, happier than ever she +had been before in her whole life. Making over her garden, selecting the +“essential books,” choosing the best pictures for her rooms, even +reforming the clothing of the boys, all with an emphasis upon perfect +simplicity—her mind was completely absorbed. Occasionally Richard +appeared upon the stage, a kind of absurd Greek chorus of one, who +remarked what a wonderful woman this was and poked fun at himself and at +the new house, and asserted that Mary could be as simple as ever she +liked, he insisted on thick soup for dinner and would not sacrifice his +beloved old smoking jacket upon the altar of any new idea.</p> + +<p>“She's a wonder, David,” he'd wind up: “but this simple life is getting +more complicated every day.”</p> + +<p>It was in December, about the middle of the month, as I remember, that I +had a note one day from Mary Starkweather.</p> + +<p>“The next time you go to town,” it ran, “stop in and see me. I've made a +discovery.”</p> + +<p>With such a note as that us my hand it appeared imperative that I go to +town at once. I discovered, to Harriet's astonishment, that we were +running out of all sorts of necessaries.</p> + +<p>“Now, David,” she said, “you know perfectly well that you're just making +up to call on Mary Starkweather.”</p> + +<p>“That,” I said, “relieves my conscience of a great burden.”</p> + +<p>As I went out of the door I heard her saying: “Why Mary Starkweather +should <i>care</i> to live in her barn....”</p> + +<p>It was a sparkling cold day, sun on the snow and the track crunching +under one's feet, and I walked swiftly and with a warm sense of coming +adventure.</p> + +<p>To my surprise there was no smoke in the cottage chimney, and when I +reached the door I found a card pinned upon it:</p> + +<p class="center"> +PLEASE CALL AT THE HOUSE +</p> + +<p>Mary Starkweather herself opened the door—she had seen me coming—and +took me into the big comfortable old living-room, the big, cluttered, +overfurnished living-room, with the two worn upholstered chairs at the +fireplace, in which a bright log fire was now burning. There was a +pleasant litter of books and magazines, and a work basket on the table, +and in the bay window an ugly but cheerful green rubber plant in a tub.</p> + +<p>“Well!” I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Don't smile—not yet.”</p> + +<p>As I looked at her I felt not at all like smiling.</p> + +<p>“I know,” she was saying, “it does have a humorous side. I can see that. +Dick has seen it all along. Do you know, although Dick pretends to +pooh-pooh everything intellectual, he has a really penetrating mind.”</p> + +<p>I had a sudden vision of Dick in his old smoking jacket, standing in +the midst of the immaculate cottage that was once a barn, holding his +pipe with one finger crooked around the stem just in front of his nose +in the way he had, and smiling across at me.</p> + +<p>“Have you deserted the cottage entirely?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we may possibly go back in the spring———” She paused and looked +into the fire, her fine, strong face a little sad in composure, full of +thought.</p> + +<p>“I am trying to be honest with myself David. Honest above everything +else. That's fundamental. It seems to me I have wanted most of all to +learn how to live my life more freely and finely.... I thought I was +getting myself free of things when, as a matter of fact, I was devoting +more time to them than ever before-and, besides that, making life more +or less uncomfortable for Dick and the children. So I've taken my +courage squarely in my hands and come back here into this blessed old +home, this blessed, ugly, stuffy old home—I've learned <i>that</i> lesson.”</p> + +<p>At this, she glanced up at me with that rare smile which sometimes +shines out of her very nature: the smile that is herself.</p> + +<p>“I found,” she said, “that when I had finished the work of becoming +simple—there was nothing else left to do.”</p> + +<p>I laughed outright, for I couldn't help it, and she joined me. How we do +like people who can laugh at themselves.</p> + +<p>“But,” I said, “there was sound sense in a great deal that you were +trying to do.”</p> + +<p>“The fireplace smoked; and the kitchen sink froze up; and the cook left +because we couldn't keep her room warm.”</p> + +<p>“But you were right,” I interrupted, “and I am not going to be put off +by smoking fireplaces or chilly cooks; you were right. We do have too +much, we are smothered in things, we don't enjoy what we do have—”</p> + +<p>I paused.</p> + +<p>“And you were making a beautiful thing, a beautiful house.”</p> + +<p>“The trouble with making a beautiful thing,” she replied, “is that when +you have got it done you must straightway make another. Now I don't want +to keep on building houses or furnishing rooms. I am not after beauty—I +mean primarily—what I want is to <i>live</i>, live simply, live greatly.”</p> + +<p>She was desperately in earnest.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” I said, feeling as though I were treading on dangerous +ground, “you were trying to be simple for the sake of being simple. I +wonder if true simplicity is ever any thing but a by-product. If we aim +directly for it, it eludes us: but if we are on fire with some great +interest that absorbs on lives to the uttermost, we forget ourselves +into simplicity, Everything falls into simple lines around us, like a +worn garment.”</p> + +<p>I had the rather uncomfortable feeling on the way home that I had been +preachy; and the moment you became preachy begin to build up barriers +between yourself and your friends: but that's a defect of character I've +never been able, quite, to overcome. I keep thinking I've got the better +of it, but along will come a beautiful temptation and down I go—and +come out as remorseful as I was that afternoon on the way home from Mary +Starkweather's.</p> + +<p>A week or two later I happened to meet Richard Starkweather on the +street in Hempfield. He was on his way home.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “we're in the old house again until spring, anyway. I +haven't been so comfortable in a year. And, say,” here he looked at me +quizzically, “Mary has joined the new cemetery association; you know +they're trying to improve the resting places of the forefathers, and, by +George, if they didn't elect her chairman at the first meeting. She's a +wonder!”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/20.jpg" width="300" height="375" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br> +HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS</h2> + +<p>Well, I have just been having an amusing and delightful adventure and +have come to know a Great Common Person. His name is Bill Richards, and +he is one of the hereditary monarchs of America. He belongs to our +ruling dynasty.</p> + +<p>I first saw Bill about two weeks ago, and while I was strongly +interested in him I had no idea, at the time, that I should ever come to +know him well. It was a fine June day, and I was riding on the new +trolley line that crosses the hills to Hewlett—a charming trip through +a charming country—and there in the open car just in front of me sat +Bill himself. One huge bare forearm rested on the back of the seat, the +rich red blood showing through the weathered brown of the skin. His +clean brown neck rose strongly from the loose collar of his shirt, which +covered but could not hide the powerful lines of his shoulders. He wore +blue denim and khaki, and a small round felt hat tipped up jauntily at +the back. He had crisp, coarse light hair rather thin—not by age, but +by nature—so that the ruddy scalp could be seen through it, and strong +jaws and large firm features, and if the beard was two days old, his +face was so brown, so full of youthful health, that it gave no ill +impression.</p> + +<p>He could not sit still for the very life that was in him. He seemed to +have some grand secret with the conductor and frequently looked around +at him, his eyes full of careless laughter, and once or twice he called +out—some jocose remark. He helped the conductor, in pantomime, to pull +the cord and stop or start the car, and he watched with the liveliest +interest each passenger getting on or getting off. A rather mincing +young girl with a flaring red ribbon at her throat was to him the finest +comedy in the world, so that he had to wink a telegram to the conductor +about her. An old woman with a basket of vegetables who delayed the car +was exquisitely funny.</p> + +<p>I set him down as being about twenty-two years old and some kind of +outdoor workman, not a farmer.</p> + +<p>When he got off, which was before the car stopped, so that he had to +jump and run with it, he gave a wild flourish with both arms, grimaced +at the conductor, and went off down the road whistling for all he was +worth. How I enjoyed the sight of him! He was so charged with youthful +energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely +contain himself. What a fine place the world was to him! And what +comical and interesting people it contained! I was sorry when he got +off.</p> + +<p>Two or three days later I was on my way up the town road north of my +farm when I was astonished and delighted to see Bill for the second +time. He was coming down the road pulling a wire over the crosspiece of +a tall telephone pole (the company is rebuilding and enlarging its +system through our town). He was holding the wire close drawn over his +right shoulder, his strong hands gripped and pressed upon his breast. +The veins stood out in his brown neck where the burlap shoulder pad he +wore was drawn aside by the wire. He leaned forward, stepping first on +his toe, which he dug into the earth and then, heavily letting down his +heel, he drew the other foot forward somewhat stiffly. The muscles stood +out in his powerful shoulders and thighs. His legs were double-strapped +with climbing spurs. He was a master lineman.</p> + +<p>As I came alongside he turned a good-humoured sweaty face toward me.</p> + +<p>“It's dang hot,” said he.</p> + +<p>“It is,” said I.</p> + +<p>There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a strong +workman in the full swing of his work, something—yes, beautiful! A +hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could be +finer to see? And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth and easy +strength!</p> + +<p>I watched him for some time, curiously interested, and thought I should +like well to know him, but could not see just how to go about it.</p> + +<p>The man astride the cross-arm who was heaving the wire forward from the +spool on the distant truck suddenly cried out:</p> + +<p>“Ease up there, Bill, she's caught.”</p> + +<p>So Bill eased up and drew his arm across his dripping face.</p> + +<p>“How many wires are you putting up?” I asked, fencing for some opening.</p> + +<p>“Three,” said Bill.</p> + +<p>Before I could get in another stroke the man on the pole shouted:</p> + +<p>“Let 'er go, Bill.” And Bill let 'er go, and buckled down again to his +job.</p> + +<p>“Gee, but it's hot,” said he.</p> + +<p>In the country there are not so many people passing our way that we +cannot be interested in all of them. That evening I could not help +thinking about Bill, the lineman, wondering where he came from, how he +happened to be what he was, who and what sort were the friends he made, +and the nature of his ambitions, if he had any. Talk about going to the +North Pole! It is not to be compared, for downright fascination, with +the exploration of an undiscovered human being.</p> + +<p>With that I began to think how I might get at Bill, the lineman, and not +merely weather talk, or wages talk, or work talk, but at Bill himself. +He was a character quite unusual in our daily lives here in the country. +I wondered what his interests could be, surely not mine nor Horace's nor +the Starkweathers'. As soon as I began trying to visualize what his life +might be, I warmed up to a grand scheme of capturing him, if by chance +he was to be found the next day upon the town road.</p> + +<p>All this may seem rather absurd in the telling, but I found it a +downright good adventure for a quiet evening, and fully believe I felt +for the moment like General Joffre planning to meet the Germans on the +Marne.</p> + +<p>“I have it!” I said aloud.</p> + +<p>“You have what?” asked Harriet, somewhat startled.</p> + +<p>“The grandest piece of strategy ever devised in this town,” said I.</p> + +<p>With that I went delving in a volume of universal information I keep +near me, one of those knowing books that tells you how tall the great +Pryamid is and why a hen cackles after laying an egg, and having found +what I wanted I asked Harriet if she could find a tape measure around +the place. She is a wonderful person and knows where everything is. When +she handed me the tape measure she asked me what in the world I was so +mysterious about.</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “I'm going on a great adventure. I'll tell you all +about it to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” said Harriet.</p> + +<p>It is this way with the fancies of the evening—they often look flat and +flabby and gray the next morning. Quite impossible! But if I'd acted on +half the good and grand schemes I've had o' nights I might now be quite +a remarkable person.</p> + +<p>I went about my work the next morning just as usual. I even avoided +looking at the little roll of tape on the corner of the mantel as I went +out. It seemed a kind of badge of my absurdity. But about the middle of +the fore-noon, while I was in my garden, I heard a tremendous racket up +the road. Rattle—bang, zip, toot! As I looked up I saw the boss +lineman and his crew careering up the road in their truck, and the bold +driver was driving like Jehu, the son of Nimshi. And there were ladders +and poles clattering out behind, and rolls of wire on upright spools +rattling and flashing in the sunshine, and the men of the crew were +sitting along the sides of the truck with hats off and hair flying as +they came bumping and bounding up the road. It was a brave thing to see +going by on a spring morning!</p> + +<p>As they passed, whom should I see but Bill himself, at the top of the +load, with a broad smile on his face. When his eye fell on me he threw +up one arm, and gave me the railroad salute.</p> + +<p>“Hey, there!” he shouted.</p> + +<p>“Hey there, yourself,” I shouted in return—and could not help it.</p> + +<p>I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd +of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load.</p> + +<p>It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and +taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though +it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as +adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet +but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay +that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning.</p> + +<p>Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little +valley near the far corner of Horace's farm, I found the truck, and Bill +just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped pennies and +Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools while the others +went down to the mill pond in the valley below.</p> + +<p>“How are you?” said I.</p> + +<p>“How are <i>you</i>?” said he.</p> + +<p>I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind.</p> + +<p>“Fine day,” said I.</p> + +<p>“You bet,” said he.</p> + +<p>He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the +roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below +into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and +somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?” I asked.</p> + +<p>He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest.</p> + +<p>“No, did you?”</p> + +<p>“Or Bob Fitzsimmons?”</p> + +<p>“Nope—but I was mighty near it once. I've seen 'em both in the movies.”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” said I, “that's interesting. I should like to see them +myself. Do you know what made me speak of them?”</p> + +<p>He had spread down a newspaper and was taking the luncheon out of his +“bucket,” as he called it, including a large bottle of coffee; but he +paused and looked at me with keen interest.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said I, “when I saw you dragging that wire yesterday I took you +to be a pretty husky citizen yourself.”</p> + +<p>He grinned and took a big mouthful from one of his sandwiches. I could +see that my shot had gone home.</p> + +<p>“So when I got back last night,” I said, “I looked up the arm +measurements of Sullivan and Fitzsimmons in a book I have and got to +wondering how they compared with mine and yours. They were considerably +larger than mine—”</p> + +<p>Bill thought this a fine joke and laughed out in great good humour.</p> + +<p>“But I imagine you'd not be far behind either of them.”</p> + +<p>He looked at me a little suspiciously, as if doubtful what I was driving +at or whether or not I was joking him. But I was as serious as the face +of nature; and proceeded at once to get out my tape measure.</p> + +<p>“I get very much interested in such things,” I said, “and I had enough +curiosity to want to see how big your arm really was.”</p> + +<p>He smiled broadly.</p> + +<p>“You're a queer one,” said he.</p> + +<p>But he took another bite of sandwich, and clenching his great fist drew +up his forearm until the biceps muscles looked like a roll of Vienna +bread—except that they had the velvety gleam of life. So I measured +first one arm, then the other.</p> + +<p>“By George!” said I, “you're ahead of Fitzsimmons, but not quite up to +Sullivan.”</p> + +<p>“Fitz wasn't a heavy man,” said Bill, “but a dead game fighter.”</p> + +<p>I saw then that I had him! So I sat down on the grass near by and we had +great talk about the comparative merits of Fitzsimmons and Sullivan and +Corbett and Jack Johnson, a department of knowledge in which he +out-distanced me. He even told me of an exploit or two of his own, +which showed that he was able to take care of himself.</p> + +<p>While we talked he ate his luncheon, and a downright gargantuan luncheon +it was, backed by an appetite which if it were offered to the highest +bidder on the New York Stock Exchange would, I am convinced, bring at +least ten thousand dollars in cash. It even made me envious.</p> + +<p>There were three huge corned-beef sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a +pickle six inches long and fat to boot, four doughnuts so big that they +resembled pitching quoits, a bottle of coffee and milk, a quarter of a +pie, and, to cap the climax, an immense raw onion. It was worth a long +journey to see Bill eat that onion. He took out his clasp knife, and +after stripping off the papery outer shell, cut the onion into thick +dewy slices. Then he opened one of the sandwiches and placed several of +them on the beef, afterward sprinkling them with salt from a small paper +parcel. Having restored the top slice of bread he took a moon-shaped +bite out of one end of this glorified sandwich.</p> + +<p>“I like onions,” said he.</p> + +<p>When we first sat down he had offered to share his luncheon with me but +I told him I had just been to dinner, and I observed that he had no +difficulty in taking care of every crumb in his “bucket.” It was +wonderful to see.</p> + +<p>Having finished his luncheon he went down to the brook and got a drink, +and then sat down comfortably with his back among the ferns of the +roadside, crossed his legs, and lit his pipe. There was a healthy and +wholesome flush in his face, and as he blew off the first cloud of smoke +he drew a sigh of complete comfort and looked around at me with a lordly +air such as few monarchs, no matter how well fed, could have bettered. +He had worked and sweat for what he got, and was now taking his ease in +his roadside inn. I wonder sometimes if anybody in the world experiences +keener joys than unwatched common people.</p> + +<p>How we talked! From pugilists we proceeded to telephones, and from that +to wages, hours, and strikes, and from that we leaped easily to Alaska +and gold-mining, and touched in passing upon Theodore Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>“I was just thinking,” I said, “that you and I can enjoy some things +that were beyond the reach of the greatest kings of the world.”</p> + +<p>“How's that?” said he.</p> + +<p>“Why, Napoleon never saw a telephone nor talked through one.”</p> + +<p>“That's so!” he laughed.</p> + +<p>“And Caesar couldn't have dreamed that such a thing as you are doing now +was a possibility—nor George Washington, either.”</p> + +<p>“Say, that's so. I never thought o' that.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” I said, “the world is only half as big as it was before you +fellows came along stringing your wires! I can get to town now from my +farm in two minutes, when it used to take me an hour.”</p> + +<p>I really believe I gave him more of his own business than ever he had +before, for he listened so intently that his pipe went out.</p> + +<p>I found that Bill was from Ohio, and that he had been as far south as +Atlanta and as far west as Denver. He got his three dollars and a half a +day, rain or shine, and thought it wonderful pay; and besides, he was +seein' the country “free, gratis, fer nothing.”</p> + +<p>He got his coat out of the truck and took from the pocket a +many-coloured folder.</p> + +<p>“Say, Mister, have you ever been to the Northwest?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Well, it's a great country, and I'm goin' up there.”</p> + +<p>He spread out the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a +spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere this side of the Rockies.</p> + +<p>“How'll you do it?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, a lineman can go anywhere,” said he with a flourish, “A lineman +don't have to beg a job. Besides, I got eighty dollars sewed up.”</p> + +<p>Talk about freedom! Never have I got a clearer impression of it than +Bill gave me that day. No millionaire, no potentate, could touch him.</p> + +<p>The crew came back all too soon for me. Bill knocked the ashes out of +his pipe on his boot heel, and put his “bucket” back in the truck. Five +minutes later he was climbing a tall pole with legs bowed out, striking +in his spikes at each step. From the cross-arm, up among the hemlock +tops, he called out to me:</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, pard.”</p> + +<p>“Stop in, Bill, and see me when you come by my place,” said I.</p> + +<p>“You bet,” said he.</p> + +<p>And he did, the next day, and I showed him off to Harriet, who brought +him a plate of her best doughnuts and asked him about his mother.</p> + +<p>Yesterday I saw him again careering by in the truck. The job was +finished. He waved his hand at me.</p> + +<p>“I'm off,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Where?” I shouted.</p> + +<p>“Canada.”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/21.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br> +ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Why risk with men your hard won gold?<br> +Buy grain and sow—your Brother Dust<br> +Will pay you back a hundred fold—<br> +The earth commits no breach of trust.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<i>Hindu Proverb, Translated by Arthur Guiterman</i>.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing how many people there are in cities and towns who have +a secret longing to get back into quiet country places, to own a bit of +the soil of the earth, and to cultivate it. To some it appears as a +troublesome malady only in spring and will be relieved by a whirl or two +in country roads, by a glimpse of the hills, or a day by the sea; but to +others the homesickness is deeper seated and will be quieted by no hasty +visits. These must actually go home.</p> + +<p>I have had, in recent years, many letters from friends asking about +life in the country, but the longer I remain here, the more I know about +it, the less able I am to answer them—at least briefly. It is as though +one should come and ask: “Is love worth trying?” or, “How about +religion?” For country life is to each human being a fresh, strange, +original adventure. We enjoy it, or we do not enjoy it, or more +probably, we do both. It is packed and crowded with the zest of +adventure, or it is dull and miserable. We may, if we are skilled +enough, make our whole living from the land, or only a part of it, or we +may find in a few cherished acres the inspiration and power for other +work, whatever it may be. There is many a man whose strength is renewed +like that of the wrestler of Irassa, every time his feet touch the +earth.</p> + +<p>Of all places in the world where life can be lived to its fullest and +freest, where it can be met in its greatest variety and beauty, I am +convinced that there is none to equal the open country, or the country +town. For all country people in these days may have the city—some city +or town not too far away: but there are millions of men and women in +America who have no country and no sense of the country. What do they +not lose out of life!</p> + +<p>I know well the disadvantages charged against country life at its worst. +At its worst there are long hours and much lonely labour and an income +pitifully small. Drudgery, yes, especially for the women, and +loneliness. But where is there not drudgery when men are poor—where +life is at its worst? I have never seen drudgery in the country +comparable for a moment to the dreary and lonely drudgery of city +tenements, city mills, factories, and sweat shops. And in recent years +both the drudgery and loneliness of country life have been disappearing +before the motor and trolley car, the telephone, the rural post, the +gasoline engine. I have seen a machine plant as many potatoes in one day +as a man, at hand work, could have planted in a week. While there is, +indeed, real drudgery in the country, much that is looked upon as +drudgery by people who long for easy ways and a soft life, is only good, +honest, wholesome hard work—the kind of work that makes for fiber in a +man or in a nation, the kind that most city life in no wise provides.</p> + +<p>There are a thousand nuisances and annoyances that men must meet who +come face to face with nature itself. You have set out your upper acres +to peach trees: and the deer come down from the hills at night and strip +the young foliage; or the field mice in winter, working under the snow, +girdle and kill them. The season brings too much rain and the potatoes +rot in the ground, the crows steal the corn, the bees swarm when no out +is watching, the cow smothers her calf, the hens' eggs prove infertile, +and a storm in a day ravages a crop that has been growing all summer. A +constant warfare with insects and blights and fungi—a real, bitter +warfare, which can cease neither summer nor winter!</p> + +<p>It is something to meet, year after year, the quiet implacability of the +land. While it is patient, it never waits long for you. There is a +chosen time for planting, a time for cultivating, a time for harvesting. +You accept the gauge thrown down—well and good, you shall have a chance +to fight! You do not accept it? There is no complaint. The land +cheerfully springs up to wild yellow mustard and dandelion and +pig-weed—and will be productive and beautiful in spite of you.</p> + +<p>Nor can you enter upon the full satisfaction of cultivating even a small +piece of land at second hand. To be accepted as One Who Belongs, there +must be sweat and weariness.</p> + +<p>The other day I was digging with Dick in a ditch that is to run down +through the orchard and connect finally with the land drain we put in +four years ago. We laid the tile just in the gravel below the silt, +about two feet deep, covering the openings with tar paper and then +throwing in gravel. It was a bright, cool afternoon. In the field below +a ploughman was at work: I could see the furrows of the dark earth +glisten as he turned it over. The grass in the meadow was a full rich +green, the new chickens were active in their yards, running to the cluck +of the hens, already the leaves of the orchard trees showed green. And +as I worked there with Dick I had the curious deep feeling of coming +somehow into a new and more intimate possession of my own land. For +titles do not really pass with signatures and red seals, nor with money +changing from one hand to another, but for true possession one must work +and serve according to the most ancient law. There is no mitigation and +no haggling of price. Those who think they can win the greatest joys of +country life on any easier terms are mistaken.</p> + +<p>But if one has drained his land, and ploughed it, and fertilized it, +and planted it and harvested it—even though it be only a few acres— +how he comes to know and to love every rod of it. He knows the wet +spots, and the stony spots, and the warmest and most fertile spots +—until his acres have all the qualities of a personality, whose every +characteristic he knows. It is so also that he comes to know his horses +and cattle and pigs and hens. It is a fine thing, on a warm day in early +spring, to bring out the bee-hives and let the bees have their first +flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to see +them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is a +fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, with +us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard seems +still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for the +first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing—one of +the finest of all—to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after weeks +of drought. How it comes softly out of gray skies, the first drops +throwing up spatters of dust and losing themselves in the dry soil. Then +the clouds sweep forward up the valley, darkening the meadows and +blotting out the hills, and then there is the whispering of the rain as +it first sweeps across the corn-field. At once what a stir of life! What +rustling of the long green leaves. What joyful shaking and swaying of +the tassels! And have you watched how eagerly the grooved leaves catch +the early drops, and, lest there be too little rain after all, conduct +them jealously down the stalks where they will soonest reach the thirsty +roots? What a fine thing is this to see!</p> + +<p>One who thus takes part in the whole process of the year comes soon to +have an indescribable affection for his land, his garden, his animals. +There are thoughts of his in every tree: memories in every fence corner. +Just now, the fourth of June, I walked down past my blackberry patch, +now come gorgeously into full white bloom—and heavy with fragrance. I +set out these plants with my own hands, I have fed them, cultivated +them, mulched them, pruned them, trellised them, and helped every year +to pick the berries. How could they be otherwise than full of +associations! They bear a fruit more beautiful than can be found in any +catalogue: and stranger and wilder than in any learned botany book!</p> + +<p>Why, one who comes thus to love a bit of countryside may enjoy it all +the year round. When he awakens in the middle of a long winter night he +may send his mind out to the snowy fields—I've done it a thousand +times!—and visit each part in turn, stroll through the orchard and pay +his respects to each tree—in a small orchard one comes to know +familiarly every tree as he knows his friends—stop at the strawberry +bed, consider the grape trellises, feel himself opening the door of the +warm, dark stable and listening to the welcoming whicker of his horses, +or visiting his cows, his pigs, his sheep, his hens, or so many of them +as he may have.</p> + +<p>So much of the best in the world seems to have come fragrant out of +fields, gardens, and hillsides. So many truths spoken by the Master Poet +come to us exhaling the odours of the open country. His stories were so +often of sowers, husbandmen, herdsmen: his similes and illustrations so +often dealt with the common and familiar beauty of the fields. “Consider +the lilies how they grow.” It was on a hillside that he preached his +greatest Sermon, and when in the last agony he sought a place to meet +his God, where did he go but to a garden? A carpenter you say? Yes, but +of this one may be sure: there were gardens and fields all about: he +knew gardens, and cattle, and the simple processes of the land: he must +have worked in a garden and loved it well.</p> + +<p>A country life rather spoils one for the so-called luxuries. A farmer or +gardener may indeed have a small cash income, but at least he eats at +the first table. He may have the sweetest of the milk, there are +thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women in America who have never +in their lives tasted really sweet milk and the freshest of eggs, and +the ripest of fruit. One does not know how good strawberries or +raspberries are when picked before breakfast and eaten with the dew +still on them. And while he must work and sweat for what he gets, he may +have all these things in almost unmeasured abundance, and without a +thought of what they cost. A man from the country is often made +uncomfortable, upon visiting the city, to find two cans of sweet corn +served for twenty or thirty cents, or a dish of raspberries at +twenty-five or forty—and neither, even at their best, equal in quality +to those he may have fresh from the garden every day. One need say this +in no boastful spirit, but as a simple statement of the fact: for +fruits sent to the city are nearly always picked before they are fully +ripe—and lose that last perfection of flavour which the sun and the +open air impart: and both fruits and vegetables, as well as milk and +eggs, suffer more than most people think from handling and shipment. +These things can be set down as one of the make-weights against the +familiar presentation of the farmer's life as a hard one.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest curses of mill or factory work and with much city +work of all kinds, is its interminable monotony: the same process +repeated hour after hour and day after day. In the country there is +indeed monotonous work but rarely monotony. No task continues very long: +everything changes infinitely with the seasons. Processes are not +repetitive but creative. Nature hates monotony, is ever changing and +restless, brings up a storm to drive the haymakers from their hurried +work in the fields, sends rain to stop the ploughing, or a frost to +hurry the apple harvest. Everything is full of adventure and +vicissitude! A man who has been a farmer for two hours at the mowing +must suddenly turn blacksmith when his machine breaks down and tinker +with wrench and hammer; and later in the day he becomes dairyman, +farrier, harness-maker, merchant. No kind of wheat but is grist to his +mill, no knowledge that he cannot use! And who is freer to be a citizen +than he: freer to take his part in town meeting and serve his state in +some one of the innumerable small offices which form the solid blocks of +organization beneath our commonwealth.</p> + +<p>I thought last fall that corn-husking came as near being monotonous +work, as any I had ever done in the country. I presume in the great +corn-fields of the West, where the husking goes on for weeks at a time, +it probably does grow really monotonous. But I soon found that there was +a curious counter-reward attending even a process as repetitive as this.</p> + +<p>I remember one afternoon in particular. It was brisk and cool with +ragged clouds like flung pennants in a poverty-stricken sky, and the +hills were a hazy brown, rather sad to see, and in one of the apple +trees at the edge of the meadow the crows were holding their mournful +autumn parliament.</p> + +<p>At such work as this one's mind often drops asleep, or at least goes +dreaming, except for the narrow margin of awareness required for the +simple processes of the hands. Its orders have indeed been given: you +must kneel here, pull aside the stalks one by one, rip down the husks, +and twist off the ear—and there is the pile for the stripped stalks, +and here the basket for the gathered corn, and these processes +infinitely repeated.</p> + +<p>While all this is going on, the mind itself wanders off to its own far +sweet pastures, upon its own dear adventures—or rests, or plays. It is +in these times that most of the airy flying things of this beautiful +world come home to us—things that heavy-footed reason never quite +overtakes, nor stodgy knowledge ever knows. I think sometimes (as Sterne +says) we thus intercept thoughts never intended for us at all, or +uncover strange primitive memories of older times than these—racial +memories.</p> + +<p>At any rate, the hours pass and suddenly the mind comes home again, it +comes home from its wanderings refreshed, stimulated, happy. And +nowhere, whether in cities, or travelling in trains, or sailing upon the +sea, have I so often felt this curious enrichment as I have upon this +hillside, working alone in field, or garden, or orchard, It seems to +come up out of the soil, or respond to the touch of growing things.</p> + +<p>What makes any work interesting is the fact that one can make +experiments, try new things, develop specialties and <i>grow</i>. And where +can he do this with such success as on the land and in direct contact +with nature. The possibilities are here infinite new machinery, +spraying, seed testing, fertilizers, experimentation with new varieties. +A thousand and one methods, all creative, which may be tried out in that +great essential struggle of the farmer or gardener to command all the +forces of nature.</p> + +<p>Because there are farmers, and many of them, who do not experiment and +do not grow, but make their occupation a veritable black drudgery, this +is no reason for painting a sombre-hued picture of country life. Any +calling, the law, the ministry, the medical profession, can be blasted +by fixing one's eyes only upon its ugliest aspects. And farming, at its +best, has become a highly scientific, extraordinarily absorbing, and +when all is said, a profitable, profession. Neighbours of mine have +developed systems of overhead irrigation to make rain when there is no +rain, and have covered whole fields with cloth canopies to increase the +warmth and to protect the crops from wind and hail, and by the analysis +of the soil and exact methods of feeding it with fertilizers, have come +as near a complete command of nature as any farmers in the world. What +independent, resourceful men they are! And many of them have also grown +rich in money. It is not what nature does with a man that matters but +what he does with nature.</p> + +<p>Nor is it necessary in these days for the farmer or the country dweller +to be uncultivated or uninterested in what are often called, with no +very clear definition, the “finer things of life.” Many educated men are +now on the farms and have their books and magazines, and their music and +lectures and dramas not too far off in the towns. A great change in this +respect has come over American country life in twenty years. The real +hardships of pioneering have passed away, and with good roads and +machinery, and telephones, and newspapers every day by rural post, the +farmer may maintain as close a touch with the best things the world has +to offer as any man. And if he really have such broader interests the +winter furnishes him time and leisure that no other class of people can +command.</p> + +<p>I do not know, truly, what we are here for upon this wonderful and +beautiful earth, this incalculably interesting earth, unless it is to +crowd into a few short years—when all is said, terribly short +years!—every possible fine experience and adventure: unless it is to +live our lives to the uttermost: unless it is to seize upon every fresh +impression, develop every latent capacity: to grow as much as ever we +have it in our power to grow. What else can there be? If there is no +life beyond this one, we have lived <i>here</i> to the uttermost. We've had +what we've had! But if there is more life, and still more life, beyond +this one, and above and under this one, and around and through this one, +we shall be well prepared for that, whatever it may be.</p> + +<p>The real advantages of country life have come to be a strong lure to +many people in towns and cities: but no one should attempt to “go back +to the land” with the idea that it is an easy way to escape the real +problems and difficulties of life. The fact is, there is no escape. The +problems and the difficulties must be boldly met whether in city or +country. Farming in these days is not “easy living,” but a highly +skilled profession, requiring much knowledge, and actual manual labour +and plenty of it. So many come to the country too light-heartedly, buy +too much land, attempt unfamiliar crops, expect to hire the work +done—and soon find themselves facing discouragement and failure. Any +city man who would venture on this new way of life should try it first +for a year or so before he commits himself—try himself out against the +actual problems. Or, by moving to the country, still within reach of his +accustomed work, he can have a garden or even a small farm to experiment +with. The shorter work-day has made this possible for a multitude of +wage-workers, and I know many instances in which life because of this +opportunity to get to the soil has become a very different and much +finer thing for them.</p> + +<p>It is easy also for many men who are engaged in professional work to +live where they can get their hands into the soil for part of the time +at least: and this may be made as real an experience as far as it goes +as though they owned wider acres and devoted their whole time to the +work.</p> + +<p>A man who thus faces the problem squarely will soon see whether country +life is the thing for him; if he finds it truly so, he can be as nearly +assured of “living happily ever after” as any one outside of a +story-book can ever be. Out of it all is likely to come some of the +greatest rewards that men can know, a robust body, a healthy appetite, a +serene and cheerful spirit!</p> + +<p>And finally there is one advantage not so easy to express. Long ago I +read a story of Tolstoi's called “The Candle”—how a peasant Russian +forced to plough on Easter Day lighted a candle to his Lord and kept it +burning on his plough as he worked through the sacred day. When I see a +man ploughing in his fields I often think of Tolstoi's peasant, and +wonder if this is not as true a way as any of worshipping God. I wonder +if any one truly worships God who sets about it with deliberation, or +knows quite why he does it.</p> + +<p>“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, +as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass.”</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10593 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/10593-h/images/01.jpg b/10593-h/images/01.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..30a41f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/01.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/02.jpg b/10593-h/images/02.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..40a4b42 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/02.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/03.jpg b/10593-h/images/03.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..68879f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/03.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/04.jpg b/10593-h/images/04.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4759e11 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/04.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/05.jpg b/10593-h/images/05.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..560d135 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/05.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/06.jpg b/10593-h/images/06.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd84e48 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/06.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/07.jpg b/10593-h/images/07.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..25afd36 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/07.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/08.jpg b/10593-h/images/08.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..01faa79 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/08.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/09.jpg b/10593-h/images/09.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9390ed --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/09.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/10.jpg b/10593-h/images/10.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..64c52c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/10.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/11.jpg b/10593-h/images/11.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e526108 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/11.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/12.jpg b/10593-h/images/12.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..44cf5fe --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/12.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/13.jpg b/10593-h/images/13.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5e2e5b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/13.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/14.jpg b/10593-h/images/14.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..907a091 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/14.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/15.jpg b/10593-h/images/15.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f2d1ae --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/15.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/16.jpg b/10593-h/images/16.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3b68599 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/16.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/17.jpg b/10593-h/images/17.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9f400af --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/17.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/18.jpg b/10593-h/images/18.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..91f4eac --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/18.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/19.jpg b/10593-h/images/19.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbfd418 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/19.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/20.jpg b/10593-h/images/20.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..306ab5f --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/20.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/21.jpg b/10593-h/images/21.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..360e071 --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/21.jpg diff --git a/10593-h/images/cover.jpg b/10593-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a3b4fc --- /dev/null +++ b/10593-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a943275 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10593 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10593) diff --git a/old/10593-0.txt b/old/10593-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb8a2af --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10593-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4729 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Great Possessions, by David Grayson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Great Possessions + +Author: David Grayson + +Release Date: January 4, 2004 [eBook #10593] +[Most recently updated: August 20, 2023] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +Great Possessions + +David Grayson + +[Illustration] + + +Contents + + CHAPTER I. THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH + CHAPTER II. OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS + CHAPTER III. FOLLOW YOUR NOSE! + CHAPTER IV. THE GREEN PEOPLE + CHAPTER V. PLACES OF RETIREMENT + CHAPTER VI. NO TRESPASS + CHAPTER VII. LOOK AT THE WORLD! + CHAPTER VIII. A GOOD APPLE + CHAPTER IX. I GO TO THE CITY + CHAPTER X. THE OLD STONE MASON + CHAPTER XI. AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES + CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE + CHAPTER XIII. HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS + CHAPTER XIV. ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER I. +THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH + + +“Sweet as Eden is the air + And Eden-sweet the ray. +No Paradise is lost for them +Who foot by branching root and stem, +And lightly with the woodland share + The change of night and day.” + +For these many years, since I have lived here in the country, I have +had it in my mind to write something about the odour and taste of this +well-flavoured earth. The fact is, both the sense of smell and the +sense of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of +the senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, +and sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family, is keen upon the +business of seizing the entire inheritance, while smell, like hairy +Esau, comes late to the blessing, hungry from the hills, and willing to +trade its inheritance for a mess of pottage. + +I have always had a kind of errant love for the improvident and +adventurous Esaus of the Earth. I think they smell a wilder fragrance +than I do, and taste sweeter things, and I have thought, therefore, of +beginning a kind of fragrant autobiography, a chronicle of all the good +odours and flavours that ever I have had in my life. + +As I grow older, a curious feeling comes often to me in the spring, as +it comes this spring more poignantly than ever before, a sense of the +temporariness of all things, the swiftness of life, the sadness of a +beauty that vanishes so soon, and I long to lay hold upon it as it +passes by all the handles that I can. I would not only see it and hear +it, but I would smell it and taste it and touch it, and all with a new +kind of intensity and eagerness. + +Harriet says I get more pleasure out of the smell of my supper than I +get out of the supper itself. + +“I never need to ring for you,” says she, “but only open the kitchen +door. In a few minutes I’ll see you straighten up, lift your head, +sniff a little, and come straight for the house.” + +“The odour of your suppers, Harriet,” I said, “after a day in the +fields, would lure a man out of purgatory.” + +My father before me had a singularly keen nose. I remember well when I +was a boy and drove with him in the wild North Country, often through +miles of unbroken forest, how he would sometimes break a long silence, +lift his head with sudden awareness, and say to me: + +“David, I smell open fields.” + +In a few minutes we were sure to come to a settler’s cabin, a log barn, +or a clearing. Among the free odours of the forest he had caught, afar +off, the common odours of the work of man. + +When we were tramping or surveying in that country, I have seen him +stop suddenly, draw in a long breath, and remark: + +“Marshes,” or, “A stream yonder.” + +Part of this strange keenness of sense, often noted by those who knew +that sturdy old cavalryman, may have been based, as so many of our +talents are, upon a defect. My father gave all the sweet sounds of the +world, the voices of his sons, the songs of his daughters, to help free +the Southern slaves. He was deaf. + +It is well known that when one sense is defective the others fly to the +rescue, and my father’s singular development of the sense of smell may +have been due in part to this defect, though I believe it to have been, +to a far larger degree, a native gift. Me had a downright good nose. +All his life long he enjoyed with more than ordinary keenness the odour +of flowers, and would often pick a sprig of wild rose and carry it +along with him in his hand, sniffing at it from time to time, and he +loved the lilac, as I do after him. To ill odours he was not less +sensitive, and was impatient of rats in the barn, and could smell them, +among other odours, the moment the door was opened. He always had a +peculiar sensitiveness to the presence of animals, as of dogs, cats, +muskrats, cattle, horses, and the like, and would speak of them long +before he had seen them or could know that they were about. + +I recall once on a wild Northern lake, when we were working along the +shore in a boat, how he stopped suddenly and exclaimed: + +“David, do you hear anything?”—for I, a boy, was ears for him in those +wilderness places. + +“No, Father. What is it?” + +“Indians.” + +And, sure enough, in a short time I heard the barking of their dogs and +we came soon upon their camp, where, I remember, they were drying deer +meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that +the smoky smell of the Indians, tanned buckskin, parched wild rice, and +the like, were odours that carried far and could not be mistaken. + +My father had a big, hooked nose with long, narrow nostrils, I suppose +that this has really nothing to do with the matter, although I have +come, after these many years, to look with a curious interest upon +people’s noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are. +My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses go—but I think +I inherited from my father something of the power of enjoyment he had +from that sense, though I can never hope to become the accomplished +smeller he was. + +I am moved to begin this chronicle because of my joy this morning +early—a May morning!—just after sunrise, when the shadows lay long and +blue to the west and the dew was still on the grass, and I walked in +the pleasant spaces of my garden. It was so still...so still...that +birds afar off could be heard singing, and once through the crystal air +came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the +silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the +lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries. +Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well knew the +way of the wind, for if I stood to the north of them the odour was less +rich and free than to the south, and I thought I might pose as a +prophet of wind and weather upon the basis of this easy magic, and +predict that the breezes of the day would be from the north—as, indeed, +they later appeared to be. + +I went from clump to clump of the lilacs testing and comparing them +with great joy and satisfaction. They vary noticeably in odour; the +white varieties being the most delicate, while those tending to deep +purple are the richest. Some of the newer double varieties seem less +fragrant—and I have tested them now many times—than the old-fashioned +single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our +smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of +selection for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist has cheated us +of our rightful heritage of fragrance. I have a mind some time to +practise the art of burbankry or other kind of wizardy upon the old +lilac stock and select for odour alone, securing ravishing original +varieties—indeed, whole new gamuts of fragrance. + +I should devise the most animating names for my creations, such as the +Double Delicious, the Air of Arcady, the Sweet Zephyr, and others even +more inviting, which I should enjoy inventing. Though I think surely I +could make my fortune out of this interesting idea, I present it freely +to a scent-hungry world—here it is, gratis!—for I have my time so fully +occupied during all of this and my next two or three lives that I +cannot attend to it. + +I have felt the same defect in the cultivated roses. While the odours +are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white +roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the +fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in +old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some +unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a +feeling—light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny +air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the +wild rose will bring back in all the poignancy of sad happiness a train +of ancient memories old faces, old scenes, old loves—and the wild +thoughts I had when a boy. The first week of the wild-rose blooming, +beginning here about the twenty-fifth of June, is always to me a +memorable time. + +I was a long time learning how to take hold of nature, and think now +with some sadness of all the life I lost in former years. The +impression the earth gave me was confused: I was as one only half +awake. A fine morning made me dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the +heat of the day, and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I +could have explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I +looked about me I began to ask myself, “Why is it that the sight of +these common hills and fields gives me such exquisite delight? And if +it is beauty, why is it beautiful? And if I am so richly rewarded by +mere glimpses, can I not increase my pleasure with longer looks?” + +I tried longer looks both at nature and at the friendly human creatures +all about me. I stopped often in the garden where I was working, or +loitered a moment in the fields, or sat down by the roadside, and +thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully +surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great +Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are +when we penetrate them, and consisted merely in shutting out all other +impressions, feelings, thoughts, and concentrating the full energy of +the attention upon what it was that I saw or heard at that instant. + +At one moment I would let in all the sounds of the earth, at another +all the sights. So we practise the hand at one time, the foot at +another, or learn how to sit or to walk, and so acquire new grace for +the whole body. Should we do less in acquiring grace for the spirit? It +will astonish one who has not tried it how full the world is of sounds +commonly unheard, and of sights commonly unseen, but in their nature, +like the smallest blossoms, of a curious perfection and beauty. + +Out of this practice grew presently, and as it seems to me +instinctively, for I cannot now remember the exact time of its +beginning, a habit of repeating under my breath, or even aloud, and in +a kind of singsong voice, fragmentary words and sentences describing +what it was that I saw or felt at the moment, as, for example: + +“The pink blossoms of the wild crab-apple trees I see from the hill.... +The reedy song of the wood thrush among the thickets of the wild +cherry.... The scent of peach leaves, the odour of new-turned soil in +the black fields.... The red of the maples in the marsh, the white of +apple trees in bloom.... I cannot find Him out—nor know why I am +here....” + +Some form of expression, however crude, seemed to reenforce and +intensify the gatherings of the senses; and these words, afterward +remembered, or even written down in the little book I sometimes carried +in my pocket, seemed to awaken echoes, however faint, of the exaltation +of that moment in the woods or fields, and enabled me to live twice +where formerly I had been able to live but once. + +It was by this simple process of concentrating upon what I saw or heard +that I increased immeasurably my own joy of my garden and fields and +the hills and marshes all about. A little later, for I was a slow +learner, I began to practise the same method with the sense of smell, +and still later with the sense of taste. I said to myself, “I will no +longer permit the avid and eager eye to steal away my whole attention. +I will learn to enjoy more completely all the varied wonders of the +earth.” + +So I tried deliberately shutting the doorways of both sight and +hearing, and centring the industry of my spirit upon the flavours of +the earth. I tested each odour narrowly, compared it well with +remembered odours, and often turned the impression I had into such poor +words as I could command. + +What a new and wonderful world opened to me then! My takings of nature +increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with +my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around +about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. I cannot +explain it rightly, but it was as though I had found a new earth here +within the old one, but more spacious and beautiful than any I had +known before. I have thought, often and often, that this world we live +in so dumbly, so carelessly, would be more glorious than the tinsel +heaven of the poets if only we knew how to lay hold upon it, if only we +could win that complete command of our own lives which is the end of +our being. + +At first, as I said, I stopped my work, or loitered as I walked, in +order to see, or hear, or smell—and do so still, for I have entered +only the antechamber of the treasure-house; but as I learned better the +modest technic of these arts I found that the practice of them went +well with the common tasks of the garden or farm, especially with those +that were more or less monotonous, like cultivating corn, hoeing +potatoes, and the like. + +The air is just as full of good sights and good odours for the worker +as for the idler, and it depends only upon the awareness, the +aliveness, of our own spirits whether we toil like dumb animals or +bless our labouring hours with the beauty of life. Such enjoyment and a +growing command of our surroundings are possible, after a little +practice, without taking much of that time we call so valuable and +waste so sinfully. “I haven’t time,” says the farmer, the banker, the +professor, with a kind of disdain for the spirit of life, when, as a +matter of fact, he has all the time there is, all that anybody has—to +wit, _this_ moment, this great and golden moment!—but knows not how to +employ it. He creeps when he might walk, walks when he might run, runs +when he might fly—and lives like a woodchuck in the dark body of +himself. + +Why, there are men in this valley who scout the idea that farming, +carpentry, merchantry, are anything but drudgery, defend all the evils +known to humankind with the argument that “a man must live,” and laugh +at any one who sees beauty or charm in being here, in working with the +hands, or, indeed, in just living! While they think of themselves +cannily as “practical” men, I think them the most impractical men I +know, for in a world full of boundless riches they remain obstinately +poor. They are unwilling to invest even a few of their dollars unearned +in the real wealth of the earth. For it is only the sense of the spirit +of life, whether in nature or in other human beings, that lifts men +above the beasts and curiously leads them to God, who is the spirit +both of beauty and of friendliness. I say truly, having now reached the +point in my life where it seems to me I care only for writing that +which is most deeply true for me, that I rarely walk in my garden or +upon the hills of an evening without thinking of God. It is in my +garden that all things become clearer to me, even that miracle whereby +one who has offended may still see God; and this I think a wonderful +thing. In my garden I understand dimly why evil is in the world, and in +my garden learn how transitory it is. + +Just now I have come in from work, and will note freshly one of the +best odours I have had to-day. As I was working in the corn, a lazy +breeze blew across the meadows from the west, and after loitering a +moment among the blackberry bushes sought me out where I was busiest. +Do you know the scent of the blackberry? Almost all the year round it +is a treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; but +it reaches crescendo in blossom time when, indeed, I like it least, for +being too strong. It has a curious fragrance, once well called by a +poet “the hot scent of the brier,” and aromatically hot it is and sharp +like the briers themselves. At times I do not like it at all, for it +gives me a kind of faintness, while at other times, as to-day, it fills +me with a strange sense of pleasure as though it were the very breath +of the spicy earth. It is also a rare friend of the sun, for the hotter +and brighter the day, the hotter and sharper the scent of the brier. + +Many of the commonest and least noticed of plants, flowers, trees, +possess a truly fragrant personality if once we begin to know them. I +had an adventure in my own orchard, only this spring, and made a fine +new acquaintance in a quarter least of all expected. I had started down +the lane through the garden one morning in the most ordinary way, with +no thought of any special experience, when I suddenly caught a whiff of +pure delight that stopped me short. + +“What now can _that_ be?” and I thought to myself that nature had +played some new prank on me. + +I turned into the orchard, following my nose. It was not the peach +buds, nor the plums, nor the cherries, nor yet the beautiful new +coloured leaves of the grape, nor anything I could see along the grassy +margin of the pasture. There were other odours all about, old friends +of mine, but this was some shy and pleasing stranger come venturing +upon my land. + +A moment later I discovered a patch of low green verdure upon the +ground, and dismissed it scornfully as one of my ancient enemies. But +it is this way with enemies, once we come to know them, they often turn +out to have a fragrance that is kindly. + +Well, this particular fierce enemy was a patch of chickweed. Chickweed! +Invader of the garden, cossack of the orchard! I discovered, however, +that it was in full bloom and covered with small, star-like white +blossoms. + +“Well, now,” said I, “are you the guilty rascal?” + +So I knelt there and took my delight of it and a rare, delicate good +odour it was. For several days afterward I would not dig out the patch, +for I said to myself, “What a cheerful claim it makes these early days, +when most of the earth is still cold and dead, for a bit of +immortality.” + +The bees knew the secret already, and the hens and the blackbirds! And +I thought it no loss, but really a new and valuable pleasure, to divert +my path down the lane for several days that I might enjoy more fully +this new odour, and make a clear acquaintance with something fine upon +the earth I had not known before. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER II. +OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS + + +Of all times of the day for good odours I think the early morning the +very best, although the evening just after sunset, if the air falls +still and cool, is often as good. Certain qualities or states of the +atmosphere seem to favour the distillation of good odours and I have +known times even at midday when the earth was very wonderful to smell. +There is a curious, fainting fragrance that comes only with sunshine +and still heat. Not long ago I was cutting away a thicket of wild +spiraea which was crowding in upon the cultivated land. It was a hot +day and the leaves wilted quickly, giving off such a penetrating, +fainting fragrance that I let the branches lie where they fell the +afternoon through and came often back to smell of them, for it was a +fine thing thus to discover an odour wholly new to me. + +I like also the first wild, sweet smell of new-cut meadow grass, not +the familiar odour of new-mown hay, which comes a little later, and is +worthy of its good report, but the brief, despairing odour of grass +just cut down, its juices freshly exposed to the sun. One, as it richly +in the fields at the mowing. I like also the midday smell of peach +leaves and peach-tree bark at the summer priming: and have never let +any one else cut out the old canes from the blackberry rows in my +garden for the goodness of the scents which wait upon that work. + +Another odour I have found animating is the odour of burning wastage in +new clearings or in old fields, especially in the evening when the +smoke drifts low along the land and takes to itself by some strange +chemical process the tang of earthy things. It is a true saying that +nothing will so bring back the emotion of a past time as a remembered +odour. I have had from a whiff of fragrance caught in a city street +such a vivid return of an old time and an old, sad scene that I have +stopped, trembling there, with an emotion long spent and I thought +forgotten. + +Once in a foreign city, passing a latticed gateway that closed in a +narrow court, I caught the odour of wild sweet balsam. I do not know +now where it came from, or what could have caused it—but it stopped me +short where I stood, and the solid brick walls of that city rolled +aside like painted curtains, and the iron streets dissolved before my +eyes, and with the curious dizziness of nostalgia, I was myself upon +the hill of my youth—with the gleaming river in the valley, and a hawk +sailing majestically in the high blue of the sky, and all about and +everywhere the balsams—and the balsams—full of the sweet, wild odours +of the north, and of dreaming boyhood. + +And there while my body, the shell of me, loitered in that strange +city, I was myself four thousand miles and a quarter of a century away, +reliving, with a conscious passion that boyhood never knew, a moment +caught up, like a torch, out of the smouldering wreckage of the past. + +Do not tell me that such things die! They all remain with us-all the +sights, and sounds, and thoughts of by-gone times awaiting only the +whiff from some latticed gateway, some closed-in court to spring again +into exuberant life. If only we are ready for the great moment! + +As for the odour of the burning wastage of the fields at evening I +scarcely know if I dare say it. I find it produces in the blood of me a +kind of primitive emotion, as though it stirred memories older than my +present life. Some drowsy cells of the brain awaken to a familiar +stimulus—the odour of the lodge-fire of the savage, the wigwam of the +Indian. Racial memories! + +But it is not the time of the day, nor the turn of the season, nor yet +the way of the wind that matters most but the ardour and glow we +ourselves bring to the fragrant earth. It is a sad thing to reflect +that in a world so overflowing with goodness of smell, of fine sights +and sweet sounds, we pass by hastily and take so little of them. Days +pass when we see no beautiful sight, hear no sweet sound, smell no +memorable odour: when we exchange no single word of deeper +understanding with a friend. We have lived a day and added nothing to +our lives! A blind, grubbing, senseless life—that! + +It is a strange thing, also, that instead of sharpening the tools by +which we take hold of life we make studied efforts to dull them. We +seem to fear life and early begin to stop our ears and close our eyes +lest we hear and see too much: we clog our senses and cloud our minds. +We seek dull security and ease and cease longer to desire adventure and +struggle. And then—the tragedy of it—the poet we all have in us in +youth begins to die, the philosopher in us dies, the martyr in us dies, +so that the long, long time beyond youth with so many of us becomes a +busy death. And this I think truer of men than of women: beyond forty +many women just begin to awaken to power and beauty, but most men +beyond that age go on dying. The task of the artist, whether poet, or +musician, or painter, is to keep alive the perishing spirit of free +adventure in men: to nourish the poet, the prophet, the martyr, we all +have in us. + +One’s sense of smell, like the sense of taste, is sharpest when he is +hungry, and I am convinced also that one sees and hears best when +unclogged with food, undulled with drink, undrugged with smoke. For me, +also, weariness, though not exhaustion, seems to sharpen all the +senses. Keenness goes with leanness. When I have been working hard or +tramping the country roads in the open air and come in weary and hungry +at night and catch the fragrance of the evening along the road or upon +the hill, or at barn-doors smell the unmilked cows, or at the doorway, +the comfortable odours of cooking supper how good that all is! At such +times I know Esau to the core: the forthright, nature-loving, simple +man he was, coming in dabbled with the blood of hunted animals and +hungry for the steaming pottage. + +It follows that if we take excessive joys of one sense, as of taste, +nature, ever seeking just balances, deprives us of the full enjoyment +of the others, “I am stuffed, cousin,” cries Beatrice in the play, “I +cannot smell.” “I have drunk,” remarks the Clown in Arcady, “what are +roses to me?” We forget that there are five chords in the great scale +of life—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and—few of us ever master +the chords well enough to get the full symphony of life, but are +something like little pig-tailed girls playing Peter Piper with one +finger while all the music of the universe is in the Great Instrument, +and all to be had for the taking. + +Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or +unnecessary: and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in +spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even +welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place. Some smells, evil +at first, become through usage not unpleasant. I once stopped with a +wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside +when I came in. He said it was “good and strong” and sniffed it with +appreciation. I agreed with him that it was strong. To him it was not +unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge. All +nature seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of +decay she is speeding decay: and a manured field produces later the +best of all odours. Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire +an evil odour: and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be +plenty of sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of +men. If they are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER III. +FOLLOW YOUR NOSE! + + +“Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn— +Look to this day! For it is Life, +The very Life of Life!” + +On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, +lift his head to the sky—and follow his nose.... + +It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down +the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh +begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was +fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were +drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into +faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence. + +It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, +so airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine +and spring morning—so that one’s spirit dissolved in it, became a part +of it. Such a morning! Such a morning! + +From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land. + +It was the time of all times for good odours—soon after sunrise—before +the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night. + +In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon +the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could +not at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from +the general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across +the moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that +the faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly +again, and just as I was saying to myself, “I’ve got it, I’ve got +it!”—for it is a great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the +fields—I saw, near the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry +bushes, a thorn-apple tree in full bloom. + +“So there you are!” I said. + +I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its +fragrance. The sun, looking over the taller trees to the east, had +crowned the top of it with gold, so that it was beautiful to see; and +it was full of honey bees as excited as I. + +A score of feet onward toward the wind, beyond the thorn-apple tree, I +passed wholly out of the range of its fragrance into another world, and +began trying for some new odour. After one or two false scents, for +this pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour +long known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. +It led me still a little distance northward to a sunny slope just +beyond a bit of marsh, and, sure enough, I found an old friend, the +wild sweet geranium, a world of it, in full bloom, and I sat down there +for some time to enjoy it fully. + +Beyond that, and across a field wild with tangles of huckleberry bushes +and sheep laurel where the bluets and buttercups were blooming, and in +shady spots the shy white violet, I searched for the odour of a certain +clump of pine trees I discovered long ago. I knew that I must come upon +it soon, but could not tell just when or where. I held up a moistened +finger to make sure of the exact direction of the wind, and bearing, +then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it—as a hunter might +surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and +through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose +for an instant the scent I was following—even though I stopped in a low +spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom—and +came thus to the pines I was seeking. They are not great trees, nor +noble, but gnarled and angular and stunted, for the soil in that place +is poor and thin, and the winds in winter keen; but the brown blanket +of needles they spread and the shade they offer the traveller are not +less hospitable; nor the fragrance they give off less enchanting. The +odour of the pine is one I love. + +I sat down there in a place I chose long ago—a place already as +familiar with pleasing memories as a favourite room—so that I wonder +that some of the notes I have written there do not of themselves exhale +the very odour of the pines. + +And all about was hung a fair tapestry of green, and the earthy floor +was cleanly carpeted with brown, and the roof above was in arched +mosaic, the deep, deep blue of the sky seen through the gnarled and +knotted branches of the pines. Through a little opening among the +trees, as through a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide +meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the +open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I +heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing +up quickly I saw my early visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you +please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far +out on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, +like a sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked—a +downy woodpecker. + +“Good morning, sir,” I said. + +He stopped for scarcely a second, cocked one eye at me, and went back +to his work again. Who was I that I should interrupt his breakfast? + +And I was glad I was there, and I began enumerating, as though I were +the accredited reporter for the _Woodland Gazette_, all the good news +of the day. + +“The beech trees.” said aloud, “have come at last to full leafage. The +wild blackberries are ready to bloom, the swamp roses are budded. Brown +planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from +their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I +do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the +drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for +Walt the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the +pine is as sweet—” + +At that moment, like a flame for clearness, I understood some of the +deep and simple things of life, as that we are to be like the friendly +pines, and the elm trees, and the open fields, and reject no man and +judge no man. Once, a long time ago, I read a sober treatise by one who +tried to prove with elaborate knowledge that, upon the whole, good was +triumphant in this world, and that probably there was a God, and I +remember going out dully afterward upon the hill, for I was weighed +down with a strange depression, and the world seemed to me a hard, +cold, narrow place where good must be heavily demonstrated in books. +And as I sat there the evening fell, a star or two came out in the +clear blue of the sky, and suddenly it became all simple to me, so that +I laughed aloud at that laborious big-wig for spending so many futile +years in seeking doubtful proof of what he might have learned in one +rare home upon my hill. And far more than he could prove far more. + +As I came away from that place I knew I should never again be quite the +same person I was before. + +[Illustration] + +Well, we cannot remain steadily upon the heights. At least I cannot, +and would not if I could. After I have been out about so long on such +an adventure as this, something lets go inside of me, and I come down +out of the mountain—and yet know deeply that I have been where the bush +was burning; and have heard the Voice in the Fire. + +So it was yesterday morning. I realized suddenly that I was +hungry—commonly, coarsely hungry. My whole attention, I was going to +say my whole soul, shifted to the thought of ham and eggs! This may +seem a tremendous anti-climax, but it is, nevertheless, a sober report +of what happened. At the first onset of this new mood, the ham-and-eggs +mood, let us call it, I was a little ashamed or abashed at the +remembrance of my wild flights, and had a laugh at the thought of +myself floundering around in the marshes and fields a mile from home, +when Harriet, no doubt, had breakfast waiting for me! What absurd, +contradictory, inconsistent, cowardly creatures we are, anyway! + +The house seemed an inconceivable distance away, and the only real +thing in the world the gnawing emptiness under my belt. And I was wet +to my knees, and the tangled huckleberry bushes and sheep laurel and +hardback I had passed through so joyously a short time before now clung +heavily about my legs as I struggled through them. And the sun was hot +and high—and there were innumerable small, black buzzing flies. + +To cap the climax, whom should I meet as I was crossing the fence into +the lower land but my friend Horace, He had been out early looking for +a cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them +slowly up the lane, the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, +the calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about upon uncertain legs. + +“Takin’ the air, David?” + +I amuse Horace. Horace is an important man in this community. He has +big, solid barns, and money in the bank, and a reputation for +hardheadedness. He is also known as a “driver”; and has had sore +trouble with a favourite son. He believes in “goin’ it slow” and +“playin’ safe,” and he is convinced that “ye can’t change human +nature.” + +His question came to me with a kind of shock. I imagined with a +vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered +him squarely and honestly, if I were to say: + +“I’ve been down in the marshes following my nose—enjoying the thorn +apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting +the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper.” + +I was hungry, and in a mood to smile at myself anyway (good-humouredly +and forgivingly as we always smile at ourselves!) before I met Horace, +and the flashing vision I had of Horace’s dry, superior smile finished +me. Was there really anything in this world but cows and calves, and +great solid barns, and oatcrops, and cash in the bank? + +“Been in the brook?” asked Horace, observing my wet legs. + +Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to +the courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest +things we have in us! I was not equal to it. + +“Oh, I’ve been down for a tramp in the marsh,” I said, trying to put +him off. + +But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to +chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them +ultimately with the impression that they are somehow less sound, +sensible, practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because +he is right, but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy +halt-beliefs and half-believers he is without doubts. + +“What ye find down there?” asked Horace. + +“Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on.” + +“Hm-m,” said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he +continued, “Often git out in the morning as early as this?” + +“Yes,” I said, “often.” + +“And do you find things any different now from what they would be later +in the day?” + +At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to +revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can’t laugh, we +do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we +can fight! And be honest! + +“Horace,” I said, “I know what you are thinking about.” + +Horace’s face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of +curiosity in his eye. + +“You’ve been thinking I’ve been wasting my time beating around down +there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things—which you +wouldn’t do. You think I’m a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don’t +you, Horace? I’ll warrant you’ve told your wife just that more than +once. Come, now!” + +I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and +a little foolish. + +“Come now, honest!” I laughed and looked him in the eye. + +“Waal, now, ye see—” + +“Of course you do, and I don’t mind it in the least.” + +A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye. + +“Ain’t ye?” + +It’s a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend. + +“No,” I said, “I’m the practical man and you’re the dreamer. I’ve +rarely known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you +are, nor a more impractical one.” + +Horace laughed. + +“How do ye make that out?” + +With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as +good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the +offensive. + +“Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?” + +This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred +human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying, +thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why. + +“Why, to make a living—same as you,” said Horace. + +“Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor +neighbour of mine, that’s you, Horace, was just making his living, that +he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you +working for? It’s something more than a mere living.” + +“Waal, now, I’ll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I’m layin’ aside a +little something for a rainy day.” + +“A little something!” this in the exact inflection of irony by which +here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a +good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also +in the exact manner of one so complimented. + +“Horace, what are you going to do with that thirty thousand dollars?” + +“Thirty thousand!” Horace looks at me and smiles, and I look at Horace +and smile. + +“Honest now!” + +“Waal, I’ll tell ye—a little peace and comfort for me and Josie in our +old age, and a little something to make the children remember us when +we’re gone. Isn’t that worth working for?” + +He said this with downright seriousness. I did not press him further, +but if I had tried I could probably have got the even deeper admission +of that faith that lies, like bed rock, in the thought of most men—that +honesty and decency here will not be without its reward there, however +they may define the “there.” Some “prophet’s paradise to come!” + +“I knew it!” I said. “Horace, you’re a dreamer, too. You are dreaming +of peace and comfort in your old age, a little quiet house in town +where you won’t have to labour as hard as you do now, where you won’t +be worried by crops and weather, and where Mrs. Horace will be able to +rest after so many years of care and work and sorrow—a kind of earthly +heaven! And you are dreaming of leaving a bit to your children and +grandchildren, and dreaming of the gratitude they will express. All +dreams, Horace!” + +“Oh, waal——” + +“The fact is, you are working for a dream, and living on dreams—isn’t +that true?” + +“Waal, now, if you mean it that way——” + +“I see I haven’t got you beaten yet, Horace!” + +He smiled broadly, + +“We are all amiable enough with our own dreams. You think that what you +are working for—your dream—is somehow sounder and more practical than +what I am working for.” + +Horace started to reply, but had scarcely debouched from his trenches +when I opened on him with one of my twenty-fours. + +“How do you know that you are ever going to be old?” + +It hit. + +“And if you do grow old, how do you know that thirty thousand +dollars—oh, we’ll call it that—is really enough, provided you don’t +lose it before, to buy peace and comfort for you, or that what you +leave your children will make either you or them any happier? Peace and +comfort and happiness are terribly expensive, Horace—and prices have +been going up fast since this war began!” + +Horace looked at me uncomfortably, as men do in the world when you +shake the foundations of the tabernacle. I have thought since that I +probably pressed him too far; but these things go deep with me. + +“No, Horace,” I said, “you are the dreamer—and the impractical dreamer +at that!” + +For a moment Horace answered nothing; and we both stood still there in +the soft morning sunshine with the peaceful fields and woods all about +us, two human atoms struggling hotly with questions too large for us. +The cow and the new calf were long out of sight. Horace made a motion +as if to follow them up the lane, but I held him with my glittering +eye—as I think of it since, not without a kind of amusement at my own +seriousness. + +“I’m the practical man, Horace, for I want my peace now, and my +happiness now, and my God now. I can’t wait. My barns may burn or my +cattle die, or the solid bank where I keep my deferred joy may fail, or +I myself by to-morrow be no longer here.” + +So powerfully and vividly did this thought take possession of me that I +cannot now remember to have said a decent good-bye to Horace (never +mind, he knows me!). At least when I was halfway up the hill I found +myself gesticulating with one clenched fist and saying to myself with a +kind of passion: “Why wait to be peaceful? Why not be peaceful now? Why +not be happy now? Why not be rich now?” + +For I think it truth that a life uncommanded now is uncommanded; a life +unenjoyed now is unenjoyed; a life not lived wisely now is not lived +wisely: for the past is gone and no one knows the future. + +As for Horace is he convinced that he is an impractical dreamer. Not a +bit of it! He was merely flurried for a moment in his mind, and +probably thinks me now, more than ever before, just what I think him. +Absurd place, isn’t it, this world? + +So I reached home at last. You have no idea, unless you have tried it +yourself, how good breakfast tastes alter a three-mile tramp in the +sharp morning air. The odour of ham and eggs, and new muffins, and +coffee, as you come up the hill, there is an odour for you! And it was +good to see Harriet. + +“Harriet,” I said, “you are a sight for tired eyes.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IV. +THE GREEN PEOPLE + + +I have always had a fondness, when upon my travels about the world of +the near-by woods and fields, for nipping a bit of a twig here and +there and tasting the tart or bitter quality of it. I suppose the +instinct descends to me from the herbivorous side of my distant +ancestry. I love a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet +inside bark, or a pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a +spike of timothy grass drawn slowly from its close-fitting sheath, or a +twig of the birch that tastes like wintergreen. + +I think this no strange or unusual instinct, for I have seen many other +people doing it, especially farmers around here, who go through the +fields nipping the new oats, testing the red-top, or chewing a bit of +sassafras bark. I have in mind a clump of shrubbery in the town road, +where an old house once stood, of the kind called here by some the +“sweet-scented shrub,” and the brandies of it nearest the road are +quite clipped and stunted I’m being nipped at by old ladies who pass +that way and take to it like cat to catnip. + +For a long time this was a wholly unorganized, indeed all but +unconscious, pleasure, a true pattern of the childish way we take hold +of the earth; but when I began to come newly alive to all things as I +have already related—I chanced upon this curious, undeveloped instinct. + +“What is it I have here?” I asked myself, for I thought this might be a +new handle for getting hold of nature. + +Along one edge of my field is a natural hedge of wild cherry, young +elms and ashes, dogwood, black raspberry bushes and the like, which has +long been a pleasure to the eye, especially in the early morning when +the shadows of it lie long and cool upon the meadow. Many times I have +walked that way to admire it, or to listen for the catbirds that nest +there, or to steal upon a certain gray squirrel who comes out from his +home in the chestnut tree on a fine morning to inspect his premises. + +It occurred to me one day that I would make the acquaintance of this +hedge in a new way; so I passed slowly along it where the branches of +the trees brushed my shoulder and picked a twig here and there and bit +it through. “This is cherry,” I said; “this is elm, this is dogwood.” +And it was a fine adventure to know old friends in new ways, for I had +never thought before to test the trees and shrubs by their taste and +smell. After that, whenever I passed that way, I closed my eyes and +tried for further identifications by taste, and was soon able to tell +quickly half a dozen other varieties of trees, shrubs, and smaller +plants along that bit of meadow. + +Presently, as one who learns to navigate still water near shore longs +for more thrilling voyages, I tried the grassy old roads in the woods, +where young trees and other growths were to be found in great variety: +and had a joy of it I cannot describe, for old and familiar places were +thus made new and wonderful to me. And when I think of those places, +now, say in winter, I grasp them more vividly and strongly than ever I +did before, for I think not only how they look, but how they taste and +smell, and I even know many of the growing things by the touch of them. +It is certain that our grasp of life is in direct proportion to the +variety and warmth of the ways in which we lay hold of it. No thought +no beauty and no joy. + +On these excursions I have often reflected that if I were blind, I +should still find here unexplored joys of life, and should make it a +point to know all the friendly trees and shrubs around about by the +taste or smell or touch of them. I think seriously that this method of +widening the world of the blind, and increasing their narrower joys, +might well be developed, though it would be wise for such as do take it +to borrow first the eyes of a friend to see that no poison ivy, which +certain rascally birds plant along our fences and hedges, is lurking +about. + +Save for this precaution I know of nothing that will injure the taster, +though he must be prepared, here and there, for shocks and thrills of +bitterness. A lilac leaf, for example, and to a scarcely lesser degree +the willow and the poplar are, when bitten through, of a penetrating +and intense bitterness; but do no harm, and will daunt no one who is +really adventurous. There is yet to be written a botany, or, better +yet, a book of nature, for the blind. + +It is by knowing human beings that we come to understand them, and by +understanding them come to love them, and so it is with the green +people. When I was a boy in the wild north country trees were enemies +to be ruthlessly fought—to be cut down, sawed, split, burned—anything +to be rid of them. The ideal in making a home place was to push the +forest as far away from it as possible. But now, when I go to the +woods, it is like going among old and treasured friends, and with riper +acquaintance the trees come to take on, curiously, a kind of +personality, so that I am much fonder of some trees than of others, and +instinctively seek out the companionship of certain trees in certain +moods, as one will his friends. + +I love the unfolding beeches in spring, and the pines in winter; the +elms I care for afar off, like great aloof men, whom I can admire; but +for friendly confidences give me an apple tree in an old green meadow. + +[Illustration] + +In this more complete understanding I have been much aided by getting +hold of my friends of the hedges and hills in the new ways I have +described. At times I even feel that I have become a fully accepted +member of the Fraternity of the Living Earth, for I have already +received many of the benefits which go with that association; and I +know now for a certainty that it makes no objection to its members +because they are old, or sad, or have sinned, but welcomes them all +alike. + +The essential taste of the cherry and peach and all their numerous +relatives is, in variation, that of the peach pit, so that the whole +tribe may be easily recognized, though it was some time before I could +tell with certainty the peach from the cherry. The oak shoot, when +chewed a little, tastes exactly like the smell of new oak lumber; the +maple has a peculiar taste and smell of its own that I can find no +comparison for, and the poplar is one of the bitterest trees that ever +I have tasted. The trees—pines, spruces, hemlocks, balsams, cedars—are +to me about the pleasantest of all, both in taste and odour, and though +the spruces and pines taste and smell much alike at first, one soon +learns to distinguish them. The elm has a rather agreeable, +nondescript, bitterish taste, but the linden is gummy and of a mediocre +quality, like the tree itself, which I dislike. Some of the sweetest +flowering shrubs, such as the lilac, have the bitterest of leaves and +twigs or, like certain kinds of clematis, have a seed that when green +is sharper than cayenne pepper, while others, like the rose, are +pleasanter in flavour. The ash tree is not too bitter and a little +sour. + +I give here only a few of the commoner examples, for I wish to make +this no tedious catalogue of the flavours of the green people. I am not +a scientist, nor would wish to be taken for one. Only last winter I had +my pretensions sadly shocked when I tasted twigs cut from various trees +and shrubs and tried to identify them by taste or by smell, and while +it was a pleasing experiment I found I could not certainly place above +half of them; partly, no doubt, because many growing things keep their +flavours well wrapped up in winter. No, I have not gone far upon this +pleasant road, but neither am I in any great hurry; for there yet +remains much time in this and my future lives to conquer the secrets of +the earth. I plan to devote at least one entire life to science, and +may find I need several! + +One great reason why the sense of taste and the sense of smell have not +the same honour as the sense of sight or of hearing is that no way has +yet been found to make a true art of either. For sight, we have +painting, sculpturing, photography, architecture, and the like; and for +hearing, music; and for both, poetry and the drama. But the other +senses are more purely personal, and have not only been little studied +or thought about, but are the ones least developed, and most dimmed and +clogged by the customs of our lives. + +For the sense of smell we have, indeed, the perfumer’s art, but a poor +rudimentary art it is, giving little freedom for the artist who would +draw his inspirations freshly from nature. I can, indeed, describe +poorly in words the odours of this June morning—the mingled lilacs, +late wild cherries, new-broken soil, and the fragrance of the sun on +green verdure, for there are here both lyrical and symphonic odours—but +how inadequate it is! I can tell you what I feel and smell and taste, +and give you, perhaps, a desire another spring to spend the months of +May and June in the country, but I can scarcely make you live again the +very moment of life I have lived, which is the magic quality of the +best art. The art of the perfumer which, like all crude art, thrives +upon blatancy, does not make us go to gardens, or love the rose, but +often instils in us a kind of artificiality, so that perfumes, so far +from being an inspiration to us, increasing our lives, become often the +badge of the abnormal, used by those unsatisfied with simple, clean, +natural things. + +And as a people deficient in musical art delights in ragtime tunes, so +a people deficient in the true art of tasting and smelling delights in +ragtime odours and ragtime tastes. + +I do not know that the three so-called lesser senses will ever be +organized to the point where they are served by well-established arts, +but this I do know—that there are three great ways of entering upon a +better understanding of this magic earth which are now neglected. + +I think we have come upon hasty and heated days, and are too much +mastered by the god of hurry and the swift and greedy eye. We accept +flashing pictures of life for life itself; we rush here and rush there +and, having arrived, rush away again—to what sensible purpose? Be still +a little! Be still! + +I do not mean by stillness, stagnation not yet lazy contentment, but +life more deeply thought about, more intensely realized, an activity so +concentrated that it is quiet. Be still then! + +So it is that, though I am no worshipper of the old, I think the older +gardeners had in some ways a better practice of the art than we have, +for they planted not for the eye alone but for the nose and the sense +of taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb’s tongue, to +gratify, curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, +and appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am +greatly fond of, and like to snip a leaf as I go by to smell or taste; +but many of them, I here confess, have for me a rank and culinary +odour—as sage and thyme and the bold scarlet monarda, sometimes called +bergamot. + +But if their actual fragrance is not always pleasing, and their uses +are now grown obscure, I love well the names of many of them—whether +from ancient association or because the words themselves fall +pleasantly upon the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, +anise and summer savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! +Cumin! And “there’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray you, love, +remember,... there’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue for +you: and here’s some for me—” All sweet names that one loves to roll +under his tongue. + +I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when +I go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names +as I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well +enough. + +It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We +are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy +ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather +than for life. + +And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who +lives not a thousand miles from here—I must not tell his name—whose +greatest word is “proportion.” At this moment, as I write, I can hear +the roll of his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r—prop-o-rtion. +He is the kind of man good to know and to trust. + +If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is +a fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his +eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally: +“Well—well!” + +He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing +up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there’s nothing +more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in +daylight! And he inquires into their ancestry, makes them run out their +tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that +they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for +their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a +church, a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashion, lest he see +something else too small; but will have everything, as he says, in true +proportion. If he occasionally favours a little that which is old, +solid, well-placed, it is scarcely to be measured to him as a fault in +an age so overwhelmed with the shiny new. + +He is a fine, up-standing, hearty old gentleman with white hair and +rosy cheeks, and the bright eyes of one who has lived all his life with +temperance. One incident I cannot resist telling, though it has nothing +directly to do with this story, but it will let you know what kind of a +man my old friend is, and when all is said, it would be a fine thing to +know about any man. Not long ago he was afflicted with a serious loss, +a loss that would have crushed some men, but when I met him not long +afterward, though the lines around his eyes were grown deeper, he +greeted me in his old serene, courtly manner, When I would have +comforted him with my sympathy, for I felt myself near enough to speak +of his loss, he replied calmly: + +“How can we know whether a thing is evil until we reach the end of it? +It may be good!” + +One of the events I esteem among the finest of the whole year is my old +friend’s birthday party. Every winter, on the twenty-sixth of February, +a party of his friends drop in to see him. Some of us go out of habit, +drawn by our affection for the old gentleman; others, I think, he +invites, for he knows to perfection the delicate shadings of +companionship which divide those who come unbidden from those, not less +loved but shyer, who must be summoned. + +Now this birthday gathering has one historic ceremony which none of us +would miss, because it expresses so completely the essence of our +friend’s generous and tolerant, but just, nature. He is, as I have +said, a temperate man, and dislikes as much as any one I know the whole +alcohol business; but living in a community where the struggle for +temperance has often been waged intemperately, and where there is a +lurking belief that cudgelling laws can make men virtuous, he publishes +abroad once a year his declaration of independence. + +After we have been with our friend for an hour or so, and are well +warmed and happy with the occasion, he rises solemnly and goes to the +toby-closet at the end of his generous fireplace, where the apple-log +specially cut for the occasion is burning merrily, and as we all fall +silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from +the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he +gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too. +Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive glasses +that have been polished until they shine for the great occasion, and, +having filled them all with the ripe liquor, he passes them around to +each of us. We have all risen and are becomingly solemn as he now +proposes the toast of the year—and it is always the same toast: + +“Here’s to moderation—in all things!” + +He takes a sip or two, and continues: + +“Here’s to temperance—the queen of the virtues.” + +So we all drink off our glasses. Our mellow old friend smacks his lips, +corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his toby-closet, where it +reposes undisturbed for another year. + +“And now, gentlemen,” he says, heartily, “let us go in to dinner.”... + +As I think of it, now that it is written, this story bears no very +close relationship to my original subject, and yet it seemed to follow +naturally enough as I set it down, and to belong with the simple and +well-flavoured things of the garden and fields; and recalling the +advice of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, “never to alter +a thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely +to pass into that of another more readily and with more effect than +anything which you can by reflection invent,” I leave it here just as I +wrote it, hoping that the kinship of my genial old friend with simple +and natural and temperate things may plainly appear. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER V. +PLACES OF RETIREMENT + + +“Good God, how sweet are all things here! +How beautiful the fields appear! + How cleanly do we feed and lie! +Lord, what good hours do we keep! +How quietly we sleep!” + + +CHARLES COTTON (a friend of Izaak Walton) + + +_April 29th_. + +I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out +with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was +myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from +me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling +of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of +frogs from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests +attention. Of odours, a-plenty! Just behind me, so that by turning my +head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock +trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet. All the earth the +very earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell. + +These things have been here a thousand years a million years and yet +they are not stale, but are ever fresh, ever serene, ever here to +loosen one’s crabbed spirit and make one quietly happy. It seems to me +I could not live if it were not possible often to come thus alone to +the woods. + +...On later walking I discover that here and there on warm southern +slopes the dog-tooth violet is really in bloom, and worlds of hepatica, +both lavender and white, among the brown leaves. One of the notable +sights of the hillsides at this time of the year is the striped maple, +the long wands rising straight and chaste among thickets of +less-striking young birches and chestnuts, and having a bud of a +delicate pink—a marvel of minute beauty. A little trailing arbutus I +found and renewed my joy with one of the most exquisite odours of all +the spring; Solomon’s seal thrusting up vivid green cornucopias from +the lifeless earth, and often near a root or stone the red partridge +berries among their bright leaves. The laurel on the hills is sharply +visible, especially when among deciduous trees, and along the old brown +roads are patches of fresh wintergreen. In a cleft of the hills near +the top of Norwottuck, though the day is warm, I found a huge +snowbank—the last held trench of old winter, the last guerilla of the +cold, driven to the fastnesses of the hills.... I have enjoyed this day +without trying. After the first hour or so of it all the worries +dropped away, all the ambitions, all the twisted thoughts— + +It is strange how much thrilling joy there is in the discovery of the +ages-old miracle of returning life in the woods: each green adventurer, +each fragrant joy, each bird-call—and the feel of the soft, warm +sunshine upon one’s back after months of winter. On any terms life is +good. The only woe, the only Great Woe, is the woe of never having been +born. Sorrow, yes; failure, yes; weakness, yes the sad loss of dear +friends—yes! But oh, the good God: I still live! + +Being alone without feeling alone is one of the great experiences of +life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable +possession. People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all +the happiness they find there they must take with them. Thus they +divert and distract that within them which creates power and joy, until +by flying always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from +without rather than from within, they become infinitely boresome to +themselves, so that they can scarcely bear a moment of their own +society. + +But if once a man have a taste of true and happy retirement, though it +be but a short hour, or day, now and then, he has found, or is +beginning to find, a sure place of refuge, of blessed renewal, toward +which in the busiest hours he will find his thoughts wistfully +stealing. How stoutly will he meet the buffets of the world if he knows +he has such a place of retirement where all is well-ordered and full of +beauty, and right counsels prevail, and true things are noted. + +As a man grows older, if he cultivate the art of retirement, not indeed +as an end in itself, but as a means of developing a richer and freer +life, he will find his reward growing surer and greater until in time +none of the storms or shocks of life any longer disturbs him. He might +in time even reach the height attained by Diogenes, of whom Epictetus +said, “It was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man +the means of laying hold upon him to enslave him. He had everything +easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his +property, he would rather have let it go and be yours than he would +have followed you for it; if you laid hold of his leg he would have let +go his leg: if all of his body, all his poor body; his intimates, +friends, country, just the same. For he knew from whence he had them, +and from whom and on what conditions.” + +The best partners of solitude are books. I like to take a book with me +in my pocket, although I find the world so full of interesting +things—sights, sounds, odours—that often I never read a word in it. It +is like having a valued friend with you, though you walk for miles +without saying a word to him or he to you: but if you really know your +friend, it is a curious thing how, subconsciously, you are aware of +what he is thinking and feeling about this hillside or that distant +view. And so it is with books. It is enough to have this writer in your +pocket, for the very thought of him and what he would say to these old +fields and pleasant trees is ever freshly delightful. And he never +interrupts at inconvenient moments, nor intrudes his thoughts upon +yours unless you desire it. + +I do not want long books and least of all story books in the +woods—these are for the library—but rather scraps and extracts and +condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and +carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all +kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled “Traveller’s Joy,” another, +“Songs of Nature,” and I have lately found the best one I know called +“The Spirit of Man” by Robert Bridges, the English laureate. Other +little books that fit well in the pocket on a tramp, because they are +truly companionable, are Ben Jonson’s “Timber,” one of the very best, +and William Penn’s “Fruits of Solitude.” An anthology of Elizabethan +verse, given me by a friend, is also a good companion. + +It is not a discourse or a narrative we want as we walk abroad, but +conversation. Neither do we want people or facts or stories, but a +person. So I open one of these little books and read therein the +thoughtful remark of a wise companion. This I may reply to, or merely +enjoy, as I please. I am in no hurry, as I might be with a living +companion, for my book friend, being long dead, is not impatient and +gives me time to reply, and is not resentful if I make no reply at all. +Submitted to such a test as this few writers, old or new, give +continued profit or delight. To be considered in the presence of the +great and simple things of nature, or worn long in the warm places of +the spirit, a writer must have supreme qualities of sense or humour, a +great sensitiveness to beauty, or a genuine love of goodness—but above +all he must somehow give us the flavour of personality. He must be a +true companion of the spirit. + +There is an exercise given to young soldiers which consists in raising +the hands slowly above the head, taking in a full breath at the same +time, and then letting them down in such a way as to square the +shoulders. This leaves the body erect, the head high, the eyes straight +ahead, the lungs full of good air. It is the attitude that every man at +arms should wish to take, After a day in the woods I feel some such +erectness of spirit, a life of the head, and a clearer and calmer +vision, for I have raised up my hands to the heavens, and drawn in the +odours and sights and sounds of the good earth. + +One of the great joys of such times of retirement perhaps the greatest +of the joys is the return, freshened and sweetened, to the common life. +How good then appear the things of the garden and farm, the house and +shop, that weariness had staled; how good the faces of friends. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VI. +NO TRESPASS + + +I live in a country of beautiful hills, and in the last few years, +since I have been here with Harriet, I have made familiar and pleasant +acquaintance with several of them.... + +One hill I know is precious to me for a peculiar reason. Upon the side +of it, along the town road, are two or three old farms with lilacs like +trees about their doorways, and ancient apple orchards with great +gnarly branches, and one has an old garden of hollyhocks, larkspurs, +zinnias, mignonette, and I know not how many other old-fashioned +flowers. Wild grapes there are along the neglected walls, and in a +corner of one of them, by a brook, a mass of sweet currant which in +blossom time makes all that bit of valley a bower of fragrance, I have +gone that way often in spring for the sheer joy of the friendly odours +I had across the ancient stone fences. + +The largest and stoniest of the farms is owned by an old man named +Howieson. A strange, brown-clad, crooked, crabbed old man, I have seen +him often creeping across his fields with his horses. An ineffective +worker all his life long, he has scarcely made a living from his stony +acres. His farm is tipped up behind upon the hill and runs below to the +brook, and the buildings are old and worn, and a rocky road goes by to +the town. Once, in more prosperous days, before the factories took over +the winter work of these hill farms, the busy families finished shoes, +and wove cloth, and plaited straw hats—and one I know was famous for +wooden bowls craftily hollowed out of maple knots—and the hill people +relied upon their stony fields for little more than their food. But in +these later days, the farm industries are gone, the houses are no +longer overflowing with children, for there is nothing for children to +do, and those who remain are old or discouraged. Some homes have +entirely disappeared, so that all that remains is a clump of lilacs or +a wild tangle of rose bushes about a grass-covered or bush-grown cellar +wall. The last thing to disappear is not that which the old farmers +most set their hearts upon, their fine houses and barns or their +cultivated fields, but the one touch of beauty they left—lilac clump or +rose-tangle. + +Old Howieson, with that passion for the sense of possession which +thrives best when the realities of possession are slipping away, has +posted all his fields with warnings against intrusion. You may not +enter this old field, nor walk by this brook, nor climb this hill, for +all this belongs, in fee simple, to James Howieson! + +[Illustration] + +For a long time I did not meet James Howieson face to face, though I +had often seen his signs, and always with a curious sense of the +futility of them. I did not need to enter his fields, nor climb his +hill, nor walk by his brook, but as the springs passed and the autumns +whitened into winter, I came into more and more complete possession of +all those fields that he so jealously posted. I looked with strange joy +upon his hill, saw April blossom in his orchard, and May colour the +wild grape leaves along his walls. June I smelled in the sweet vernal +of his hay fields, and from the October of his maples and beeches I +gathered rich crops and put up no hostile signs of ownership, paid no +taxes, worried over no mortgage, and often marvelled that he should be +so poor within his posted domain and I so rich without. + +One who loves a hill, or a bit of valley, will experiment long until he +finds the best spot to take his joy of it; and this is no more than the +farmer himself does when he experiments year after year to find the +best acres for his potatoes, his corn, his oats, his hay. Intensive +cultivation is as important in these wider fields of the spirit as in +any other. If I consider the things that I hear and see and smell, and +the thoughts that go with them or grow out of them, as really valuable +possessions, contributing to the wealth of life, I cannot see why I +should not willingly give to them a tenth or a hundredth part of the +energy and thought I give to my potatoes or my blackberries or to the +writing I do. + +I chose a place in a field just below Old Howieson’s farm, where there +is a thorn-apple tree to sit or lie under. From the thorn-apple tree, +by turning my head in one direction, I can look up at the crown of the +hill with its green hood of oaks and maples and chestnuts, and high +above it I can see the clouds floating in the deep sky, or, if I turn +my head the other way, for I am a kind of monarch there on the hill and +command the world to delight me, I can look off across the pleasant +valley with its spreading fields and farmsteads set about with trees, +and the town slumbering by the riverside. I come often with a little +book in one pocket to read from, and a little book in the other to +write in, but I rarely use either the one or the other, for there is +far too much to see and think about. + +From this spot I make excursions round about, and have had many strange +and interesting adventures: and now find thoughts of mine, like +lichens, upon all the boulders and old walls and oak trees of that +hillside. Sometimes I climb to the top of the hill. If I am in a +leisurely mood I walk lawfully around Old Howieson’s farm by a kind of +wood lane that leads to the summit, but often I cross his walls, all +regardless of his trespass signs, and go that way to the top. + +[Illustration] + +It was on one of these lawless excursions in Old Howieson’s field that +I first saw that strange old fellow who is known hereabout as the +Herbman. I came upon him so suddenly that I stopped short, curiously +startled, as one is startled at finding anything human that seems less +than human. He was kneeling there among the low verdure of a shallow +valley, and looked like an old gray rock or some prehistoric animal. I +stopped to look at him, but he paid no heed, and seemed only to shrink +into himself as though, if he kept silent, he might be taken for stock +or stone. I addressed him but he made no answer. I went nearer, with a +sensation of uncanny wonder; but he did not so much as glance up at me, +though he knew I was there. His old brown basket was near him and the +cane beside it. He was gathering pennyroyal. + +“Another man who is taking an unexpected crop from Old Howieson’s +acres,” I thought to myself. + +I watched him for some moments, quite still, as one might watch a +turtle or a woodchuck—and left him there. + +Since then I have heard something about him, and seen him once or +twice. A strange old man, a wanderer upon the face of the fragrant +earth. Spring and summer he wears always an old overcoat, and carries a +basket with double covers, very much worn and brown with usage. His +cane is of hickory with a crooked root for a handle, this also shiny +with age. He gathers bitter-bark, tansy; ginseng, calamus, smartweed, +and slippery elm, and from along old fences and barnyards, catnip and +boneset, I suppose he lives somewhere, a hole in a log, or the limb of +a tree, but no one knows where it is, or how he dries or cures his +findings. No one knows his name: perhaps he has forgotten it himself. A +name is no great matter anyway. He is called simply the Herbman. He +drifts into our valley in the spring, is seen here and there on the +hills or in the fields, like the crows or the blackbirds, and +disappears in the fall with the robins and the maple leaves. Perhaps he +is one of those favoured souls to whom life is all spring and summer. + +The age has passed him by, and except for certain furtive old women, +few care now for his sovereign remedies. + +I met him once in the town road, and he stopped humbly without lifting +his eyes, and opening his basket let out into the air such a fragrance +of ancient simples as I never smelled before. He said nothing at all; +but took out dry bundles of catnip, sassafras, slippery elm, to show +me. He had also pennyroyal for healing teas, and calamus and +bitter-bark for miseries. I selected a choice assortment of his wares +to take home to Harriet, but could get him to name no price. He took +what I gave without objection and without thanks, and went his way. A +true man of the hills. + +As I said, I came often to the field below Old Howieson’s farm. I think +the old man saw me coming and going, for the road winds along the side +of the hill within sight of his house, skirts a bit of wood, and with +an unexpected turn comes out triumphantly to the top of the ridge +beyond. + +At the turn of the road I always disappeared, for I crossed the wall +into the field below Old Howieson’s farm, and mysteriously failed to +appear to the watchful eye upon the ridge beyond. What could be more +provoking or suspicious! To go in at one end of a well-travelled road +and not to come out in the regular and expected way at the other! Or to +be suspected of not being deferential toward trespass signs, or +observant of closed ways! How disturbing to all those who dwell +tremulously within posted enclosures of whatever sort, or those who +base their sense of possession upon stumped paper, or take their God +from a book. Men have been crucified for less. + +Sooner or later those who cross boundaries clash with those who defend +boundaries: and those who adventure offend those who seek security; but +it was a long time before I came face to face with Old Man Howieson. + +This was the way of it: Well back of Howieson’s buildings and reaching +upward upon the face of the hill stretches a long and narrow field, a +kind of barren back pasture with boulders in it, and gnarly hawthorn +trees, and a stunted wild apple or so. A stone fence runs down one side +of the cleared land and above it rises the hill. It is like a great +trough or ravine which upon still spring evenings gathers in all the +varied odours of Old Howieson’s farm and orchard and brings them down +to me as I sit in the field below. I need no book then, nor sight of +the distant town, nor song of birds, for I have a singular and +incomparable album of the good odours of the hill. This is one reason +why I chose this particular spot in the fields for my own, and it has +given me a secret name for the place which I will not here disclose. If +ever you should come this way in May, my friend, I might take you there +of an evening, but could warrant you no joy of it that you yourself +could not take. But you need not come here, or go there, but stop where +you are at this moment, and I here assure you that if you look up, and +look in, you, also, will see something of the glory of the world. + +One evening I had been upon the hill to seek again the pattern and +dimensions of my tabernacle, and to receive anew the tables of the Jaw. +I had crossed Old Howieson’s field so often that I had almost forgotten +it was not my own. It was indeed mine by the same inalienable right +that it belonged to the crows that flew across it, or to the partridges +that nested in its coverts, or the woodchucks that lived in its walls, +or the squirrels in its chestnut trees. It was mine by the final test +of all possession—that I could use it. + +He came out of a thicket of hemlocks like a wraith of the past, a gray +and crabbed figure, and confronted me there in the wide field. I +suppose he thought he had caught me at last. I was not at all startled +or even surprised, for as I look back upon it now I know that I had +always been expecting him. Indeed, I felt a lift of the spirit, the +kind of jauntiness with which one meets a crucial adventure. + +He stood there for a moment quite silent, a grim figure of denial, and +I facing him. + +“You are on my land, sir,” he said. + +I answered him instantly and in a way wholly unexpected to myself: + +“You are breathing my air, sir.” + +He looked at me dully, but with a curious glint of fear in his eye, +fear and anger, too. + +“Did you see the sign down there? This land is posted.” + +“Yes,” I said, “I have seen your signs. But let me ask you: If I were +not here would you own this land any more than you do now? Would it +yield you any better crops?” + +It is never the way of those who live in posted enclosures, of whatever +sort, to reason. They assert. + +“This land is posted,” said the old man doggedly. + +“Are you sure you own it?” I asked. “Is it really yours?” + +“My father owned this farm before me,” he said, “and my grandfather +cleared this field and built these walls. I was born in that house and +have lived there all my life.” + +“Well, then, I must be going—and I will not come here again,” I said. +“I am sorry I walked on your land—” + +I started to go down the hill, but stopped, and said, as though it were +an afterthought: + +“I have made some wonderful discoveries upon your land, and that hill +there. You don’t seem to know how valuable this field is.... Good-bye.” + +With that I took two or three steps down the hill—but felt the old +man’s hand on my arm. + +“Say, mister,” he asked, “are you one of the electric company men? Is +that high-tension line comin’ across here?” + +“No,” I said, “it is something more valuable than that!” + +I walked onward a few steps, as though I was quite determined to get +out of his field, but he followed close behind me. + +“It ain’t the new trolley line, is it?” + +“No,” I said, “it isn’t the trolley line.” + +“What is it, then?” + +In that question, eager and shrill, spoke the dry soul of the old man, +the lifelong hope that his clinging ownership of those barren acres +would bring him from the outside some miraculous profit. + +His whole bearing had changed. He had ceased to be truculent or even +fearful, but was now shrilly beseeching, A great wave of compassion +came over me, I was sorry for him, imprisoned there within the walls of +his own making, and expecting wealth from the outside when there was +wealth in plenty within and everywhere about him. + +But how could I help him? You can give no valuable thing to any man who +has not the vision to take it. If I had told him what I found upon his +hill or in his fields he would have thought me—well, crazy; or he would +have suspected that under cover of such a quest I hid some evil design. +As well talk adventure to an old party man, or growth to a set +churchman. + +So I left him there within his walls. So often when we think we are +barring other people out, we are only barring ourselves in. The last I +saw of him as I turned into the road was a gray and crabbed figure +standing alone, looking after me, and not far off his own sign: + +[Illustration] + +Sometime, I thought, this old farm will be owned by a man who is also +capable of possessing it. More than one such place I know already has +been taken by those who value the beauty of the hills and the old +walls, and the boulder-strewn fields. One I know is really possessed by +a man who long ago had a vision of sheep feeding on fields too +infertile to produce profitable crops, and many others have been taken +by men who saw forests growing where forests ought to grow. For real +possession is not a thing of inheritance or of documents, but of the +spirit; and passes by vision and imagination. Sometimes, indeed, the +trespass signs stand long—so long that we grow impatient—but nature is +in no hurry. Nature waits, and presently the trespass signs rot away, +one arm falls off, and lo! where the adventurer found only denial +before he is now invited to—“pass.” The old walls are conquered by the +wild cherries and purple ivy and blackberry bushes, and the old +Howiesons sleep in calm forgetfulness of their rights upon the hills +they thought they possessed, and all that is left is a touch of +beauty—lilac clump and wild-rose tangle. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VII. +LOOK AT THE WORLD! + + +“Give me to struggle with weather and wind; + Give me to stride through the snow; +Give me the feel of the chill on my cheeks, + And the glow and the glory within!” + + +_March 17th._ + +The joy of winter: the downright joy of winter! I tramped to-day +through miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the +roads or ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of +adventure as I cannot describe. + +Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts of +snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly +like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled a path the heaps +are nearly as high as my shoulder.... + +This perfect morning a faint purplish haze is upon all the hills, with +bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke +rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with +unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure heaps around the +barns. All the hillsides glisten and sparkle like cloth of gold, each +glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the +long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses’ feet +crunch upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the +creamery—the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white +scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly, +and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of +superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow +their wood sled. They are bantering one another noisily. I see a man +shovelling snow from his barn doors; as each shovelful rises and +scatters, the sun catches it for an instant and it falls, a silvery +shower. ... I tramped to-day through miles of it: and whether in broken +roads or spotless fields, had great joy of it. It was good to stride +through opposing drifts and to catch the tingling air upon one’s face. +The spring is beautiful indeed, and one is happy at autumn, but of all +the year no other mornings set the blood to racing like these; none +gives a greater sense of youth, strength, or of the general goodness of +the earth. + +Give me the winter: give me the winter! Not all winter, but just winter +enough, just what nature sends. + +...Dry air in the throat so cold at first as to make one cough; and +dry, sharp, tingling air in the nostrils; frost on beard and eyebrows; +cheeks red and crusty, so that to wrinkle them hurts: but all the body +within aglow with warmth and health. Twice the ordinary ozone in the +air, so that one wishes to whistle or sing, and if the fingers grow +chill, what are shoulders for but to beat them around! + +It is a strange and yet familiar experience how all things present +their opposites. Do you enjoy the winter? Your neighbour loathes or +fears it. Do you enjoy life? To your friend it is a sorrow and a +heaviness. Even to you it is not always alike. Though the world itself +is the same to-day as it was yesterday and will be to-morrow—the same +snowy fields and polar hills, the same wintry stars, the same +infinitely alluring variety of people—yet to-day you, that were a god, +have become a grieving child. + +Even at moments when we are well pleased with the earth we often have a +wistful feeling that we should conceal it lest it hurt those borne down +by circumstances too great or too sad for them. What is there to offer +one who cannot respond gladly to the beauty of the fields, or opens his +heart widely to the beckoning of friends? And we ask ourselves: Have I +been tried as this man has? Would I be happy then? Have I been wrung +with sorrow, worn down by ill-health, buffeted with injustice as this +man has? Would I be happy then? + +I saw on my walk to-day an old woman with a crossed shawl upon her +breast creeping out painfully to feed her hens. She lives on a small, +ill-kept farm I have known for years. She is old and poor and +asthmatic, and the cold bites through her with the sharpness of knives. +The path to the hen-house is a kind of via dolorosa, a terror of +slipperiness and cold. She might avoid it: her son, worthless as he is, +might do it for her, but she clings to it as she clings to her life. It +is the last reason for staying here! But the white fields and drifted +roads are never joyfully met, never desired. She spends half the summer +dreading the return of winter from the severities of which she cannot +escape. + +Nor is it all mere poverty, though she is poor, for there are those who +would help to send her away, but she will not go. She is wrapped about +with Old Terrors, Ancient Tyrannies—that Terror of the Unknown which is +more painful even than the Terror of the Known: those Tyrannies of +Habit and of Place which so often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of +the old. She clings desperately to the few people she knows (“’tis hard +to die among strangers!”) and the customs she has followed all her +life. Against the stark power of her tragic helplessness neither the +good nor the great of the earth may prevail. This reality too.... + +I had a curious experience not long ago: One of those experiences which +light up as in a flash some of the fundamental things of life. I met a +man in the town road whom I have come to know rather more than +slightly. He is a man of education and has been “well-off” in the +country sense, is still, so far as I know, but he has a sardonic +outlook upon life. He is discouraged about human nature. Thinks that +politics are rotten, and that the prices of potatoes and bread are +disgraceful. The state of the nation, and of the world, is quite beyond +temperate expression. Few rays of joy seem to illuminate his pathway. + +As we approached in the town road I called out to him: + +“Good morning.” + +He paused and, to my surprise, responded: + +“Are you happy?” + +It had not occurred to me for some time whether I was happy or not, so +I replied: + +“I don’t know; why do you ask?” + +He looked at me in a questioning, and I thought rather indignant, way. + +“Why shouldn’t a man be happy?” I pressed him. + +“Why _should_ he be? Answer me that!” he responded, “Why should he be? +Look at the world!” + +With that he passed onward with a kind of crushing dignity. + +I have laughed since when I have recalled the tone of his voice as he +said, “Look at the world!” Gloomy and black it was. It evidently made +him indignant to be here. + +But at the moment his bitter query, the essential attitude of spirit +which lay behind it, struck into me with a poignancy that stopped me +where I stood. Was I, then, all wrong about the world? I actually had a +kind of fear lest when I should look up again I should find the earth +grown wan and bleak and unfriendly, so that I should no longer desire +it. + +“Look at the world!” I said aloud. + +And with that I suddenly looked all around me and it is a strange, deep +thing, as I have thought of it since, how the world came back upon me +with a kind of infinite, calm assurance, as beautiful as ever it was. +There were the hills and the fields and the great still trees—and the +open sky above. And even as I looked down the road and saw my sardonic +old friend plodding through the snow—his very back frowning—I had a +sense that he belonged in the picture, too—and couldn’t help himself. +That he even had a kind of grace, and gave a human touch to that wintry +scene! He had probably said a great deal more than he meant! + +_Look at the world_! + +Well, look at it. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. +A GOOD APPLE + + +“I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible +goods.” + +I have just had one of the pleasant experiences of life. From time to +time, these brisk winter days, I like to walk across the fields to +Horace’s farm. I take a new way each time and make nothing of the snow +in the fields or the drifts along the fences.... + +“Why,” asks Harriet, “do you insist on struggling through the snow when +there’s a good beaten road around?” + +“Harriet,” I said, “why should any one take a beaten road when there +are new and adventurous ways to travel?” + +When I cross the fields I never know at what moment I may come upon +some strange or surprising experience, what new sights I may see, what +new sounds I may hear, and I have the further great advantage of +appearing unexpectedly at Horace’s farm. Sometimes I enter by the cow +lane, sometimes by way of the old road through the wood-lot, or I +appear casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or +I let Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle +fence. I have come to love doing this, for unexpectedness in visitors, +as in religion and politics, is disturbing to Horace and, as sand-grits +in oysters produce pearls, my unexpected appearances have more than +once astonished new thoughts in Horace, or yielded pearly bits of +native humour. + +Ever since I have known him, Horace has been rather high-and-mighty +with me; but I know he enjoys my visits, for I give him always, I +think, a pleasantly renewed sense of his own superiority. When he sees +me his eye lights up with the comfortable knowledge that he can plough +so much better than I can, that his corn grows taller than mine, and +his hens lay more eggs. He is a wonderfully practical man, is Horace; +hard-headed, they call it here. And he never feels so superior, I +think, as when he finds me sometimes of a Sunday or an evening walking +across the fields where my land joins his, or sitting on a stone fence, +or lying on my back in the pasture under a certain friendly thorn-apple +tree. This he finds it difficult to understand, and thinks it highly +undisciplined, impractical, no doubt reprehensible. + +One incident of the sort I shall never forget. It was on a June day +only a year or so after I came here, and before Horace knew me as well +as he does now. I had climbed the hill to look off across his own +high-field pasture, where the white daisies, the purple fleabane, and +the buttercups made a wild tangle of beauty among the tall herd’s +grass. Light airs moved billowing across the field, bobolinks and +meadow larks were singing, and all about were the old fences, each with +its wild hedgerow of choke cherry, young elms, and black raspberry +bushes, and beyond, across miles and miles of sunny green countryside, +the mysterious blue of the ever-changing hills. It was a spot I loved +then, and have loved more deeply every year since. + +Horace found me sitting on the stone fence which there divides our +possessions; I think he had been observing me with amusement for some +time before I saw him, for when I looked around his face wore a +comfortably superior, half-disdainful smile. + +“David,” said he, “what ye doin’ here?” + +“Harvesting my crops,” I said. + +He looked at me sharply to see if I was joking, but I was perfectly +sober. + +“Harvestin’ yer crops?” + +“Yes,” I said, the fancy growing suddenly upon me, “and just now I’ve +been taking a crop from the field you think you own.” + +I waved my hand to indicate his high-field pasture. + +“Don’t I own it?” + +“No, Horace, I’m sorry to say, not all of it. To be frank with you, +since I came here, I’ve quietly acquired an undivided interest in that +land. I may as well tell you first as last. I’m like you, Horace, I’m +reaching out in all directions.” + +I spoke in as serious a voice as I could command: the tone I use when I +sell potatoes. Horace’s smile wholly disappeared. A city feller like me +was capable of anything! + +“How’s that?” he exclaimed sharply. “What do you mean? That field came +down to me from my grandfather Jamieson.” + +I continued to look at Horace with great calmness and gravity. + +“Judging from what I now know of your title, Horace,” said I, “neither +your grandfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field. +And I’ve now acquired that part of it, in fee simple, that neither they +nor you ever really had.” + +At this Horace began to look seriously worried. The idea that any one +could get away from him anything that he possessed, especially without +his knowledge, was terrible to him. + +“What do you mean, Mr. Grayson?” + +He had been calling me “David,” but he now returned sharply to +“Mister.” In our country when we “Mister” a friend something serious is +about to happen. It’s the signal for general mobilization. + +I continued to look Horace rather coldly and severely in the eye. + +“Yes,” said I, “I’ve acquired a share in that field which I shall not +soon surrender.” + +An unmistakable dogged look came into Horace’s face, the look inherited +from generations of land-owning, home-defending, fighting ancestors. +Horace is New England of New England. + +“Yes,” I said, “I have already had two or three crops from that field.” + +“Huh!” said Horace. “I’ve cut the grass and I’ve cut the rowen every +year since you bin here. What’s more, I’ve got the money fer it in the +bank.” + +He tapped his fingers on the top of the wall. + +“Nevertheless, Horace,” said I, “I’ve got my crops, also, from that +field, and a steady income, too.” + +“What crops?” + +“Well, Eve just now been gathering in one of them. What do you think of +the value of the fleabane, and the daisies, and the yellow five-finger +in that field?” + +“Huh!” said Horace. + +“Well, I’ve just been cropping them. And have you observed the wind in +the grass—and those shadows along the southern wall? Aren’t they +valuable?” + +“Huh!” said Horace. + +“I’ve rarely seen anything more beautiful,” I said, “than this field +and the view across it—I’m taking that crop now, and later I shall +gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of +the maple trees—and store it all away in _my_ bank—to live on next +winter.” + +It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from +the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; +and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with +his hand in a way he has. + +“Is that all!” said Horace. + +I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me. +Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered +crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content +with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our +farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their +lands without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious +crops of the good earth go to waste. + +After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and +his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession. + +“S’pose you think that’s your field,” he’d say. + +“The best part of it,” I’d return, “but you can have all I’ve taken, +and there’ll still be enough for both of us.” + +“You’re a queer one!” he’d say, and then add sometimes, dryly, “but +there’s one crop ye don’t git, David,” and he’d tap his pocket where he +carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. “And as fer feelin’s, it +can’t be beat.” + +So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world +desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or +eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will +haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to +the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, +intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a +feverish world the unknown great possessions. + +So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus +bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him: + +“Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?” + +“Off that one little piece,” he replied, “I figger fifty-two dollars.” + +“Well, Horace,” said I, “I have beaten you. I got more out of it this +year than you did.” + +“Oh, I know what you mean——” + +“No, Horace, you don’t. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash, +dollars.” + +“How’s that, now?” + +“Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the +grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the +timothy, and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week——” I +leaned over toward Horace and whispered behind my hand—in just the way +he tells me the price he gets for his pigs. + +“What!” he exclaimed. + +Horace had long known that I was “a kind of literary feller,” but his +face was now a study in astonishment. + +“_What?_” + +Horace scratched his head, as he is accustomed to do when puzzled, with +one finger just under the rim of his hat. + +“Well, I vum!” said he. + +Here I have been wandering all around Horace’s barn—in the snow—getting +at the story I really started to tell, which probably supports Horace’s +conviction that I am an impractical and unsubstantial person. If I had +the true business spirit I should have gone by the beaten road from my +house to Horace’s, borrowed the singletree I went for, and hurried +straight home. Life is so short when one is after dollars! I should not +have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the top of the hill to +look for a moment across the beautiful wintry earth—gray sky and bare +wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely smoke rising from the +chimneys—I should merely have brought home a singletree—and missed the +glory of life! As I reflect upon it now, I believe it took me no longer +to go by the fields than by the road; and I’ve got the singletree as +securely with me as though I had not looked upon the beauty of the +eternal hills, nor reflected, as I tramped, upon the strange ways of +man. + +Oh, my friend, is it the settled rule of life that we are to accept +nothing not expensive? It is not so settled for me; that which is +freest, cheapest, seems somehow more valuable than anything I pay for; +that which is given better than that which is bought; that which passes +between you and me in the glance of an eye, a touch of the hand, is +better than minted money! + +I found Horace upon the March day I speak of just coming out of his new +fruit cellar. Horace is a progressive and energetic man, a leader in +this community, and the first to have a modern fruit cellar. By this +means he ministers profitably to that appetite of men which craves most +sharply that which is hardest to obtain: he supplies the world with +apples in March. + +It being a mild and sunny day, the door of the fruit cellar was open, +and as I came around the corner I had such of whiff of fragrance as I +cannot describe. It seemed as though the vials of the earth’s most +precious odours had been broken there in Horace’s yard! The smell of +ripe apples! + +In the dusky depths of the cellar, down three steps, I could see +Horace’s ruddy face. + +“How are ye, David,” said he. “Will ye have a Good Apple?” + +So he gave me a good apple. It was a yellow Bellflower without a +blemish, and very large and smooth. The body of it was waxy yellow, but +on the side where the sun had touched it, it blushed a delicious deep +red. Since October it had been in the dark, cool storage-room, and +Horace, like some old monkish connoisseur of wines who knows just when +to bring up the bottles of a certain vintage, had chosen the exact +moment in all the year when the vintage of the Bellflower was at its +best. As he passed it to me I caught, a scent as of old crushed apple +blossoms, or fancied I did or it may have been the still finer aroma of +friendship which passed at the touching of our fingers. + +It was a hand-filling apple and likewise good for tired eyes, an +antidote for winter, a remedy for sick souls. + +“A wonderful apple!” I said to Horace, holding it off at arm’s length. + +“No better grown anywhere,” said he, with scarcely restrained pride. + +I took my delight of it more nearly; and the odour was like new-cut +clover in an old orchard, or strawberry leaves freshly trod upon, or +the smell of peach wood at the summer pruning—how shall one describe +it? at least a compound or essence of all the good odours of summer. + +“Shall I eat it?” I asked myself, for I thought such a perfection of +nature should be preserved for the blessing of mankind. As I hesitated, +Horace remarked: + +“It was grown to be eaten.” + +So I bit into it, a big liberal mouthful, which came away with a +rending sound such as one hears sometimes in a winter’s ice-pond. The +flesh within, all dewy with moisture, was like new cream, except a rim +near the surface where the skin had been broken; here it was of a +clear, deep yellow. + +New odours came forth and I knew for the first time how perfect in +deliciousness such an apple could be. A mild, serene, ripe, rich +bouquet, compounded essence of the sunshine from these old +Massachusetts hills, of moisture drawn from our grudging soil, of all +the peculiar virtues of a land where the summers make up in the passion +of growth for the long violence of winter; the compensatory aroma of a +life triumphant, though hedged about by severity, was in the bouquet of +this perfect Bellflower. + +Like some of the finest of wines and the warmest of friends it was of +two flavours, and was not to be eaten for mere nourishment, but was to +be tasted and enjoyed. The first of the flavours came readily in a +sweetness, richness, a slight acidity, that it might not cloy; but the +deeper, more delicate flavour came later—if one were not crudely +impatient—and was, indeed, the very soul of the fruit. One does not +quickly arrive at souls either in apples or in friends. And I said to +Horace with solemnity, for this was an occasion not to be lightly +treated: + +“I have never in my life tasted a fine apple.” + +“There is no finer apple,” said Horace with conviction. + +With that we fell to discussing the kinds and qualities of all the +apples grown this side China, and gave our more or less slighting +opinions of Ben Davises and Greenings and Russets, and especially of +trivial summer apples of all sorts, and came to the conclusion at last +that it must have been just after God created this particular “tree +yielding fruit” that he desisted from his day’s work and remarked that +what he saw was good. The record is silent upon the point, and Moses is +not given to adjectives, but I have often wondered what He would have +said if He had not only seen the product of His creation, but _tasted_ +it. + +I forgot to say that when I would have slurred the excellence of the +Baldwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to +interpose objections, and defended the excellence and perfection of +that variety. + +...He has fifty barrels of Baldwins in his cellar. + +While we talked with much enjoyment of the lore of apples and +apple-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said to +Horace as I reluctantly tossed aside the stem and three seeds: + +“Surely this has been one of the rare moments of life.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER IX. +I GO TO THE CITY + + +“Surely man is a wonderfull divers and varying subject: It is very hard +to ground and directly constant and uniforme judgement upon him.” + +Though I live most of the time in the country, as I love best to do, +sometimes I go to the city and find there much that is strange and +amusing. I like to watch the inward flow of the human tide in the +morning, and the ebb at evening, and sometimes in the slack tide of +noon I drift in one of the eddies where the restless life of the city +pauses a moment to refresh itself. One of the eddies I like best of all +is near the corner of Madison Square, where the flood of Twenty-third +Street swirls around the bulkhead of the Metropolitan tower to meet the +transverse currents of Madison Avenue. Here, of a bright morning when +Down-at-Heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and +Old Defeat watches Young Hurry striding by, one has a royal choice of +refreshment: a “red-hot” enfolded in a bun from the dingy sausage wagon +at the curb, or a plum for a penny from the Italian with the trundle +cart, or news of the world in lurid gulps from the noon edition of the +paper—or else a curious idea or so flung out stridently over the heads +of the crowd by a man on a soap box. + +I love this corner of the great city; I love the sense of the warm +human tide flowing all about me. I love to look into the strange, dark, +eager, sensitive, blunt faces. + +The other noon, drifting there in that human eddy, I stopped to listen +to a small, shabby man who stood in transitory eminence upon his soap +box, half his body reaching above the knobby black soil of human heads +around him—black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring +sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. He had ruddy cheeks and a tuft +of curly hair set like an upholstery button on each side of his bald +head. The front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, and as he opened +his mouth one could see the ample lining of red flannel. + +He raised his voice penetratingly to overcome the noise of the world, +straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply +and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life +depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to +that close-packed crowd that there was no God. + +From time to time he offered for sale pamphlets by R.G. Ingersoll and +Frederic Harrison, with grimy back numbers of a journal called the +“Truth-Seeker.” + +By the slant and timbre of his speech he was an Englishman; he had a +gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual +pugilist with skilful blows between the eyes: and his grammar was bad. + +I stood for some time listening to him while he proved with excellent +logic, basing his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was +no God. His audience cheered with glee his clever hits, and held up +their hands for the books he had for sale. + +“Who is this speaker?” I asked the elbowing helper who came through the +crowd to deliver the speaker’s wares and collect the silver for them. +“Who is this speaker who says there is no God?” + +“Henry Moore,” he responded. + +“And who,” I asked, “is Henry Moore?” + +“He is an Englishman and was brought up a Presbyterian—but he seen the +light.” + +“And no longer thinks there is any God?” + +“Nope.” + +“And these books prove the same thing?” + +“Yep.” + +So I bought one of them, thinking it wonderful that proof of so +momentous a conclusion could be had for so small a sum. + +This Henry Moore could fling arguments like thunderbolts; he could +marshall his authorities like an army; he could talk against the roar +of the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not +believe in God he had complete faith in Haeckel and Jacques Loeb, and +took at face value the lightest utterances of John Stuart Mill. + +I enjoyed listening to Henry Moore. I enjoyed looking into the faces +all around me—mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young +faces, and idle faces, and curious faces, and faces that drank in, and +faces that disdainfully rejected. + +After a time, however, I grew unaccountably weary of the vehemence of +Henry Moore and of the adroit helper who hawked his books. And suddenly +I looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. A pigeon was +flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting +on its wings. I saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and +the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the +heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, +contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter +century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the +Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself grandly to +the heavens, and all about I suddenly heard and felt the roar and surge +of the mighty city, the mighty, careless, busy city, thousands of +people stirring about me, souls full of hot hopes and mad desires, +unsatisfied longings, unrealized ideals. And I stepped out of the group +who were gathered around the man who said there was no God.... + +But I still drifted in the eddy, thinking how wonderful and strange all +these things were, and came thus to another group, close gathered at +the curb. It was much smaller than the other, and at the centre stood a +patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. He was +leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the +free-thinker’s audience, freshly stuffed with arguments, had engaged +him hotly. Just as I approached he drew from his pocket a worn, +leather-covered Bible, and said, tapping it with one finger: + +“For forty years I have carried this book with me. It contains more +wisdom than any other book in the world. Your friend there can talk +until he is hoarse—it will do no harm—but the world will continue to +follow the wisdom of this book.” + +A kind of exaltation gleamed in his eye, and he spoke with an +earnestness equal to that of Henry Moore. He, too, was a street +speaker, waiting with his box at his side to begin. He would soon be +standing up there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there +was a God. He, also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads +with the share of his vehement faith. The two women were with him to +sing their belief, and one had a basket to take up a collection, and +the other, singling me out as I listened with eagerness, gave me a +printed tract, a kind of advertisement of God. + +I looked at the title of it. It was called: “God in His World.” + +“Does this prove that God is really in the world?” I asked. + +“Yes,” she said. “Will you read it?” + +“Yes,” I said, “I am glad to get it. It is wonderful that so great a +truth can be established in so small a pamphlet, and all for nothing.” + +She looked at me curiously, I thought, and I put the tract by the side +of the pamphlet I had bought from the freethinker, and drifted again in +the eddy. + +The largest crowd of all was close packed about a swarthy young chap +whose bushy hair waved in response to the violence of his oratory. He, +too, was perspiring with his ideas. He had a marvellous staccato method +of question and answer. He would shoot a question like a rifle bullet +at the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, +both clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any +one could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. +As I edged my way nearer to him I discovered that he, also, had a +little pile of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily +selling. How well-established the technic of this art of the city +eddies! How well-studied the psychology! + +I thought this example the most perfect of them all, and watched with +eagerness the play of the argument as it was mirrored in the intent +faces all about me. And gradually I grew interested in what the man was +saying, and thought of many good answers I could give to his +questionings if he were not so cunning with answers of his own. +Finally, in the midst of one of his loftiest flights, he demanded, +hotly: + +“Are you not, every one of you, a slave of the capitalist class?” + +It was perfectly still for a second after he spoke, and before I knew +what I was doing, I responded: + +“Why, no, I’m not.” + +It seemed to astonish the group around me: white faces turned my way. + +But it would have been difficult to dash that swarthy young man. He was +as full of questions as a porcupine is full of quills. + +“Well, sir,” said he, “if I can prove to you that you are a slave, will +you believe it?” + +“No,” I said, “unless you make me feel like a slave, too! No man is a +slave who does not feel slavish.” + +But I was no match for that astonishing young orator; and he had the +advantage over me of a soap box! Moreover, at that moment, the +keen-eyed assistant, never missing an opportunity, offered me one of +his little red books. + +“If you can read this without feeling a slave,” he remarked, “you’re +John D. himself in disguise.” + +I bought his little red book and put it with the pamphlet of the +freethinker, and the tract of the God-fearing man, and stepped out of +that group, feeling no more servile than when I went in. And I said to +myself: + +“This, surely, is a curious place to be in.” + +For I was now strangely interested in these men of the eddy. + +“There are more gods preached here,” I said, “than ever were known on +the Acropolis.” + +Up the square a few paces I saw a covered wagon with a dense crowd +around it. And in front of it upon a little platform which raised the +speaker high above the heads of the audience stood a woman, speaking +with shrill ardour. Most of the hearers were men; and she was telling +them with logic and authority that the progress of civilization waited +upon the votes of women. The army of the world stood still until the +rear rank of its women could be brought into line! Morals languished, +religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! If +only women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful +and charming place! Oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she +made me desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my +share of the power in this Government to provide each woman with a +vote. And just as I had reached this compliant stage there came a girl +smiling and passing her little basket. The sheer art of it! So I +dropped in my coin and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it +side by side with the other literature of my accumulating library. + +And so I came away from those hot little groups with their perspiring +orators, and felt again the charm of the tall buildings and the wide +sunny square, and the park with Down-at-Heels warming his ragged +shanks, and the great city clanging heedlessly by. How serious they all +were there in their eddies! Is there no God? Will woman suffrage or +socialism cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we +would not be without? Is a belief for forty years in the complete +wisdom of the Book the final solution? Why do not all of the seeking +and suffering thousands flowing by in Twenty-third Street stop here in +the eddies to seek the solution of their woes, the response to their +hot desires? + +So I came home to the country, thinking of what I had seen and heard, +asking myself, “What is the truth, after all? What _is_ real?” + +And I was unaccountably glad to be at home again. As I came down the +hill through the town road the valley had a quiet welcome for me, and +the trees I know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and +the meadows ripe with hay. I know of nothing more comforting to the +questioning spirit than the sight of distant hills.... + +I found that Bill had begun the hay cutting. I saw him in the lower +field as I came by in the road. There he was, stationed high on the +load, and John, the Pole, was pitching on. When he saw me he lifted one +arm high in the air and waved his hand—and I in return gave him the +sign of the Free Fields. + +“Harriet,” I said, “it seems to me I was never so glad before to get +home.” + +“It’s what you always say,” she remarked placidly. + +“This time it’s true!” And I put the pamphlets I had accumulated in the +city eddies upon the pile of documents which I fully intend to read but +rarely get to. + +The heavenly comfort of an old shirt! The joy of an old hat! + +As I walked down quickly into the field with my pitchfork on my +shoulder to help Bill with the hay, I was startled to see, hanging upon +a peach tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black +clothes. Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a +white shirt and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable +black hat. It was as though the peach tree had suddenly, on that bright +day, gone into mourning. + +I laughed to myself. + +“Bill,” I said, “what does this mean?” + +Bill is a stout jolly chap with cheeks that look, after half a day’s +haying, like raw beef-steaks. He paused on his load, smiling broadly, +his straw hat set like a halo on the back of his head. + +“Expected a funeral,” he said cheerfully. + +Bill is the undertaker’s assistant, and is always on call in cases of +emergency. + +“What happened, Bill?” + +“They thought they’d bury ’im this afternoon, but they took an’ kep’ +’im over till to-morrow.” + +“But you came prepared.” + +“Yas, no time to go home in hayin’. The pump fer me, and the black +togs.” + +Bill calls the first rakings of the hay “tumbles,” and the scattered +re-rakings, which he despises, he calls “scratchings.” I took one side +of the load and John, the Pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls +from the tumbles which Bill placed skilfully at the corners and sides +of the load, using the scratchings for the centre. + +John, the Pole, watched the load from below. “Tank he too big here,” he +would say, or, “Tank you put more there”; but Bill told mostly by the +feel of the load under his feet or by the “squareness of his eye.” +John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the +load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but +gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main +strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork +through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a +twinkling—an admirable, deft performance. + +Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting +its clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very +heavy, to throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt +and dry in the burning sun—all full of good odours—the horse-rake draws +it neatly into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll +the billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was +not this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. +Then the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, +and John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the +excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best +methods of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders +and stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of ’98 when two men +and one team saved four acres of hay by working all night—“with +lanterns, I jing”—much talk of how she goes on, “she” being the hay, +and no end of observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, +and excesses of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, +half hidden by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the +tumbles as they go by. + +Then the proud moment when Bill the driver, with legs apart, almost +pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill. + +“Go it, Dick. Let ’er out, Daisy. Stiddy, ol’ boy. Whoa, there. Ease +down now. Hey, there, John, block the wheel—block the wheel I tell ye. +Ah-h now, jes’ breathe a bit. I jing, it’s hot.” + +And then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses +thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in +the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, +dusty “pitching off” and “mowing in”—a fine process, an _honest_ +process: men sweating for what they get. + +As I came in from the field that night the sun was low in the hills, +and a faint breeze had begun to blow, sweetly cool after the burning +heat of the day. And I felt again that curious deep sense I have so +often here in the country, of the soundness and reality of the plain +things of life. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER X. +THE OLD STONE MASON + + +Of well-flavoured men, I know none better than those who live close to +the soil or work in common things. Men are like roses and lilacs, +which, too carefully cultivated to please the eye, lose something of +their native fragrance. One of the best-flavoured men I know is my +friend, the old stone mason. + +To-day I rode over with the old stone mason to select some wide stones +for steps in my new building. The old man loves stones. All his life +long—he is now beyond seventy years old—he has lived among stones, +lifted stones, fitted stones. He knows all the various kinds, shapes, +sizes, and where they will go best in a wall. He can tell at a glance +where to strike a stone to make it fit a particular place, and out of a +great pile he can select with a shrewd eye the stone for the exact +opening he has to fill. He will run his stubby rough hand over a stone +and remark: + +“Fine face that. Ye don’t see many such stones these days,” as though +he were speaking of the countenance of a friend. + +I veritably believe there are stones that smile at him, stones that +frown at him, stones that appear good or ill-humoured to him as he +bends his stocky strong body to lift or lay them. He is a slow man, a +slow, steady, geologic man, as befits one who works with the elemental +stuff of nature. His arms are short and his hands powerful. He has been +a servant of stones in this neighbourhood alone for upward of fifty +years. + +He loves stones and can no more resist a good stone than I a good book. +When going about the country, if he sees comely stones in a wayside +pile, or in a fine-featured old fence he will have them, whether or no, +and dickers for them with all the eagerness, sly pride, and +half-concealed cunning with which a lover of old prints chaffers for a +Seymour Haden in a second-hand book shop. And when he has bought them +he takes the first idle day he has, and with his team of old horses +goes into the hills, or wherever it may be, and brings them down. He +has them piled about his barn and even in his yard, as another man +might have flower beds. And he can tell you, as he told me to-day, just +where a stone of such a size and such a face can be found, though it be +at the bottom of a pile. No book lover with a feeling sense for the +place in his cases where each of his books may be found has a sharper +instinct than he. In his pocket he carries a lump of red chalk, and +when we had made our selections he marked each stone with a broad red +cross. + +I think it good fortune that I secured the old stone mason to do my +work, and take to myself some credit for skill in enticing him. He is +past seventy years old, though of a ruddy fresh countenance and a clear +bright eye, and takes no more contracts, and is even reluctantly +persuaded to do the ordinary stone work of the neighbourhood. He is +“well enough off,” as the saying goes, to rest during the remainder of +his years, for he has lived a temperate and frugal life, owns his own +home with the little garden behind it, and has money in the bank. But +he can be prevailed upon, like an old artist who has reached the time +of life when it seems as important to enjoy as to create, he can +sometimes be prevailed upon to lay a wall for the joy of doing it. + +So I had the stone hauled onto the ground, the best old field stone I +could find, and I had a clean, straight foundation dug, and when all +was ready I brought the old man over to look at it. I said I wanted his +advice. No sooner did his glance light upon the stone, no sooner did he +see the open and ready earth than a new light came in his eye. His step +quickened and as he went about he began to hum an old tune under his +breath. I knew then that I had him! He had taken fire. I could see that +his eye was already selecting the stones that should “go down,” the +fine square stones to make the corners or cap the wall, and measuring +with a true eye the number of little stones for the fillers. In no time +at all he had agreed to do my work; indeed, would have felt aggrieved +if I had not employed him. + +I enjoyed the building of the wall, I think, as much as he did, and +helped him what I could by rolling the larger stones close down to the +edge of the wall. As the old man works he talks, if any one cares to +listen, or if one does not care to listen he is well content to remain +silent among his stones. But I enjoyed listening, for nothing in this +world is so fascinating to me as the story of how a man has come to be +what he is. When we think of it there are no abstract adventures in +this world, but only your adventure and my adventure, and it is only as +we come to know a man that we can see how wonderful his life has been. + +He told me all about the great walls and the little walls—miles and +miles of them—he has built in the course of fifty years. He told of +crude boyhood walls when he was a worker for wages only, he told of +proud manhood walls when he took contracts for foundations, retaining +walls, and even for whole buildings, such as churches, where the work +was mostly of stone; he told me of thrilling gains and profits, and of +depressing losses; and he told me of his calm later work, again on +wages, for which he is chosen as a master of his craft. A whole long +lifetime of it—and the last years the best of all! + +As we drove up yesterday to select the steps from his piles of old +field stone, riding behind his great, slow, hairy-hoofed horse, in the +battered and ancient wagon, he pointed with his stubby whip to this or +that foundation, the work of his hands. + +“Fine job, that,” said he, and I looked for the first time in my life +at the beautiful stonework beneath the familiar home of a friend. I had +seen the house a thousand times, and knew well the people in it, but my +unobservant eye had never before rested consciously upon that bit of +basement wall. How we go through life, losing most of the beauties of +it from sheer inability to see! But the old man, as he drives about, +rarely sees houses at all, especially wooden houses, and for all modern +stucco and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty contempt. Sham +work of a hasty and unskilled age! He never, I think, put in a +shovelful of cement except in the place where it belongs, as a mortar +for good walls, and never will do so as long as he lives. So long as he +lives the standards of high art will never be debased! + +He built that foundation, and this chimney, he worked on the tower of +the Baptist church in the town, “and never yet has there been a crack +in her, winter or summer”; and more than forty years ago he laid the +cornerstone of the old schoolhouse, the foundation walls of which stand +to-day as sound and strong as they were when they were put down. + +In dry walls I think the old stone mason takes the greatest pride of +all: for it is in the dry wall—I mean by that a wall laid without +mortar—that the sheer art of the mason comes most into play. Any one +can throw a wall together if he has mortar to make it stick, but a dry +wall must stand out for what it is, built solid from the bottom up, +each stone resting securely upon those below it, and braced and nested +in by the sheer skill of the mason. The art of the dry wall is the +ancient heritage of New England and speaks not only of the sincerity +and the conscientiousness of the old Puritan spirit but strikes the +higher note of beauty. Many of the older walls I know are worth going +far to see, for they exhibit a rare sense of form and proportion, and +are sometimes set in the landscape with a skill that only the +Master-Artist himself could exceed. Those old, hard-wrought stone +fences of the Burnham Hills and Crewsbury, the best of them, were +honestly built, and built to last a thousand years. A beautiful art—and +one that is passing away! It is the dry wall that stands of itself that +the old stone mason loves best of all. + +As we drove along the road the old man pointed out to me with his +stubby whip so many examples of his work that it seemed finally as if +he had borne a hand in nearly everything done in this neighbourhood in +the last half-century. He has literally built himself into the country +and into the town, and at seventy years of age he can look back upon it +all with honest pride. It stands. No jerry-work anywhere. No cracks. It +stands. + +I never realized before how completely the neighbourhood rests upon the +work of this simple old man. He _founded_ most of the homes here, and +upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the +schools of the countryside. I see again how important each man is to +the complete fabric of civilization and know that we are to leave no +one out, despise no one, look down upon no one. + +He told me stories of this ancient settler and of that. + +He was a powerful queer man—he wanted the moss left on his stones when +I put ’em in; never a hammer touched the facings of _his_ wall... + +“That is properly a woman’s wall. She was the boss, you might call it, +and wanted stone, but _he_ wanted brick. So you see the front, where +people can see it, is of stone, but the sides is all brick.” + +Thus like the true artist that he is, he has not only built himself his +own honesty, truth, skill, into the town, but he has built in the +inexhaustible peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the +loves, of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age +in stone. He knows the town, indeed, better than most of us, having a +kind of stone-age knowledge of it—the fundamental things men build in +when they set about building permanently. + +“And that is what you might call a spite-wall,” said he, showing me a +long wall leading between two shady homes, making one of them a prison +on the south, and the other a prison on the north. He told me the story +of an ancient and bitter quarrel between two old friends, a story which +sounded to-day among spring blossoms like the account of some ancient +baronial feud. + +But if the old stone mason has built walls to keep enemies apart how +many more walls has he built to keep friends together? How many times +has he been consulted by shy lovers seeking a foundation for a new +home, a new family, how many times by Darby and Joan planning a resting +place for the sunny closing years of their lives! He could point, +indeed, to one wall that symbolized hatred; all the others meant homes, +roof-trees, families, or they were the foundations for the working +places of men, or else, like the tower of the church, they pointed +heavenward and were built to the glory of God. + +The old stone mason has not the slightest idea that he has done +anything unusual or wonderful. He is as simple and honest a man as ever +I knew; and if he has pride, simple and honest also in that. He was +anxious not to charge me too much for the stone I bought—in an age like +this! I have never talked with him about God, or about religion: I had +no need to. + +[Illustration] + +He has done his duty in other ways by his time and his place. He has +brought up a large family of children; and has known sorrow and loss, +as well as happiness and contentment. Two of his children were taken in +one day with pneumonia. He told me about it with a quaver in his old +voice. + +“How long ago was it?” I asked. + +“Twenty-seven years.” + +He has sons and daughters left, and two of the sons he has well trained +as stone masons after him. They are good as young men go in a +degenerate age. They insist on working in cement! He has grandchildren +in school, and spoils them. + +He is also a man of public interests and upon town-meeting day puts on +his good clothes and sits modestly toward the back of the hall. Though +he rarely says anything he always has a strong opinion, an opinion as +sound and hard as stones and as simple, upon most of the questions that +come up. And he votes as he thinks, though the only man in meeting who +votes that way. For when a man works in the open, laying walls true to +lines and measurements, being honest with natural things, he comes +clear, sane, strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his +judgment upon matters that are really important as between man and man, +and man and God, than I would trust the town lawyer. And if he has +grown a little testy with some of the innovations of modern life, and +thinks they did everything better forty years ago—and says so—he +speaks, at least, his honest conviction. + +If I can lay my walls as true as he does, if I can build myself a third +part as firmly into any neighbourhood as he has into this, if at +seventy years of age—if ever I live to lay walls with joy at that time +of life—if I can look back upon _my_ foundations, _my_ heaven-pointing +towers, and find no cracks or strains in them, I shall feel that I have +made a great success of my life.... + +I went out just now: the old man was stooping to lift a heavy stone. +His hat was off and the full spring sunshine struck down warmly upon +the ruddy bald spot on the top of his head, the white hair around about +it looking silvery in that light. As he placed the stone in the wall, +he straightened up and rubbed his stubby hand along it. + +“A fine stone that!” said he. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XI. +AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES + + +“I would not paint a face + Or rocks or streams or trees +Mere semblances of things— + But something more than these.” + +“I would not play a tune + Upon the sheng or lute +Which did not also sing + Meanings that else were mute.” + +John Templeton died on the last day of August, but it was not until +some weeks later that his daughter Julida, that hard-favoured woman, +set a time for the auction. It fell happily upon a mellow autumn day, +and as I drove out I saw the apples ripening in all the orchards along +the road, and the corn was beginning to look brown, and the meadows by +the brook were green with rowen. It was an ideal day for an auction, +and farmers and townsmen came trooping from all parts of the country, +for the Templeton antiques were to be sold. + +John Templeton lived in one house for seventy-eight years; he was born +there, and you will find the like of that in few places in America. It +was a fine house for its time, for any time, and not new when John +Templeton was born. A great, solid, square structure, such as they +built when the Puritan spirit was virile in New England, with an almost +Greek beauty of measured lines. It has a fanlight over the front door, +windows exquisitely proportion, and in the center a vast brick chimney. +Even now, though weathered and unpainted, it stands four-square upon +the earth with a kind of natural dignity. A majestic chestnut tree +grows near it, and a large old barn and generous sheds, now somewhat +dilapidated, ramble away to the rear. + +Enclosing the fields around about are stone fences representing the +infinite labour of John Templeton’s forebears. More toil has gone into +the stone fences of New England, free labour of a free people, than +ever went into the slave-driven building of the Pyramids of Egypt. + +I knew John Templeton in his old age—a stiff, weather-beaten old man +driving to town in a one-horse buggy. + +“How are you, Mr. Templeton?” + +“Comin’ on, comin’ on.” This was his invariable reply. + +He had the old New England pronunciation, now disappearing. He said +“rud” for road, “daown” for down, and gave an indescribable twist to +the word garden, best spelled “gardin.” He had also the old New England +ways. He was forehanded with his winter woodpile, immaculately neat +with his dooryard, determined in his Sunday observance, and if he put +the small apples in the middle of the barrel he refused to raise +tobacco, lest it become a cause of stumbling to his neighbour. He paid +his debts, disciplined his children, and in an age which has come to +look chummily upon God, he dreaded His wrath. + +He grew a peculiar, very fine variety of sweet apple which I have never +seen anywhere else. He called it the Pumpkin Sweet, for it was of a +rich yellow. I can see him yet, driving into town with a shallow wagon +box half full of this gold of the orchard; can see him turn stiffly to +get one of the apples for me; can hear him say in the squeaky voice of +age: + +“Ye won’t find no sweeter apples hereabout, I can tell ye that.” + +He was a dyed-in-the-wool abolition Republican and took the Boston +_Transcript_ for forty-six years. He left two cords of them piled up in +a back storeroom. He loved to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte and the +Battle of Waterloo, and how, if there had not been that delay of half +an hour, the history of the world might have been different. I can see +him saying, with the words puffing out his loose cheeks: + +“And then Blooker kem up—” + +To the very last, even when his eyes were too dim to read and his voice +was cracked, he would start up, like some old machine set a-whirring +when you touched the rusty lever, and talk about the Battle of +Waterloo. + +No one, so far as I know, ever heard him complain, or bemoan his age, +or regret the change in the times; and when his day came, he lay down +upon his bed and died. + +“Positively nothing will be reserved,” were the familiar words of the +poster, and they have a larger meaning in an old country neighbourhood +than the mere sale of the last pan and jug and pig and highboy. Though +we live with our neighbours for fifty years we still secretly wonder +about them. We still suspect that something remains covered, something +kept in and hidden away, some bits of beauty unappreciated—as they are, +indeed, with ourselves. But death snatches away the last friendly +garment of concealment; and after the funeral the auction. We may enter +now. The doors stand at last flung widely open; all the attics have +been ransacked; all the chests have been turned out; a thousand +privacies stand glaringly revealed in the sunny open spaces of the +yard. Positively nothing will be reserved; everything will be knocked +down to the highest bidder. What wonder that the neighbourhood gathers, +what wonder that it nods its head, leaves sentences half uttered, +smiles enigmatically. + +Nearly all the contents of the house had been removed to the yard, +under the great chesnut tree. A crowd of people, mostly women, were +moving about among the old furniture, the old furniture that had been +in John Templeton’s family for no one knows how long—old highboys and +lowboys, a beautifully simple old table or so, and beds with carved +posts, and hand-wrought brasses, and an odd tall clock that struck with +sonorous dignity. These things, which had been temptingly advertised as +“antiques,” a word John Templeton never knew, were only the common +serviceable things of uncounted years of family life. + +Nothing about the place was of any great value except the antiques, and +it was these that drew the well-dressed women in automobiles from as +far away as Hempfield and Nortontown; and yet there were men in plenty +to poke the pigs, look sarcastically at the teeth of the two old +horses, and examine with calculating and rather jeering eyes John +Templeton’s ancient buggy, and the harness and the worn plough and +cultivator and mowing machine. Everything seems so cheap, so poor, so +unprotected, when the spirit has departed. + +Under the chestnut tree the swarthy auctioneer with his amiable +countenance and ironical smile acquired through years of dispassionate +observation of the follies of human emotion, the mutability of human +affairs, the brevity of human endeavour, that brought everything at +last under his hammer—there by the chestnut tree the auctioneer had +taken his stand in temporary eminence upon an old chest, with an +ancient kitchen cupboard near him which served at once as a pulpit for +exhortation, and a block for execution. Already the well-worn smile had +come pat to his countenance, and the well-worn witticisms were ready to +his tongue. + +“Now, gentlemen, if you’ll give me such attention as you can spare from +the ladies, we have here to-day——” + +But I could not, somehow, listen to him: the whole scene, the whole +deep event, had taken hold upon me strangely. It was so full of human +meaning, human emotion, human pathos. I drifted away from the crowd and +stepped in at the open door of the old house, and walked through the +empty, resounding rooms with their curious old wallpaper and low +ceilings and dusty windows. And there were the old fireplaces where the +heavy brick had been eaten away by the pokings and scrapings of a +century; and the thresholds worn by the passage of many feet, the +romping feet of children, the happy feet of youth the bride passed here +on her wedding night with her arm linked in the arm of the groom; the +sturdy, determined feet of maturity; the stumbling feet of old age +creeping in; the slow, pushing feet of the bearers with the last +burden, crowding out— + +The air of the house had a musty, shut-in odour, ironically cut +through, as all old things are, by the stinging odour of the new: the +boiling of the auction coffee in the half-dismantled kitchen, the +epochal moment in the life of Julia Templeton. I could hear, +occasionally, her high, strident worried voice ordering a helper about. +Such a hard-favoured woman! + +It is the studied and profitable psychology of the auction that the +rubbish must be sold first—pots and bottles and jugs at five-cent bids, +and hoes at ten—and after that, the friction of the contest having +warmed in the bidders an amiable desire to purchase goods they do not +want and cannot use, the auctioneer gradually puts forth the treasures +of the day. + +As I came out of the old house I could see that the mystic web had been +spun, that the great moment of the sale was arriving. The auctioneer +was leaning forward now upon the tall cupboard with an air of command, +and surveying the assembled crowd with a lordly eye. + +“Now, Jake, careful there—pass it along—steady.... We come now to the +cheff dooves of the day, the creem delly creems of this sale. Gentleman +_and_ ladies, it is a great moment in the life of an auctioneer when he +can offer, for sale, free and without reservation, such treasures as +these....” + +I could feel the warming interest of the crowd gathering in more +closely about Mr. Harpworth, the furtive silences of shrewd bargainers, +eagerness masked as indifference, and covetousness cloaking itself with +smiling irony. It is in the auction that trade glorifies itself finally +as an Art. + +“Here, gentlemen _and_ ladies, is a genuine antique, hand-wrought and +solid all the way through. Just enough worn to give the flavour and +distinction of age. Well built in the first place, plain, simple lines, +but, ladies, _beautiful_.” + +It was the tall four-post bed he was selling and he now put his hand +upon this object—a hardy service with a cunningly simulated air of +deference. It was to be profaned by no irreverent handling! + +“What am I offered for this heirloom of the Templeton family? Ten? Ten! +Fifteen over there, thank you, Mr. Cody. Why, gentlemen, that bed +cannot be duplicated in America! A real product of Colonial art! Look +at the colour of it! Where will you find such depth of colour in any +modern piece? Age varnished it, gentlemen, age and use—the use of a +hundred years.... Twenty over there, twenty I hear, twenty, twenty, +make it thirty.... Speak up now, Ike, we know you’ve come here to-day +to make your fortune—do I hear thirty?” + +No sooner had the great bed been sold (“it’s yours, Mrs. Craigie, a +treasure and dirt cheap”) there came an ancient pair of hand-wrought +andirons, and a spider-legged table, and a brass warming-pan, and a +banjo clock.... + +I scarcely know how to explain it, but the sale of these inanimate +antiques, so charged with the restrained grace, the reticent beauty, +the serviceable strength, of a passing age, took hold upon me with +strange intensity. In times of high emotion the veil between sight and +insight slips aside and that which lies about us suddenly achieves a +higher reality. We are conscious of + +“Something beside the form +Something beyond the sound.” + +It came to me with a thrill that this was no mere sale of antique wood +and brass and iron, but a veritable auction, here symbolized, of the +decaying fragments of a sternly beautiful civilization. + +I looked off across the stony fields, now softly green in the sunlight, +from which three generations of the Templeton family had wrung an +heroic living; I looked up at the majestic old house where they had +lived and married and died.... + +As my eye came back to the busy scene beneath the chestnut tree it +seemed to me, how vividly I cannot describe—that beside or behind the +energetic and perspiring Mr. Harpworth there stood Another Auctioneer. +And I thought he had flowing locks and a patriarchal beard, and a +scythe for a sign of the uncertainty of life, and a glass to mark the +swiftness of its passage. He was that Great Auctioneer who brings all +things at last under his inexorable hammer. + +After that, though Mr. Harpworth did his best, he claimed my attention +only intermittently from that Greater Sale which was going on at his +side, from that Greater Auctioneer who was conducting it with such +consummate skill—for _he_ knew that nothing is for sale but life. The +mahogany highboy, so much packed and garnered life cut into inanimate +wood; the andirons, so much life; the bookshelves upon which John +Templeton kept his “Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” so much life. Life for +sale, gentlemen! What am I offered to-day for this bit of life—and +this—and this— + +Mr. Harpworth had paused, for even an auctioneer, in the high moment of +his art, remains human; and in the silence following the cessation of +the metallic click of his voice, “Thirty, thirty, thirt, thirt—make it +thirty-five—thank you—forty,” one could hear the hens gossiping in the +distant yard. + +“There were craftsmen in those days, gentlemen,” he was resuming; “look +at this example of their art—there is quality here and durability——” + +At this point the Great Auctioneer broke in upon my attention and +caught up Mr. Harpworth’s words: + +“Yes, quality and durability—quality and durability. I also have here +to-day, and will offer you, gentlemen, a surpassing antique, not built +of wood nor fashioned in brass or iron, but a thing long attached to +these acres and this house. I present for your consideration the +married life of John Templeton and Hannah his wife. They lived together +forty years, and the record scarcely shows a dent. In all that time +hardly a word of love passed between them; but never a word of hatred, +either. They had a kind of hard and fast understanding, like the laws +of Moses. He did the work of the fields and she did the work of the +house, from sunrise to sunset. On Sunday they went to church together. +He got out at five o’clock to milk and harness up; and it made double +work for her, what with getting the children cleaned, and the milk +taken care of, and the Sunday dinner made ready. But neither he nor she +every doubted or complained. It was the Lord’s way. She bore him eight +children. She told him before the last one came that she was not equal +to it.... After that she was an invalid for seventeen years until she +died. And there was loss of children to bear between them, and +sickness, and creeping age, but this bit of furniture held firm to the +last. Gentlemen, it was mad solid, no veneer, a good job all the way +through.” + +As he spoke I thought that his roving eye (perhaps it was only my own!) +fell upon Johnny Holcomb, whose married life has been full of +vicissitudes. + +“John, take this home with you; _you_ can use it.” + +“Nope, no such married life for me,” I thought I could hear him +responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer. + +“Do I hear any bids?” the Great Auctioneer was saying, almost in the +words of Mr. Harpworth. “_What!_ No one wants n married life like this? +Well, put it aside, Jake. It isn’t wanted. Too old-fashioned.” + +It was Julia Templeton herself who now appeared with certain of the +intimate and precious “bedroom things”—a wonderful old linen bedspread, +wrought upon with woollen figures, and exaling an ancient and exquisite +odour of lavender, and a rag rug or so, and a little old rocking chair +with chintz coverings in which more than one Templeton mother had +rocked her baby to sleep. Julia herself—— + +I saw Julia, that hard-favoured woman, for the first time at that +moment, really saw her. How fiercely she threw down the spread and the +rugs! How bold and unweeping her eyes! How hard and straight the lines +of her mouth! + +“Here they are, Mr. Harpworth!” + +How shrill her voice; and how quickly she turned back to the noisy +kitchen! I could see the angular form, the streakings of gray in her +hair. ... + +“What am I offered now for this precious antique? This hand-made +spread? Everything sold without reserve! Come, now, don’t let this +opportunity slip by.” He leaned forward confidentially and +persuasively: “Fellah citizens, styles change and fashions pass away, +but things made like these, good lines, strong material, honest work, +they never grow old....” + +Here the Shadowy Auctioneer broke in again and lifted me out of that +limited moment. + +“A true word!” he was saying. “Styles change and fashions pass away, +and only those things that are well made, and made for service the +beautiful things remain. I am offering to-day, without reservation, +another precious antique. What will you give for such a religious faith +as that of John Templeton? Worn for a lifetime and sound to the end. He +read the Bible every Sunday morning of his life, went to church, and +did his religious duty by his children. Do you remember young Joe +Templeton? Wouldn’t learn his chapter one Sunday, and the old gentleman +prayed about it and then beat him with a hitching strap. Joe ran away +from home and made his fortune in Minnesota. Nearly broke the mother’s +heart, and old John’s, too; but he thought it right, and never repented +it. Gentlemen, an honest man who feared God and lived righteously all +his days! What am I offered for this durable antique, this +characteristic product of New England? Do I hear a bid?” + +At this I felt coming over me that strange urge of the auction, to bid +and to buy. A rare possession indeed, not without a high, stern kind of +beauty! It would be wonderful to possess such a faith; but what had I +to offer that Shadowy Auctioneer? What coin that would redeem past +times and departed beliefs? + +It was curious how the words of Mr. Harpworth fitted into the fabric of +my imaginings. When he next attracted my attention he was throwing up +his hands in a fine semblance of despair. We were such obtuse +purchasers! + +“I think,” said Mr. Harpworth, “that this crowd came here to-day only +to eat Julia Templeton’s auction luncheon. What’s the matter with this +here generation? You don’t want things that are well made and durable, +but only things that are cheap and flashy. Put ’er aside, Jake. We’ll +sell ’er yet to some historical museum devoted to the habits and +customs of the early Americans.” + +He was plainly disgusted with us, and we felt it keenly, and were glad +and pleased when, a moment later, he gave evidence of being willing to +go on with us, paltry as we were. + +“Jake, pass up that next treasure.” + +His spirits were returning; his eyes gleamed approvingly upon the newly +presented antique. He looked at us with fresh confidence; he was still +hopeful that we would rise to his former good opinion of us. + +“And now before I sell the hail clock by Willard, date of 1822, I am +going to offer what is possibly the best single piece in this sale....” + +Here again the Old Auctioneer, having caught his * broke in. When he +spoke, who could listen to Mr. Harpworth: + +“... the best single piece in this sale, gentlemen! I offer you now the +Templeton family pride! A choice product of old New England. A little +battered, but still good and sound. The Templetons! They never did +anything notable except to work, work early and late, summer and +winter, for three generations. They were proud of any one who bore the +Templeton name; they were proud even of Jim, simple Jim, who got a job +driving the delivery wagon at the hill store, and drove it for +twenty-two years and was drowned in Mill River. I’ll tell you what +family pride meant to old John Templeton....” + +I thought he leaned forward to take us into his confidence, motioning +at the same time toward the house. + +“You know Julia Templeton——” + +Know her? Of course we knew her! Knew her as only the country knows its +own. + +“When Julia ran away with that sewing-machine agent—it was her only +chance!—old John Templeton drove his best cow into town and sold her, +he mortgaged his team of horses, and went after the girl and brought +her home with him. They were firm and strong and as righteous as God +with her; and they paid off, without whining, the mortgages on the +horses, and never spoke of the loss of the cow—but never forgot it. +They held up their heads to the end. Gentlemen, what am I offered for +this interesting antique, this rare work of art?” + +The auction was considered, upon the whole, a great success. Mr. +Harpworth himself said so. Ike, the Jewish dealer, bought the family +clock and the spring-tooth harrow, and even bid on the family crayon +portraits (the frames could be sold for something or other); a Swede +bought the pigs and the old buggy; an Irish teamster bid in John +Templeton’s horses, and a Pole, a good man, I know him well, bought the +land, and will no doubt keep his geese in the summer kitchen, and get +rich from the cultivation of the ancient fields. While old John +Templeton bowed himself humbly before a wrathful God he would never go +down on his knees, as the Poles do, to the fertile earth. And—I +forgot—an Italian from Nortontown bought for a song the apple and +chestnut crops, and busy third generation Americans loaded in the +antiques and drove off with them to the city. + +The last I saw of Julia Templeton, that hard-favoured woman, she was +standing, an angular figure, in the midst of the wreck of the luncheon +dishes, one arm wrapped in her apron, the other hand shading her eyes +while she watched the company, in wagons and automobiles, trailing away +to the westward, and the towns.... + +The sale was over; but the most valuable antiques of all found no +purchasers: they were left behind with Julia Templeton: only she could +use them. + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XII. +A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE + + +We have an Astonishing Woman in this community. She acts in a way that +no one expects, and while we are intensely interested in everything she +does, and desire to know about it to the uttermost detail, we are +inclined to speak of her in bated breath. + +Some Woman to Talk About in a country neighbourhood is a kind of public +necessity. She fills one of the stated functions like the town +assessor, or the president of the Dorcas Society; and if ever the +office falls vacant we have immediate resort to one of those silent +elections at which we choose our town celebrities. There are usually +several candidates, and the campaign is accompanied by much heated +argument and exemplification. We have our staunch party men and our +irresponsible independents on whom you can never put your finger; and +if we are sometimes a little vague in our discussion of principles and +issues we share with our national political leaders an intense interest +in personalities. Prominent citizens “come out” for this candidate or +that, we “spring surprises,” and launch new booms, and often, at the +last moment, we are taken off our feet by the circulation of comebacks. +I take a pardonable pride, however, in saying, to the credit of our +democratic institutions that most of the candidates elected are chosen +strictly upon merit. + +I shall never forget the afternoon, now more than a year ago, that +Harriet came up the road bearing the news which, beyond a doubt, placed +the present incumbent in office; and has served to keep her there, +despite the efforts in certain quarters, which shall be nameless, to +use that pernicious instrument of radicalism, the recall. + +I can always tell when Harriet brings important news. She has a +slightly quicker step, carries her head a little more firmly, and when +she speaks impresses her message upon me with a lowered voice. When +Harriet looks at me severely and drops down an octave I prepare for the +worst. + +“David,” she said, “Mary Starkweather has gone to live in the barn!” + +“In the _barn_!” + +“In the barn.” + +I don’t know quite why it is, but I dislike being surprised, and do my +best to cover it up, and, besides, I have always liked Mary +Starkweather. So I remarked, as casually as I could: + +“Why not? It’s a perfectly good barn.” + +“David Grayson!” + +“Well, it is. It’s a better building to-day than many of the people of +this town live in. Why shouldn’t Mary Starkweather live in the barn if +she wants to? It’s her barn.” + +“But, _David_—there are her children—and her husband!” + +“There always are, when anybody wants to live in a barn.” + +“I shall not talk with you any more,” said Harriet, “until you can be +serious.” + +I had my punishment, as I richly deserved to have, in the gnawing of +unsatisfied curiosity, which is almost as distressing as a troubled +conscience. + +Within the next few days, I remember, I heard the great news buzzing +everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted +for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, +our sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary +Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country, +and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books, +to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children’s maid +going to live in her barn! I leave it to you if there was not a valid +reason for our commotion. + +It must have been two weeks later that I went to town by the upper hill +road in order to pass the Starkweather place. It is a fine old estate, +the buildings, except the barn, set well back from the road with a +spacious garden near them, and pleasant fields stretching away on every +hand. As I skirted the shoulder of the hill I looked eagerly for the +first glimpse of the barn. I confess that I had woven a thousand +stories to explain the mystery, and had reached the point where I could +no longer resist seeing if I could solve it. + +Well, the barn was transformed. Two or three new windows, a door with a +little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting +an inquiring eyebrow—and what was once a barn had become a charming +cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a +personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off +and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple +arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. +You felt at once a kind of fondness for it. + +I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a +trowel in her hand. + +“How are you, David Grayson?” she called out when I stopped. + +“I have been planning for several days,” I said, “to happen casually by +your new house.” + +“Have you?” + +“You don’t know how you have stirred our curiosity. We haven’t had a +good night’s rest since you moved in.” + +“I’ve no doubt of it,” she laughed. “Won’t you come in? I’d like to +tell you all about it.” + +“I also prepared to make excuses for not stopping,” I said, “and +thought up various kinds of urgent business, such as buying a new snow +shovel to use next winter, but after making these excuses I intended to +stop—if I were sufficiently urged.” + +“You are more than urged: you are commanded.” + +As I followed her up the walk she said earnestly: + +“Will you do me a favour? When you come in will you tell me the first +impression my living-room gives you? No second thoughts. Tell me +instantly.” + +“I’ll do it.” I said, my mind leaping eagerly to all manner of +mysterious surprises. + +At the centre of the room she turned toward me and with a sweeping +backward motion of the arms, made me a bow—a strong figure instinct +with confident grace: a touch of gray in the hair, a fleeting look of +old sadness about the eyes. + +“Now, David Grayson,” she said, “quick!” + +It was not that the room itself was so remarkable as that it struck me +as being confusingly different from the heavily comfortable rooms of +the old Starkweather house with their crowded furnishings, their +overloaded mantels, their plethoric bookcases. + +“I cannot think of you yet,” I stumbled, “as being here.” + +“Isn’t it _like_ me?” + +“It is a beautiful room—” I groped lamely. + +“I was afraid you would say that.” + +“But it is. It really is.” + +“Then I’ve failed, after all.” + +She said it lightly enough, but there was an undertone of real +disappointment in her voice. + +“I’m in rather the predicament,” I said, “of old Abner Coates. You +probably don’t know Abner. He sells nursery stock, and each spring when +he comes around and I tell him that the peach trees or the raspberry +bushes I bought of him the year before have not done well, he says, +with the greatest astonishment, ‘Wal, now, ye ain’t said what I hoped +ye would.’ I see that I haven’t said what you hoped I would.” + +It was too serious a matter, however, for Mary Starkweather to joke +about. + +“But, David Grayson,” she said, “isn’t it _simple_?” + +I glanced around me with swift new comprehension. + +“Why, yes, it _is_ simple.” + +I saw that my friend was undergoing some deep inner change of which +this room, this renovated barn, were mere symbols. + +“Tell me,” I said, “how you came to such a right-about-face.” + +“It’s just that!” she returned earnestly, “It _is_ a right-about-face. +I think I am really in earnest for the first time in my life.” + +I had a moment of flashing wonder if her marriage had not been in +earnest, a flashing picture of Richard Starkweather with his rather +tired, good-humoured face, and I wondered if her children were not +earnest realities to her, if her busy social life had meant nothing. +Then I reflected that we all have such moments, when the richest +experiences of the past seem as nothing in comparison with the fervour +of this glowing moment. + +“Everything in my life in the past,” she was saying, “seems to have +happened to me. Life has done things _for_ me; I have had so few +chances of doing anything for myself.” + +“And now you are expressing yourself.” + +“Almost for the first time in my life!” + +She paused. “All my life, it seems to me, I have been smothered with +things. Just things! Too much of everything. All my time has been taken +up in caring for things and none in enjoying them.” + +“I understand!” I said with a warm sense of corroboration and sympathy. + +“I had so many pictures on my walls that I never saw, really saw, any +of them. I saw the dust on them, I saw the cracks in the frames, that +needed repairing, I even saw better ways of arranging them, but I very +rarely saw, with the inner eye, what the artists were trying to tell +me. And how much time I have wasted on mere food and clothing—it is +appalling! I had become nothing short of a slave to my house and my +things.” + +“I see now,” I said, “why you have just one rose on your table.” + +“Yes”—she returned eagerly—“isn’t it a beauty! I spent half an hour +this morning looking for the best and most perfect rose in the garden, +and there it is!” + +She was now all alight with her idea, and I saw her, as we sometimes +see our oldest friends, as though I had not seen her before. She was +that phenomenon of the modern world—the free woman of forty-five. + +When a woman reaches the old age of youth, the years between forty and +forty-five, she either surrenders or revolts. In the older days in +America it was nearly always surrender. Those women of a past +generation bore many children: how many graves there are in our hill +cemeteries of women of forty to fifty who died leading families of five +or eight or ten children! How many second and third wives there were, +often with second and third families. Or if they did not die, how +terribly they toiled, keeping the house, clothing the children, cooking +the food. Or if they bore no children, yet they were bound down by a +thousand chains of convention and formality. + +But in these days we have a woman of forty-five who has not +surrendered. She is a vigorous, experienced, active-minded human being, +just beginning to look restlessly around her and take a new interest in +the world. Such a woman was Mary Starkweather; and this was her first +revolt. + +“You cannot imagine,” she was saying, “what a joy it has been to +unaccumulate! To get rid of things! To select.” + +“To become an artist in life!” + +“Yes! At last! What a lot of perfectly worthless trash accumulates +around us. Not beautiful, not even useful! And it is not only the lives +of the well-to-do that are choked and cluttered with things. I wish you +could see the house of our Polish farmer. He’s been saving money, and +filling up his house with perfectly worthless ornaments—ornate clocks, +gorgeous plush furniture, impossible rugs—and yet he is only doing what +we are all doing on a more elaborate scale.” + +I laughed. + +“That reminds me of a family of squirrels that lives in an oak tree on +my hill,” I said. “I am never tired of watching them. In the fall they +work desperately, stealing all the hickory nuts and chestnuts on my +neighbour Horace’s back pastures, five times as many as they need, and +then they forget, half the time, where they’ve hidden them. We’re all +more or less in the squirrel stage of civilization.” + +“Yes,” she responded. “There are my books! I gathered up books for +years, just squirrel fashion, until I forgot what I had or where I put +them. You cannot know what joy I’m going to have in selecting just the +essential books, the ones I want by me for daily companions. All the +others, I see now, are temporary rubbish.” + +“And you’ve made your selections?” + +“No, but I’m making them. You’ll laugh when you come next time and I +show them to you. Oh, I am going to be stern with myself. I’m not going +to put a single book in that case for show, nor a single one to give +the impression that I’m profoundly interested in Egypt or Maeterlinck +or woman suffrage, when I’m positively not.” + +“It’s terribly risky,” I said. + +“And I’m terribly reckless,” she responded. + +As I went onward toward the town I looked back from the hilltop beyond +the big house for a last glimpse of the reconstructed barn, and with a +curious warm sense of having been admitted to a new adventure. Here was +life changing under my eyes! Here was a human being struggling with one +of the deep common problems that come to all of us. The revolt from +things! The struggle with superfluities! + +And yet as I walked along the cool aisles of the woods with the quiet +fields opening here and there to the low hill ridges, and saw the +cattle feeding, and heard a thrush singing in a thicket, I found myself +letting go—how can I explain it?—relaxing! I had been keyed up to a +high pitch there in that extraordinary room, Yes, it _was_ +beautiful—and yet as I thought of the sharp little green gate, the new +gable, the hard, clean mantel with the cloisonne vase, it wanted +something.... + +As I was gathering the rowen crop of after-enjoyment which rewards us +when we reflect freshly upon our adventures, whom should I meet but +Richard Starkweather himself in his battered machine. The two boys, one +of whom was driving, and the little girl, were with him. + +“How are you, David?” he called out. “Whoa, there! Draw up, Jamie.” + +We looked at each other for a moment with that quizzical, half-humorous +look that so often conveys, better than any spoken words, the +sympathetic greeting of friends. I like Richard Starkweather. + +He had come up from the city looking rather worn, for the weather had +been trying. He has blue, honest, direct-gazing eyes with small humour +wrinkles at the corners. I never knew a man with fewer theories, or +with a simpler devotion to the thing at hand, whatever it may be. At +everything else he smiles, not cynically, for he is too modest in his +regard for his own knowledge; he smiles at everything else because it +doesn’t seem quite real to him. + +“Been up to see Mary’s new house?” he asked. + +“Yes,” And for the life of me I couldn’t help smiling in response. + +“It’s a wonder isn’t it?” + +He thought his wife a very extraordinary woman. I remember his saying +to me once, “David, she’s got the soul of a poet and the brain of a +general.” + +“It _is_ a wonder,” I responded. + +“I can’t decide yet what chair to sit in, nor just what she wants the +kids to do.” + +I still smiled. + +“I expect she hasn’t determined yet,” he went drawling on, “in what +chair I will look most decorative.” + +He ruminated. + +“You know, she’s got the idea that there’s too much of everything. I +guess there is, too—and that she ought to select only those things that +an essential. I’ve been wondering, if she had more than one husband +whether or not she’d select me——” + +The restless young Jamie was now starting the machine, and Richard +Starkweather leaned out and said to me in parting: + +“isn’t she a wonder! Did all the planning herself—wouldn’t have an +architect—wouldn’t have a decorator—all I could do—” + +As he turned around I saw him throw one arm carelessly about the +shoulders of the sturdy younger boy who sat next him. + +When I got home I told Harriet all about what I had seen and heard. I +think I must feel when I am retailing such fascinating neighbourhood +events to Harriet—how she _does_ enjoy them!—I must feel very much as +she does when she is urging me to have just a little more of the new +gingerbread. + +In the next few months I watched with indescribable interest the +unfolding of the drama of Mary Starkweather. I saw her from time to +time that summer and she seemed, and I think she was, happier than ever +she had been before in her whole life. Making over her garden, +selecting the “essential books,” choosing the best pictures for her +rooms, even reforming the clothing of the boys, all with an emphasis +upon perfect simplicity—her mind was completely absorbed. Occasionally +Richard appeared upon the stage, a kind of absurd Greek chorus of one, +who remarked what a wonderful woman this was and poked fun at himself +and at the new house, and asserted that Mary could be as simple as ever +she liked, he insisted on thick soup for dinner and would not sacrifice +his beloved old smoking jacket upon the altar of any new idea. + +“She’s a wonder, David,” he’d wind up: “but this simple life is getting +more complicated every day.” + +It was in December, about the middle of the month, as I remember, that +I had a note one day from Mary Starkweather. + +“The next time you go to town,” it ran, “stop in and see me. I’ve made +a discovery.” + +With such a note as that us my hand it appeared imperative that I go to +town at once. I discovered, to Harriet’s astonishment, that we were +running out of all sorts of necessaries. + +“Now, David,” she said, “you know perfectly well that you’re just +making up to call on Mary Starkweather.” + +“That,” I said, “relieves my conscience of a great burden.” + +As I went out of the door I heard her saying: “Why Mary Starkweather +should _care_ to live in her barn....” + +It was a sparkling cold day, sun on the snow and the track crunching +under one’s feet, and I walked swiftly and with a warm sense of coming +adventure. + +To my surprise there was no smoke in the cottage chimney, and when I +reached the door I found a card pinned upon it: + +PLEASE CALL AT THE HOUSE + +Mary Starkweather herself opened the door—she had seen me coming—and +took me into the big comfortable old living-room, the big, cluttered, +overfurnished living-room, with the two worn upholstered chairs at the +fireplace, in which a bright log fire was now burning. There was a +pleasant litter of books and magazines, and a work basket on the table, +and in the bay window an ugly but cheerful green rubber plant in a tub. + +“Well!” I exclaimed. + +“Don’t smile—not yet.” + +As I looked at her I felt not at all like smiling. + +“I know,” she was saying, “it does have a humorous side. I can see +that. Dick has seen it all along. Do you know, although Dick pretends +to pooh-pooh everything intellectual, he has a really penetrating +mind.” + +I had a sudden vision of Dick in his old smoking jacket, standing in +the midst of the immaculate cottage that was once a barn, holding his +pipe with one finger crooked around the stem just in front of his nose +in the way he had, and smiling across at me. + +“Have you deserted the cottage entirely?” + +“Oh, we may possibly go back in the spring———” She paused and looked +into the fire, her fine, strong face a little sad in composure, full of +thought. + +“I am trying to be honest with myself David. Honest above everything +else. That’s fundamental. It seems to me I have wanted most of all to +learn how to live my life more freely and finely.... I thought I was +getting myself free of things when, as a matter of fact, I was devoting +more time to them than ever before-and, besides that, making life more +or less uncomfortable for Dick and the children. So I’ve taken my +courage squarely in my hands and come back here into this blessed old +home, this blessed, ugly, stuffy old home—I’ve learned _that_ lesson.” + +At this, she glanced up at me with that rare smile which sometimes +shines out of her very nature: the smile that is herself. + +“I found,” she said, “that when I had finished the work of becoming +simple—there was nothing else left to do.” + +I laughed outright, for I couldn’t help it, and she joined me. How we +do like people who can laugh at themselves. + +“But,” I said, “there was sound sense in a great deal that you were +trying to do.” + +“The fireplace smoked; and the kitchen sink froze up; and the cook left +because we couldn’t keep her room warm.” + +“But you were right,” I interrupted, “and I am not going to be put off +by smoking fireplaces or chilly cooks; you were right. We do have too +much, we are smothered in things, we don’t enjoy what we do have—” + +I paused. + +“And you were making a beautiful thing, a beautiful house.” + +“The trouble with making a beautiful thing,” she replied, “is that when +you have got it done you must straightway make another. Now I don’t +want to keep on building houses or furnishing rooms. I am not after +beauty—I mean primarily—what I want is to _live_, live simply, live +greatly.” + +She was desperately in earnest. + +“Perhaps,” I said, feeling as though I were treading on dangerous +ground, “you were trying to be simple for the sake of being simple. I +wonder if true simplicity is ever any thing but a by-product. If we aim +directly for it, it eludes us: but if we are on fire with some great +interest that absorbs on lives to the uttermost, we forget ourselves +into simplicity, Everything falls into simple lines around us, like a +worn garment.” + +I had the rather uncomfortable feeling on the way home that I had been +preachy; and the moment you became preachy begin to build up barriers +between yourself and your friends: but that’s a defect of character +I’ve never been able, quite, to overcome. I keep thinking I’ve got the +better of it, but along will come a beautiful temptation and down I +go—and come out as remorseful as I was that afternoon on the way home +from Mary Starkweather’s. + +A week or two later I happened to meet Richard Starkweather on the +street in Hempfield. He was on his way home. + +“Yes,” he said, “we’re in the old house again until spring, anyway. I +haven’t been so comfortable in a year. And, say,” here he looked at me +quizzically, “Mary has joined the new cemetery association; you know +they’re trying to improve the resting places of the forefathers, and, +by George, if they didn’t elect her chairman at the first meeting. +She’s a wonder!” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. +HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS + + +Well, I have just been having an amusing and delightful adventure and +have come to know a Great Common Person. His name is Bill Richards, and +he is one of the hereditary monarchs of America. He belongs to our +ruling dynasty. + +I first saw Bill about two weeks ago, and while I was strongly +interested in him I had no idea, at the time, that I should ever come +to know him well. It was a fine June day, and I was riding on the new +trolley line that crosses the hills to Hewlett—a charming trip through +a charming country—and there in the open car just in front of me sat +Bill himself. One huge bare forearm rested on the back of the seat, the +rich red blood showing through the weathered brown of the skin. His +clean brown neck rose strongly from the loose collar of his shirt, +which covered but could not hide the powerful lines of his shoulders. +He wore blue denim and khaki, and a small round felt hat tipped up +jauntily at the back. He had crisp, coarse light hair rather thin—not +by age, but by nature—so that the ruddy scalp could be seen through it, +and strong jaws and large firm features, and if the beard was two days +old, his face was so brown, so full of youthful health, that it gave no +ill impression. + +He could not sit still for the very life that was in him. He seemed to +have some grand secret with the conductor and frequently looked around +at him, his eyes full of careless laughter, and once or twice he called +out—some jocose remark. He helped the conductor, in pantomime, to pull +the cord and stop or start the car, and he watched with the liveliest +interest each passenger getting on or getting off. A rather mincing +young girl with a flaring red ribbon at her throat was to him the +finest comedy in the world, so that he had to wink a telegram to the +conductor about her. An old woman with a basket of vegetables who +delayed the car was exquisitely funny. + +I set him down as being about twenty-two years old and some kind of +outdoor workman, not a farmer. + +When he got off, which was before the car stopped, so that he had to +jump and run with it, he gave a wild flourish with both arms, grimaced +at the conductor, and went off down the road whistling for all he was +worth. How I enjoyed the sight of him! He was so charged with youthful +energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely +contain himself. What a fine place the world was to him! And what +comical and interesting people it contained! I was sorry when he got +off. + +Two or three days later I was on my way up the town road north of my +farm when I was astonished and delighted to see Bill for the second +time. He was coming down the road pulling a wire over the crosspiece of +a tall telephone pole (the company is rebuilding and enlarging its +system through our town). He was holding the wire close drawn over his +right shoulder, his strong hands gripped and pressed upon his breast. +The veins stood out in his brown neck where the burlap shoulder pad he +wore was drawn aside by the wire. He leaned forward, stepping first on +his toe, which he dug into the earth and then, heavily letting down his +heel, he drew the other foot forward somewhat stiffly. The muscles +stood out in his powerful shoulders and thighs. His legs were +double-strapped with climbing spurs. He was a master lineman. + +As I came alongside he turned a good-humoured sweaty face toward me. + +“It’s dang hot,” said he. + +“It is,” said I. + +There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a +strong workman in the full swing of his work, something—yes, beautiful! +A hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could +be finer to see? And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth and easy +strength! + +I watched him for some time, curiously interested, and thought I should +like well to know him, but could not see just how to go about it. + +The man astride the cross-arm who was heaving the wire forward from the +spool on the distant truck suddenly cried out: + +“Ease up there, Bill, she’s caught.” + +So Bill eased up and drew his arm across his dripping face. + +“How many wires are you putting up?” I asked, fencing for some opening. + +“Three,” said Bill. + +Before I could get in another stroke the man on the pole shouted: + +“Let ’er go, Bill.” And Bill let ’er go, and buckled down again to his +job. + +“Gee, but it’s hot,” said he. + +In the country there are not so many people passing our way that we +cannot be interested in all of them. That evening I could not help +thinking about Bill, the lineman, wondering where he came from, how he +happened to be what he was, who and what sort were the friends he made, +and the nature of his ambitions, if he had any. Talk about going to the +North Pole! It is not to be compared, for downright fascination, with +the exploration of an undiscovered human being. + +With that I began to think how I might get at Bill, the lineman, and +not merely weather talk, or wages talk, or work talk, but at Bill +himself. He was a character quite unusual in our daily lives here in +the country. I wondered what his interests could be, surely not mine +nor Horace’s nor the Starkweathers’. As soon as I began trying to +visualize what his life might be, I warmed up to a grand scheme of +capturing him, if by chance he was to be found the next day upon the +town road. + +All this may seem rather absurd in the telling, but I found it a +downright good adventure for a quiet evening, and fully believe I felt +for the moment like General Joffre planning to meet the Germans on the +Marne. + +“I have it!” I said aloud. + +“You have what?” asked Harriet, somewhat startled. + +“The grandest piece of strategy ever devised in this town,” said I. + +With that I went delving in a volume of universal information I keep +near me, one of those knowing books that tells you how tall the great +Pryamid is and why a hen cackles after laying an egg, and having found +what I wanted I asked Harriet if she could find a tape measure around +the place. She is a wonderful person and knows where everything is. +When she handed me the tape measure she asked me what in the world I +was so mysterious about. + +“Harriet,” I said, “I’m going on a great adventure. I’ll tell you all +about it to-morrow.” + +“Nonsense,” said Harriet. + +It is this way with the fancies of the evening—they often look flat and +flabby and gray the next morning. Quite impossible! But if I’d acted on +half the good and grand schemes I’ve had o’ nights I might now be quite +a remarkable person. + +I went about my work the next morning just as usual. I even avoided +looking at the little roll of tape on the corner of the mantel as I +went out. It seemed a kind of badge of my absurdity. But about the +middle of the fore-noon, while I was in my garden, I heard a tremendous +racket up the road. Rattle—bang, zip, toot! As I looked up I saw the +boss lineman and his crew careering up the road in their truck, and the +bold driver was driving like Jehu, the son of Nimshi. And there were +ladders and poles clattering out behind, and rolls of wire on upright +spools rattling and flashing in the sunshine, and the men of the crew +were sitting along the sides of the truck with hats off and hair flying +as they came bumping and bounding up the road. It was a brave thing to +see going by on a spring morning! + +As they passed, whom should I see but Bill himself, at the top of the +load, with a broad smile on his face. When his eye fell on me he threw +up one arm, and gave me the railroad salute. + +“Hey, there!” he shouted. + +“Hey there, yourself,” I shouted in return—and could not help it. + +I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd +of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load. + +It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and +taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though +it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as +adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet +but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay +that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning. + +Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little +valley near the far corner of Horace’s farm, I found the truck, and +Bill just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped +pennies and Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools +while the others went down to the mill pond in the valley below. + +“How are you?” said I. + +“How are _you_?” said he. + +I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind. + +“Fine day,” said I. + +“You bet,” said he. + +He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the +roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below +into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and +somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing. + +“Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?” I asked. + +He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest. + +“No, did you?” + +“Or Bob Fitzsimmons?” + +“Nope—but I was mighty near it once. I’ve seen ’em both in the movies.” + +“Well, sir,” said I, “that’s interesting. I should like to see them +myself. Do you know what made me speak of them?” + +He had spread down a newspaper and was taking the luncheon out of his +“bucket,” as he called it, including a large bottle of coffee; but he +paused and looked at me with keen interest. + +“Well,” said I, “when I saw you dragging that wire yesterday I took you +to be a pretty husky citizen yourself.” + +He grinned and took a big mouthful from one of his sandwiches. I could +see that my shot had gone home. + +“So when I got back last night,” I said, “I looked up the arm +measurements of Sullivan and Fitzsimmons in a book I have and got to +wondering how they compared with mine and yours. They were considerably +larger than mine—” + +Bill thought this a fine joke and laughed out in great good humour. + +“But I imagine you’d not be far behind either of them.” + +He looked at me a little suspiciously, as if doubtful what I was +driving at or whether or not I was joking him. But I was as serious as +the face of nature; and proceeded at once to get out my tape measure. + +“I get very much interested in such things,” I said, “and I had enough +curiosity to want to see how big your arm really was.” + +He smiled broadly. + +“You’re a queer one,” said he. + +But he took another bite of sandwich, and clenching his great fist drew +up his forearm until the biceps muscles looked like a roll of Vienna +bread—except that they had the velvety gleam of life. So I measured +first one arm, then the other. + +“By George!” said I, “you’re ahead of Fitzsimmons, but not quite up to +Sullivan.” + +“Fitz wasn’t a heavy man,” said Bill, “but a dead game fighter.” + +I saw then that I had him! So I sat down on the grass near by and we +had great talk about the comparative merits of Fitzsimmons and Sullivan +and Corbett and Jack Johnson, a department of knowledge in which he +out-distanced me. He even told me of an exploit or two of his own, +which showed that he was able to take care of himself. + +While we talked he ate his luncheon, and a downright gargantuan +luncheon it was, backed by an appetite which if it were offered to the +highest bidder on the New York Stock Exchange would, I am convinced, +bring at least ten thousand dollars in cash. It even made me envious. + +There were three huge corned-beef sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a +pickle six inches long and fat to boot, four doughnuts so big that they +resembled pitching quoits, a bottle of coffee and milk, a quarter of a +pie, and, to cap the climax, an immense raw onion. It was worth a long +journey to see Bill eat that onion. He took out his clasp knife, and +after stripping off the papery outer shell, cut the onion into thick +dewy slices. Then he opened one of the sandwiches and placed several of +them on the beef, afterward sprinkling them with salt from a small +paper parcel. Having restored the top slice of bread he took a +moon-shaped bite out of one end of this glorified sandwich. + +“I like onions,” said he. + +When we first sat down he had offered to share his luncheon with me but +I told him I had just been to dinner, and I observed that he had no +difficulty in taking care of every crumb in his “bucket.” It was +wonderful to see. + +Having finished his luncheon he went down to the brook and got a drink, +and then sat down comfortably with his back among the ferns of the +roadside, crossed his legs, and lit his pipe. There was a healthy and +wholesome flush in his face, and as he blew off the first cloud of +smoke he drew a sigh of complete comfort and looked around at me with a +lordly air such as few monarchs, no matter how well fed, could have +bettered. He had worked and sweat for what he got, and was now taking +his ease in his roadside inn. I wonder sometimes if anybody in the +world experiences keener joys than unwatched common people. + +How we talked! From pugilists we proceeded to telephones, and from that +to wages, hours, and strikes, and from that we leaped easily to Alaska +and gold-mining, and touched in passing upon Theodore Roosevelt. + +“I was just thinking,” I said, “that you and I can enjoy some things +that were beyond the reach of the greatest kings of the world.” + +“How’s that?” said he. + +“Why, Napoleon never saw a telephone nor talked through one.” + +“That’s so!” he laughed. + +“And Caesar couldn’t have dreamed that such a thing as you are doing +now was a possibility—nor George Washington, either.” + +“Say, that’s so. I never thought o’ that.” + +“Why,” I said, “the world is only half as big as it was before you +fellows came along stringing your wires! I can get to town now from my +farm in two minutes, when it used to take me an hour.” + +I really believe I gave him more of his own business than ever he had +before, for he listened so intently that his pipe went out. + +I found that Bill was from Ohio, and that he had been as far south as +Atlanta and as far west as Denver. He got his three dollars and a half +a day, rain or shine, and thought it wonderful pay; and besides, he was +seein’ the country “free, gratis, fer nothing.” + +He got his coat out of the truck and took from the pocket a +many-coloured folder. + +“Say, Mister, have you ever been to the Northwest?” + +“No,” said I. + +“Well, it’s a great country, and I’m goin’ up there.” + +He spread out the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a +spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere this side of the Rockies. + +“How’ll you do it?” I asked. + +“Oh, a lineman can go anywhere,” said he with a flourish, “A lineman +don’t have to beg a job. Besides, I got eighty dollars sewed up.” + +Talk about freedom! Never have I got a clearer impression of it than +Bill gave me that day. No millionaire, no potentate, could touch him. + +The crew came back all too soon for me. Bill knocked the ashes out of +his pipe on his boot heel, and put his “bucket” back in the truck. Five +minutes later he was climbing a tall pole with legs bowed out, striking +in his spikes at each step. From the cross-arm, up among the hemlock +tops, he called out to me: + +“Good-bye, pard.” + +“Stop in, Bill, and see me when you come by my place,” said I. + +“You bet,” said he. + +And he did, the next day, and I showed him off to Harriet, who brought +him a plate of her best doughnuts and asked him about his mother. + +Yesterday I saw him again careering by in the truck. The job was +finished. He waved his hand at me. + +“I’m off,” said he. + +“Where?” I shouted. + +“Canada.” + +[Illustration] + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. +ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY + + +“Why risk with men your hard won gold? +Buy grain and sow—your Brother Dust +Will pay you back a hundred fold— +The earth commits no breach of trust.” + + +_Hindu Proverb, Translated by Arthur Guiterman_. + +It is astonishing how many people there are in cities and towns who +have a secret longing to get back into quiet country places, to own a +bit of the soil of the earth, and to cultivate it. To some it appears +as a troublesome malady only in spring and will be relieved by a whirl +or two in country roads, by a glimpse of the hills, or a day by the +sea; but to others the homesickness is deeper seated and will be +quieted by no hasty visits. These must actually go home. + +I have had, in recent years, many letters from friends asking about +life in the country, but the longer I remain here, the more I know +about it, the less able I am to answer them—at least briefly. It is as +though one should come and ask: “Is love worth trying?” or, “How about +religion?” For country life is to each human being a fresh, strange, +original adventure. We enjoy it, or we do not enjoy it, or more +probably, we do both. It is packed and crowded with the zest of +adventure, or it is dull and miserable. We may, if we are skilled +enough, make our whole living from the land, or only a part of it, or +we may find in a few cherished acres the inspiration and power for +other work, whatever it may be. There is many a man whose strength is +renewed like that of the wrestler of Irassa, every time his feet touch +the earth. + +Of all places in the world where life can be lived to its fullest and +freest, where it can be met in its greatest variety and beauty, I am +convinced that there is none to equal the open country, or the country +town. For all country people in these days may have the city—some city +or town not too far away: but there are millions of men and women in +America who have no country and no sense of the country. What do they +not lose out of life! + +I know well the disadvantages charged against country life at its +worst. At its worst there are long hours and much lonely labour and an +income pitifully small. Drudgery, yes, especially for the women, and +loneliness. But where is there not drudgery when men are poor—where +life is at its worst? I have never seen drudgery in the country +comparable for a moment to the dreary and lonely drudgery of city +tenements, city mills, factories, and sweat shops. And in recent years +both the drudgery and loneliness of country life have been disappearing +before the motor and trolley car, the telephone, the rural post, the +gasoline engine. I have seen a machine plant as many potatoes in one +day as a man, at hand work, could have planted in a week. While there +is, indeed, real drudgery in the country, much that is looked upon as +drudgery by people who long for easy ways and a soft life, is only +good, honest, wholesome hard work—the kind of work that makes for fiber +in a man or in a nation, the kind that most city life in no wise +provides. + +There are a thousand nuisances and annoyances that men must meet who +come face to face with nature itself. You have set out your upper acres +to peach trees: and the deer come down from the hills at night and +strip the young foliage; or the field mice in winter, working under the +snow, girdle and kill them. The season brings too much rain and the +potatoes rot in the ground, the crows steal the corn, the bees swarm +when no out is watching, the cow smothers her calf, the hens’ eggs +prove infertile, and a storm in a day ravages a crop that has been +growing all summer. A constant warfare with insects and blights and +fungi—a real, bitter warfare, which can cease neither summer nor +winter! + +It is something to meet, year after year, the quiet implacability of +the land. While it is patient, it never waits long for you. There is a +chosen time for planting, a time for cultivating, a time for +harvesting. You accept the gauge thrown down—well and good, you shall +have a chance to fight! You do not accept it? There is no complaint. +The land cheerfully springs up to wild yellow mustard and dandelion and +pig-weed—and will be productive and beautiful in spite of you. + +Nor can you enter upon the full satisfaction of cultivating even a +small piece of land at second hand. To be accepted as One Who Belongs, +there must be sweat and weariness. + +The other day I was digging with Dick in a ditch that is to run down +through the orchard and connect finally with the land drain we put in +four years ago. We laid the tile just in the gravel below the silt, +about two feet deep, covering the openings with tar paper and then +throwing in gravel. It was a bright, cool afternoon. In the field below +a ploughman was at work: I could see the furrows of the dark earth +glisten as he turned it over. The grass in the meadow was a full rich +green, the new chickens were active in their yards, running to the +cluck of the hens, already the leaves of the orchard trees showed +green. And as I worked there with Dick I had the curious deep feeling +of coming somehow into a new and more intimate possession of my own +land. For titles do not really pass with signatures and red seals, nor +with money changing from one hand to another, but for true possession +one must work and serve according to the most ancient law. There is no +mitigation and no haggling of price. Those who think they can win the +greatest joys of country life on any easier terms are mistaken. + +But if one has drained his land, and ploughed it, and fertilized it, +and planted it and harvested it—even though it be only a few acres— how +he comes to know and to love every rod of it. He knows the wet spots, +and the stony spots, and the warmest and most fertile spots —until his +acres have all the qualities of a personality, whose every +characteristic he knows. It is so also that he comes to know his horses +and cattle and pigs and hens. It is a fine thing, on a warm day in +early spring, to bring out the bee-hives and let the bees have their +first flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to +see them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is +a fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, +with us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard +seems still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for +the first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing—one +of the finest of all—to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after +weeks of drought. How it comes softly out of gray skies, the first +drops throwing up spatters of dust and losing themselves in the dry +soil. Then the clouds sweep forward up the valley, darkening the +meadows and blotting out the hills, and then there is the whispering of +the rain as it first sweeps across the corn-field. At once what a stir +of life! What rustling of the long green leaves. What joyful shaking +and swaying of the tassels! And have you watched how eagerly the +grooved leaves catch the early drops, and, lest there be too little +rain after all, conduct them jealously down the stalks where they will +soonest reach the thirsty roots? What a fine thing is this to see! + +One who thus takes part in the whole process of the year comes soon to +have an indescribable affection for his land, his garden, his animals. +There are thoughts of his in every tree: memories in every fence +corner. Just now, the fourth of June, I walked down past my blackberry +patch, now come gorgeously into full white bloom—and heavy with +fragrance. I set out these plants with my own hands, I have fed them, +cultivated them, mulched them, pruned them, trellised them, and helped +every year to pick the berries. How could they be otherwise than full +of associations! They bear a fruit more beautiful than can be found in +any catalogue: and stranger and wilder than in any learned botany book! + +Why, one who comes thus to love a bit of countryside may enjoy it all +the year round. When he awakens in the middle of a long winter night he +may send his mind out to the snowy fields—I’ve done it a thousand +times!—and visit each part in turn, stroll through the orchard and pay +his respects to each tree—in a small orchard one comes to know +familiarly every tree as he knows his friends—stop at the strawberry +bed, consider the grape trellises, feel himself opening the door of the +warm, dark stable and listening to the welcoming whicker of his horses, +or visiting his cows, his pigs, his sheep, his hens, or so many of them +as he may have. + +So much of the best in the world seems to have come fragrant out of +fields, gardens, and hillsides. So many truths spoken by the Master +Poet come to us exhaling the odours of the open country. His stories +were so often of sowers, husbandmen, herdsmen: his similes and +illustrations so often dealt with the common and familiar beauty of the +fields. “Consider the lilies how they grow.” It was on a hillside that +he preached his greatest Sermon, and when in the last agony he sought a +place to meet his God, where did he go but to a garden? A carpenter you +say? Yes, but of this one may be sure: there were gardens and fields +all about: he knew gardens, and cattle, and the simple processes of the +land: he must have worked in a garden and loved it well. + +A country life rather spoils one for the so-called luxuries. A farmer +or gardener may indeed have a small cash income, but at least he eats +at the first table. He may have the sweetest of the milk, there are +thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women in America who have never +in their lives tasted really sweet milk and the freshest of eggs, and +the ripest of fruit. One does not know how good strawberries or +raspberries are when picked before breakfast and eaten with the dew +still on them. And while he must work and sweat for what he gets, he +may have all these things in almost unmeasured abundance, and without a +thought of what they cost. A man from the country is often made +uncomfortable, upon visiting the city, to find two cans of sweet corn +served for twenty or thirty cents, or a dish of raspberries at +twenty-five or forty—and neither, even at their best, equal in quality +to those he may have fresh from the garden every day. One need say this +in no boastful spirit, but as a simple statement of the fact: for +fruits sent to the city are nearly always picked before they are fully +ripe—and lose that last perfection of flavour which the sun and the +open air impart: and both fruits and vegetables, as well as milk and +eggs, suffer more than most people think from handling and shipment. +These things can be set down as one of the make-weights against the +familiar presentation of the farmer’s life as a hard one. + +One of the greatest curses of mill or factory work and with much city +work of all kinds, is its interminable monotony: the same process +repeated hour after hour and day after day. In the country there is +indeed monotonous work but rarely monotony. No task continues very +long: everything changes infinitely with the seasons. Processes are not +repetitive but creative. Nature hates monotony, is ever changing and +restless, brings up a storm to drive the haymakers from their hurried +work in the fields, sends rain to stop the ploughing, or a frost to +hurry the apple harvest. Everything is full of adventure and +vicissitude! A man who has been a farmer for two hours at the mowing +must suddenly turn blacksmith when his machine breaks down and tinker +with wrench and hammer; and later in the day he becomes dairyman, +farrier, harness-maker, merchant. No kind of wheat but is grist to his +mill, no knowledge that he cannot use! And who is freer to be a citizen +than he: freer to take his part in town meeting and serve his state in +some one of the innumerable small offices which form the solid blocks +of organization beneath our commonwealth. + +I thought last fall that corn-husking came as near being monotonous +work, as any I had ever done in the country. I presume in the great +corn-fields of the West, where the husking goes on for weeks at a time, +it probably does grow really monotonous. But I soon found that there +was a curious counter-reward attending even a process as repetitive as +this. + +I remember one afternoon in particular. It was brisk and cool with +ragged clouds like flung pennants in a poverty-stricken sky, and the +hills were a hazy brown, rather sad to see, and in one of the apple +trees at the edge of the meadow the crows were holding their mournful +autumn parliament. + +At such work as this one’s mind often drops asleep, or at least goes +dreaming, except for the narrow margin of awareness required for the +simple processes of the hands. Its orders have indeed been given: you +must kneel here, pull aside the stalks one by one, rip down the husks, +and twist off the ear—and there is the pile for the stripped stalks, +and here the basket for the gathered corn, and these processes +infinitely repeated. + +While all this is going on, the mind itself wanders off to its own far +sweet pastures, upon its own dear adventures—or rests, or plays. It is +in these times that most of the airy flying things of this beautiful +world come home to us—things that heavy-footed reason never quite +overtakes, nor stodgy knowledge ever knows. I think sometimes (as +Sterne says) we thus intercept thoughts never intended for us at all, +or uncover strange primitive memories of older times than these—racial +memories. + +At any rate, the hours pass and suddenly the mind comes home again, it +comes home from its wanderings refreshed, stimulated, happy. And +nowhere, whether in cities, or travelling in trains, or sailing upon +the sea, have I so often felt this curious enrichment as I have upon +this hillside, working alone in field, or garden, or orchard, It seems +to come up out of the soil, or respond to the touch of growing things. + +What makes any work interesting is the fact that one can make +experiments, try new things, develop specialties and _grow_. And where +can he do this with such success as on the land and in direct contact +with nature. The possibilities are here infinite new machinery, +spraying, seed testing, fertilizers, experimentation with new +varieties. A thousand and one methods, all creative, which may be tried +out in that great essential struggle of the farmer or gardener to +command all the forces of nature. + +Because there are farmers, and many of them, who do not experiment and +do not grow, but make their occupation a veritable black drudgery, this +is no reason for painting a sombre-hued picture of country life. Any +calling, the law, the ministry, the medical profession, can be blasted +by fixing one’s eyes only upon its ugliest aspects. And farming, at its +best, has become a highly scientific, extraordinarily absorbing, and +when all is said, a profitable, profession. Neighbours of mine have +developed systems of overhead irrigation to make rain when there is no +rain, and have covered whole fields with cloth canopies to increase the +warmth and to protect the crops from wind and hail, and by the analysis +of the soil and exact methods of feeding it with fertilizers, have come +as near a complete command of nature as any farmers in the world. What +independent, resourceful men they are! And many of them have also grown +rich in money. It is not what nature does with a man that matters but +what he does with nature. + +Nor is it necessary in these days for the farmer or the country dweller +to be uncultivated or uninterested in what are often called, with no +very clear definition, the “finer things of life.” Many educated men +are now on the farms and have their books and magazines, and their +music and lectures and dramas not too far off in the towns. A great +change in this respect has come over American country life in twenty +years. The real hardships of pioneering have passed away, and with good +roads and machinery, and telephones, and newspapers every day by rural +post, the farmer may maintain as close a touch with the best things the +world has to offer as any man. And if he really have such broader +interests the winter furnishes him time and leisure that no other class +of people can command. + +I do not know, truly, what we are here for upon this wonderful and +beautiful earth, this incalculably interesting earth, unless it is to +crowd into a few short years—when all is said, terribly short +years!—every possible fine experience and adventure: unless it is to +live our lives to the uttermost: unless it is to seize upon every fresh +impression, develop every latent capacity: to grow as much as ever we +have it in our power to grow. What else can there be? If there is no +life beyond this one, we have lived _here_ to the uttermost. We’ve had +what we’ve had! But if there is more life, and still more life, beyond +this one, and above and under this one, and around and through this +one, we shall be well prepared for that, whatever it may be. + +The real advantages of country life have come to be a strong lure to +many people in towns and cities: but no one should attempt to “go back +to the land” with the idea that it is an easy way to escape the real +problems and difficulties of life. The fact is, there is no escape. The +problems and the difficulties must be boldly met whether in city or +country. Farming in these days is not “easy living,” but a highly +skilled profession, requiring much knowledge, and actual manual labour +and plenty of it. So many come to the country too light-heartedly, buy +too much land, attempt unfamiliar crops, expect to hire the work +done—and soon find themselves facing discouragement and failure. Any +city man who would venture on this new way of life should try it first +for a year or so before he commits himself—try himself out against the +actual problems. Or, by moving to the country, still within reach of +his accustomed work, he can have a garden or even a small farm to +experiment with. The shorter work-day has made this possible for a +multitude of wage-workers, and I know many instances in which life +because of this opportunity to get to the soil has become a very +different and much finer thing for them. + +It is easy also for many men who are engaged in professional work to +live where they can get their hands into the soil for part of the time +at least: and this may be made as real an experience as far as it goes +as though they owned wider acres and devoted their whole time to the +work. + +A man who thus faces the problem squarely will soon see whether country +life is the thing for him; if he finds it truly so, he can be as nearly +assured of “living happily ever after” as any one outside of a +story-book can ever be. Out of it all is likely to come some of the +greatest rewards that men can know, a robust body, a healthy appetite, +a serene and cheerful spirit! + +And finally there is one advantage not so easy to express. Long ago I +read a story of Tolstoi’s called “The Candle”—how a peasant Russian +forced to plough on Easter Day lighted a candle to his Lord and kept it +burning on his plough as he worked through the sacred day. When I see a +man ploughing in his fields I often think of Tolstoi’s peasant, and +wonder if this is not as true a way as any of worshipping God. I wonder +if any one truly worships God who sets about it with deliberation, or +knows quite why he does it. + +“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, +as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass.” + +THE END + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 10593-0.txt or 10593-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/9/10593/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Great Possessions</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: David Grayson</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: January 4, 2004 [eBook #10593]<br> +[Most recently updated: August 20, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/01.jpg" width="320" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<h1>Great Possessions</h1> + +<h2>David Grayson</h2> + +<hr> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/02.jpg" width="400" height="290" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. THE GREEN PEOPLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. PLACES OF RETIREMENT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. NO TRESPASS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. LOOK AT THE WORLD!</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. A GOOD APPLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. I GO TO THE CITY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. THE OLD STONE MASON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/03.jpg" width="400" height="240" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a>CHAPTER I.<br> +THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Sweet as Eden is the air<br> + And Eden-sweet the ray.<br> +No Paradise is lost for them<br> +Who foot by branching root and stem,<br> +And lightly with the woodland share<br> + The change of night and day.” +</p> + +<p>For these many years, since I have lived here in the country, I have had +it in my mind to write something about the odour and taste of this +well-flavoured earth. The fact is, both the sense of smell and the sense +of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of the +senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, and +sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family, is keen upon the +business of seizing the entire inheritance, while smell, like hairy +Esau, comes late to the blessing, hungry from the hills, and willing to +trade its inheritance for a mess of pottage.</p> + +<p>I have always had a kind of errant love for the improvident and +adventurous Esaus of the Earth. I think they smell a wilder fragrance +than I do, and taste sweeter things, and I have thought, therefore, of +beginning a kind of fragrant autobiography, a chronicle of all the good +odours and flavours that ever I have had in my life.</p> + +<p>As I grow older, a curious feeling comes often to me in the spring, as +it comes this spring more poignantly than ever before, a sense of the +temporariness of all things, the swiftness of life, the sadness of a +beauty that vanishes so soon, and I long to lay hold upon it as it +passes by all the handles that I can. I would not only see it and hear +it, but I would smell it and taste it and touch it, and all with a new +kind of intensity and eagerness.</p> + +<p>Harriet says I get more pleasure out of the smell of my supper than I +get out of the supper itself.</p> + +<p>“I never need to ring for you,” says she, “but only open the kitchen +door. In a few minutes I'll see you straighten up, lift your head, sniff +a little, and come straight for the house.”</p> + +<p>“The odour of your suppers, Harriet,” I said, “after a day in the +fields, would lure a man out of purgatory.”</p> + +<p>My father before me had a singularly keen nose. I remember well when I +was a boy and drove with him in the wild North Country, often through +miles of unbroken forest, how he would sometimes break a long silence, +lift his head with sudden awareness, and say to me:</p> + +<p>“David, I smell open fields.”</p> + +<p>In a few minutes we were sure to come to a settler's cabin, a log barn, +or a clearing. Among the free odours of the forest he had caught, afar +off, the common odours of the work of man.</p> + +<p>When we were tramping or surveying in that country, I have seen him stop +suddenly, draw in a long breath, and remark:</p> + +<p>“Marshes,” or, “A stream yonder.”</p> + +<p>Part of this strange keenness of sense, often noted by those who knew +that sturdy old cavalryman, may have been based, as so many of our +talents are, upon a defect. My father gave all the sweet sounds of the +world, the voices of his sons, the songs of his daughters, to help free +the Southern slaves. He was deaf.</p> + +<p>It is well known that when one sense is defective the others fly to the +rescue, and my father's singular development of the sense of smell may +have been due in part to this defect, though I believe it to have been, +to a far larger degree, a native gift. Me had a downright good nose. All +his life long he enjoyed with more than ordinary keenness the odour of +flowers, and would often pick a sprig of wild rose and carry it along +with him in his hand, sniffing at it from time to time, and he loved the +lilac, as I do after him. To ill odours he was not less sensitive, and +was impatient of rats in the barn, and could smell them, among other +odours, the moment the door was opened. He always had a peculiar +sensitiveness to the presence of animals, as of dogs, cats, muskrats, +cattle, horses, and the like, and would speak of them long before he had +seen them or could know that they were about.</p> + +<p>I recall once on a wild Northern lake, when we were working along the +shore in a boat, how he stopped suddenly and exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“David, do you hear anything?”—for I, a boy, was ears for him in those +wilderness places.</p> + +<p>“No, Father. What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Indians.”</p> + +<p>And, sure enough, in a short time I heard the barking of their dogs and +we came soon upon their camp, where, I remember, they were drying deer +meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that the +smoky smell of the Indians, tanned buckskin, parched wild rice, and the +like, were odours that carried far and could not be mistaken.</p> + +<p>My father had a big, hooked nose with long, narrow nostrils, I suppose +that this has really nothing to do with the matter, although I have +come, after these many years, to look with a curious interest upon +people's noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are. +My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses go—but I think +I inherited from my father something of the power of enjoyment he had +from that sense, though I can never hope to become the accomplished +smeller he was.</p> + +<p>I am moved to begin this chronicle because of my joy this morning +early—a May morning!—just after sunrise, when the shadows lay long +and blue to the west and the dew was still on the grass, and I walked in +the pleasant spaces of my garden. It was so still...so still...that +birds afar off could be heard singing, and once through the crystal air +came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the +silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the +lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries. +Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well knew the +way of the wind, for if I stood to the north of them the odour was less +rich and free than to the south, and I thought I might pose as a prophet +of wind and weather upon the basis of this easy magic, and predict that +the breezes of the day would be from the north—as, indeed, they later +appeared to be.</p> + +<p>I went from clump to clump of the lilacs testing and comparing them with +great joy and satisfaction. They vary noticeably in odour; the white +varieties being the most delicate, while those tending to deep purple +are the richest. Some of the newer double varieties seem less +fragrant—and I have tested them now many times—than the old-fashioned +single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our +smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of selection +for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist has cheated us of our +rightful heritage of fragrance. I have a mind some time to practise the +art of burbankry or other kind of wizardy upon the old lilac stock and +select for odour alone, securing ravishing original varieties—indeed, +whole new gamuts of fragrance.</p> + +<p>I should devise the most animating names for my creations, such as the +Double Delicious, the Air of Arcady, the Sweet Zephyr, and others even +more inviting, which I should enjoy inventing. Though I think surely I +could make my fortune out of this interesting idea, I present it freely +to a scent-hungry world—here it is, gratis!—for I have my time so +fully occupied during all of this and my next two or three lives that I +cannot attend to it.</p> + +<p>I have felt the same defect in the cultivated roses. While the odours +are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white +roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the +fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in +old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some +unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a +feeling—light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny +air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the +wild rose will bring back in all the poignancy of sad happiness a train +of ancient memories old faces, old scenes, old loves—and the wild +thoughts I had when a boy. The first week of the wild-rose blooming, +beginning here about the twenty-fifth of June, is always to me a +memorable time.</p> + +<p>I was a long time learning how to take hold of nature, and think now +with some sadness of all the life I lost in former years. The impression +the earth gave me was confused: I was as one only half awake. A fine +morning made me dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the heat of the day, +and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I could have +explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I looked about me +I began to ask myself, “Why is it that the sight of these common hills +and fields gives me such exquisite delight? And if it is beauty, why is +it beautiful? And if I am so richly rewarded by mere glimpses, can I not +increase my pleasure with longer looks?”</p> + +<p>I tried longer looks both at nature and at the friendly human creatures +all about me. I stopped often in the garden where I was working, or +loitered a moment in the fields, or sat down by the roadside, and +thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully +surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great +Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are +when we penetrate them, and consisted merely in shutting out all other +impressions, feelings, thoughts, and concentrating the full energy of +the attention upon what it was that I saw or heard at that instant.</p> + +<p>At one moment I would let in all the sounds of the earth, at another all +the sights. So we practise the hand at one time, the foot at another, or +learn how to sit or to walk, and so acquire new grace for the whole +body. Should we do less in acquiring grace for the spirit? It will +astonish one who has not tried it how full the world is of sounds +commonly unheard, and of sights commonly unseen, but in their nature, +like the smallest blossoms, of a curious perfection and beauty.</p> + +<p>Out of this practice grew presently, and as it seems to me +instinctively, for I cannot now remember the exact time of its +beginning, a habit of repeating under my breath, or even aloud, and in a +kind of singsong voice, fragmentary words and sentences describing what +it was that I saw or felt at the moment, as, for example:</p> + +<p>“The pink blossoms of the wild crab-apple trees I see from the hill.... +The reedy song of the wood thrush among the thickets of the wild +cherry.... The scent of peach leaves, the odour of new-turned soil in +the black fields.... The red of the maples in the marsh, the white of +apple trees in bloom.... I cannot find Him out—nor know why I am +here....”</p> + +<p>Some form of expression, however crude, seemed to reenforce and +intensify the gatherings of the senses; and these words, afterward +remembered, or even written down in the little book I sometimes carried +in my pocket, seemed to awaken echoes, however faint, of the exaltation +of that moment in the woods or fields, and enabled me to live twice +where formerly I had been able to live but once.</p> + +<p>It was by this simple process of concentrating upon what I saw or heard +that I increased immeasurably my own joy of my garden and fields and +the hills and marshes all about. A little later, for I was a slow +learner, I began to practise the same method with the sense of smell, +and still later with the sense of taste. I said to myself, “I will no +longer permit the avid and eager eye to steal away my whole attention. I +will learn to enjoy more completely all the varied wonders of the +earth.”</p> + +<p>So I tried deliberately shutting the doorways of both sight and hearing, +and centring the industry of my spirit upon the flavours of the earth. I +tested each odour narrowly, compared it well with remembered odours, and +often turned the impression I had into such poor words as I could +command.</p> + +<p>What a new and wonderful world opened to me then! My takings of nature +increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with +my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around +about—and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. I cannot +explain it rightly, but it was as though I had found a new earth here +within the old one, but more spacious and beautiful than any I had known +before. I have thought, often and often, that this world we live in so +dumbly, so carelessly, would be more glorious than the tinsel heaven of +the poets if only we knew how to lay hold upon it, if only we could win +that complete command of our own lives which is the end of our being.</p> + +<p>At first, as I said, I stopped my work, or loitered as I walked, in +order to see, or hear, or smell—and do so still, for I have entered +only the antechamber of the treasure-house; but as I learned better the +modest technic of these arts I found that the practice of them went well +with the common tasks of the garden or farm, especially with those that +were more or less monotonous, like cultivating corn, hoeing potatoes, +and the like.</p> + +<p>The air is just as full of good sights and good odours for the worker as +for the idler, and it depends only upon the awareness, the aliveness, of +our own spirits whether we toil like dumb animals or bless our labouring +hours with the beauty of life. Such enjoyment and a growing command of +our surroundings are possible, after a little practice, without taking +much of that time we call so valuable and waste so sinfully. “I haven't +time,” says the farmer, the banker, the professor, with a kind of +disdain for the spirit of life, when, as a matter of fact, he has all +the time there is, all that anybody has—to wit, <i>this</i> moment, this +great and golden moment!—but knows not how to employ it. He creeps when +he might walk, walks when he might run, runs when he might fly—and +lives like a woodchuck in the dark body of himself.</p> + +<p>Why, there are men in this valley who scout the idea that farming, +carpentry, merchantry, are anything but drudgery, defend all the evils +known to humankind with the argument that “a man must live,” and laugh +at any one who sees beauty or charm in being here, in working with the +hands, or, indeed, in just living! While they think of themselves +cannily as “practical” men, I think them the most impractical men I +know, for in a world full of boundless riches they remain obstinately +poor. They are unwilling to invest even a few of their dollars unearned +in the real wealth of the earth. For it is only the sense of the spirit +of life, whether in nature or in other human beings, that lifts men +above the beasts and curiously leads them to God, who is the spirit both +of beauty and of friendliness. I say truly, having now reached the point +in my life where it seems to me I care only for writing that which is +most deeply true for me, that I rarely walk in my garden or upon the +hills of an evening without thinking of God. It is in my garden that all +things become clearer to me, even that miracle whereby one who has +offended may still see God; and this I think a wonderful thing. In my +garden I understand dimly why evil is in the world, and in my garden +learn how transitory it is.</p> + +<p>Just now I have come in from work, and will note freshly one of the best +odours I have had to-day. As I was working in the corn, a lazy breeze +blew across the meadows from the west, and after loitering a moment +among the blackberry bushes sought me out where I was busiest. Do you +know the scent of the blackberry? Almost all the year round it is a +treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; but it +reaches crescendo in blossom time when, indeed, I like it least, for +being too strong. It has a curious fragrance, once well called by a poet +“the hot scent of the brier,” and aromatically hot it is and sharp like +the briers themselves. At times I do not like it at all, for it gives me +a kind of faintness, while at other times, as to-day, it fills me with a +strange sense of pleasure as though it were the very breath of the spicy +earth. It is also a rare friend of the sun, for the hotter and brighter +the day, the hotter and sharper the scent of the brier.</p> + +<p>Many of the commonest and least noticed of plants, flowers, trees, +possess a truly fragrant personality if once we begin to know them. I +had an adventure in my own orchard, only this spring, and made a fine +new acquaintance in a quarter least of all expected. I had started down +the lane through the garden one morning in the most ordinary way, with +no thought of any special experience, when I suddenly caught a whiff of +pure delight that stopped me short.</p> + +<p>“What now can <i>that</i> be?” and I thought to myself that nature had played +some new prank on me.</p> + +<p>I turned into the orchard, following my nose. It was not the peach buds, +nor the plums, nor the cherries, nor yet the beautiful new coloured +leaves of the grape, nor anything I could see along the grassy margin of +the pasture. There were other odours all about, old friends of mine, but +this was some shy and pleasing stranger come venturing upon my land.</p> + +<p>A moment later I discovered a patch of low green verdure upon the +ground, and dismissed it scornfully as one of my ancient enemies. But +it is this way with enemies, once we come to know them, they often turn +out to have a fragrance that is kindly.</p> + +<p>Well, this particular fierce enemy was a patch of chickweed. Chickweed! +Invader of the garden, cossack of the orchard! I discovered, however, +that it was in full bloom and covered with small, star-like white +blossoms.</p> + +<p>“Well, now,” said I, “are you the guilty rascal?”</p> + +<p>So I knelt there and took my delight of it and a rare, delicate good +odour it was. For several days afterward I would not dig out the patch, +for I said to myself, “What a cheerful claim it makes these early days, +when most of the earth is still cold and dead, for a bit of +immortality.”</p> + +<p>The bees knew the secret already, and the hens and the blackbirds! And I +thought it no loss, but really a new and valuable pleasure, to divert my +path down the lane for several days that I might enjoy more fully this +new odour, and make a clear acquaintance with something fine upon the +earth I had not known before.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/04.jpg" width="400" height="390" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a>CHAPTER II.<br> +OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS</h2> + +<p>Of all times of the day for good odours I think the early morning the +very best, although the evening just after sunset, if the air falls +still and cool, is often as good. Certain qualities or states of the +atmosphere seem to favour the distillation of good odours and I have +known times even at midday when the earth was very wonderful to smell. +There is a curious, fainting fragrance that comes only with sunshine and +still heat. Not long ago I was cutting away a thicket of wild spiraea +which was crowding in upon the cultivated land. It was a hot day and +the leaves wilted quickly, giving off such a penetrating, fainting +fragrance that I let the branches lie where they fell the afternoon +through and came often back to smell of them, for it was a fine thing +thus to discover an odour wholly new to me.</p> + +<p>I like also the first wild, sweet smell of new-cut meadow grass, not the +familiar odour of new-mown hay, which comes a little later, and is +worthy of its good report, but the brief, despairing odour of grass just +cut down, its juices freshly exposed to the sun. One, as it richly in +the fields at the mowing. I like also the midday smell of peach leaves +and peach-tree bark at the summer priming: and have never let any one +else cut out the old canes from the blackberry rows in my garden for the +goodness of the scents which wait upon that work.</p> + +<p>Another odour I have found animating is the odour of burning wastage in +new clearings or in old fields, especially in the evening when the smoke +drifts low along the land and takes to itself by some strange chemical +process the tang of earthy things. It is a true saying that nothing will +so bring back the emotion of a past time as a remembered odour. I have +had from a whiff of fragrance caught in a city street such a vivid +return of an old time and an old, sad scene that I have stopped, +trembling there, with an emotion long spent and I thought forgotten.</p> + +<p>Once in a foreign city, passing a latticed gateway that closed in a +narrow court, I caught the odour of wild sweet balsam. I do not know now +where it came from, or what could have caused it—but it stopped me +short where I stood, and the solid brick walls of that city rolled aside +like painted curtains, and the iron streets dissolved before my eyes, +and with the curious dizziness of nostalgia, I was myself upon the hill +of my youth—with the gleaming river in the valley, and a hawk sailing +majestically in the high blue of the sky, and all about and everywhere +the balsams—and the balsams—full of the sweet, wild odours of the +north, and of dreaming boyhood.</p> + +<p>And there while my body, the shell of me, loitered in that strange city, +I was myself four thousand miles and a quarter of a century away, +reliving, with a conscious passion that boyhood never knew, a moment +caught up, like a torch, out of the smouldering wreckage of the past.</p> + +<p>Do not tell me that such things die! They all remain with us-all the +sights, and sounds, and thoughts of by-gone times awaiting only the +whiff from some latticed gateway, some closed-in court to spring again +into exuberant life. If only we are ready for the great moment!</p> + +<p>As for the odour of the burning wastage of the fields at evening I +scarcely know if I dare say it. I find it produces in the blood of me a +kind of primitive emotion, as though it stirred memories older than my +present life. Some drowsy cells of the brain awaken to a familiar +stimulus—the odour of the lodge-fire of the savage, the wigwam of the +Indian. Racial memories!</p> + +<p>But it is not the time of the day, nor the turn of the season, nor yet +the way of the wind that matters most but the ardour and glow we +ourselves bring to the fragrant earth. It is a sad thing to reflect that +in a world so overflowing with goodness of smell, of fine sights and +sweet sounds, we pass by hastily and take so little of them. Days pass +when we see no beautiful sight, hear no sweet sound, smell no memorable +odour: when we exchange no single word of deeper understanding with a +friend. We have lived a day and added nothing to our lives! A blind, +grubbing, senseless life—that!</p> + +<p>It is a strange thing, also, that instead of sharpening the tools by +which we take hold of life we make studied efforts to dull them. We seem +to fear life and early begin to stop our ears and close our eyes lest we +hear and see too much: we clog our senses and cloud our minds. We seek +dull security and ease and cease longer to desire adventure and +struggle. And then—the tragedy of it—the poet we all have in us in +youth begins to die, the philosopher in us dies, the martyr in us dies, +so that the long, long time beyond youth with so many of us becomes a +busy death. And this I think truer of men than of women: beyond forty +many women just begin to awaken to power and beauty, but most men beyond +that age go on dying. The task of the artist, whether poet, or musician, +or painter, is to keep alive the perishing spirit of free adventure in +men: to nourish the poet, the prophet, the martyr, we all have in us.</p> + +<p>One's sense of smell, like the sense of taste, is sharpest when he is +hungry, and I am convinced also that one sees and hears best when +unclogged with food, undulled with drink, undrugged with smoke. For me, +also, weariness, though not exhaustion, seems to sharpen all the +senses. Keenness goes with leanness. When I have been working hard or +tramping the country roads in the open air and come in weary and hungry +at night and catch the fragrance of the evening along the road or upon +the hill, or at barn-doors smell the unmilked cows, or at the doorway, +the comfortable odours of cooking supper how good that all is! At such +times I know Esau to the core: the forthright, nature-loving, simple man +he was, coming in dabbled with the blood of hunted animals and hungry +for the steaming pottage.</p> + +<p>It follows that if we take excessive joys of one sense, as of taste, +nature, ever seeking just balances, deprives us of the full enjoyment of +the others, “I am stuffed, cousin,” cries Beatrice in the play, “I +cannot smell.” “I have drunk,” remarks the Clown in Arcady, “what are +roses to me?” We forget that there are five chords in the great scale of +life—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and—few of us ever master +the chords well enough to get the full symphony of life, but are +something like little pig-tailed girls playing Peter Piper with one +finger while all the music of the universe is in the Great Instrument, +and all to be had for the taking.</p> + +<p>Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or +unnecessary: and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in +spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even +welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place. Some smells, evil +at first, become through usage not unpleasant. I once stopped with a +wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside +when I came in. He said it was “good and strong” and sniffed it with +appreciation. I agreed with him that it was strong. To him it was not +unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge. All nature +seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of decay she +is speeding decay: and a manured field produces later the best of all +odours. Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire an evil odour: +and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be plenty of +sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of men. If they +are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/05.jpg" width="400" height="140" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a>CHAPTER III.<br> +FOLLOW YOUR NOSE!</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn—<br> +Look to this day! For it is Life,<br> +The very Life of Life!”</p> + +<p>On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, lift +his head to the sky—and follow his nose....</p> + +<p>It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down +the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh +begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was +fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were +drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into +faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, so +airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine +and spring morning—so that one's spirit dissolved in it, became a part +of it. Such a morning! Such a morning!</p> + +<p>From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land.</p> + +<p>It was the time of all times for good odours—soon after sunrise—before +the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night.</p> + +<p>In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon +the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could not +at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from the +general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the +moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the +faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and +just as I was saying to myself, “I've got it, I've got it!”—for it is a +great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields—I saw, near +the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple +tree in full bloom.</p> + +<p>“So there you are!” I said.</p> + +<p>I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its +fragrance. The sun, looking over the taller trees to the east, had +crowned the top of it with gold, so that it was beautiful to see; and it +was full of honey bees as excited as I.</p> + +<p>A score of feet onward toward the wind, beyond the thorn-apple tree, I +passed wholly out of the range of its fragrance into another world, and +began trying for some new odour. After one or two false scents, for this +pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour long +known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. It led +me still a little distance northward to a sunny slope just beyond a bit +of marsh, and, sure enough, I found an old friend, the wild sweet +geranium, a world of it, in full bloom, and I sat down there for some +time to enjoy it fully.</p> + +<p>Beyond that, and across a field wild with tangles of huckleberry bushes +and sheep laurel where the bluets and buttercups were blooming, and in +shady spots the shy white violet, I searched for the odour of a certain +clump of pine trees I discovered long ago. I knew that I must come upon +it soon, but could not tell just when or where. I held up a moistened +finger to make sure of the exact direction of the wind, and bearing, +then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it—as a hunter might +surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and +through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose for +an instant the scent I was following—even though I stopped in a low +spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom—and +came thus to the pines I was seeking. They are not great trees, nor +noble, but gnarled and angular and stunted, for the soil in that place +is poor and thin, and the winds in winter keen; but the brown blanket of +needles they spread and the shade they offer the traveller are not less +hospitable; nor the fragrance they give off less enchanting. The odour +of the pine is one I love.</p> + +<p>I sat down there in a place I chose long ago—a place already as +familiar with pleasing memories as a favourite room—so that I wonder +that some of the notes I have written there do not of themselves exhale +the very odour of the pines.</p> + +<p>And all about was hung a fair tapestry of green, and the earthy floor +was cleanly carpeted with brown, and the roof above was in arched +mosaic, the deep, deep blue of the sky seen through the gnarled and +knotted branches of the pines. Through a little opening among the +trees, as through a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide +meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the +open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I +heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing up +quickly I saw my early visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you +please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far out +on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, like a +sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked—a downy +woodpecker.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, sir,” I said.</p> + +<p>He stopped for scarcely a second, cocked one eye at me, and went back to +his work again. Who was I that I should interrupt his breakfast?</p> + +<p>And I was glad I was there, and I began enumerating, as though I were +the accredited reporter for the <i>Woodland Gazette</i>, all the good news of +the day.</p> + +<p>“The beech trees.” said aloud, “have come at last to full leafage. The +wild blackberries are ready to bloom, the swamp roses are budded. Brown +planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from +their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I +do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the +drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for Walt +the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the pine is +as sweet—”</p> + +<p>At that moment, like a flame for clearness, I understood some of the +deep and simple things of life, as that we are to be like the friendly +pines, and the elm trees, and the open fields, and reject no man and +judge no man. Once, a long time ago, I read a sober treatise by one who +tried to prove with elaborate knowledge that, upon the whole, good was +triumphant in this world, and that probably there was a God, and I +remember going out dully afterward upon the hill, for I was weighed down +with a strange depression, and the world seemed to me a hard, cold, +narrow place where good must be heavily demonstrated in books. And as I +sat there the evening fell, a star or two came out in the clear blue of +the sky, and suddenly it became all simple to me, so that I laughed +aloud at that laborious big-wig for spending so many futile years in +seeking doubtful proof of what he might have learned in one rare home +upon my hill. And far more than he could prove far more.</p> + +<p>As I came away from that place I knew I should never again be quite the +same person I was before.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/06.jpg" width="350" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>Well, we cannot remain steadily upon the heights. At least I cannot, +and would not if I could. After I have been out about so long on such an +adventure as this, something lets go inside of me, and I come down out +of the mountain—and yet know deeply that I have been where the bush was +burning; and have heard the Voice in the Fire.</p> + +<p>So it was yesterday morning. I realized suddenly that I was +hungry—commonly, coarsely hungry. My whole attention, I was going to +say my whole soul, shifted to the thought of ham and eggs! This may seem +a tremendous anti-climax, but it is, nevertheless, a sober report of +what happened. At the first onset of this new mood, the ham-and-eggs +mood, let us call it, I was a little ashamed or abashed at the +remembrance of my wild flights, and had a laugh at the thought of myself +floundering around in the marshes and fields a mile from home, when +Harriet, no doubt, had breakfast waiting for me! What absurd, +contradictory, inconsistent, cowardly creatures we are, anyway!</p> + +<p>The house seemed an inconceivable distance away, and the only real thing +in the world the gnawing emptiness under my belt. And I was wet to my +knees, and the tangled huckleberry bushes and sheep laurel and hardback +I had passed through so joyously a short time before now clung heavily +about my legs as I struggled through them. And the sun was hot and +high—and there were innumerable small, black buzzing flies.</p> + +<p>To cap the climax, whom should I meet as I was crossing the fence into +the lower land but my friend Horace, He had been out early looking for a +cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them +slowly up the lane, the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, the +calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about upon uncertain legs.</p> + +<p>“Takin' the air, David?”</p> + +<p>I amuse Horace. Horace is an important man in this community. He has +big, solid barns, and money in the bank, and a reputation for +hardheadedness. He is also known as a “driver”; and has had sore trouble +with a favourite son. He believes in “goin' it slow” and “playin' safe,” +and he is convinced that “ye can't change human nature.”</p> + +<p>His question came to me with a kind of shock. I imagined with a +vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered +him squarely and honestly, if I were to say:</p> + +<p>“I've been down in the marshes following my nose—enjoying the thorn +apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting +the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper.”</p> + +<p>I was hungry, and in a mood to smile at myself anyway (good-humouredly +and forgivingly as we always smile at ourselves!) before I met Horace, +and the flashing vision I had of Horace's dry, superior smile finished +me. Was there really anything in this world but cows and calves, and +great solid barns, and oatcrops, and cash in the bank?</p> + +<p>“Been in the brook?” asked Horace, observing my wet legs.</p> + +<p>Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to the +courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest things +we have in us! I was not equal to it.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I've been down for a tramp in the marsh,” I said, trying to put him +off.</p> + +<p>But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to +chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them ultimately +with the impression that they are somehow less sound, sensible, +practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because he is right, +but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy halt-beliefs and +half-believers he is without doubts.</p> + +<p>“What ye find down there?” asked Horace.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on.”</p> + +<p>“Hm-m,” said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he continued, +“Often git out in the morning as early as this?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “often.”</p> + +<p>“And do you find things any different now from what they would be later +in the day?”</p> + +<p>At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to +revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we +do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we +can fight! And be honest!</p> + +<p>“Horace,” I said, “I know what you are thinking about.”</p> + +<p>Horace's face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of +curiosity in his eye.</p> + +<p>“You've been thinking I've been wasting my time beating around down +there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things—which +you wouldn't do. You think I'm a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don't +you, Horace? I'll warrant you've told your wife just that more than +once. Come, now!”</p> + +<p>I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and +a little foolish.</p> + +<p>“Come now, honest!” I laughed and looked him in the eye.</p> + +<p>“Waal, now, ye see—”</p> + +<p>“Of course you do, and I don't mind it in the least.”</p> + +<p>A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye.</p> + +<p>“Ain't ye?”</p> + +<p>It's a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend.</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “I'm the practical man and you're the dreamer. I've rarely +known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you are, nor a +more impractical one.”</p> + +<p>Horace laughed.</p> + +<p>“How do ye make that out?”</p> + +<p>With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as +good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the +offensive.</p> + +<p>“Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?”</p> + +<p>This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred +human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying, +thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why.</p> + +<p>“Why, to make a living—same as you,” said Horace.</p> + +<p>“Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor +neighbour of mine, that's you, Horace, was just making his living, that +he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you +working for? It's something more than a mere living.”</p> + +<p>“Waal, now, I'll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I'm layin' aside a +little something for a rainy day.”</p> + +<p>“A little something!” this in the exact inflection of irony by which +here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a +good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also +in the exact manner of one so complimented.</p> + +<p>“Horace, what are you going to do with that thirty thousand dollars?”</p> + +<p>“Thirty thousand!” Horace looks at me and smiles, and I look at Horace +and smile.</p> + +<p>“Honest now!”</p> + +<p>“Waal, I'll tell ye—a little peace and comfort for me and Josie in our +old age, and a little something to make the children remember us when +we're gone. Isn't that worth working for?”</p> + +<p>He said this with downright seriousness. I did not press him further, +but if I had tried I could probably have got the even deeper admission +of that faith that lies, like bed rock, in the thought of most men—that +honesty and decency here will not be without its reward there, however +they may define the “there.” Some “prophet's paradise to come!”</p> + +<p>“I knew it!” I said. “Horace, you're a dreamer, too. You are dreaming of +peace and comfort in your old age, a little quiet house in town where +you won't have to labour as hard as you do now, where you won't be +worried by crops and weather, and where Mrs. Horace will be able to rest +after so many years of care and work and sorrow—a kind of earthly +heaven! And you are dreaming of leaving a bit to your children and +grandchildren, and dreaming of the gratitude they will express. All +dreams, Horace!”</p> + +<p>“Oh, waal——”</p> + +<p>“The fact is, you are working for a dream, and living on dreams—isn't +that true?”</p> + +<p>“Waal, now, if you mean it that way——”</p> + +<p>“I see I haven't got you beaten yet, Horace!”</p> + +<p>He smiled broadly,</p> + +<p>“We are all amiable enough with our own dreams. You think that what you +are working for—your dream—is somehow sounder and more practical than +what I am working for.”</p> + +<p>Horace started to reply, but had scarcely debouched from his trenches +when I opened on him with one of my twenty-fours.</p> + +<p>“How do you know that you are ever going to be old?”</p> + +<p>It hit.</p> + +<p>“And if you do grow old, how do you know that thirty thousand +dollars—oh, we'll call it that—is really enough, provided you don't +lose it before, to buy peace and comfort for you, or that what you leave +your children will make either you or them any happier? Peace and +comfort and happiness are terribly expensive, Horace—and prices have +been going up fast since this war began!”</p> + +<p>Horace looked at me uncomfortably, as men do in the world when you shake +the foundations of the tabernacle. I have thought since that I probably +pressed him too far; but these things go deep with me.</p> + +<p>“No, Horace,” I said, “you are the dreamer—and the impractical dreamer +at that!”</p> + +<p>For a moment Horace answered nothing; and we both stood still there in +the soft morning sunshine with the peaceful fields and woods all about +us, two human atoms struggling hotly with questions too large for us. +The cow and the new calf were long out of sight. Horace made a motion as +if to follow them up the lane, but I held him with my glittering eye—as +I think of it since, not without a kind of amusement at my own +seriousness.</p> + +<p>“I'm the practical man, Horace, for I want my peace now, and my +happiness now, and my God now. I can't wait. My barns may burn or my +cattle die, or the solid bank where I keep my deferred joy may fail, or +I myself by to-morrow be no longer here.”</p> + +<p>So powerfully and vividly did this thought take possession of me that I +cannot now remember to have said a decent good-bye to Horace (never +mind, he knows me!). At least when I was halfway up the hill I found +myself gesticulating with one clenched fist and saying to myself with a +kind of passion: “Why wait to be peaceful? Why not be peaceful now? Why +not be happy now? Why not be rich now?”</p> + +<p>For I think it truth that a life uncommanded now is uncommanded; a life +unenjoyed now is unenjoyed; a life not lived wisely now is not lived +wisely: for the past is gone and no one knows the future.</p> + +<p>As for Horace is he convinced that he is an impractical dreamer. Not a +bit of it! He was merely flurried for a moment in his mind, and probably +thinks me now, more than ever before, just what I think him. Absurd +place, isn't it, this world?</p> + +<p>So I reached home at last. You have no idea, unless you have tried it +yourself, how good breakfast tastes alter a three-mile tramp in the +sharp morning air. The odour of ham and eggs, and new muffins, and +coffee, as you come up the hill, there is an odour for you! And it was +good to see Harriet.</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “you are a sight for tired eyes.”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/07.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br> +THE GREEN PEOPLE</h2> + +<p>I have always had a fondness, when upon my travels about the world of +the near-by woods and fields, for nipping a bit of a twig here and there +and tasting the tart or bitter quality of it. I suppose the instinct +descends to me from the herbivorous side of my distant ancestry. I love +a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark, or a +pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy grass +drawn slowly from its close-fitting sheath, or a twig of the birch that +tastes like wintergreen.</p> + +<p>I think this no strange or unusual instinct, for I have seen many other +people doing it, especially farmers around here, who go through the +fields nipping the new oats, testing the red-top, or chewing a bit of +sassafras bark. I have in mind a clump of shrubbery in the town road, +where an old house once stood, of the kind called here by some the +“sweet-scented shrub,” and the brandies of it nearest the road are quite +clipped and stunted I'm being nipped at by old ladies who pass that way +and take to it like cat to catnip.</p> + +<p>For a long time this was a wholly unorganized, indeed all but +unconscious, pleasure, a true pattern of the childish way we take hold +of the earth; but when I began to come newly alive to all things as I +have already related—I chanced upon this curious, undeveloped instinct.</p> + +<p>“What is it I have here?” I asked myself, for I thought this might be a +new handle for getting hold of nature.</p> + +<p>Along one edge of my field is a natural hedge of wild cherry, young elms +and ashes, dogwood, black raspberry bushes and the like, which has long +been a pleasure to the eye, especially in the early morning when the +shadows of it lie long and cool upon the meadow. Many times I have +walked that way to admire it, or to listen for the catbirds that nest +there, or to steal upon a certain gray squirrel who comes out from his +home in the chestnut tree on a fine morning to inspect his premises.</p> + +<p>It occurred to me one day that I would make the acquaintance of this +hedge in a new way; so I passed slowly along it where the branches of +the trees brushed my shoulder and picked a twig here and there and bit +it through. “This is cherry,” I said; “this is elm, this is dogwood.” +And it was a fine adventure to know old friends in new ways, for I had +never thought before to test the trees and shrubs by their taste and +smell. After that, whenever I passed that way, I closed my eyes and +tried for further identifications by taste, and was soon able to tell +quickly half a dozen other varieties of trees, shrubs, and smaller +plants along that bit of meadow.</p> + +<p>Presently, as one who learns to navigate still water near shore longs +for more thrilling voyages, I tried the grassy old roads in the woods, +where young trees and other growths were to be found in great variety: +and had a joy of it I cannot describe, for old and familiar places were +thus made new and wonderful to me. And when I think of those places, +now, say in winter, I grasp them more vividly and strongly than ever I +did before, for I think not only how they look, but how they taste and +smell, and I even know many of the growing things by the touch of them. +It is certain that our grasp of life is in direct proportion to the +variety and warmth of the ways in which we lay hold of it. No thought no +beauty and no joy.</p> + +<p>On these excursions I have often reflected that if I were blind, I +should still find here unexplored joys of life, and should make it a +point to know all the friendly trees and shrubs around about by the +taste or smell or touch of them. I think seriously that this method of +widening the world of the blind, and increasing their narrower joys, +might well be developed, though it would be wise for such as do take it +to borrow first the eyes of a friend to see that no poison ivy, which +certain rascally birds plant along our fences and hedges, is lurking +about.</p> + +<p>Save for this precaution I know of nothing that will injure the taster, +though he must be prepared, here and there, for shocks and thrills of +bitterness. A lilac leaf, for example, and to a scarcely lesser degree +the willow and the poplar are, when bitten through, of a penetrating and +intense bitterness; but do no harm, and will daunt no one who is really +adventurous. There is yet to be written a botany, or, better yet, a book +of nature, for the blind.</p> + +<p>It is by knowing human beings that we come to understand them, and by +understanding them come to love them, and so it is with the green +people. When I was a boy in the wild north country trees were enemies to +be ruthlessly fought—to be cut down, sawed, split, burned—anything to +be rid of them. The ideal in making a home place was to push the forest +as far away from it as possible. But now, when I go to the woods, it is +like going among old and treasured friends, and with riper acquaintance +the trees come to take on, curiously, a kind of personality, so that I +am much fonder of some trees than of others, and instinctively seek out +the companionship of certain trees in certain moods, as one will his +friends.</p> + +<p>I love the unfolding beeches in spring, and the pines in winter; the +elms I care for afar off, like great aloof men, whom I can admire; but +for friendly confidences give me an apple tree in an old green meadow.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/08.jpg" width="380" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p> +In this more complete understanding I have been much aided by getting +hold of my friends of the hedges and hills in the new ways I have +described. At times I even feel that I have become a fully accepted +member of the Fraternity of the Living Earth, for I have already +received many of the benefits which go with that association; and I know +now for a certainty that it makes no objection to its members because +they are old, or sad, or have sinned, but welcomes them all alike.</p> + +<p>The essential taste of the cherry and peach and all their numerous +relatives is, in variation, that of the peach pit, so that the whole +tribe may be easily recognized, though it was some time before I could +tell with certainty the peach from the cherry. The oak shoot, when +chewed a little, tastes exactly like the smell of new oak lumber; the +maple has a peculiar taste and smell of its own that I can find no +comparison for, and the poplar is one of the bitterest trees that ever I +have tasted. The trees—pines, spruces, hemlocks, balsams, cedars—are +to me about the pleasantest of all, both in taste and odour, and though +the spruces and pines taste and smell much alike at first, one soon +learns to distinguish them. The elm has a rather agreeable, nondescript, +bitterish taste, but the linden is gummy and of a mediocre quality, like +the tree itself, which I dislike. Some of the sweetest flowering +shrubs, such as the lilac, have the bitterest of leaves and twigs or, +like certain kinds of clematis, have a seed that when green is sharper +than cayenne pepper, while others, like the rose, are pleasanter in +flavour. The ash tree is not too bitter and a little sour.</p> + +<p>I give here only a few of the commoner examples, for I wish to make this +no tedious catalogue of the flavours of the green people. I am not a +scientist, nor would wish to be taken for one. Only last winter I had my +pretensions sadly shocked when I tasted twigs cut from various trees and +shrubs and tried to identify them by taste or by smell, and while it was +a pleasing experiment I found I could not certainly place above half of +them; partly, no doubt, because many growing things keep their flavours +well wrapped up in winter. No, I have not gone far upon this pleasant +road, but neither am I in any great hurry; for there yet remains much +time in this and my future lives to conquer the secrets of the earth. I +plan to devote at least one entire life to science, and may find I need +several!</p> + +<p>One great reason why the sense of taste and the sense of smell have not +the same honour as the sense of sight or of hearing is that no way has +yet been found to make a true art of either. For sight, we have +painting, sculpturing, photography, architecture, and the like; and for +hearing, music; and for both, poetry and the drama. But the other senses +are more purely personal, and have not only been little studied or +thought about, but are the ones least developed, and most dimmed and +clogged by the customs of our lives.</p> + +<p>For the sense of smell we have, indeed, the perfumer's art, but a poor +rudimentary art it is, giving little freedom for the artist who would +draw his inspirations freshly from nature. I can, indeed, describe +poorly in words the odours of this June morning—the mingled lilacs, +late wild cherries, new-broken soil, and the fragrance of the sun on +green verdure, for there are here both lyrical and symphonic odours—but +how inadequate it is! I can tell you what I feel and smell and taste, +and give you, perhaps, a desire another spring to spend the months of +May and June in the country, but I can scarcely make you live again the +very moment of life I have lived, which is the magic quality of the best +art. The art of the perfumer which, like all crude art, thrives upon +blatancy, does not make us go to gardens, or love the rose, but often +instils in us a kind of artificiality, so that perfumes, so far from +being an inspiration to us, increasing our lives, become often the badge +of the abnormal, used by those unsatisfied with simple, clean, natural +things.</p> + +<p>And as a people deficient in musical art delights in ragtime tunes, so a +people deficient in the true art of tasting and smelling delights in +ragtime odours and ragtime tastes.</p> + +<p>I do not know that the three so-called lesser senses will ever be +organized to the point where they are served by well-established arts, +but this I do know—that there are three great ways of entering upon a +better understanding of this magic earth which are now neglected.</p> + +<p>I think we have come upon hasty and heated days, and are too much +mastered by the god of hurry and the swift and greedy eye. We accept +flashing pictures of life for life itself; we rush here and rush there +and, having arrived, rush away again—to what sensible purpose? Be still +a little! Be still!</p> + +<p>I do not mean by stillness, stagnation not yet lazy contentment, but +life more deeply thought about, more intensely realized, an activity so +concentrated that it is quiet. Be still then!</p> + +<p>So it is that, though I am no worshipper of the old, I think the older +gardeners had in some ways a better practice of the art than we have, +for they planted not for the eye alone but for the nose and the sense of +taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb's tongue, to gratify, +curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, and +appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am +greatly fond of, and like to snip a leaf as I go by to smell or taste; +but many of them, I here confess, have for me a rank and culinary +odour—as sage and thyme and the bold scarlet monarda, sometimes called +bergamot.</p> + +<p>But if their actual fragrance is not always pleasing, and their uses are +now grown obscure, I love well the names of many of them—whether from +ancient association or because the words themselves fall pleasantly upon +the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, anise and summer +savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! Cumin! And +“there's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember,... +there's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you: and here's +some for me—” All sweet names that one loves to roll under his tongue.</p> + +<p>I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when I +go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names as +I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well enough.</p> + +<p>It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We +are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy +ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather +than for life.</p> + +<p>And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who lives +not a thousand miles from here—I must not tell his name—whose greatest +word is “proportion.” At this moment, as I write, I can hear the roll of +his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r—prop-o-rtion. He is the +kind of man good to know and to trust.</p> + +<p>If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is a +fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his +eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally: +“Well—well!”</p> + +<p>He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing +up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there's nothing +more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in +daylight! And he inquires into their ancestry, makes them run out their +tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that +they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for +their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a church, +a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashion, lest he see something +else too small; but will have everything, as he says, in true +proportion. If he occasionally favours a little that which is old, +solid, well-placed, it is scarcely to be measured to him as a fault in +an age so overwhelmed with the shiny new.</p> + +<p>He is a fine, up-standing, hearty old gentleman with white hair and rosy +cheeks, and the bright eyes of one who has lived all his life with +temperance. One incident I cannot resist telling, though it has nothing +directly to do with this story, but it will let you know what kind of a +man my old friend is, and when all is said, it would be a fine thing to +know about any man. Not long ago he was afflicted with a serious loss, a +loss that would have crushed some men, but when I met him not long +afterward, though the lines around his eyes were grown deeper, he +greeted me in his old serene, courtly manner, When I would have +comforted him with my sympathy, for I felt myself near enough to speak +of his loss, he replied calmly:</p> + +<p>“How can we know whether a thing is evil until we reach the end of it? +It may be good!”</p> + +<p>One of the events I esteem among the finest of the whole year is my old +friend's birthday party. Every winter, on the twenty-sixth of February, +a party of his friends drop in to see him. Some of us go out of habit, +drawn by our affection for the old gentleman; others, I think, he +invites, for he knows to perfection the delicate shadings of +companionship which divide those who come unbidden from those, not less +loved but shyer, who must be summoned.</p> + +<p>Now this birthday gathering has one historic ceremony which none of us +would miss, because it expresses so completely the essence of our +friend's generous and tolerant, but just, nature. He is, as I have said, +a temperate man, and dislikes as much as any one I know the whole +alcohol business; but living in a community where the struggle for +temperance has often been waged intemperately, and where there is a +lurking belief that cudgelling laws can make men virtuous, he publishes +abroad once a year his declaration of independence.</p> + +<p>After we have been with our friend for an hour or so, and are well +warmed and happy with the occasion, he rises solemnly and goes to the +toby-closet at the end of his generous fireplace, where the apple-log +specially cut for the occasion is burning merrily, and as we all fall +silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from +the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he +gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too. +Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive glasses +that have been polished until they shine for the great occasion, and, +having filled them all with the ripe liquor, he passes them around to +each of us. We have all risen and are becomingly solemn as he now +proposes the toast of the year—and it is always the same toast:</p> + +<p>“Here's to moderation—in all things!”</p> + +<p>He takes a sip or two, and continues:</p> + +<p>“Here's to temperance—the queen of the virtues.”</p> + +<p>So we all drink off our glasses. Our mellow old friend smacks his lips, +corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his toby-closet, where it +reposes undisturbed for another year.</p> + +<p>“And now, gentlemen,” he says, heartily, “let us go in to dinner.”...</p> + +<p>As I think of it, now that it is written, this story bears no very close +relationship to my original subject, and yet it seemed to follow +naturally enough as I set it down, and to belong with the simple and +well-flavoured things of the garden and fields; and recalling the advice +of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, “never to alter a +thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely to +pass into that of another more readily and with more effect than +anything which you can by reflection invent,” I leave it here just as I +wrote it, hoping that the kinship of my genial old friend with simple +and natural and temperate things may plainly appear.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/09.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>CHAPTER V.<br> +PLACES OF RETIREMENT</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Good God, how sweet are all things here!<br> +How beautiful the fields appear!<br> + How cleanly do we feed and lie!<br> +Lord, what good hours do we keep!<br> +How quietly we sleep!” +</p> + +<p class="right"> +C<small>HARLES</small> C<small>OTTON</small> (a friend of Izaak Walton)</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>April 29th</i>.</p> + +<p>I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out +with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was +myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from +me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling +of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of frogs +from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests +attention. Of odours, a-plenty! Just behind me, so that by turning my +head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock +trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet. All the earth the very +earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell.</p> + +<p>These things have been here a thousand years a million years and yet +they are not stale, but are ever fresh, ever serene, ever here to loosen +one's crabbed spirit and make one quietly happy. It seems to me I could +not live if it were not possible often to come thus alone to the woods.</p> + +<p>...On later walking I discover that here and there on warm southern +slopes the dog-tooth violet is really in bloom, and worlds of hepatica, +both lavender and white, among the brown leaves. One of the notable +sights of the hillsides at this time of the year is the striped maple, +the long wands rising straight and chaste among thickets of +less-striking young birches and chestnuts, and having a bud of a +delicate pink—a marvel of minute beauty. A little trailing arbutus I +found and renewed my joy with one of the most exquisite odours of all +the spring; Solomon's seal thrusting up vivid green cornucopias from the +lifeless earth, and often near a root or stone the red partridge berries +among their bright leaves. The laurel on the hills is sharply visible, +especially when among deciduous trees, and along the old brown roads are +patches of fresh wintergreen. In a cleft of the hills near the top of +Norwottuck, though the day is warm, I found a huge snowbank—the last +held trench of old winter, the last guerilla of the cold, driven to the +fastnesses of the hills.... I have enjoyed this day without trying. +After the first hour or so of it all the worries dropped away, all the +ambitions, all the twisted thoughts—</p> + +<p>It is strange how much thrilling joy there is in the discovery of the +ages-old miracle of returning life in the woods: each green adventurer, +each fragrant joy, each bird-call—and the feel of the soft, warm +sunshine upon one's back after months of winter. On any terms life is +good. The only woe, the only Great Woe, is the woe of never having been +born. Sorrow, yes; failure, yes; weakness, yes the sad loss of dear +friends—yes! But oh, the good God: I still live!</p> + +<p>Being alone without feeling alone is one of the great experiences of +life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable +possession. People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all the +happiness they find there they must take with them. Thus they divert and +distract that within them which creates power and joy, until by flying +always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from without rather +than from within, they become infinitely boresome to themselves, so that +they can scarcely bear a moment of their own society.</p> + +<p>But if once a man have a taste of true and happy retirement, though it +be but a short hour, or day, now and then, he has found, or is beginning +to find, a sure place of refuge, of blessed renewal, toward which in the +busiest hours he will find his thoughts wistfully stealing. How stoutly +will he meet the buffets of the world if he knows he has such a place of +retirement where all is well-ordered and full of beauty, and right +counsels prevail, and true things are noted.</p> + +<p>As a man grows older, if he cultivate the art of retirement, not indeed +as an end in itself, but as a means of developing a richer and freer +life, he will find his reward growing surer and greater until in time +none of the storms or shocks of life any longer disturbs him. He might +in time even reach the height attained by Diogenes, of whom Epictetus +said, “It was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man +the means of laying hold upon him to enslave him. He had everything +easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his +property, he would rather have let it go and be yours than he would have +followed you for it; if you laid hold of his leg he would have let go +his leg: if all of his body, all his poor body; his intimates, friends, +country, just the same. For he knew from whence he had them, and from +whom and on what conditions.”</p> + +<p>The best partners of solitude are books. I like to take a book with me +in my pocket, although I find the world so full of interesting +things—sights, sounds, odours—that often I never read a word in it. It +is like having a valued friend with you, though you walk for miles +without saying a word to him or he to you: but if you really know your +friend, it is a curious thing how, subconsciously, you are aware of +what he is thinking and feeling about this hillside or that distant +view. And so it is with books. It is enough to have this writer in your +pocket, for the very thought of him and what he would say to these old +fields and pleasant trees is ever freshly delightful. And he never +interrupts at inconvenient moments, nor intrudes his thoughts upon yours +unless you desire it.</p> + +<p>I do not want long books and least of all story books in the +woods—these are for the library—but rather scraps and extracts and +condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and +carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all +kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled “Traveller's Joy,” another, +“Songs of Nature,” and I have lately found the best one I know called +“The Spirit of Man” by Robert Bridges, the English laureate. Other +little books that fit well in the pocket on a tramp, because they are +truly companionable, are Ben Jonson's “Timber,” one of the very best, +and William Penn's “Fruits of Solitude.” An anthology of Elizabethan +verse, given me by a friend, is also a good companion.</p> + +<p>It is not a discourse or a narrative we want as we walk abroad, but +conversation. Neither do we want people or facts or stories, but a +person. So I open one of these little books and read therein the +thoughtful remark of a wise companion. This I may reply to, or merely +enjoy, as I please. I am in no hurry, as I might be with a living +companion, for my book friend, being long dead, is not impatient and +gives me time to reply, and is not resentful if I make no reply at all. +Submitted to such a test as this few writers, old or new, give continued +profit or delight. To be considered in the presence of the great and +simple things of nature, or worn long in the warm places of the spirit, +a writer must have supreme qualities of sense or humour, a great +sensitiveness to beauty, or a genuine love of goodness—but above all he +must somehow give us the flavour of personality. He must be a true +companion of the spirit.</p> + +<p>There is an exercise given to young soldiers which consists in raising +the hands slowly above the head, taking in a full breath at the same +time, and then letting them down in such a way as to square the +shoulders. This leaves the body erect, the head high, the eyes straight +ahead, the lungs full of good air. It is the attitude that every man at +arms should wish to take, After a day in the woods I feel some such +erectness of spirit, a life of the head, and a clearer and calmer +vision, for I have raised up my hands to the heavens, and drawn in the +odours and sights and sounds of the good earth.</p> + +<p>One of the great joys of such times of retirement perhaps the greatest +of the joys is the return, freshened and sweetened, to the common life. +How good then appear the things of the garden and farm, the house and +shop, that weariness had staled; how good the faces of friends.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/10.jpg" width="400" height="190" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br> +NO TRESPASS</h2> + +<p>I live in a country of beautiful hills, and in the last few years, since +I have been here with Harriet, I have made familiar and pleasant +acquaintance with several of them....</p> + +<p>One hill I know is precious to me for a peculiar reason. Upon the side +of it, along the town road, are two or three old farms with lilacs like +trees about their doorways, and ancient apple orchards with great gnarly +branches, and one has an old garden of hollyhocks, larkspurs, zinnias, +mignonette, and I know not how many other old-fashioned flowers. Wild +grapes there are along the neglected walls, and in a corner of one of +them, by a brook, a mass of sweet currant which in blossom time makes +all that bit of valley a bower of fragrance, I have gone that way often +in spring for the sheer joy of the friendly odours I had across the +ancient stone fences.</p> + +<p>The largest and stoniest of the farms is owned by an old man named +Howieson. A strange, brown-clad, crooked, crabbed old man, I have seen +him often creeping across his fields with his horses. An ineffective +worker all his life long, he has scarcely made a living from his stony +acres. His farm is tipped up behind upon the hill and runs below to the +brook, and the buildings are old and worn, and a rocky road goes by to +the town. Once, in more prosperous days, before the factories took over +the winter work of these hill farms, the busy families finished shoes, +and wove cloth, and plaited straw hats—and one I know was famous for +wooden bowls craftily hollowed out of maple knots—and the hill people +relied upon their stony fields for little more than their food. But in +these later days, the farm industries are gone, the houses are no longer +overflowing with children, for there is nothing for children to do, and +those who remain are old or discouraged. Some homes have entirely +disappeared, so that all that remains is a clump of lilacs or a wild +tangle of rose bushes about a grass-covered or bush-grown cellar wall. +The last thing to disappear is not that which the old farmers most set +their hearts upon, their fine houses and barns or their cultivated +fields, but the one touch of beauty they left—lilac clump or +rose-tangle.</p> + +<p>Old Howieson, with that passion for the sense of possession which +thrives best when the realities of possession are slipping away, has +posted all his fields with warnings against intrusion. You may not enter +this old field, nor walk by this brook, nor climb this hill, for all +this belongs, in fee simple, to James Howieson!</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/11.jpg" width="200" height="120" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>For a long time I did not meet James Howieson face to face, though I had +often seen his signs, and always with a curious sense of the futility of +them. I did not need to enter his fields, nor climb his hill, nor walk +by his brook, but as the springs passed and the autumns whitened into +winter, I came into more and more complete possession of all those +fields that he so jealously posted. I looked with strange joy upon his +hill, saw April blossom in his orchard, and May colour the wild grape +leaves along his walls. June I smelled in the sweet vernal of his hay +fields, and from the October of his maples and beeches I gathered rich +crops and put up no hostile signs of ownership, paid no taxes, worried +over no mortgage, and often marvelled that he should be so poor within +his posted domain and I so rich without.</p> + +<p>One who loves a hill, or a bit of valley, will experiment long until he +finds the best spot to take his joy of it; and this is no more than the +farmer himself does when he experiments year after year to find the best +acres for his potatoes, his corn, his oats, his hay. Intensive +cultivation is as important in these wider fields of the spirit as in +any other. If I consider the things that I hear and see and smell, and +the thoughts that go with them or grow out of them, as really valuable +possessions, contributing to the wealth of life, I cannot see why I +should not willingly give to them a tenth or a hundredth part of the +energy and thought I give to my potatoes or my blackberries or to the +writing I do.</p> + +<p>I chose a place in a field just below Old Howieson's farm, where there +is a thorn-apple tree to sit or lie under. From the thorn-apple tree, by +turning my head in one direction, I can look up at the crown of the hill +with its green hood of oaks and maples and chestnuts, and high above it +I can see the clouds floating in the deep sky, or, if I turn my head the +other way, for I am a kind of monarch there on the hill and command the +world to delight me, I can look off across the pleasant valley with its +spreading fields and farmsteads set about with trees, and the town +slumbering by the riverside. I come often with a little book in one +pocket to read from, and a little book in the other to write in, but I +rarely use either the one or the other, for there is far too much to see +and think about.</p> + +<p>From this spot I make excursions round about, and have had many strange +and interesting adventures: and now find thoughts of mine, like lichens, +upon all the boulders and old walls and oak trees of that hillside. +Sometimes I climb to the top of the hill. If I am in a leisurely mood I +walk lawfully around Old Howieson's farm by a kind of wood lane that +leads to the summit, but often I cross his walls, all regardless of his +trespass signs, and go that way to the top.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/12.jpg" width="320" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>It was on one of these lawless excursions in Old Howieson's field that I +first saw that strange old fellow who is known hereabout as the Herbman. +I came upon him so suddenly that I stopped short, curiously startled, as +one is startled at finding anything human that seems less than human. He +was kneeling there among the low verdure of a shallow valley, and looked +like an old gray rock or some prehistoric animal. I stopped to look at +him, but he paid no heed, and seemed only to shrink into himself as +though, if he kept silent, he might be taken for stock or stone. I +addressed him but he made no answer. I went nearer, with a sensation of +uncanny wonder; but he did not so much as glance up at me, though he +knew I was there. His old brown basket was near him and the cane beside +it. He was gathering pennyroyal.</p> + +<p>“Another man who is taking an unexpected crop from Old Howieson's +acres,” I thought to myself.</p> + +<p>I watched him for some moments, quite still, as one might watch a turtle +or a woodchuck—and left him there.</p> + +<p>Since then I have heard something about him, and seen him once or +twice. A strange old man, a wanderer upon the face of the fragrant +earth. Spring and summer he wears always an old overcoat, and carries a +basket with double covers, very much worn and brown with usage. His cane +is of hickory with a crooked root for a handle, this also shiny with +age. He gathers bitter-bark, tansy; ginseng, calamus, smartweed, and +slippery elm, and from along old fences and barnyards, catnip and +boneset, I suppose he lives somewhere, a hole in a log, or the limb of a +tree, but no one knows where it is, or how he dries or cures his +findings. No one knows his name: perhaps he has forgotten it himself. A +name is no great matter anyway. He is called simply the Herbman. He +drifts into our valley in the spring, is seen here and there on the +hills or in the fields, like the crows or the blackbirds, and disappears +in the fall with the robins and the maple leaves. Perhaps he is one of +those favoured souls to whom life is all spring and summer.</p> + +<p>The age has passed him by, and except for certain furtive old women, few +care now for his sovereign remedies.</p> + +<p>I met him once in the town road, and he stopped humbly without lifting +his eyes, and opening his basket let out into the air such a fragrance +of ancient simples as I never smelled before. He said nothing at all; +but took out dry bundles of catnip, sassafras, slippery elm, to show me. +He had also pennyroyal for healing teas, and calamus and bitter-bark for +miseries. I selected a choice assortment of his wares to take home to +Harriet, but could get him to name no price. He took what I gave without +objection and without thanks, and went his way. A true man of the hills.</p> + +<p>As I said, I came often to the field below Old Howieson's farm. I think +the old man saw me coming and going, for the road winds along the side +of the hill within sight of his house, skirts a bit of wood, and with an +unexpected turn comes out triumphantly to the top of the ridge beyond.</p> + +<p>At the turn of the road I always disappeared, for I crossed the wall +into the field below Old Howieson's farm, and mysteriously failed to +appear to the watchful eye upon the ridge beyond. What could be more +provoking or suspicious! To go in at one end of a well-travelled road +and not to come out in the regular and expected way at the other! Or to +be suspected of not being deferential toward trespass signs, or +observant of closed ways! How disturbing to all those who dwell +tremulously within posted enclosures of whatever sort, or those who base +their sense of possession upon stumped paper, or take their God from a +book. Men have been crucified for less.</p> + +<p>Sooner or later those who cross boundaries clash with those who defend +boundaries: and those who adventure offend those who seek security; but +it was a long time before I came face to face with Old Man Howieson.</p> + +<p>This was the way of it: Well back of Howieson's buildings and reaching +upward upon the face of the hill stretches a long and narrow field, a +kind of barren back pasture with boulders in it, and gnarly hawthorn +trees, and a stunted wild apple or so. A stone fence runs down one side +of the cleared land and above it rises the hill. It is like a great +trough or ravine which upon still spring evenings gathers in all the +varied odours of Old Howieson's farm and orchard and brings them down to +me as I sit in the field below. I need no book then, nor sight of the +distant town, nor song of birds, for I have a singular and incomparable +album of the good odours of the hill. This is one reason why I chose +this particular spot in the fields for my own, and it has given me a +secret name for the place which I will not here disclose. If ever you +should come this way in May, my friend, I might take you there of an +evening, but could warrant you no joy of it that you yourself could not +take. But you need not come here, or go there, but stop where you are at +this moment, and I here assure you that if you look up, and look in, +you, also, will see something of the glory of the world.</p> + +<p>One evening I had been upon the hill to seek again the pattern and +dimensions of my tabernacle, and to receive anew the tables of the Jaw. +I had crossed Old Howieson's field so often that I had almost forgotten +it was not my own. It was indeed mine by the same inalienable right that +it belonged to the crows that flew across it, or to the partridges that +nested in its coverts, or the woodchucks that lived in its walls, or the +squirrels in its chestnut trees. It was mine by the final test of all +possession—that I could use it.</p> + +<p>He came out of a thicket of hemlocks like a wraith of the past, a gray +and crabbed figure, and confronted me there in the wide field. I +suppose he thought he had caught me at last. I was not at all startled +or even surprised, for as I look back upon it now I know that I had +always been expecting him. Indeed, I felt a lift of the spirit, the kind +of jauntiness with which one meets a crucial adventure.</p> + +<p>He stood there for a moment quite silent, a grim figure of denial, and I +facing him.</p> + +<p>“You are on my land, sir,” he said.</p> + +<p>I answered him instantly and in a way wholly unexpected to myself:</p> + +<p>“You are breathing my air, sir.”</p> + +<p>He looked at me dully, but with a curious glint of fear in his eye, fear +and anger, too.</p> + +<p>“Did you see the sign down there? This land is posted.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “I have seen your signs. But let me ask you: If I were +not here would you own this land any more than you do now? Would it +yield you any better crops?”</p> + +<p>It is never the way of those who live in posted enclosures, of whatever +sort, to reason. They assert.</p> + +<p>“This land is posted,” said the old man doggedly.</p> + +<p>“Are you sure you own it?” I asked. “Is it really yours?”</p> + +<p>“My father owned this farm before me,” he said, “and my grandfather +cleared this field and built these walls. I was born in that house and +have lived there all my life.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, I must be going—and I will not come here again,” I said. +“I am sorry I walked on your land—”</p> + +<p>I started to go down the hill, but stopped, and said, as though it were +an afterthought:</p> + +<p>“I have made some wonderful discoveries upon your land, and that hill +there. You don't seem to know how valuable this field is.... Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>With that I took two or three steps down the hill—but felt the old +man's hand on my arm.</p> + +<p>“Say, mister,” he asked, “are you one of the electric company men? Is +that high-tension line comin' across here?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “it is something more valuable than that!”</p> + +<p>I walked onward a few steps, as though I was quite determined to get out +of his field, but he followed close behind me.</p> + +<p>“It ain't the new trolley line, is it?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “it isn't the trolley line.”</p> + +<p>“What is it, then?”</p> + +<p>In that question, eager and shrill, spoke the dry soul of the old man, +the lifelong hope that his clinging ownership of those barren acres +would bring him from the outside some miraculous profit.</p> + +<p>His whole bearing had changed. He had ceased to be truculent or even +fearful, but was now shrilly beseeching, A great wave of compassion came +over me, I was sorry for him, imprisoned there within the walls of his +own making, and expecting wealth from the outside when there was wealth +in plenty within and everywhere about him.</p> + +<p>But how could I help him? You can give no valuable thing to any man who +has not the vision to take it. If I had told him what I found upon his +hill or in his fields he would have thought me—well, crazy; or he would +have suspected that under cover of such a quest I hid some evil design. +As well talk adventure to an old party man, or growth to a set +churchman.</p> + +<p>So I left him there within his walls. So often when we think we are +barring other people out, we are only barring ourselves in. The last I +saw of him as I turned into the road was a gray and crabbed figure +standing alone, looking after me, and not far off his own sign:</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/11.jpg" width="200" height="120" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>Sometime, I thought, this old farm will be owned by a man who is also +capable of possessing it. More than one such place I know already has +been taken by those who value the beauty of the hills and the old walls, +and the boulder-strewn fields. One I know is really possessed by a man +who long ago had a vision of sheep feeding on fields too infertile to +produce profitable crops, and many others have been taken by men who saw +forests growing where forests ought to grow. For real possession is not +a thing of inheritance or of documents, but of the spirit; and passes by +vision and imagination. Sometimes, indeed, the trespass signs stand +long—so long that we grow impatient—but nature is in no hurry. Nature +waits, and presently the trespass signs rot away, one arm falls off, and +lo! where the adventurer found only denial before he is now invited +to—“pass.” The old walls are conquered by the wild cherries and purple +ivy and blackberry bushes, and the old Howiesons sleep in calm +forgetfulness of their rights upon the hills they thought they +possessed, and all that is left is a touch of beauty—lilac clump and +wild-rose tangle.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/13.jpg" width="400" height="280" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br> +LOOK AT THE WORLD!</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Give me to struggle with weather and wind;<br> + Give me to stride through the snow;<br> +Give me the feel of the chill on my cheeks,<br> + And the glow and the glory within!” +</p> + +<p class="right"> +<i>March 17th.</i></p> + +<p>The joy of winter: the downright joy of winter! I tramped to-day through +miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the roads or +ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of adventure +as I cannot describe.</p> + +<p>Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts of +snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly +like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled a path the heaps +are nearly as high as my shoulder....</p> + +<p>This perfect morning a faint purplish haze is upon all the hills, with +bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke +rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with +unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure heaps around the +barns. All the hillsides glisten and sparkle like cloth of gold, each +glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the +long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses' feet +crunch upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the +creamery—the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white +scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly, +and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of +superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow +their wood sled. They are bantering one another noisily. I see a man +shovelling snow from his barn doors; as each shovelful rises and +scatters, the sun catches it for an instant and it falls, a silvery +shower. ... I tramped to-day through miles of it: and whether in broken +roads or spotless fields, had great joy of it. It was good to stride +through opposing drifts and to catch the tingling air upon one's face. +The spring is beautiful indeed, and one is happy at autumn, but of all +the year no other mornings set the blood to racing like these; none +gives a greater sense of youth, strength, or of the general goodness of +the earth.</p> + +<p>Give me the winter: give me the winter! Not all winter, but just winter +enough, just what nature sends.</p> + +<p>...Dry air in the throat so cold at first as to make one cough; and +dry, sharp, tingling air in the nostrils; frost on beard and eyebrows; +cheeks red and crusty, so that to wrinkle them hurts: but all the body +within aglow with warmth and health. Twice the ordinary ozone in the +air, so that one wishes to whistle or sing, and if the fingers grow +chill, what are shoulders for but to beat them around!</p> + +<p>It is a strange and yet familiar experience how all things present their +opposites. Do you enjoy the winter? Your neighbour loathes or fears it. +Do you enjoy life? To your friend it is a sorrow and a heaviness. Even +to you it is not always alike. Though the world itself is the same +to-day as it was yesterday and will be to-morrow—the same snowy fields +and polar hills, the same wintry stars, the same infinitely alluring +variety of people—yet to-day you, that were a god, have become a +grieving child.</p> + +<p>Even at moments when we are well pleased with the earth we often have a +wistful feeling that we should conceal it lest it hurt those borne down +by circumstances too great or too sad for them. What is there to offer +one who cannot respond gladly to the beauty of the fields, or opens his +heart widely to the beckoning of friends? And we ask ourselves: Have I +been tried as this man has? Would I be happy then? Have I been wrung +with sorrow, worn down by ill-health, buffeted with injustice as this +man has? Would I be happy then?</p> + +<p>I saw on my walk to-day an old woman with a crossed shawl upon her +breast creeping out painfully to feed her hens. She lives on a small, +ill-kept farm I have known for years. She is old and poor and asthmatic, +and the cold bites through her with the sharpness of knives. The path to +the hen-house is a kind of via dolorosa, a terror of slipperiness and +cold. She might avoid it: her son, worthless as he is, might do it for +her, but she clings to it as she clings to her life. It is the last +reason for staying here! But the white fields and drifted roads are +never joyfully met, never desired. She spends half the summer dreading +the return of winter from the severities of which she cannot escape.</p> + +<p>Nor is it all mere poverty, though she is poor, for there are those who +would help to send her away, but she will not go. She is wrapped about +with Old Terrors, Ancient Tyrannies—that Terror of the Unknown which is +more painful even than the Terror of the Known: those Tyrannies of Habit +and of Place which so often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of the old. +She clings desperately to the few people she knows (“'tis hard to die +among strangers!”) and the customs she has followed all her life. +Against the stark power of her tragic helplessness neither the good nor +the great of the earth may prevail. This reality too....</p> + +<p>I had a curious experience not long ago: One of those experiences which +light up as in a flash some of the fundamental things of life. I met a +man in the town road whom I have come to know rather more than slightly. +He is a man of education and has been “well-off” in the country sense, +is still, so far as I know, but he has a sardonic outlook upon life. He +is discouraged about human nature. Thinks that politics are rotten, and +that the prices of potatoes and bread are disgraceful. The state of the +nation, and of the world, is quite beyond temperate expression. Few rays +of joy seem to illuminate his pathway.</p> + +<p>As we approached in the town road I called out to him:</p> + +<p>“Good morning.”</p> + +<p>He paused and, to my surprise, responded:</p> + +<p>“Are you happy?”</p> + +<p>It had not occurred to me for some time whether I was happy or not, so I +replied:</p> + +<p>“I don't know; why do you ask?”</p> + +<p>He looked at me in a questioning, and I thought rather indignant, way.</p> + +<p>“Why shouldn't a man be happy?” I pressed him.</p> + +<p>“Why <i>should</i> he be? Answer me that!” he responded, “Why should he be? +Look at the world!”</p> + +<p>With that he passed onward with a kind of crushing dignity.</p> + +<p>I have laughed since when I have recalled the tone of his voice as he +said, “Look at the world!” Gloomy and black it was. It evidently made +him indignant to be here.</p> + +<p>But at the moment his bitter query, the essential attitude of spirit +which lay behind it, struck into me with a poignancy that stopped me +where I stood. Was I, then, all wrong about the world? I actually had a +kind of fear lest when I should look up again I should find the earth +grown wan and bleak and unfriendly, so that I should no longer desire +it.</p> + +<p>“Look at the world!” I said aloud.</p> + +<p>And with that I suddenly looked all around me and it is a strange, deep +thing, as I have thought of it since, how the world came back upon me +with a kind of infinite, calm assurance, as beautiful as ever it was. +There were the hills and the fields and the great still trees—and the +open sky above. And even as I looked down the road and saw my sardonic +old friend plodding through the snow—his very back frowning—I had a +sense that he belonged in the picture, too—and couldn't help himself. +That he even had a kind of grace, and gave a human touch to that wintry +scene! He had probably said a great deal more than he meant!</p> + +<p><i>Look at the world</i>!</p> + +<p>Well, look at it.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/14.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br> +A GOOD APPLE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible +goods.”</p> + +<p>I have just had one of the pleasant experiences of life. From time to +time, these brisk winter days, I like to walk across the fields to +Horace's farm. I take a new way each time and make nothing of the snow +in the fields or the drifts along the fences....</p> + +<p>“Why,” asks Harriet, “do you insist on struggling through the snow when +there's a good beaten road around?”</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “why should any one take a beaten road when there +are new and adventurous ways to travel?”</p> + +<p>When I cross the fields I never know at what moment I may come upon some +strange or surprising experience, what new sights I may see, what new +sounds I may hear, and I have the further great advantage of appearing +unexpectedly at Horace's farm. Sometimes I enter by the cow lane, +sometimes by way of the old road through the wood-lot, or I appear +casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or I let +Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle fence. I +have come to love doing this, for unexpectedness in visitors, as in +religion and politics, is disturbing to Horace and, as sand-grits in +oysters produce pearls, my unexpected appearances have more than once +astonished new thoughts in Horace, or yielded pearly bits of native +humour.</p> + +<p>Ever since I have known him, Horace has been rather high-and-mighty with +me; but I know he enjoys my visits, for I give him always, I think, a +pleasantly renewed sense of his own superiority. When he sees me his eye +lights up with the comfortable knowledge that he can plough so much +better than I can, that his corn grows taller than mine, and his hens +lay more eggs. He is a wonderfully practical man, is Horace; +hard-headed, they call it here. And he never feels so superior, I think, +as when he finds me sometimes of a Sunday or an evening walking across +the fields where my land joins his, or sitting on a stone fence, or +lying on my back in the pasture under a certain friendly thorn-apple +tree. This he finds it difficult to understand, and thinks it highly +undisciplined, impractical, no doubt reprehensible.</p> + +<p>One incident of the sort I shall never forget. It was on a June day only +a year or so after I came here, and before Horace knew me as well as he +does now. I had climbed the hill to look off across his own high-field +pasture, where the white daisies, the purple fleabane, and the +buttercups made a wild tangle of beauty among the tall herd's grass. +Light airs moved billowing across the field, bobolinks and meadow larks +were singing, and all about were the old fences, each with its wild +hedgerow of choke cherry, young elms, and black raspberry bushes, and +beyond, across miles and miles of sunny green countryside, the +mysterious blue of the ever-changing hills. It was a spot I loved then, +and have loved more deeply every year since.</p> + +<p>Horace found me sitting on the stone fence which there divides our +possessions; I think he had been observing me with amusement for some +time before I saw him, for when I looked around his face wore a +comfortably superior, half-disdainful smile.</p> + +<p>“David,” said he, “what ye doin' here?”</p> + +<p>“Harvesting my crops,” I said.</p> + +<p>He looked at me sharply to see if I was joking, but I was perfectly +sober.</p> + +<p>“Harvestin' yer crops?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, the fancy growing suddenly upon me, “and just now I've +been taking a crop from the field you think you own.”</p> + +<p>I waved my hand to indicate his high-field pasture.</p> + +<p>“Don't I own it?”</p> + +<p>“No, Horace, I'm sorry to say, not all of it. To be frank with you, +since I came here, I've quietly acquired an undivided interest in that +land. I may as well tell you first as last. I'm like you, Horace, I'm +reaching out in all directions.”</p> + +<p>I spoke in as serious a voice as I could command: the tone I use when I +sell potatoes. Horace's smile wholly disappeared. A city feller like me +was capable of anything!</p> + +<p>“How's that?” he exclaimed sharply. “What do you mean? That field came +down to me from my grandfather Jamieson.”</p> + +<p>I continued to look at Horace with great calmness and gravity.</p> + +<p>“Judging from what I now know of your title, Horace,” said I, “neither +your grandfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field. +And I've now acquired that part of it, in fee simple, that neither they +nor you ever really had.”</p> + +<p>At this Horace began to look seriously worried. The idea that any one +could get away from him anything that he possessed, especially without +his knowledge, was terrible to him.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean, Mr. Grayson?”</p> + +<p>He had been calling me “David,” but he now returned sharply to “Mister.” +In our country when we “Mister” a friend something serious is about to +happen. It's the signal for general mobilization.</p> + +<p>I continued to look Horace rather coldly and severely in the eye.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said I, “I've acquired a share in that field which I shall not +soon surrender.”</p> + +<p>An unmistakable dogged look came into Horace's face, the look inherited +from generations of land-owning, home-defending, fighting ancestors. +Horace is New England of New England.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “I have already had two or three crops from that field.”</p> + +<p>“Huh!” said Horace. “I've cut the grass and I've cut the rowen every +year since you bin here. What's more, I've got the money fer it in the +bank.”</p> + +<p>He tapped his fingers on the top of the wall.</p> + +<p>“Nevertheless, Horace,” said I, “I've got my crops, also, from that +field, and a steady income, too.”</p> + +<p>“What crops?”</p> + +<p>“Well, Eve just now been gathering in one of them. What do you think of +the value of the fleabane, and the daisies, and the yellow five-finger +in that field?”</p> + +<p>“Huh!” said Horace.</p> + +<p>“Well, I've just been cropping them. And have you observed the wind in +the grass—and those shadows along the southern wall? Aren't they +valuable?”</p> + +<p>“Huh!” said Horace.</p> + +<p>“I've rarely seen anything more beautiful,” I said, “than this field +and the view across it—I'm taking that crop now, and later I shall +gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of +the maple trees—and store it all away in <i>my</i> bank—to live on next +winter.”</p> + +<p>It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from +the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; +and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with his +hand in a way he has.</p> + +<p>“Is that all!” said Horace.</p> + +<p>I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me. +Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered +crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content +with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our +farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their lands +without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious crops of +the good earth go to waste.</p> + +<p>After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and +his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession.</p> + +<p>“S'pose you think that's your field,” he'd say.</p> + +<p>“The best part of it,” I'd return, “but you can have all I've taken, and +there'll still be enough for both of us.”</p> + +<p>“You're a queer one!” he'd say, and then add sometimes, dryly, “but +there's one crop ye don't git, David,” and he'd tap his pocket where he +carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. “And as fer feelin's, it +can't be beat.”</p> + +<p>So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world +desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or +eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will +haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to +the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, +intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a feverish +world the unknown great possessions.</p> + +<p>So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus +bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him:</p> + +<p>“Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?”</p> + +<p>“Off that one little piece,” he replied, “I figger fifty-two dollars.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Horace,” said I, “I have beaten you. I got more out of it this +year than you did.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I know what you mean——”</p> + +<p>“No, Horace, you don't. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash, +dollars.”</p> + +<p>“How's that, now?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the +grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the timothy, +and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week——” I leaned +over toward Horace and whispered behind my hand—in just the way he +tells me the price he gets for his pigs.</p> + +<p>“What!” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Horace had long known that I was “a kind of literary feller,” but his +face was now a study in astonishment.</p> + +<p>“<i>What?</i>”</p> + +<p>Horace scratched his head, as he is accustomed to do when puzzled, with +one finger just under the rim of his hat.</p> + +<p>“Well, I vum!” said he.</p> + +<p>Here I have been wandering all around Horace's barn—in the +snow—getting at the story I really started to tell, which probably +supports Horace's conviction that I am an impractical and unsubstantial +person. If I had the true business spirit I should have gone by the +beaten road from my house to Horace's, borrowed the singletree I went +for, and hurried straight home. Life is so short when one is after +dollars! I should not have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the +top of the hill to look for a moment across the beautiful wintry +earth—gray sky and bare wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely +smoke rising from the chimneys—I should merely have brought home a +singletree—and missed the glory of life! As I reflect upon it now, I +believe it took me no longer to go by the fields than by the road; and +I've got the singletree as securely with me as though I had not looked +upon the beauty of the eternal hills, nor reflected, as I tramped, upon +the strange ways of man.</p> + +<p>Oh, my friend, is it the settled rule of life that we are to accept +nothing not expensive? It is not so settled for me; that which is +freest, cheapest, seems somehow more valuable than anything I pay for; +that which is given better than that which is bought; that which passes +between you and me in the glance of an eye, a touch of the hand, is +better than minted money!</p> + +<p>I found Horace upon the March day I speak of just coming out of his new +fruit cellar. Horace is a progressive and energetic man, a leader in +this community, and the first to have a modern fruit cellar. By this +means he ministers profitably to that appetite of men which craves most +sharply that which is hardest to obtain: he supplies the world with +apples in March.</p> + +<p>It being a mild and sunny day, the door of the fruit cellar was open, +and as I came around the corner I had such of whiff of fragrance as I +cannot describe. It seemed as though the vials of the earth's most +precious odours had been broken there in Horace's yard! The smell of +ripe apples!</p> + +<p>In the dusky depths of the cellar, down three steps, I could see +Horace's ruddy face.</p> + +<p>“How are ye, David,” said he. “Will ye have a Good Apple?”</p> + +<p>So he gave me a good apple. It was a yellow Bellflower without a +blemish, and very large and smooth. The body of it was waxy yellow, but +on the side where the sun had touched it, it blushed a delicious deep +red. Since October it had been in the dark, cool storage-room, and +Horace, like some old monkish connoisseur of wines who knows just when +to bring up the bottles of a certain vintage, had chosen the exact +moment in all the year when the vintage of the Bellflower was at its +best. As he passed it to me I caught, a scent as of old crushed apple +blossoms, or fancied I did or it may have been the still finer aroma of +friendship which passed at the touching of our fingers.</p> + +<p>It was a hand-filling apple and likewise good for tired eyes, an +antidote for winter, a remedy for sick souls.</p> + +<p>“A wonderful apple!” I said to Horace, holding it off at arm's length.</p> + +<p>“No better grown anywhere,” said he, with scarcely restrained pride.</p> + +<p>I took my delight of it more nearly; and the odour was like new-cut +clover in an old orchard, or strawberry leaves freshly trod upon, or the +smell of peach wood at the summer pruning—how shall one describe it? at +least a compound or essence of all the good odours of summer.</p> + +<p>“Shall I eat it?” I asked myself, for I thought such a perfection of +nature should be preserved for the blessing of mankind. As I hesitated, +Horace remarked:</p> + +<p>“It was grown to be eaten.”</p> + +<p>So I bit into it, a big liberal mouthful, which came away with a rending +sound such as one hears sometimes in a winter's ice-pond. The flesh +within, all dewy with moisture, was like new cream, except a rim near +the surface where the skin had been broken; here it was of a clear, deep +yellow.</p> + +<p>New odours came forth and I knew for the first time how perfect in +deliciousness such an apple could be. A mild, serene, ripe, rich +bouquet, compounded essence of the sunshine from these old Massachusetts +hills, of moisture drawn from our grudging soil, of all the peculiar +virtues of a land where the summers make up in the passion of growth for +the long violence of winter; the compensatory aroma of a life +triumphant, though hedged about by severity, was in the bouquet of this +perfect Bellflower.</p> + +<p>Like some of the finest of wines and the warmest of friends it was of +two flavours, and was not to be eaten for mere nourishment, but was to +be tasted and enjoyed. The first of the flavours came readily in a +sweetness, richness, a slight acidity, that it might not cloy; but the +deeper, more delicate flavour came later—if one were not crudely +impatient—and was, indeed, the very soul of the fruit. One does not +quickly arrive at souls either in apples or in friends. And I said to +Horace with solemnity, for this was an occasion not to be lightly +treated:</p> + +<p>“I have never in my life tasted a fine apple.”</p> + +<p>“There is no finer apple,” said Horace with conviction.</p> + +<p>With that we fell to discussing the kinds and qualities of all the +apples grown this side China, and gave our more or less slighting +opinions of Ben Davises and Greenings and Russets, and especially of +trivial summer apples of all sorts, and came to the conclusion at last +that it must have been just after God created this particular “tree +yielding fruit” that he desisted from his day's work and remarked that +what he saw was good. The record is silent upon the point, and Moses is +not given to adjectives, but I have often wondered what He would have +said if He had not only seen the product of His creation, but <i>tasted</i> +it.</p> + +<p>I forgot to say that when I would have slurred the excellence of the +Baldwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to +interpose objections, and defended the excellence and perfection of that +variety.</p> + +<p>...He has fifty barrels of Baldwins in his cellar.</p> + +<p>While we talked with much enjoyment of the lore of apples and +apple-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said to +Horace as I reluctantly tossed aside the stem and three seeds:</p> + +<p>“Surely this has been one of the rare moments of life.”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/15.jpg" width="380" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br> +I GO TO THE CITY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Surely man is a wonderfull divers and varying subject: It is very hard +to ground and directly constant and uniforme judgement upon him.”</p> + +<p>Though I live most of the time in the country, as I love best to do, +sometimes I go to the city and find there much that is strange and +amusing. I like to watch the inward flow of the human tide in the +morning, and the ebb at evening, and sometimes in the slack tide of noon +I drift in one of the eddies where the restless life of the city pauses +a moment to refresh itself. One of the eddies I like best of all is near +the corner of Madison Square, where the flood of Twenty-third Street +swirls around the bulkhead of the Metropolitan tower to meet the +transverse currents of Madison Avenue. Here, of a bright morning when +Down-at-Heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and Old +Defeat watches Young Hurry striding by, one has a royal choice of +refreshment: a “red-hot” enfolded in a bun from the dingy sausage wagon +at the curb, or a plum for a penny from the Italian with the trundle +cart, or news of the world in lurid gulps from the noon edition of the +paper—or else a curious idea or so flung out stridently over the heads +of the crowd by a man on a soap box.</p> + +<p>I love this corner of the great city; I love the sense of the warm human +tide flowing all about me. I love to look into the strange, dark, eager, +sensitive, blunt faces.</p> + +<p>The other noon, drifting there in that human eddy, I stopped to listen +to a small, shabby man who stood in transitory eminence upon his soap +box, half his body reaching above the knobby black soil of human heads +around him—black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring +sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. He had ruddy cheeks and a tuft +of curly hair set like an upholstery button on each side of his bald +head. The front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, and as he opened +his mouth one could see the ample lining of red flannel.</p> + +<p>He raised his voice penetratingly to overcome the noise of the world, +straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply +and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life +depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to +that close-packed crowd that there was no God.</p> + +<p>From time to time he offered for sale pamphlets by R.G. Ingersoll and +Frederic Harrison, with grimy back numbers of a journal called the +“Truth-Seeker.”</p> + +<p>By the slant and timbre of his speech he was an Englishman; he had a +gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual +pugilist with skilful blows between the eyes: and his grammar was bad.</p> + +<p>I stood for some time listening to him while he proved with excellent +logic, basing his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was +no God. His audience cheered with glee his clever hits, and held up +their hands for the books he had for sale.</p> + +<p>“Who is this speaker?” I asked the elbowing helper who came through the +crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the silver for them. +“Who is this speaker who says there is no God?”</p> + +<p>“Henry Moore,” he responded.</p> + +<p>“And who,” I asked, “is Henry Moore?”</p> + +<p>“He is an Englishman and was brought up a Presbyterian—but he seen the +light.”</p> + +<p>“And no longer thinks there is any God?”</p> + +<p>“Nope.”</p> + +<p>“And these books prove the same thing?”</p> + +<p>“Yep.”</p> + +<p>So I bought one of them, thinking it wonderful that proof of so +momentous a conclusion could be had for so small a sum.</p> + +<p>This Henry Moore could fling arguments like thunderbolts; he could +marshall his authorities like an army; he could talk against the roar of +the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not +believe in God he had complete faith in Haeckel and Jacques Loeb, and +took at face value the lightest utterances of John Stuart Mill.</p> + +<p>I enjoyed listening to Henry Moore. I enjoyed looking into the faces all +around me—mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young faces, +and idle faces, and curious faces, and faces that drank in, and faces +that disdainfully rejected.</p> + +<p>After a time, however, I grew unaccountably weary of the vehemence of +Henry Moore and of the adroit helper who hawked his books. And suddenly +I looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. A pigeon was +flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting +on its wings. I saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and +the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the +heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, +contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter +century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the +Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself grandly to +the heavens, and all about I suddenly heard and felt the roar and surge +of the mighty city, the mighty, careless, busy city, thousands of people +stirring about me, souls full of hot hopes and mad desires, unsatisfied +longings, unrealized ideals. And I stepped out of the group who were +gathered around the man who said there was no God....</p> + +<p>But I still drifted in the eddy, thinking how wonderful and strange all +these things were, and came thus to another group, close gathered at +the curb. It was much smaller than the other, and at the centre stood a +patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. He was +leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the +free-thinker's audience, freshly stuffed with arguments, had engaged him +hotly. Just as I approached he drew from his pocket a worn, +leather-covered Bible, and said, tapping it with one finger:</p> + +<p>“For forty years I have carried this book with me. It contains more +wisdom than any other book in the world. Your friend there can talk +until he is hoarse—it will do no harm—but the world will continue to +follow the wisdom of this book.”</p> + +<p>A kind of exaltation gleamed in his eye, and he spoke with an +earnestness equal to that of Henry Moore. He, too, was a street speaker, +waiting with his box at his side to begin. He would soon be standing up +there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there was a God. He, +also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads with the share +of his vehement faith. The two women were with him to sing their belief, +and one had a basket to take up a collection, and the other, singling +me out as I listened with eagerness, gave me a printed tract, a kind of +advertisement of God.</p> + +<p>I looked at the title of it. It was called: “God in His World.”</p> + +<p>“Does this prove that God is really in the world?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said. “Will you read it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said, “I am glad to get it. It is wonderful that so great a +truth can be established in so small a pamphlet, and all for nothing.”</p> + +<p>She looked at me curiously, I thought, and I put the tract by the side +of the pamphlet I had bought from the freethinker, and drifted again in +the eddy.</p> + +<p>The largest crowd of all was close packed about a swarthy young chap +whose bushy hair waved in response to the violence of his oratory. He, +too, was perspiring with his ideas. He had a marvellous staccato method +of question and answer. He would shoot a question like a rifle bullet at +the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, both +clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any one +could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. As I +edged my way nearer to him I discovered that he, also, had a little pile +of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily selling. How +well-established the technic of this art of the city eddies! How +well-studied the psychology!</p> + +<p>I thought this example the most perfect of them all, and watched with +eagerness the play of the argument as it was mirrored in the intent +faces all about me. And gradually I grew interested in what the man was +saying, and thought of many good answers I could give to his +questionings if he were not so cunning with answers of his own. Finally, +in the midst of one of his loftiest flights, he demanded, hotly:</p> + +<p>“Are you not, every one of you, a slave of the capitalist class?”</p> + +<p>It was perfectly still for a second after he spoke, and before I knew +what I was doing, I responded:</p> + +<p>“Why, no, I'm not.”</p> + +<p>It seemed to astonish the group around me: white faces turned my way.</p> + +<p>But it would have been difficult to dash that swarthy young man. He was +as full of questions as a porcupine is full of quills.</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” said he, “if I can prove to you that you are a slave, will +you believe it?”</p> + +<p>“No,” I said, “unless you make me feel like a slave, too! No man is a +slave who does not feel slavish.”</p> + +<p>But I was no match for that astonishing young orator; and he had the +advantage over me of a soap box! Moreover, at that moment, the keen-eyed +assistant, never missing an opportunity, offered me one of his little +red books.</p> + +<p>“If you can read this without feeling a slave,” he remarked, “you're +John D. himself in disguise.”</p> + +<p>I bought his little red book and put it with the pamphlet of the +freethinker, and the tract of the God-fearing man, and stepped out of +that group, feeling no more servile than when I went in. And I said to +myself:</p> + +<p>“This, surely, is a curious place to be in.”</p> + +<p>For I was now strangely interested in these men of the eddy.</p> + +<p>“There are more gods preached here,” I said, “than ever were known on +the Acropolis.”</p> + +<p>Up the square a few paces I saw a covered wagon with a dense crowd +around it. And in front of it upon a little platform which raised the +speaker high above the heads of the audience stood a woman, speaking +with shrill ardour. Most of the hearers were men; and she was telling +them with logic and authority that the progress of civilization waited +upon the votes of women. The army of the world stood still until the +rear rank of its women could be brought into line! Morals languished, +religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! If only +women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful and +charming place! Oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she made me +desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my share of +the power in this Government to provide each woman with a vote. And just +as I had reached this compliant stage there came a girl smiling and +passing her little basket. The sheer art of it! So I dropped in my coin +and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it side by side with the +other literature of my accumulating library.</p> + +<p>And so I came away from those hot little groups with their perspiring +orators, and felt again the charm of the tall buildings and the wide +sunny square, and the park with Down-at-Heels warming his ragged shanks, +and the great city clanging heedlessly by. How serious they all were +there in their eddies! Is there no God? Will woman suffrage or socialism +cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we would not +be without? Is a belief for forty years in the complete wisdom of the +Book the final solution? Why do not all of the seeking and suffering +thousands flowing by in Twenty-third Street stop here in the eddies to +seek the solution of their woes, the response to their hot desires?</p> + +<p>So I came home to the country, thinking of what I had seen and heard, +asking myself, “What is the truth, after all? What <i>is</i> real?”</p> + +<p>And I was unaccountably glad to be at home again. As I came down the +hill through the town road the valley had a quiet welcome for me, and +the trees I know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and +the meadows ripe with hay. I know of nothing more comforting to the +questioning spirit than the sight of distant hills....</p> + +<p>I found that Bill had begun the hay cutting. I saw him in the lower +field as I came by in the road. There he was, stationed high on the +load, and John, the Pole, was pitching on. When he saw me he lifted one +arm high in the air and waved his hand—and I in return gave him the +sign of the Free Fields.</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “it seems to me I was never so glad before to get +home.”</p> + +<p>“It's what you always say,” she remarked placidly.</p> + +<p>“This time it's true!” And I put the pamphlets I had accumulated in the +city eddies upon the pile of documents which I fully intend to read but +rarely get to.</p> + +<p>The heavenly comfort of an old shirt! The joy of an old hat!</p> + +<p>As I walked down quickly into the field with my pitchfork on my shoulder +to help Bill with the hay, I was startled to see, hanging upon a peach +tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black clothes. +Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a white shirt +and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable black hat. It +was as though the peach tree had suddenly, on that bright day, gone into +mourning.</p> + +<p>I laughed to myself.</p> + +<p>“Bill,” I said, “what does this mean?”</p> + +<p>Bill is a stout jolly chap with cheeks that look, after half a day's +haying, like raw beef-steaks. He paused on his load, smiling broadly, +his straw hat set like a halo on the back of his head.</p> + +<p>“Expected a funeral,” he said cheerfully.</p> + +<p>Bill is the undertaker's assistant, and is always on call in cases of +emergency.</p> + +<p>“What happened, Bill?”</p> + +<p>“They thought they'd bury 'im this afternoon, but they took an' kep' 'im +over till to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“But you came prepared.”</p> + +<p>“Yas, no time to go home in hayin'. The pump fer me, and the black +togs.”</p> + +<p>Bill calls the first rakings of the hay “tumbles,” and the scattered +re-rakings, which he despises, he calls “scratchings.” I took one side +of the load and John, the Pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls +from the tumbles which Bill placed skilfully at the corners and sides of +the load, using the scratchings for the centre.</p> + +<p>John, the Pole, watched the load from below. “Tank he too big here,” he +would say, or, “Tank you put more there”; but Bill told mostly by the +feel of the load under his feet or by the “squareness of his eye.” +John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the +load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but +gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main +strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork +through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a +twinkling—an admirable, deft performance.</p> + +<p>Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting its +clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very heavy, to +throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt and dry in +the burning sun—all full of good odours—the horse-rake draws it neatly +into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll the +billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was not +this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then +the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and +John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the +excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods +of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and +stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of '98 when two men and +one team saved four acres of hay by working all night—“with lanterns, I +jing”—much talk of how she goes on, “she” being the hay, and no end of +observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, and excesses +of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, half hidden +by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the tumbles as they go +by.</p> + +<p>Then the proud moment when Bill the driver, with legs apart, almost +pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill.</p> + +<p>“Go it, Dick. Let 'er out, Daisy. Stiddy, ol' boy. Whoa, there. Ease +down now. Hey, there, John, block the wheel—block the wheel I tell ye. +Ah-h now, jes' breathe a bit. I jing, it's hot.”</p> + +<p>And then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses +thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in +the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, +dusty “pitching off” and “mowing in”—a fine process, an <i>honest</i> +process: men sweating for what they get.</p> + +<p>As I came in from the field that night the sun was low in the hills, +and a faint breeze had begun to blow, sweetly cool after the burning +heat of the day. And I felt again that curious deep sense I have so +often here in the country, of the soundness and reality of the plain +things of life.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/16.jpg" width="320" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>CHAPTER X.<br> +THE OLD STONE MASON</h2> + +<p>Of well-flavoured men, I know none better than those who live close to +the soil or work in common things. Men are like roses and lilacs, which, +too carefully cultivated to please the eye, lose something of their +native fragrance. One of the best-flavoured men I know is my friend, the +old stone mason.</p> + +<p>To-day I rode over with the old stone mason to select some wide stones +for steps in my new building. The old man loves stones. All his life +long—he is now beyond seventy years old—he has lived among stones, +lifted stones, fitted stones. He knows all the various kinds, shapes, +sizes, and where they will go best in a wall. He can tell at a glance +where to strike a stone to make it fit a particular place, and out of a +great pile he can select with a shrewd eye the stone for the exact +opening he has to fill. He will run his stubby rough hand over a stone +and remark:</p> + +<p>“Fine face that. Ye don't see many such stones these days,” as though he +were speaking of the countenance of a friend.</p> + +<p>I veritably believe there are stones that smile at him, stones that +frown at him, stones that appear good or ill-humoured to him as he bends +his stocky strong body to lift or lay them. He is a slow man, a slow, +steady, geologic man, as befits one who works with the elemental stuff +of nature. His arms are short and his hands powerful. He has been a +servant of stones in this neighbourhood alone for upward of fifty years.</p> + +<p>He loves stones and can no more resist a good stone than I a good book. +When going about the country, if he sees comely stones in a wayside +pile, or in a fine-featured old fence he will have them, whether or no, +and dickers for them with all the eagerness, sly pride, and +half-concealed cunning with which a lover of old prints chaffers for a +Seymour Haden in a second-hand book shop. And when he has bought them he +takes the first idle day he has, and with his team of old horses goes +into the hills, or wherever it may be, and brings them down. He has them +piled about his barn and even in his yard, as another man might have +flower beds. And he can tell you, as he told me to-day, just where a +stone of such a size and such a face can be found, though it be at the +bottom of a pile. No book lover with a feeling sense for the place in +his cases where each of his books may be found has a sharper instinct +than he. In his pocket he carries a lump of red chalk, and when we had +made our selections he marked each stone with a broad red cross.</p> + +<p>I think it good fortune that I secured the old stone mason to do my +work, and take to myself some credit for skill in enticing him. He is +past seventy years old, though of a ruddy fresh countenance and a clear +bright eye, and takes no more contracts, and is even reluctantly +persuaded to do the ordinary stone work of the neighbourhood. He is +“well enough off,” as the saying goes, to rest during the remainder of +his years, for he has lived a temperate and frugal life, owns his own +home with the little garden behind it, and has money in the bank. But he +can be prevailed upon, like an old artist who has reached the time of +life when it seems as important to enjoy as to create, he can sometimes +be prevailed upon to lay a wall for the joy of doing it.</p> + +<p>So I had the stone hauled onto the ground, the best old field stone I +could find, and I had a clean, straight foundation dug, and when all was +ready I brought the old man over to look at it. I said I wanted his +advice. No sooner did his glance light upon the stone, no sooner did he +see the open and ready earth than a new light came in his eye. His step +quickened and as he went about he began to hum an old tune under his +breath. I knew then that I had him! He had taken fire. I could see that +his eye was already selecting the stones that should “go down,” the fine +square stones to make the corners or cap the wall, and measuring with a +true eye the number of little stones for the fillers. In no time at all +he had agreed to do my work; indeed, would have felt aggrieved if I had +not employed him.</p> + +<p>I enjoyed the building of the wall, I think, as much as he did, and +helped him what I could by rolling the larger stones close down to the +edge of the wall. As the old man works he talks, if any one cares to +listen, or if one does not care to listen he is well content to remain +silent among his stones. But I enjoyed listening, for nothing in this +world is so fascinating to me as the story of how a man has come to be +what he is. When we think of it there are no abstract adventures in this +world, but only your adventure and my adventure, and it is only as we +come to know a man that we can see how wonderful his life has been.</p> + +<p>He told me all about the great walls and the little walls—miles and +miles of them—he has built in the course of fifty years. He told of +crude boyhood walls when he was a worker for wages only, he told of +proud manhood walls when he took contracts for foundations, retaining +walls, and even for whole buildings, such as churches, where the work +was mostly of stone; he told me of thrilling gains and profits, and of +depressing losses; and he told me of his calm later work, again on +wages, for which he is chosen as a master of his craft. A whole long +lifetime of it—and the last years the best of all!</p> + +<p>As we drove up yesterday to select the steps from his piles of old field +stone, riding behind his great, slow, hairy-hoofed horse, in the +battered and ancient wagon, he pointed with his stubby whip to this or +that foundation, the work of his hands.</p> + +<p>“Fine job, that,” said he, and I looked for the first time in my life at +the beautiful stonework beneath the familiar home of a friend. I had +seen the house a thousand times, and knew well the people in it, but my +unobservant eye had never before rested consciously upon that bit of +basement wall. How we go through life, losing most of the beauties of it +from sheer inability to see! But the old man, as he drives about, rarely +sees houses at all, especially wooden houses, and for all modern stucco +and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty contempt. Sham work of a +hasty and unskilled age! He never, I think, put in a shovelful of cement +except in the place where it belongs, as a mortar for good walls, and +never will do so as long as he lives. So long as he lives the standards +of high art will never be debased!</p> + +<p>He built that foundation, and this chimney, he worked on the tower of +the Baptist church in the town, “and never yet has there been a crack in +her, winter or summer”; and more than forty years ago he laid the +cornerstone of the old schoolhouse, the foundation walls of which stand +to-day as sound and strong as they were when they were put down.</p> + +<p>In dry walls I think the old stone mason takes the greatest pride of +all: for it is in the dry wall—I mean by that a wall laid without +mortar—that the sheer art of the mason comes most into play. Any one +can throw a wall together if he has mortar to make it stick, but a dry +wall must stand out for what it is, built solid from the bottom up, each +stone resting securely upon those below it, and braced and nested in by +the sheer skill of the mason. The art of the dry wall is the ancient +heritage of New England and speaks not only of the sincerity and the +conscientiousness of the old Puritan spirit but strikes the higher note +of beauty. Many of the older walls I know are worth going far to see, +for they exhibit a rare sense of form and proportion, and are sometimes +set in the landscape with a skill that only the Master-Artist himself +could exceed. Those old, hard-wrought stone fences of the Burnham Hills +and Crewsbury, the best of them, were honestly built, and built to last +a thousand years. A beautiful art—and one that is passing away! It is +the dry wall that stands of itself that the old stone mason loves best +of all.</p> + +<p>As we drove along the road the old man pointed out to me with his stubby +whip so many examples of his work that it seemed finally as if he had +borne a hand in nearly everything done in this neighbourhood in the last +half-century. He has literally built himself into the country and into +the town, and at seventy years of age he can look back upon it all with +honest pride. It stands. No jerry-work anywhere. No cracks. It stands.</p> + +<p>I never realized before how completely the neighbourhood rests upon the +work of this simple old man. He <i>founded</i> most of the homes here, and +upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the +schools of the countryside. I see again how important each man is to the +complete fabric of civilization and know that we are to leave no one +out, despise no one, look down upon no one.</p> + +<p>He told me stories of this ancient settler and of that.</p> + +<p>He was a powerful queer man—he wanted the moss left on his stones +when I put 'em in; never a hammer touched the facings of <i>his</i> wall...</p> + +<p>“That is properly a woman's wall. She was the boss, you might call it, +and wanted stone, but <i>he</i> wanted brick. So you see the front, where +people can see it, is of stone, but the sides is all brick.”</p> + +<p>Thus like the true artist that he is, he has not only built himself his +own honesty, truth, skill, into the town, but he has built in the +inexhaustible peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the loves, +of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age in +stone. He knows the town, indeed, better than most of us, having a kind +of stone-age knowledge of it—the fundamental things men build in when +they set about building permanently.</p> + +<p>“And that is what you might call a spite-wall,” said he, showing me a +long wall leading between two shady homes, making one of them a prison +on the south, and the other a prison on the north. He told me the story +of an ancient and bitter quarrel between two old friends, a story which +sounded to-day among spring blossoms like the account of some ancient +baronial feud.</p> + +<p>But if the old stone mason has built walls to keep enemies apart how +many more walls has he built to keep friends together? How many times +has he been consulted by shy lovers seeking a foundation for a new home, +a new family, how many times by Darby and Joan planning a resting place +for the sunny closing years of their lives! He could point, indeed, to +one wall that symbolized hatred; all the others meant homes, roof-trees, +families, or they were the foundations for the working places of men, or +else, like the tower of the church, they pointed heavenward and were +built to the glory of God.</p> + +<p>The old stone mason has not the slightest idea that he has done anything +unusual or wonderful. He is as simple and honest a man as ever I knew; +and if he has pride, simple and honest also in that. He was anxious not +to charge me too much for the stone I bought—in an age like this! I +have never talked with him about God, or about religion: I had no need +to.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/17.jpg" width="300" height="400" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +<p>He has done his duty in other ways by his time and his place. He has +brought up a large family of children; and has known sorrow and loss, +as well as happiness and contentment. Two of his children were taken in +one day with pneumonia. He told me about it with a quaver in his old +voice.</p> + +<p>“How long ago was it?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Twenty-seven years.”</p> + +<p>He has sons and daughters left, and two of the sons he has well trained +as stone masons after him. They are good as young men go in a degenerate +age. They insist on working in cement! He has grandchildren in school, +and spoils them.</p> + +<p>He is also a man of public interests and upon town-meeting day puts on +his good clothes and sits modestly toward the back of the hall. Though +he rarely says anything he always has a strong opinion, an opinion as +sound and hard as stones and as simple, upon most of the questions that +come up. And he votes as he thinks, though the only man in meeting who +votes that way. For when a man works in the open, laying walls true to +lines and measurements, being honest with natural things, he comes +clear, sane, strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his judgment +upon matters that are really important as between man and man, and man +and God, than I would trust the town lawyer. And if he has grown a +little testy with some of the innovations of modern life, and thinks +they did everything better forty years ago—and says so—he speaks, at +least, his honest conviction.</p> + +<p>If I can lay my walls as true as he does, if I can build myself a third +part as firmly into any neighbourhood as he has into this, if at seventy +years of age—if ever I live to lay walls with joy at that time of +life—if I can look back upon <i>my</i> foundations, <i>my</i> heaven-pointing +towers, and find no cracks or strains in them, I shall feel that I have +made a great success of my life....</p> + +<p>I went out just now: the old man was stooping to lift a heavy stone. His +hat was off and the full spring sunshine struck down warmly upon the +ruddy bald spot on the top of his head, the white hair around about it +looking silvery in that light. As he placed the stone in the wall, he +straightened up and rubbed his stubby hand along it.</p> + +<p>“A fine stone that!” said he.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/18.jpg" width="400" height="340" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br> +AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“I would not paint a face<br> + Or rocks or streams or trees<br> +Mere semblances of things—<br> + But something more than these.”<br> +<br> +“I would not play a tune<br> + Upon the sheng or lute<br> +Which did not also sing<br> + Meanings that else were mute.” +</p> + +<p>John Templeton died on the last day of August, but it was not until some +weeks later that his daughter Julida, that hard-favoured woman, set a +time for the auction. It fell happily upon a mellow autumn day, and as I +drove out I saw the apples ripening in all the orchards along the road, +and the corn was beginning to look brown, and the meadows by the brook +were green with rowen. It was an ideal day for an auction, and farmers +and townsmen came trooping from all parts of the country, for the +Templeton antiques were to be sold.</p> + +<p>John Templeton lived in one house for seventy-eight years; he was born +there, and you will find the like of that in few places in America. It +was a fine house for its time, for any time, and not new when John +Templeton was born. A great, solid, square structure, such as they built +when the Puritan spirit was virile in New England, with an almost Greek +beauty of measured lines. It has a fanlight over the front door, windows +exquisitely proportion, and in the center a vast brick chimney. Even +now, though weathered and unpainted, it stands four-square upon the +earth with a kind of natural dignity. A majestic chestnut tree grows +near it, and a large old barn and generous sheds, now somewhat +dilapidated, ramble away to the rear.</p> + +<p>Enclosing the fields around about are stone fences representing the +infinite labour of John Templeton's forebears. More toil has gone into +the stone fences of New England, free labour of a free people, than ever +went into the slave-driven building of the Pyramids of Egypt.</p> + +<p>I knew John Templeton in his old age—a stiff, weather-beaten old man +driving to town in a one-horse buggy.</p> + +<p>“How are you, Mr. Templeton?”</p> + +<p>“Comin' on, comin' on.” This was his invariable reply.</p> + +<p>He had the old New England pronunciation, now disappearing. He said +“rud” for road, “daown” for down, and gave an indescribable twist to the +word garden, best spelled “gardin.” He had also the old New England +ways. He was forehanded with his winter woodpile, immaculately neat with +his dooryard, determined in his Sunday observance, and if he put the +small apples in the middle of the barrel he refused to raise tobacco, +lest it become a cause of stumbling to his neighbour. He paid his debts, +disciplined his children, and in an age which has come to look chummily +upon God, he dreaded His wrath.</p> + +<p>He grew a peculiar, very fine variety of sweet apple which I have never +seen anywhere else. He called it the Pumpkin Sweet, for it was of a rich +yellow. I can see him yet, driving into town with a shallow wagon box +half full of this gold of the orchard; can see him turn stiffly to get +one of the apples for me; can hear him say in the squeaky voice of age:</p> + +<p>“Ye won't find no sweeter apples hereabout, I can tell ye that.”</p> + +<p>He was a dyed-in-the-wool abolition Republican and took the Boston +<i>Transcript</i> for forty-six years. He left two cords of them piled up in +a back storeroom. He loved to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte and the +Battle of Waterloo, and how, if there had not been that delay of half an +hour, the history of the world might have been different. I can see him +saying, with the words puffing out his loose cheeks:</p> + +<p>“And then Blooker kem up—”</p> + +<p>To the very last, even when his eyes were too dim to read and his voice +was cracked, he would start up, like some old machine set a-whirring +when you touched the rusty lever, and talk about the Battle of Waterloo.</p> + +<p>No one, so far as I know, ever heard him complain, or bemoan his age, or +regret the change in the times; and when his day came, he lay down upon +his bed and died.</p> + +<p>“Positively nothing will be reserved,” were the familiar words of the +poster, and they have a larger meaning in an old country neighbourhood +than the mere sale of the last pan and jug and pig and highboy. Though +we live with our neighbours for fifty years we still secretly wonder +about them. We still suspect that something remains covered, something +kept in and hidden away, some bits of beauty unappreciated—as they are, +indeed, with ourselves. But death snatches away the last friendly +garment of concealment; and after the funeral the auction. We may enter +now. The doors stand at last flung widely open; all the attics have been +ransacked; all the chests have been turned out; a thousand privacies +stand glaringly revealed in the sunny open spaces of the yard. +Positively nothing will be reserved; everything will be knocked down to +the highest bidder. What wonder that the neighbourhood gathers, what +wonder that it nods its head, leaves sentences half uttered, smiles +enigmatically.</p> + +<p>Nearly all the contents of the house had been removed to the yard, under +the great chesnut tree. A crowd of people, mostly women, were moving +about among the old furniture, the old furniture that had been in John +Templeton's family for no one knows how long—old highboys and lowboys, +a beautifully simple old table or so, and beds with carved posts, and +hand-wrought brasses, and an odd tall clock that struck with sonorous +dignity. These things, which had been temptingly advertised as +“antiques,” a word John Templeton never knew, were only the common +serviceable things of uncounted years of family life.</p> + +<p>Nothing about the place was of any great value except the antiques, and +it was these that drew the well-dressed women in automobiles from as far +away as Hempfield and Nortontown; and yet there were men in plenty to +poke the pigs, look sarcastically at the teeth of the two old horses, +and examine with calculating and rather jeering eyes John Templeton's +ancient buggy, and the harness and the worn plough and cultivator and +mowing machine. Everything seems so cheap, so poor, so unprotected, +when the spirit has departed.</p> + +<p>Under the chestnut tree the swarthy auctioneer with his amiable +countenance and ironical smile acquired through years of dispassionate +observation of the follies of human emotion, the mutability of human +affairs, the brevity of human endeavour, that brought everything at last +under his hammer—there by the chestnut tree the auctioneer had taken +his stand in temporary eminence upon an old chest, with an ancient +kitchen cupboard near him which served at once as a pulpit for +exhortation, and a block for execution. Already the well-worn smile had +come pat to his countenance, and the well-worn witticisms were ready to +his tongue.</p> + +<p>“Now, gentlemen, if you'll give me such attention as you can spare from +the ladies, we have here to-day——”</p> + +<p>But I could not, somehow, listen to him: the whole scene, the whole deep +event, had taken hold upon me strangely. It was so full of human +meaning, human emotion, human pathos. I drifted away from the crowd and +stepped in at the open door of the old house, and walked through the +empty, resounding rooms with their curious old wallpaper and low +ceilings and dusty windows. And there were the old fireplaces where the +heavy brick had been eaten away by the pokings and scrapings of a +century; and the thresholds worn by the passage of many feet, the +romping feet of children, the happy feet of youth the bride passed here +on her wedding night with her arm linked in the arm of the groom; the +sturdy, determined feet of maturity; the stumbling feet of old age +creeping in; the slow, pushing feet of the bearers with the last burden, +crowding out—</p> + +<p>The air of the house had a musty, shut-in odour, ironically cut through, +as all old things are, by the stinging odour of the new: the boiling of +the auction coffee in the half-dismantled kitchen, the epochal moment in +the life of Julia Templeton. I could hear, occasionally, her high, +strident worried voice ordering a helper about. Such a hard-favoured +woman!</p> + +<p>It is the studied and profitable psychology of the auction that the +rubbish must be sold first—pots and bottles and jugs at five-cent bids, +and hoes at ten—and after that, the friction of the contest having +warmed in the bidders an amiable desire to purchase goods they do not +want and cannot use, the auctioneer gradually puts forth the treasures +of the day.</p> + +<p>As I came out of the old house I could see that the mystic web had been +spun, that the great moment of the sale was arriving. The auctioneer was +leaning forward now upon the tall cupboard with an air of command, and +surveying the assembled crowd with a lordly eye.</p> + +<p>“Now, Jake, careful there—pass it along—steady.... We come now to the +cheff dooves of the day, the creem delly creems of this sale. Gentleman +<i>and</i> ladies, it is a great moment in the life of an auctioneer when he +can offer, for sale, free and without reservation, such treasures as +these....”</p> + +<p>I could feel the warming interest of the crowd gathering in more closely +about Mr. Harpworth, the furtive silences of shrewd bargainers, +eagerness masked as indifference, and covetousness cloaking itself with +smiling irony. It is in the auction that trade glorifies itself finally +as an Art.</p> + +<p>“Here, gentlemen <i>and</i> ladies, is a genuine antique, hand-wrought and +solid all the way through. Just enough worn to give the flavour and +distinction of age. Well built in the first place, plain, simple lines, +but, ladies, <i>beautiful</i>.”</p> + +<p>It was the tall four-post bed he was selling and he now put his hand +upon this object—a hardy service with a cunningly simulated air of +deference. It was to be profaned by no irreverent handling!</p> + +<p>“What am I offered for this heirloom of the Templeton family? Ten? Ten! +Fifteen over there, thank you, Mr. Cody. Why, gentlemen, that bed cannot +be duplicated in America! A real product of Colonial art! Look at the +colour of it! Where will you find such depth of colour in any modern +piece? Age varnished it, gentlemen, age and use—the use of a hundred +years.... Twenty over there, twenty I hear, twenty, twenty, make it +thirty.... Speak up now, Ike, we know you've come here to-day to make +your fortune—do I hear thirty?”</p> + +<p>No sooner had the great bed been sold (“it's yours, Mrs. Craigie, a +treasure and dirt cheap”) there came an ancient pair of hand-wrought +andirons, and a spider-legged table, and a brass warming-pan, and a +banjo clock....</p> + +<p>I scarcely know how to explain it, but the sale of these inanimate +antiques, so charged with the restrained grace, the reticent beauty, the +serviceable strength, of a passing age, took hold upon me with strange +intensity. In times of high emotion the veil between sight and insight +slips aside and that which lies about us suddenly achieves a higher +reality. We are conscious of</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Something beside the form<br> +Something beyond the sound.”</p> + +<p>It came to me with a thrill that this was no mere sale of antique wood +and brass and iron, but a veritable auction, here symbolized, of the +decaying fragments of a sternly beautiful civilization.</p> + +<p>I looked off across the stony fields, now softly green in the sunlight, +from which three generations of the Templeton family had wrung an heroic +living; I looked up at the majestic old house where they had lived and +married and died....</p> + +<p>As my eye came back to the busy scene beneath the chestnut tree it +seemed to me, how vividly I cannot describe—that beside or behind the +energetic and perspiring Mr. Harpworth there stood Another Auctioneer. +And I thought he had flowing locks and a patriarchal beard, and a scythe +for a sign of the uncertainty of life, and a glass to mark the swiftness +of its passage. He was that Great Auctioneer who brings all things at +last under his inexorable hammer.</p> + +<p>After that, though Mr. Harpworth did his best, he claimed my attention +only intermittently from that Greater Sale which was going on at his +side, from that Greater Auctioneer who was conducting it with such +consummate skill—for <i>he</i> knew that nothing is for sale but life. The +mahogany highboy, so much packed and garnered life cut into inanimate +wood; the andirons, so much life; the bookshelves upon which John +Templeton kept his “Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” so much life. Life for +sale, gentlemen! What am I offered to-day for this bit of life—and +this—and this—</p> + +<p>Mr. Harpworth had paused, for even an auctioneer, in the high moment of +his art, remains human; and in the silence following the cessation of +the metallic click of his voice, “Thirty, thirty, thirt, thirt—make it +thirty-five—thank you—forty,” one could hear the hens gossiping in the +distant yard.</p> + +<p>“There were craftsmen in those days, gentlemen,” he was resuming; “look +at this example of their art—there is quality here and durability——”</p> + +<p>At this point the Great Auctioneer broke in upon my attention and caught +up Mr. Harpworth's words:</p> + +<p>“Yes, quality and durability—quality and durability. I also have here +to-day, and will offer you, gentlemen, a surpassing antique, not built +of wood nor fashioned in brass or iron, but a thing long attached to +these acres and this house. I present for your consideration the married +life of John Templeton and Hannah his wife. They lived together forty +years, and the record scarcely shows a dent. In all that time hardly a +word of love passed between them; but never a word of hatred, either. +They had a kind of hard and fast understanding, like the laws of Moses. +He did the work of the fields and she did the work of the house, from +sunrise to sunset. On Sunday they went to church together. He got out at +five o'clock to milk and harness up; and it made double work for her, +what with getting the children cleaned, and the milk taken care of, and +the Sunday dinner made ready. But neither he nor she every doubted or +complained. It was the Lord's way. She bore him eight children. She told +him before the last one came that she was not equal to it.... After that +she was an invalid for seventeen years until she died. And there was +loss of children to bear between them, and sickness, and creeping age, +but this bit of furniture held firm to the last. Gentlemen, it was mad +solid, no veneer, a good job all the way through.”</p> + +<p>As he spoke I thought that his roving eye (perhaps it was only my own!) +fell upon Johnny Holcomb, whose married life has been full of +vicissitudes.</p> + +<p>“John, take this home with you; <i>you</i> can use it.”</p> + +<p>“Nope, no such married life for me,” I thought I could hear him +responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer.</p> + +<p>“Do I hear any bids?” the Great Auctioneer was saying, almost in the +words of Mr. Harpworth. “<i>What!</i> No one wants n married life like this? +Well, put it aside, Jake. It isn't wanted. Too old-fashioned.”</p> + +<p>It was Julia Templeton herself who now appeared with certain of the +intimate and precious “bedroom things”—a wonderful old linen +bedspread, wrought upon with woollen figures, and exaling an ancient and +exquisite odour of lavender, and a rag rug or so, and a little old +rocking chair with chintz coverings in which more than one Templeton +mother had rocked her baby to sleep. Julia herself——</p> + +<p>I saw Julia, that hard-favoured woman, for the first time at that +moment, really saw her. How fiercely she threw down the spread and the +rugs! How bold and unweeping her eyes! How hard and straight the lines +of her mouth!</p> + +<p>“Here they are, Mr. Harpworth!”</p> + +<p>How shrill her voice; and how quickly she turned back to the noisy +kitchen! I could see the angular form, the streakings of gray in her +hair. ...</p> + +<p>“What am I offered now for this precious antique? This hand-made spread? +Everything sold without reserve! Come, now, don't let this opportunity +slip by.” He leaned forward confidentially and persuasively: “Fellah +citizens, styles change and fashions pass away, but things made like +these, good lines, strong material, honest work, they never grow +old....”</p> + +<p>Here the Shadowy Auctioneer broke in again and lifted me out of that +limited moment.</p> + +<p>“A true word!” he was saying. “Styles change and fashions pass away, and +only those things that are well made, and made for service the beautiful +things remain. I am offering to-day, without reservation, another +precious antique. What will you give for such a religious faith as that +of John Templeton? Worn for a lifetime and sound to the end. He read the +Bible every Sunday morning of his life, went to church, and did his +religious duty by his children. Do you remember young Joe Templeton? +Wouldn't learn his chapter one Sunday, and the old gentleman prayed +about it and then beat him with a hitching strap. Joe ran away from home +and made his fortune in Minnesota. Nearly broke the mother's heart, and +old John's, too; but he thought it right, and never repented it. +Gentlemen, an honest man who feared God and lived righteously all his +days! What am I offered for this durable antique, this characteristic +product of New England? Do I hear a bid?”</p> + +<p>At this I felt coming over me that strange urge of the auction, to bid +and to buy. A rare possession indeed, not without a high, stern kind of +beauty! It would be wonderful to possess such a faith; but what had I to +offer that Shadowy Auctioneer? What coin that would redeem past times +and departed beliefs?</p> + +<p>It was curious how the words of Mr. Harpworth fitted into the fabric of +my imaginings. When he next attracted my attention he was throwing up +his hands in a fine semblance of despair. We were such obtuse +purchasers!</p> + +<p>“I think,” said Mr. Harpworth, “that this crowd came here to-day only to +eat Julia Templeton's auction luncheon. What's the matter with this here +generation? You don't want things that are well made and durable, but +only things that are cheap and flashy. Put 'er aside, Jake. We'll sell +'er yet to some historical museum devoted to the habits and customs of +the early Americans.”</p> + +<p>He was plainly disgusted with us, and we felt it keenly, and were glad +and pleased when, a moment later, he gave evidence of being willing to +go on with us, paltry as we were.</p> + +<p>“Jake, pass up that next treasure.”</p> + +<p>His spirits were returning; his eyes gleamed approvingly upon the newly +presented antique. He looked at us with fresh confidence; he was still +hopeful that we would rise to his former good opinion of us.</p> + +<p>“And now before I sell the hail clock by Willard, date of 1822, I am +going to offer what is possibly the best single piece in this sale....”</p> + +<p>Here again the Old Auctioneer, having caught his * broke in. When he +spoke, who could listen to Mr. Harpworth:</p> + +<p>“... the best single piece in this sale, gentlemen! I offer you now the +Templeton family pride! A choice product of old New England. A little +battered, but still good and sound. The Templetons! They never did +anything notable except to work, work early and late, summer and winter, +for three generations. They were proud of any one who bore the Templeton +name; they were proud even of Jim, simple Jim, who got a job driving the +delivery wagon at the hill store, and drove it for twenty-two years and +was drowned in Mill River. I'll tell you what family pride meant to old +John Templeton....”</p> + +<p>I thought he leaned forward to take us into his confidence, motioning +at the same time toward the house.</p> + +<p>“You know Julia Templeton——”</p> + +<p>Know her? Of course we knew her! Knew her as only the country knows its +own.</p> + +<p>“When Julia ran away with that sewing-machine agent—it was her only +chance!—old John Templeton drove his best cow into town and sold her, +he mortgaged his team of horses, and went after the girl and brought her +home with him. They were firm and strong and as righteous as God with +her; and they paid off, without whining, the mortgages on the horses, +and never spoke of the loss of the cow—but never forgot it. They held +up their heads to the end. Gentlemen, what am I offered for this +interesting antique, this rare work of art?”</p> + +<p>The auction was considered, upon the whole, a great success. Mr. +Harpworth himself said so. Ike, the Jewish dealer, bought the family +clock and the spring-tooth harrow, and even bid on the family crayon +portraits (the frames could be sold for something or other); a Swede +bought the pigs and the old buggy; an Irish teamster bid in John +Templeton's horses, and a Pole, a good man, I know him well, bought the +land, and will no doubt keep his geese in the summer kitchen, and get +rich from the cultivation of the ancient fields. While old John +Templeton bowed himself humbly before a wrathful God he would never go +down on his knees, as the Poles do, to the fertile earth. And—I +forgot—an Italian from Nortontown bought for a song the apple and +chestnut crops, and busy third generation Americans loaded in the +antiques and drove off with them to the city.</p> + +<p>The last I saw of Julia Templeton, that hard-favoured woman, she was +standing, an angular figure, in the midst of the wreck of the luncheon +dishes, one arm wrapped in her apron, the other hand shading her eyes +while she watched the company, in wagons and automobiles, trailing away +to the westward, and the towns....</p> + +<p>The sale was over; but the most valuable antiques of all found no +purchasers: they were left behind with Julia Templeton: only she could +use them.</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/19.jpg" width="400" height="200" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br> +A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE</h2> + +<p>We have an Astonishing Woman in this community. She acts in a way that +no one expects, and while we are intensely interested in everything she +does, and desire to know about it to the uttermost detail, we are +inclined to speak of her in bated breath.</p> + +<p>Some Woman to Talk About in a country neighbourhood is a kind of public +necessity. She fills one of the stated functions like the town assessor, +or the president of the Dorcas Society; and if ever the office falls +vacant we have immediate resort to one of those silent elections at +which we choose our town celebrities. There are usually several +candidates, and the campaign is accompanied by much heated argument and +exemplification. We have our staunch party men and our irresponsible +independents on whom you can never put your finger; and if we are +sometimes a little vague in our discussion of principles and issues we +share with our national political leaders an intense interest in +personalities. Prominent citizens “come out” for this candidate or that, +we “spring surprises,” and launch new booms, and often, at the last +moment, we are taken off our feet by the circulation of comebacks. I +take a pardonable pride, however, in saying, to the credit of our +democratic institutions that most of the candidates elected are chosen +strictly upon merit.</p> + +<p>I shall never forget the afternoon, now more than a year ago, that +Harriet came up the road bearing the news which, beyond a doubt, placed +the present incumbent in office; and has served to keep her there, +despite the efforts in certain quarters, which shall be nameless, to use +that pernicious instrument of radicalism, the recall.</p> + +<p>I can always tell when Harriet brings important news. She has a slightly +quicker step, carries her head a little more firmly, and when she speaks +impresses her message upon me with a lowered voice. When Harriet looks +at me severely and drops down an octave I prepare for the worst.</p> + +<p>“David,” she said, “Mary Starkweather has gone to live in the barn!”</p> + +<p>“In the <i>barn</i>!”</p> + +<p>“In the barn.”</p> + +<p>I don't know quite why it is, but I dislike being surprised, and do my +best to cover it up, and, besides, I have always liked Mary +Starkweather. So I remarked, as casually as I could:</p> + +<p>“Why not? It's a perfectly good barn.”</p> + +<p>“David Grayson!”</p> + +<p>“Well, it is. It's a better building to-day than many of the people of +this town live in. Why shouldn't Mary Starkweather live in the barn if +she wants to? It's her barn.”</p> + +<p>“But, <i>David</i>—there are her children—and her husband!”</p> + +<p>“There always are, when anybody wants to live in a barn.”</p> + +<p>“I shall not talk with you any more,” said Harriet, “until you can be +serious.”</p> + +<p>I had my punishment, as I richly deserved to have, in the gnawing of +unsatisfied curiosity, which is almost as distressing as a troubled +conscience.</p> + +<p>Within the next few days, I remember, I heard the great news buzzing +everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted +for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, our +sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary +Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country, +and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books, +to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children's maid +going to live in her barn! I leave it to you if there was not a valid +reason for our commotion.</p> + +<p>It must have been two weeks later that I went to town by the upper hill +road in order to pass the Starkweather place. It is a fine old estate, +the buildings, except the barn, set well back from the road with a +spacious garden near them, and pleasant fields stretching away on every +hand. As I skirted the shoulder of the hill I looked eagerly for the +first glimpse of the barn. I confess that I had woven a thousand stories +to explain the mystery, and had reached the point where I could no +longer resist seeing if I could solve it.</p> + +<p>Well, the barn was transformed. Two or three new windows, a door with a +little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting +an inquiring eyebrow—and what was once a barn had become a charming +cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a +personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off +and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple +arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. You +felt at once a kind of fondness for it.</p> + +<p>I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a +trowel in her hand.</p> + +<p>“How are you, David Grayson?” she called out when I stopped.</p> + +<p>“I have been planning for several days,” I said, “to happen casually by +your new house.”</p> + +<p>“Have you?”</p> + +<p>“You don't know how you have stirred our curiosity. We haven't had a +good night's rest since you moved in.”</p> + +<p>“I've no doubt of it,” she laughed. “Won't you come in? I'd like to tell +you all about it.”</p> + +<p>“I also prepared to make excuses for not stopping,” I said, “and thought +up various kinds of urgent business, such as buying a new snow shovel to +use next winter, but after making these excuses I intended to stop—if +I were sufficiently urged.”</p> + +<p>“You are more than urged: you are commanded.”</p> + +<p>As I followed her up the walk she said earnestly:</p> + +<p>“Will you do me a favour? When you come in will you tell me the first +impression my living-room gives you? No second thoughts. Tell me +instantly.”</p> + +<p>“I'll do it.” I said, my mind leaping eagerly to all manner of +mysterious surprises.</p> + +<p>At the centre of the room she turned toward me and with a sweeping +backward motion of the arms, made me a bow—a strong figure instinct +with confident grace: a touch of gray in the hair, a fleeting look of +old sadness about the eyes.</p> + +<p>“Now, David Grayson,” she said, “quick!”</p> + +<p>It was not that the room itself was so remarkable as that it struck me +as being confusingly different from the heavily comfortable rooms of the +old Starkweather house with their crowded furnishings, their overloaded +mantels, their plethoric bookcases.</p> + +<p>“I cannot think of you yet,” I stumbled, “as being here.”</p> + +<p>“Isn't it <i>like</i> me?”</p> + +<p>“It is a beautiful room—” I groped lamely.</p> + +<p>“I was afraid you would say that.”</p> + +<p>“But it is. It really is.”</p> + +<p>“Then I've failed, after all.”</p> + +<p>She said it lightly enough, but there was an undertone of real +disappointment in her voice.</p> + +<p>“I'm in rather the predicament,” I said, “of old Abner Coates. You +probably don't know Abner. He sells nursery stock, and each spring when +he comes around and I tell him that the peach trees or the raspberry +bushes I bought of him the year before have not done well, he says, with +the greatest astonishment, 'Wal, now, ye ain't said what I hoped ye +would.' I see that I haven't said what you hoped I would.”</p> + +<p>It was too serious a matter, however, for Mary Starkweather to joke +about.</p> + +<p>“But, David Grayson,” she said, “isn't it <i>simple</i>?”</p> + +<p>I glanced around me with swift new comprehension.</p> + +<p>“Why, yes, it <i>is</i> simple.”</p> + +<p>I saw that my friend was undergoing some deep inner change of which this +room, this renovated barn, were mere symbols.</p> + +<p>“Tell me,” I said, “how you came to such a right-about-face.”</p> + +<p>“It's just that!” she returned earnestly, “It <i>is</i> a right-about-face. +I think I am really in earnest for the first time in my life.”</p> + +<p>I had a moment of flashing wonder if her marriage had not been in +earnest, a flashing picture of Richard Starkweather with his rather +tired, good-humoured face, and I wondered if her children were not +earnest realities to her, if her busy social life had meant nothing. +Then I reflected that we all have such moments, when the richest +experiences of the past seem as nothing in comparison with the fervour +of this glowing moment.</p> + +<p>“Everything in my life in the past,” she was saying, “seems to have +happened to me. Life has done things <i>for</i> me; I have had so few chances +of doing anything for myself.”</p> + +<p>“And now you are expressing yourself.”</p> + +<p>“Almost for the first time in my life!”</p> + +<p>She paused. “All my life, it seems to me, I have been smothered with +things. Just things! Too much of everything. All my time has been taken +up in caring for things and none in enjoying them.”</p> + +<p>“I understand!” I said with a warm sense of corroboration and sympathy.</p> + +<p>“I had so many pictures on my walls that I never saw, really saw, any of +them. I saw the dust on them, I saw the cracks in the frames, that +needed repairing, I even saw better ways of arranging them, but I very +rarely saw, with the inner eye, what the artists were trying to tell me. +And how much time I have wasted on mere food and clothing—it is +appalling! I had become nothing short of a slave to my house and my +things.”</p> + +<p>“I see now,” I said, “why you have just one rose on your table.”</p> + +<p>“Yes”—she returned eagerly—“isn't it a beauty! I spent half an hour +this morning looking for the best and most perfect rose in the garden, +and there it is!”</p> + +<p>She was now all alight with her idea, and I saw her, as we sometimes see +our oldest friends, as though I had not seen her before. She was that +phenomenon of the modern world—the free woman of forty-five.</p> + +<p>When a woman reaches the old age of youth, the years between forty and +forty-five, she either surrenders or revolts. In the older days in +America it was nearly always surrender. Those women of a past +generation bore many children: how many graves there are in our hill +cemeteries of women of forty to fifty who died leading families of five +or eight or ten children! How many second and third wives there were, +often with second and third families. Or if they did not die, how +terribly they toiled, keeping the house, clothing the children, cooking +the food. Or if they bore no children, yet they were bound down by a +thousand chains of convention and formality.</p> + +<p>But in these days we have a woman of forty-five who has not surrendered. +She is a vigorous, experienced, active-minded human being, just +beginning to look restlessly around her and take a new interest in the +world. Such a woman was Mary Starkweather; and this was her first +revolt.</p> + +<p>“You cannot imagine,” she was saying, “what a joy it has been to +unaccumulate! To get rid of things! To select.”</p> + +<p>“To become an artist in life!”</p> + +<p>“Yes! At last! What a lot of perfectly worthless trash accumulates +around us. Not beautiful, not even useful! And it is not only the lives +of the well-to-do that are choked and cluttered with things. I wish you +could see the house of our Polish farmer. He's been saving money, and +filling up his house with perfectly worthless ornaments—ornate clocks, +gorgeous plush furniture, impossible rugs—and yet he is only doing what +we are all doing on a more elaborate scale.”</p> + +<p>I laughed.</p> + +<p>“That reminds me of a family of squirrels that lives in an oak tree on +my hill,” I said. “I am never tired of watching them. In the fall they +work desperately, stealing all the hickory nuts and chestnuts on my +neighbour Horace's back pastures, five times as many as they need, and +then they forget, half the time, where they've hidden them. We're all +more or less in the squirrel stage of civilization.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she responded. “There are my books! I gathered up books for +years, just squirrel fashion, until I forgot what I had or where I put +them. You cannot know what joy I'm going to have in selecting just the +essential books, the ones I want by me for daily companions. All the +others, I see now, are temporary rubbish.”</p> + +<p>“And you've made your selections?”</p> + +<p>“No, but I'm making them. You'll laugh when you come next time and I +show them to you. Oh, I am going to be stern with myself. I'm not going +to put a single book in that case for show, nor a single one to give the +impression that I'm profoundly interested in Egypt or Maeterlinck or +woman suffrage, when I'm positively not.”</p> + +<p>“It's terribly risky,” I said.</p> + +<p>“And I'm terribly reckless,” she responded.</p> + +<p>As I went onward toward the town I looked back from the hilltop beyond +the big house for a last glimpse of the reconstructed barn, and with a +curious warm sense of having been admitted to a new adventure. Here was +life changing under my eyes! Here was a human being struggling with one +of the deep common problems that come to all of us. The revolt from +things! The struggle with superfluities!</p> + +<p>And yet as I walked along the cool aisles of the woods with the quiet +fields opening here and there to the low hill ridges, and saw the cattle +feeding, and heard a thrush singing in a thicket, I found myself letting +go—how can I explain it?—relaxing! I had been keyed up to a high pitch +there in that extraordinary room, Yes, it <i>was</i> beautiful—and yet as I +thought of the sharp little green gate, the new gable, the hard, clean +mantel with the cloisonne vase, it wanted something....</p> + +<p>As I was gathering the rowen crop of after-enjoyment which rewards us +when we reflect freshly upon our adventures, whom should I meet but +Richard Starkweather himself in his battered machine. The two boys, one +of whom was driving, and the little girl, were with him.</p> + +<p>“How are you, David?” he called out. “Whoa, there! Draw up, Jamie.”</p> + +<p>We looked at each other for a moment with that quizzical, half-humorous +look that so often conveys, better than any spoken words, the +sympathetic greeting of friends. I like Richard Starkweather.</p> + +<p>He had come up from the city looking rather worn, for the weather had +been trying. He has blue, honest, direct-gazing eyes with small humour +wrinkles at the corners. I never knew a man with fewer theories, or with +a simpler devotion to the thing at hand, whatever it may be. At +everything else he smiles, not cynically, for he is too modest in his +regard for his own knowledge; he smiles at everything else because it +doesn't seem quite real to him.</p> + +<p>“Been up to see Mary's new house?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” And for the life of me I couldn't help smiling in response.</p> + +<p>“It's a wonder isn't it?”</p> + +<p>He thought his wife a very extraordinary woman. I remember his saying to +me once, “David, she's got the soul of a poet and the brain of a +general.”</p> + +<p>“It <i>is</i> a wonder,” I responded.</p> + +<p>“I can't decide yet what chair to sit in, nor just what she wants the +kids to do.”</p> + +<p>I still smiled.</p> + +<p>“I expect she hasn't determined yet,” he went drawling on, “in what +chair I will look most decorative.”</p> + +<p>He ruminated.</p> + +<p>“You know, she's got the idea that there's too much of everything. I +guess there is, too—and that she ought to select only those things that +an essential. I've been wondering, if she had more than one husband +whether or not she'd select me——”</p> + +<p>The restless young Jamie was now starting the machine, and Richard +Starkweather leaned out and said to me in parting:</p> + +<p>“isn't she a wonder! Did all the planning herself—wouldn't have an +architect—wouldn't have a decorator—all I could do—”</p> + +<p>As he turned around I saw him throw one arm carelessly about the +shoulders of the sturdy younger boy who sat next him.</p> + +<p>When I got home I told Harriet all about what I had seen and heard. I +think I must feel when I am retailing such fascinating neighbourhood +events to Harriet—how she <i>does</i> enjoy them!—I must feel very much as +she does when she is urging me to have just a little more of the new +gingerbread.</p> + +<p>In the next few months I watched with indescribable interest the +unfolding of the drama of Mary Starkweather. I saw her from time to time +that summer and she seemed, and I think she was, happier than ever she +had been before in her whole life. Making over her garden, selecting the +“essential books,” choosing the best pictures for her rooms, even +reforming the clothing of the boys, all with an emphasis upon perfect +simplicity—her mind was completely absorbed. Occasionally Richard +appeared upon the stage, a kind of absurd Greek chorus of one, who +remarked what a wonderful woman this was and poked fun at himself and at +the new house, and asserted that Mary could be as simple as ever she +liked, he insisted on thick soup for dinner and would not sacrifice his +beloved old smoking jacket upon the altar of any new idea.</p> + +<p>“She's a wonder, David,” he'd wind up: “but this simple life is getting +more complicated every day.”</p> + +<p>It was in December, about the middle of the month, as I remember, that I +had a note one day from Mary Starkweather.</p> + +<p>“The next time you go to town,” it ran, “stop in and see me. I've made a +discovery.”</p> + +<p>With such a note as that us my hand it appeared imperative that I go to +town at once. I discovered, to Harriet's astonishment, that we were +running out of all sorts of necessaries.</p> + +<p>“Now, David,” she said, “you know perfectly well that you're just making +up to call on Mary Starkweather.”</p> + +<p>“That,” I said, “relieves my conscience of a great burden.”</p> + +<p>As I went out of the door I heard her saying: “Why Mary Starkweather +should <i>care</i> to live in her barn....”</p> + +<p>It was a sparkling cold day, sun on the snow and the track crunching +under one's feet, and I walked swiftly and with a warm sense of coming +adventure.</p> + +<p>To my surprise there was no smoke in the cottage chimney, and when I +reached the door I found a card pinned upon it:</p> + +<p class="center"> +PLEASE CALL AT THE HOUSE +</p> + +<p>Mary Starkweather herself opened the door—she had seen me coming—and +took me into the big comfortable old living-room, the big, cluttered, +overfurnished living-room, with the two worn upholstered chairs at the +fireplace, in which a bright log fire was now burning. There was a +pleasant litter of books and magazines, and a work basket on the table, +and in the bay window an ugly but cheerful green rubber plant in a tub.</p> + +<p>“Well!” I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>“Don't smile—not yet.”</p> + +<p>As I looked at her I felt not at all like smiling.</p> + +<p>“I know,” she was saying, “it does have a humorous side. I can see that. +Dick has seen it all along. Do you know, although Dick pretends to +pooh-pooh everything intellectual, he has a really penetrating mind.”</p> + +<p>I had a sudden vision of Dick in his old smoking jacket, standing in +the midst of the immaculate cottage that was once a barn, holding his +pipe with one finger crooked around the stem just in front of his nose +in the way he had, and smiling across at me.</p> + +<p>“Have you deserted the cottage entirely?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, we may possibly go back in the spring———” She paused and looked +into the fire, her fine, strong face a little sad in composure, full of +thought.</p> + +<p>“I am trying to be honest with myself David. Honest above everything +else. That's fundamental. It seems to me I have wanted most of all to +learn how to live my life more freely and finely.... I thought I was +getting myself free of things when, as a matter of fact, I was devoting +more time to them than ever before-and, besides that, making life more +or less uncomfortable for Dick and the children. So I've taken my +courage squarely in my hands and come back here into this blessed old +home, this blessed, ugly, stuffy old home—I've learned <i>that</i> lesson.”</p> + +<p>At this, she glanced up at me with that rare smile which sometimes +shines out of her very nature: the smile that is herself.</p> + +<p>“I found,” she said, “that when I had finished the work of becoming +simple—there was nothing else left to do.”</p> + +<p>I laughed outright, for I couldn't help it, and she joined me. How we do +like people who can laugh at themselves.</p> + +<p>“But,” I said, “there was sound sense in a great deal that you were +trying to do.”</p> + +<p>“The fireplace smoked; and the kitchen sink froze up; and the cook left +because we couldn't keep her room warm.”</p> + +<p>“But you were right,” I interrupted, “and I am not going to be put off +by smoking fireplaces or chilly cooks; you were right. We do have too +much, we are smothered in things, we don't enjoy what we do have—”</p> + +<p>I paused.</p> + +<p>“And you were making a beautiful thing, a beautiful house.”</p> + +<p>“The trouble with making a beautiful thing,” she replied, “is that when +you have got it done you must straightway make another. Now I don't want +to keep on building houses or furnishing rooms. I am not after beauty—I +mean primarily—what I want is to <i>live</i>, live simply, live greatly.”</p> + +<p>She was desperately in earnest.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” I said, feeling as though I were treading on dangerous +ground, “you were trying to be simple for the sake of being simple. I +wonder if true simplicity is ever any thing but a by-product. If we aim +directly for it, it eludes us: but if we are on fire with some great +interest that absorbs on lives to the uttermost, we forget ourselves +into simplicity, Everything falls into simple lines around us, like a +worn garment.”</p> + +<p>I had the rather uncomfortable feeling on the way home that I had been +preachy; and the moment you became preachy begin to build up barriers +between yourself and your friends: but that's a defect of character I've +never been able, quite, to overcome. I keep thinking I've got the better +of it, but along will come a beautiful temptation and down I go—and +come out as remorseful as I was that afternoon on the way home from Mary +Starkweather's.</p> + +<p>A week or two later I happened to meet Richard Starkweather on the +street in Hempfield. He was on his way home.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said, “we're in the old house again until spring, anyway. I +haven't been so comfortable in a year. And, say,” here he looked at me +quizzically, “Mary has joined the new cemetery association; you know +they're trying to improve the resting places of the forefathers, and, by +George, if they didn't elect her chairman at the first meeting. She's a +wonder!”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/20.jpg" width="300" height="375" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br> +HIS MAJESTY—BILL RICHARDS</h2> + +<p>Well, I have just been having an amusing and delightful adventure and +have come to know a Great Common Person. His name is Bill Richards, and +he is one of the hereditary monarchs of America. He belongs to our +ruling dynasty.</p> + +<p>I first saw Bill about two weeks ago, and while I was strongly +interested in him I had no idea, at the time, that I should ever come to +know him well. It was a fine June day, and I was riding on the new +trolley line that crosses the hills to Hewlett—a charming trip through +a charming country—and there in the open car just in front of me sat +Bill himself. One huge bare forearm rested on the back of the seat, the +rich red blood showing through the weathered brown of the skin. His +clean brown neck rose strongly from the loose collar of his shirt, which +covered but could not hide the powerful lines of his shoulders. He wore +blue denim and khaki, and a small round felt hat tipped up jauntily at +the back. He had crisp, coarse light hair rather thin—not by age, but +by nature—so that the ruddy scalp could be seen through it, and strong +jaws and large firm features, and if the beard was two days old, his +face was so brown, so full of youthful health, that it gave no ill +impression.</p> + +<p>He could not sit still for the very life that was in him. He seemed to +have some grand secret with the conductor and frequently looked around +at him, his eyes full of careless laughter, and once or twice he called +out—some jocose remark. He helped the conductor, in pantomime, to pull +the cord and stop or start the car, and he watched with the liveliest +interest each passenger getting on or getting off. A rather mincing +young girl with a flaring red ribbon at her throat was to him the finest +comedy in the world, so that he had to wink a telegram to the conductor +about her. An old woman with a basket of vegetables who delayed the car +was exquisitely funny.</p> + +<p>I set him down as being about twenty-two years old and some kind of +outdoor workman, not a farmer.</p> + +<p>When he got off, which was before the car stopped, so that he had to +jump and run with it, he gave a wild flourish with both arms, grimaced +at the conductor, and went off down the road whistling for all he was +worth. How I enjoyed the sight of him! He was so charged with youthful +energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely +contain himself. What a fine place the world was to him! And what +comical and interesting people it contained! I was sorry when he got +off.</p> + +<p>Two or three days later I was on my way up the town road north of my +farm when I was astonished and delighted to see Bill for the second +time. He was coming down the road pulling a wire over the crosspiece of +a tall telephone pole (the company is rebuilding and enlarging its +system through our town). He was holding the wire close drawn over his +right shoulder, his strong hands gripped and pressed upon his breast. +The veins stood out in his brown neck where the burlap shoulder pad he +wore was drawn aside by the wire. He leaned forward, stepping first on +his toe, which he dug into the earth and then, heavily letting down his +heel, he drew the other foot forward somewhat stiffly. The muscles stood +out in his powerful shoulders and thighs. His legs were double-strapped +with climbing spurs. He was a master lineman.</p> + +<p>As I came alongside he turned a good-humoured sweaty face toward me.</p> + +<p>“It's dang hot,” said he.</p> + +<p>“It is,” said I.</p> + +<p>There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a strong +workman in the full swing of his work, something—yes, beautiful! A +hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could be +finer to see? And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth and easy +strength!</p> + +<p>I watched him for some time, curiously interested, and thought I should +like well to know him, but could not see just how to go about it.</p> + +<p>The man astride the cross-arm who was heaving the wire forward from the +spool on the distant truck suddenly cried out:</p> + +<p>“Ease up there, Bill, she's caught.”</p> + +<p>So Bill eased up and drew his arm across his dripping face.</p> + +<p>“How many wires are you putting up?” I asked, fencing for some opening.</p> + +<p>“Three,” said Bill.</p> + +<p>Before I could get in another stroke the man on the pole shouted:</p> + +<p>“Let 'er go, Bill.” And Bill let 'er go, and buckled down again to his +job.</p> + +<p>“Gee, but it's hot,” said he.</p> + +<p>In the country there are not so many people passing our way that we +cannot be interested in all of them. That evening I could not help +thinking about Bill, the lineman, wondering where he came from, how he +happened to be what he was, who and what sort were the friends he made, +and the nature of his ambitions, if he had any. Talk about going to the +North Pole! It is not to be compared, for downright fascination, with +the exploration of an undiscovered human being.</p> + +<p>With that I began to think how I might get at Bill, the lineman, and not +merely weather talk, or wages talk, or work talk, but at Bill himself. +He was a character quite unusual in our daily lives here in the country. +I wondered what his interests could be, surely not mine nor Horace's nor +the Starkweathers'. As soon as I began trying to visualize what his life +might be, I warmed up to a grand scheme of capturing him, if by chance +he was to be found the next day upon the town road.</p> + +<p>All this may seem rather absurd in the telling, but I found it a +downright good adventure for a quiet evening, and fully believe I felt +for the moment like General Joffre planning to meet the Germans on the +Marne.</p> + +<p>“I have it!” I said aloud.</p> + +<p>“You have what?” asked Harriet, somewhat startled.</p> + +<p>“The grandest piece of strategy ever devised in this town,” said I.</p> + +<p>With that I went delving in a volume of universal information I keep +near me, one of those knowing books that tells you how tall the great +Pryamid is and why a hen cackles after laying an egg, and having found +what I wanted I asked Harriet if she could find a tape measure around +the place. She is a wonderful person and knows where everything is. When +she handed me the tape measure she asked me what in the world I was so +mysterious about.</p> + +<p>“Harriet,” I said, “I'm going on a great adventure. I'll tell you all +about it to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense,” said Harriet.</p> + +<p>It is this way with the fancies of the evening—they often look flat and +flabby and gray the next morning. Quite impossible! But if I'd acted on +half the good and grand schemes I've had o' nights I might now be quite +a remarkable person.</p> + +<p>I went about my work the next morning just as usual. I even avoided +looking at the little roll of tape on the corner of the mantel as I went +out. It seemed a kind of badge of my absurdity. But about the middle of +the fore-noon, while I was in my garden, I heard a tremendous racket up +the road. Rattle—bang, zip, toot! As I looked up I saw the boss +lineman and his crew careering up the road in their truck, and the bold +driver was driving like Jehu, the son of Nimshi. And there were ladders +and poles clattering out behind, and rolls of wire on upright spools +rattling and flashing in the sunshine, and the men of the crew were +sitting along the sides of the truck with hats off and hair flying as +they came bumping and bounding up the road. It was a brave thing to see +going by on a spring morning!</p> + +<p>As they passed, whom should I see but Bill himself, at the top of the +load, with a broad smile on his face. When his eye fell on me he threw +up one arm, and gave me the railroad salute.</p> + +<p>“Hey, there!” he shouted.</p> + +<p>“Hey there, yourself,” I shouted in return—and could not help it.</p> + +<p>I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd +of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load.</p> + +<p>It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and +taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though +it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as +adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet +but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay +that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning.</p> + +<p>Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little +valley near the far corner of Horace's farm, I found the truck, and Bill +just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped pennies and +Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools while the others +went down to the mill pond in the valley below.</p> + +<p>“How are you?” said I.</p> + +<p>“How are <i>you</i>?” said he.</p> + +<p>I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind.</p> + +<p>“Fine day,” said I.</p> + +<p>“You bet,” said he.</p> + +<p>He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the +roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below +into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and +somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing.</p> + +<p>“Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?” I asked.</p> + +<p>He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest.</p> + +<p>“No, did you?”</p> + +<p>“Or Bob Fitzsimmons?”</p> + +<p>“Nope—but I was mighty near it once. I've seen 'em both in the movies.”</p> + +<p>“Well, sir,” said I, “that's interesting. I should like to see them +myself. Do you know what made me speak of them?”</p> + +<p>He had spread down a newspaper and was taking the luncheon out of his +“bucket,” as he called it, including a large bottle of coffee; but he +paused and looked at me with keen interest.</p> + +<p>“Well,” said I, “when I saw you dragging that wire yesterday I took you +to be a pretty husky citizen yourself.”</p> + +<p>He grinned and took a big mouthful from one of his sandwiches. I could +see that my shot had gone home.</p> + +<p>“So when I got back last night,” I said, “I looked up the arm +measurements of Sullivan and Fitzsimmons in a book I have and got to +wondering how they compared with mine and yours. They were considerably +larger than mine—”</p> + +<p>Bill thought this a fine joke and laughed out in great good humour.</p> + +<p>“But I imagine you'd not be far behind either of them.”</p> + +<p>He looked at me a little suspiciously, as if doubtful what I was driving +at or whether or not I was joking him. But I was as serious as the face +of nature; and proceeded at once to get out my tape measure.</p> + +<p>“I get very much interested in such things,” I said, “and I had enough +curiosity to want to see how big your arm really was.”</p> + +<p>He smiled broadly.</p> + +<p>“You're a queer one,” said he.</p> + +<p>But he took another bite of sandwich, and clenching his great fist drew +up his forearm until the biceps muscles looked like a roll of Vienna +bread—except that they had the velvety gleam of life. So I measured +first one arm, then the other.</p> + +<p>“By George!” said I, “you're ahead of Fitzsimmons, but not quite up to +Sullivan.”</p> + +<p>“Fitz wasn't a heavy man,” said Bill, “but a dead game fighter.”</p> + +<p>I saw then that I had him! So I sat down on the grass near by and we had +great talk about the comparative merits of Fitzsimmons and Sullivan and +Corbett and Jack Johnson, a department of knowledge in which he +out-distanced me. He even told me of an exploit or two of his own, +which showed that he was able to take care of himself.</p> + +<p>While we talked he ate his luncheon, and a downright gargantuan luncheon +it was, backed by an appetite which if it were offered to the highest +bidder on the New York Stock Exchange would, I am convinced, bring at +least ten thousand dollars in cash. It even made me envious.</p> + +<p>There were three huge corned-beef sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a +pickle six inches long and fat to boot, four doughnuts so big that they +resembled pitching quoits, a bottle of coffee and milk, a quarter of a +pie, and, to cap the climax, an immense raw onion. It was worth a long +journey to see Bill eat that onion. He took out his clasp knife, and +after stripping off the papery outer shell, cut the onion into thick +dewy slices. Then he opened one of the sandwiches and placed several of +them on the beef, afterward sprinkling them with salt from a small paper +parcel. Having restored the top slice of bread he took a moon-shaped +bite out of one end of this glorified sandwich.</p> + +<p>“I like onions,” said he.</p> + +<p>When we first sat down he had offered to share his luncheon with me but +I told him I had just been to dinner, and I observed that he had no +difficulty in taking care of every crumb in his “bucket.” It was +wonderful to see.</p> + +<p>Having finished his luncheon he went down to the brook and got a drink, +and then sat down comfortably with his back among the ferns of the +roadside, crossed his legs, and lit his pipe. There was a healthy and +wholesome flush in his face, and as he blew off the first cloud of smoke +he drew a sigh of complete comfort and looked around at me with a lordly +air such as few monarchs, no matter how well fed, could have bettered. +He had worked and sweat for what he got, and was now taking his ease in +his roadside inn. I wonder sometimes if anybody in the world experiences +keener joys than unwatched common people.</p> + +<p>How we talked! From pugilists we proceeded to telephones, and from that +to wages, hours, and strikes, and from that we leaped easily to Alaska +and gold-mining, and touched in passing upon Theodore Roosevelt.</p> + +<p>“I was just thinking,” I said, “that you and I can enjoy some things +that were beyond the reach of the greatest kings of the world.”</p> + +<p>“How's that?” said he.</p> + +<p>“Why, Napoleon never saw a telephone nor talked through one.”</p> + +<p>“That's so!” he laughed.</p> + +<p>“And Caesar couldn't have dreamed that such a thing as you are doing now +was a possibility—nor George Washington, either.”</p> + +<p>“Say, that's so. I never thought o' that.”</p> + +<p>“Why,” I said, “the world is only half as big as it was before you +fellows came along stringing your wires! I can get to town now from my +farm in two minutes, when it used to take me an hour.”</p> + +<p>I really believe I gave him more of his own business than ever he had +before, for he listened so intently that his pipe went out.</p> + +<p>I found that Bill was from Ohio, and that he had been as far south as +Atlanta and as far west as Denver. He got his three dollars and a half a +day, rain or shine, and thought it wonderful pay; and besides, he was +seein' the country “free, gratis, fer nothing.”</p> + +<p>He got his coat out of the truck and took from the pocket a +many-coloured folder.</p> + +<p>“Say, Mister, have you ever been to the Northwest?”</p> + +<p>“No,” said I.</p> + +<p>“Well, it's a great country, and I'm goin' up there.”</p> + +<p>He spread out the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a +spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere this side of the Rockies.</p> + +<p>“How'll you do it?” I asked.</p> + +<p>“Oh, a lineman can go anywhere,” said he with a flourish, “A lineman +don't have to beg a job. Besides, I got eighty dollars sewed up.”</p> + +<p>Talk about freedom! Never have I got a clearer impression of it than +Bill gave me that day. No millionaire, no potentate, could touch him.</p> + +<p>The crew came back all too soon for me. Bill knocked the ashes out of +his pipe on his boot heel, and put his “bucket” back in the truck. Five +minutes later he was climbing a tall pole with legs bowed out, striking +in his spikes at each step. From the cross-arm, up among the hemlock +tops, he called out to me:</p> + +<p>“Good-bye, pard.”</p> + +<p>“Stop in, Bill, and see me when you come by my place,” said I.</p> + +<p>“You bet,” said he.</p> + +<p>And he did, the next day, and I showed him off to Harriet, who brought +him a plate of her best doughnuts and asked him about his mother.</p> + +<p>Yesterday I saw him again careering by in the truck. The job was +finished. He waved his hand at me.</p> + +<p>“I'm off,” said he.</p> + +<p>“Where?” I shouted.</p> + +<p>“Canada.”</p> + +<div class="fig" style="width:100%;"> +<img src="images/21.jpg" width="400" height="300" alt="[Illustration]"> +</div> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br> +ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Why risk with men your hard won gold?<br> +Buy grain and sow—your Brother Dust<br> +Will pay you back a hundred fold—<br> +The earth commits no breach of trust.” +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<i>Hindu Proverb, Translated by Arthur Guiterman</i>.</p> + +<p>It is astonishing how many people there are in cities and towns who have +a secret longing to get back into quiet country places, to own a bit of +the soil of the earth, and to cultivate it. To some it appears as a +troublesome malady only in spring and will be relieved by a whirl or two +in country roads, by a glimpse of the hills, or a day by the sea; but to +others the homesickness is deeper seated and will be quieted by no hasty +visits. These must actually go home.</p> + +<p>I have had, in recent years, many letters from friends asking about +life in the country, but the longer I remain here, the more I know about +it, the less able I am to answer them—at least briefly. It is as though +one should come and ask: “Is love worth trying?” or, “How about +religion?” For country life is to each human being a fresh, strange, +original adventure. We enjoy it, or we do not enjoy it, or more +probably, we do both. It is packed and crowded with the zest of +adventure, or it is dull and miserable. We may, if we are skilled +enough, make our whole living from the land, or only a part of it, or we +may find in a few cherished acres the inspiration and power for other +work, whatever it may be. There is many a man whose strength is renewed +like that of the wrestler of Irassa, every time his feet touch the +earth.</p> + +<p>Of all places in the world where life can be lived to its fullest and +freest, where it can be met in its greatest variety and beauty, I am +convinced that there is none to equal the open country, or the country +town. For all country people in these days may have the city—some city +or town not too far away: but there are millions of men and women in +America who have no country and no sense of the country. What do they +not lose out of life!</p> + +<p>I know well the disadvantages charged against country life at its worst. +At its worst there are long hours and much lonely labour and an income +pitifully small. Drudgery, yes, especially for the women, and +loneliness. But where is there not drudgery when men are poor—where +life is at its worst? I have never seen drudgery in the country +comparable for a moment to the dreary and lonely drudgery of city +tenements, city mills, factories, and sweat shops. And in recent years +both the drudgery and loneliness of country life have been disappearing +before the motor and trolley car, the telephone, the rural post, the +gasoline engine. I have seen a machine plant as many potatoes in one day +as a man, at hand work, could have planted in a week. While there is, +indeed, real drudgery in the country, much that is looked upon as +drudgery by people who long for easy ways and a soft life, is only good, +honest, wholesome hard work—the kind of work that makes for fiber in a +man or in a nation, the kind that most city life in no wise provides.</p> + +<p>There are a thousand nuisances and annoyances that men must meet who +come face to face with nature itself. You have set out your upper acres +to peach trees: and the deer come down from the hills at night and strip +the young foliage; or the field mice in winter, working under the snow, +girdle and kill them. The season brings too much rain and the potatoes +rot in the ground, the crows steal the corn, the bees swarm when no out +is watching, the cow smothers her calf, the hens' eggs prove infertile, +and a storm in a day ravages a crop that has been growing all summer. A +constant warfare with insects and blights and fungi—a real, bitter +warfare, which can cease neither summer nor winter!</p> + +<p>It is something to meet, year after year, the quiet implacability of the +land. While it is patient, it never waits long for you. There is a +chosen time for planting, a time for cultivating, a time for harvesting. +You accept the gauge thrown down—well and good, you shall have a chance +to fight! You do not accept it? There is no complaint. The land +cheerfully springs up to wild yellow mustard and dandelion and +pig-weed—and will be productive and beautiful in spite of you.</p> + +<p>Nor can you enter upon the full satisfaction of cultivating even a small +piece of land at second hand. To be accepted as One Who Belongs, there +must be sweat and weariness.</p> + +<p>The other day I was digging with Dick in a ditch that is to run down +through the orchard and connect finally with the land drain we put in +four years ago. We laid the tile just in the gravel below the silt, +about two feet deep, covering the openings with tar paper and then +throwing in gravel. It was a bright, cool afternoon. In the field below +a ploughman was at work: I could see the furrows of the dark earth +glisten as he turned it over. The grass in the meadow was a full rich +green, the new chickens were active in their yards, running to the cluck +of the hens, already the leaves of the orchard trees showed green. And +as I worked there with Dick I had the curious deep feeling of coming +somehow into a new and more intimate possession of my own land. For +titles do not really pass with signatures and red seals, nor with money +changing from one hand to another, but for true possession one must work +and serve according to the most ancient law. There is no mitigation and +no haggling of price. Those who think they can win the greatest joys of +country life on any easier terms are mistaken.</p> + +<p>But if one has drained his land, and ploughed it, and fertilized it, +and planted it and harvested it—even though it be only a few acres— +how he comes to know and to love every rod of it. He knows the wet +spots, and the stony spots, and the warmest and most fertile spots +—until his acres have all the qualities of a personality, whose every +characteristic he knows. It is so also that he comes to know his horses +and cattle and pigs and hens. It is a fine thing, on a warm day in early +spring, to bring out the bee-hives and let the bees have their first +flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to see +them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is a +fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, with +us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard seems +still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for the +first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing—one of +the finest of all—to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after weeks +of drought. How it comes softly out of gray skies, the first drops +throwing up spatters of dust and losing themselves in the dry soil. Then +the clouds sweep forward up the valley, darkening the meadows and +blotting out the hills, and then there is the whispering of the rain as +it first sweeps across the corn-field. At once what a stir of life! What +rustling of the long green leaves. What joyful shaking and swaying of +the tassels! And have you watched how eagerly the grooved leaves catch +the early drops, and, lest there be too little rain after all, conduct +them jealously down the stalks where they will soonest reach the thirsty +roots? What a fine thing is this to see!</p> + +<p>One who thus takes part in the whole process of the year comes soon to +have an indescribable affection for his land, his garden, his animals. +There are thoughts of his in every tree: memories in every fence corner. +Just now, the fourth of June, I walked down past my blackberry patch, +now come gorgeously into full white bloom—and heavy with fragrance. I +set out these plants with my own hands, I have fed them, cultivated +them, mulched them, pruned them, trellised them, and helped every year +to pick the berries. How could they be otherwise than full of +associations! They bear a fruit more beautiful than can be found in any +catalogue: and stranger and wilder than in any learned botany book!</p> + +<p>Why, one who comes thus to love a bit of countryside may enjoy it all +the year round. When he awakens in the middle of a long winter night he +may send his mind out to the snowy fields—I've done it a thousand +times!—and visit each part in turn, stroll through the orchard and pay +his respects to each tree—in a small orchard one comes to know +familiarly every tree as he knows his friends—stop at the strawberry +bed, consider the grape trellises, feel himself opening the door of the +warm, dark stable and listening to the welcoming whicker of his horses, +or visiting his cows, his pigs, his sheep, his hens, or so many of them +as he may have.</p> + +<p>So much of the best in the world seems to have come fragrant out of +fields, gardens, and hillsides. So many truths spoken by the Master Poet +come to us exhaling the odours of the open country. His stories were so +often of sowers, husbandmen, herdsmen: his similes and illustrations so +often dealt with the common and familiar beauty of the fields. “Consider +the lilies how they grow.” It was on a hillside that he preached his +greatest Sermon, and when in the last agony he sought a place to meet +his God, where did he go but to a garden? A carpenter you say? Yes, but +of this one may be sure: there were gardens and fields all about: he +knew gardens, and cattle, and the simple processes of the land: he must +have worked in a garden and loved it well.</p> + +<p>A country life rather spoils one for the so-called luxuries. A farmer or +gardener may indeed have a small cash income, but at least he eats at +the first table. He may have the sweetest of the milk, there are +thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women in America who have never +in their lives tasted really sweet milk and the freshest of eggs, and +the ripest of fruit. One does not know how good strawberries or +raspberries are when picked before breakfast and eaten with the dew +still on them. And while he must work and sweat for what he gets, he may +have all these things in almost unmeasured abundance, and without a +thought of what they cost. A man from the country is often made +uncomfortable, upon visiting the city, to find two cans of sweet corn +served for twenty or thirty cents, or a dish of raspberries at +twenty-five or forty—and neither, even at their best, equal in quality +to those he may have fresh from the garden every day. One need say this +in no boastful spirit, but as a simple statement of the fact: for +fruits sent to the city are nearly always picked before they are fully +ripe—and lose that last perfection of flavour which the sun and the +open air impart: and both fruits and vegetables, as well as milk and +eggs, suffer more than most people think from handling and shipment. +These things can be set down as one of the make-weights against the +familiar presentation of the farmer's life as a hard one.</p> + +<p>One of the greatest curses of mill or factory work and with much city +work of all kinds, is its interminable monotony: the same process +repeated hour after hour and day after day. In the country there is +indeed monotonous work but rarely monotony. No task continues very long: +everything changes infinitely with the seasons. Processes are not +repetitive but creative. Nature hates monotony, is ever changing and +restless, brings up a storm to drive the haymakers from their hurried +work in the fields, sends rain to stop the ploughing, or a frost to +hurry the apple harvest. Everything is full of adventure and +vicissitude! A man who has been a farmer for two hours at the mowing +must suddenly turn blacksmith when his machine breaks down and tinker +with wrench and hammer; and later in the day he becomes dairyman, +farrier, harness-maker, merchant. No kind of wheat but is grist to his +mill, no knowledge that he cannot use! And who is freer to be a citizen +than he: freer to take his part in town meeting and serve his state in +some one of the innumerable small offices which form the solid blocks of +organization beneath our commonwealth.</p> + +<p>I thought last fall that corn-husking came as near being monotonous +work, as any I had ever done in the country. I presume in the great +corn-fields of the West, where the husking goes on for weeks at a time, +it probably does grow really monotonous. But I soon found that there was +a curious counter-reward attending even a process as repetitive as this.</p> + +<p>I remember one afternoon in particular. It was brisk and cool with +ragged clouds like flung pennants in a poverty-stricken sky, and the +hills were a hazy brown, rather sad to see, and in one of the apple +trees at the edge of the meadow the crows were holding their mournful +autumn parliament.</p> + +<p>At such work as this one's mind often drops asleep, or at least goes +dreaming, except for the narrow margin of awareness required for the +simple processes of the hands. Its orders have indeed been given: you +must kneel here, pull aside the stalks one by one, rip down the husks, +and twist off the ear—and there is the pile for the stripped stalks, +and here the basket for the gathered corn, and these processes +infinitely repeated.</p> + +<p>While all this is going on, the mind itself wanders off to its own far +sweet pastures, upon its own dear adventures—or rests, or plays. It is +in these times that most of the airy flying things of this beautiful +world come home to us—things that heavy-footed reason never quite +overtakes, nor stodgy knowledge ever knows. I think sometimes (as Sterne +says) we thus intercept thoughts never intended for us at all, or +uncover strange primitive memories of older times than these—racial +memories.</p> + +<p>At any rate, the hours pass and suddenly the mind comes home again, it +comes home from its wanderings refreshed, stimulated, happy. And +nowhere, whether in cities, or travelling in trains, or sailing upon the +sea, have I so often felt this curious enrichment as I have upon this +hillside, working alone in field, or garden, or orchard, It seems to +come up out of the soil, or respond to the touch of growing things.</p> + +<p>What makes any work interesting is the fact that one can make +experiments, try new things, develop specialties and <i>grow</i>. And where +can he do this with such success as on the land and in direct contact +with nature. The possibilities are here infinite new machinery, +spraying, seed testing, fertilizers, experimentation with new varieties. +A thousand and one methods, all creative, which may be tried out in that +great essential struggle of the farmer or gardener to command all the +forces of nature.</p> + +<p>Because there are farmers, and many of them, who do not experiment and +do not grow, but make their occupation a veritable black drudgery, this +is no reason for painting a sombre-hued picture of country life. Any +calling, the law, the ministry, the medical profession, can be blasted +by fixing one's eyes only upon its ugliest aspects. And farming, at its +best, has become a highly scientific, extraordinarily absorbing, and +when all is said, a profitable, profession. Neighbours of mine have +developed systems of overhead irrigation to make rain when there is no +rain, and have covered whole fields with cloth canopies to increase the +warmth and to protect the crops from wind and hail, and by the analysis +of the soil and exact methods of feeding it with fertilizers, have come +as near a complete command of nature as any farmers in the world. What +independent, resourceful men they are! And many of them have also grown +rich in money. It is not what nature does with a man that matters but +what he does with nature.</p> + +<p>Nor is it necessary in these days for the farmer or the country dweller +to be uncultivated or uninterested in what are often called, with no +very clear definition, the “finer things of life.” Many educated men are +now on the farms and have their books and magazines, and their music and +lectures and dramas not too far off in the towns. A great change in this +respect has come over American country life in twenty years. The real +hardships of pioneering have passed away, and with good roads and +machinery, and telephones, and newspapers every day by rural post, the +farmer may maintain as close a touch with the best things the world has +to offer as any man. And if he really have such broader interests the +winter furnishes him time and leisure that no other class of people can +command.</p> + +<p>I do not know, truly, what we are here for upon this wonderful and +beautiful earth, this incalculably interesting earth, unless it is to +crowd into a few short years—when all is said, terribly short +years!—every possible fine experience and adventure: unless it is to +live our lives to the uttermost: unless it is to seize upon every fresh +impression, develop every latent capacity: to grow as much as ever we +have it in our power to grow. What else can there be? If there is no +life beyond this one, we have lived <i>here</i> to the uttermost. We've had +what we've had! But if there is more life, and still more life, beyond +this one, and above and under this one, and around and through this one, +we shall be well prepared for that, whatever it may be.</p> + +<p>The real advantages of country life have come to be a strong lure to +many people in towns and cities: but no one should attempt to “go back +to the land” with the idea that it is an easy way to escape the real +problems and difficulties of life. The fact is, there is no escape. The +problems and the difficulties must be boldly met whether in city or +country. Farming in these days is not “easy living,” but a highly +skilled profession, requiring much knowledge, and actual manual labour +and plenty of it. So many come to the country too light-heartedly, buy +too much land, attempt unfamiliar crops, expect to hire the work +done—and soon find themselves facing discouragement and failure. Any +city man who would venture on this new way of life should try it first +for a year or so before he commits himself—try himself out against the +actual problems. Or, by moving to the country, still within reach of his +accustomed work, he can have a garden or even a small farm to experiment +with. The shorter work-day has made this possible for a multitude of +wage-workers, and I know many instances in which life because of this +opportunity to get to the soil has become a very different and much +finer thing for them.</p> + +<p>It is easy also for many men who are engaged in professional work to +live where they can get their hands into the soil for part of the time +at least: and this may be made as real an experience as far as it goes +as though they owned wider acres and devoted their whole time to the +work.</p> + +<p>A man who thus faces the problem squarely will soon see whether country +life is the thing for him; if he finds it truly so, he can be as nearly +assured of “living happily ever after” as any one outside of a +story-book can ever be. Out of it all is likely to come some of the +greatest rewards that men can know, a robust body, a healthy appetite, a +serene and cheerful spirit!</p> + +<p>And finally there is one advantage not so easy to express. Long ago I +read a story of Tolstoi's called “The Candle”—how a peasant Russian +forced to plough on Easter Day lighted a candle to his Lord and kept it +burning on his plough as he worked through the sacred day. When I see a +man ploughing in his fields I often think of Tolstoi's peasant, and +wonder if this is not as true a way as any of worshipping God. I wonder +if any one truly worships God who sets about it with deliberation, or +knows quite why he does it.</p> + +<p>“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, +as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass.”</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS ***</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTERS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Great Possessions + +Author: David Grayson + +Release Date: January 4, 2004 [EBook #10593] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +GREAT POSSESSIONS + +By David Grayson + + + +CHAPTER I + + +THE WELL-FLAVOURED EARTH + +"Sweet as Eden is the air + And Eden-sweet the ray. +No Paradise is lost for them +Who foot by branching root and stem, +And lightly with the woodland share + The change of night and day." + +For these many years, since I have lived here in the country, I have had +it in my mind to write something about the odour and taste of this +well-flavoured earth. The fact is, both the sense of smell and the sense +of taste; have been shabbily treated in the amiable rivalry of the +senses. Sight and hearing have been the swift and nimble brothers, and +sight especially, the tricky Jacob of the family, is keen upon the +business of seizing the entire inheritance, while smell, like hairy +Esau, comes late to the blessing, hungry from the hills, and willing to +trade its inheritance for a mess of pottage. + +I have always had a kind of errant love for the improvident and +adventurous Esaus of the Earth. I think they smell a wilder fragrance +than I do, and taste sweeter things, and I have thought, therefore, of +beginning a kind of fragrant autobiography, a chronicle of all the good +odours and flavours that ever I have had in my life. + +As I grow older, a curious feeling comes often to me in the spring, as +it comes this spring more poignantly than ever before, a sense of the +temporariness of all things, the swiftness of life, the sadness of a +beauty that vanishes so soon, and I long to lay hold upon it as it +passes by all the handles that I can. I would not only see it and hear +it, but I would smell it and taste it and touch it, and all with a new +kind of intensity and eagerness. + +Harriet says I get more pleasure out of the smell of my supper than I +get out of the supper itself. + +"I never need to ring for you," says she, "but only open the kitchen +door. In a few minutes I'll see you straighten up, lift your head, sniff +a little, and come straight for the house." + +"The odour of your suppers, Harriet," I said, "after a day in the +fields, would lure a man out of purgatory." + +My father before me had a singularly keen nose. I remember well when I +was a boy and drove with him in the wild North Country, often through +miles of unbroken forest, how he would sometimes break a long silence, +lift his head with sudden awareness, and say to me: + +"David, I smell open fields." + +In a few minutes we were sure to come to a settler's cabin, a log barn, +or a clearing. Among the free odours of the forest he had caught, afar +off, the common odours of the work of man. + +When we were tramping or surveying in that country, I have seen him stop +suddenly, draw in a long breath, and remark: + +"Marshes," or, "A stream yonder." + +Part of this strange keenness of sense, often noted by those who knew +that sturdy old cavalryman, may have been based, as so many of our +talents are, upon a defect. My father gave all the sweet sounds of the +world, the voices of his sons, the songs of his daughters, to help free +the Southern slaves. He was deaf. + +It is well known that when one sense is defective the others fly to the +rescue, and my father's singular development of the sense of smell may +have been due in part to this defect, though I believe it to have been, +to a far larger degree, a native gift. Me had a downright good nose. All +his life long he enjoyed with more than ordinary keenness the odour of +flowers, and would often pick a sprig of wild rose and carry it along +with him in his hand, sniffing at it from time to time, and he loved the +lilac, as I do after him. To ill odours he was not less sensitive, and +was impatient of rats in the barn, and could smell them, among other +odours, the moment the door was opened. He always had a peculiar +sensitiveness to the presence of animals, as of dogs, cats, muskrats, +cattle, horses, and the like, and would speak of them long before he had +seen them or could know that they were about. + +I recall once on a wild Northern lake, when we were working along the +shore in a boat, how he stopped suddenly and exclaimed: + +"David, do you hear anything?"--for I, a boy, was ears for him in those +wilderness places. + +"No, Father. What is it?" + +"Indians." + +And, sure enough, in a short time I heard the barking of their dogs and +we came soon upon their camp, where, I remember, they were drying deer +meat upon a frame of poplar poles over an open fire. He told me that the +smoky smell of the Indians, tanned buckskin, parched wild rice, and the +like, were odours that carried far and could not be mistaken. + +My father had a big, hooked nose with long, narrow nostrils, I suppose +that this has really nothing to do with the matter, although I have +come, after these many years, to look with a curious interest upon +people's noses, since I know what a vehicle of delight they often are. +My own nose is nothing to speak of, good enough as noses go--but I think +I inherited from my father something of the power of enjoyment he had +from that sense, though I can never hope to become the accomplished +smeller he was. + +I am moved to begin this chronicle because of my joy this morning +early--a May morning!--just after sunrise, when the shadows lay long +and blue to the west and the dew was still on the grass, and I walked in +the pleasant spaces of my garden. It was so still...so still...that +birds afar off could be heard singing, and once through the crystal air +came the voice of a neighbour calling his cows. But the sounds and the +silences, the fair sights of meadow and hill I soon put aside, for the +lilacs were in bloom and the bush-honeysuckles and the strawberries. +Though no movement of the air was perceptible, the lilacs well knew the +way of the wind, for if I stood to the north of them the odour was less +rich and free than to the south, and I thought I might pose as a prophet +of wind and weather upon the basis of this easy magic, and predict that +the breezes of the day would be from the north--as, indeed, they later +appeared to be. + +I went from clump to clump of the lilacs testing and comparing them with +great joy and satisfaction. They vary noticeably in odour; the white +varieties being the most delicate, while those tending to deep purple +are the richest. Some of the newer double varieties seem less +fragrant--and I have tested them now many times--than the old-fashioned +single varieties which are nearer the native stock. Here I fancy our +smooth Jacob has been at work, and in the lucrative process of selection +for the eye alone the cunning horticulturist has cheated us of our +rightful heritage of fragrance. I have a mind some time to practise the +art of burbankry or other kind of wizardy upon the old lilac stock and +select for odour alone, securing ravishing original varieties--indeed, +whole new gamuts of fragrance. + +I should devise the most animating names for my creations, such as the +Double Delicious, the Air of Arcady, the Sweet Zephyr, and others even +more inviting, which I should enjoy inventing. Though I think surely I +could make my fortune out of this interesting idea, I present it freely +to a scent-hungry world--here it is, gratis!--for I have my time so +fully occupied during all of this and my next two or three lives that I +cannot attend to it. + +I have felt the same defect in the cultivated roses. While the odours +are rich, often of cloying sweetness, or even, as in certain white +roses, having a languor as of death, they never for me equal the +fragrance of the wild sweet rose that grows all about these hills, in +old tangled fence rows, in the lee of meadow boulders, or by some +unfrequented roadside. No other odour I know awakens quite such a +feeling--light like a cloud, suggesting free hills, open country, sunny +air; and none surely has, for me, such an after-call. A whiff of the +wild rose will bring back in all the poignancy of sad happiness a train +of ancient memories old faces, old scenes, old loves--and the wild +thoughts I had when a boy. The first week of the wild-rose blooming, +beginning here about the twenty-fifth of June, is always to me a +memorable time. + +I was a long time learning how to take hold of nature, and think now +with some sadness of all the life I lost in former years. The impression +the earth gave me was confused: I was as one only half awake. A fine +morning made me dumbly glad, a cool evening, after the heat of the day, +and the work of it, touched my spirit restfully; but I could have +explained neither the one nor the other. Gradually as I looked about me +I began to ask myself, "Why is it that the sight of these common hills +and fields gives me such exquisite delight? And if it is beauty, why is +it beautiful? And if I am so richly rewarded by mere glimpses, can I not +increase my pleasure with longer looks?" + +I tried longer looks both at nature and at the friendly human creatures +all about me. I stopped often in the garden where I was working, or +loitered a moment in the fields, or sat down by the roadside, and +thought intently what it was that so perfectly and wonderfully +surrounded me; and thus I came to have some knowledge of the Great +Secret. It was, after all, a simple matter, as such matters usually are +when we penetrate them, and consisted merely in shutting out all other +impressions, feelings, thoughts, and concentrating the full energy of +the attention upon what it was that I saw or heard at that instant. + +At one moment I would let in all the sounds of the earth, at another all +the sights. So we practise the hand at one time, the foot at another, or +learn how to sit or to walk, and so acquire new grace for the whole +body. Should we do less in acquiring grace for the spirit? It will +astonish one who has not tried it how full the world is of sounds +commonly unheard, and of sights commonly unseen, but in their nature, +like the smallest blossoms, of a curious perfection and beauty. + +Out of this practice grew presently, and as it seems to me +instinctively, for I cannot now remember the exact time of its +beginning, a habit of repeating under my breath, or even aloud, and in a +kind of singsong voice, fragmentary words and sentences describing what +it was that I saw or felt at the moment, as, for example: + +"The pink blossoms of the wild crab-apple trees I see from the hill.... +The reedy song of the wood thrush among the thickets of the wild +cherry.... The scent of peach leaves, the odour of new-turned soil in +the black fields.... The red of the maples in the marsh, the white of +apple trees in bloom.... I cannot find Him out--nor know why I am +here...." + +Some form of expression, however crude, seemed to reenforce and +intensify the gatherings of the senses; and these words, afterward +remembered, or even written down in the little book I sometimes carried +in my pocket, seemed to awaken echoes, however faint, of the exaltation +of that moment in the woods or fields, and enabled me to live twice +where formerly I had been able to live but once. + +It was by this simple process of concentrating upon what I saw or heard +that I increased immeasurably my own joy of my garden and fields and +the hills and marshes all about. A little later, for I was a slow +learner, I began to practise the same method with the sense of smell, +and still later with the sense of taste. I said to myself, "I will no +longer permit the avid and eager eye to steal away my whole attention. I +will learn to enjoy more completely all the varied wonders of the +earth." + +So I tried deliberately shutting the doorways of both sight and hearing, +and centring the industry of my spirit upon the flavours of the earth. I +tested each odour narrowly, compared it well with remembered odours, and +often turned the impression I had into such poor words as I could +command. + +What a new and wonderful world opened to me then! My takings of nature +increased tenfold, a hundredfold, and I came to a new acquaintance with +my own garden, my own hills, and all the roads and fields around +about--and even the town took on strange new meanings for me. I cannot +explain it rightly, but it was as though I had found a new earth here +within the old one, but more spacious and beautiful than any I had known +before. I have thought, often and often, that this world we live in so +dumbly, so carelessly, would be more glorious than the tinsel heaven of +the poets if only we knew how to lay hold upon it, if only we could win +that complete command of our own lives which is the end of our being. + +At first, as I said, I stopped my work, or loitered as I walked, in +order to see, or hear, or smell--and do so still, for I have entered +only the antechamber of the treasure-house; but as I learned better the +modest technic of these arts I found that the practice of them went well +with the common tasks of the garden or farm, especially with those that +were more or less monotonous, like cultivating corn, hoeing potatoes, +and the like. + +The air is just as full of good sights and good odours for the worker as +for the idler, and it depends only upon the awareness, the aliveness, of +our own spirits whether we toil like dumb animals or bless our labouring +hours with the beauty of life. Such enjoyment and a growing command of +our surroundings are possible, after a little practice, without taking +much of that time we call so valuable and waste so sinfully. "I haven't +time," says the farmer, the banker, the professor, with a kind of +disdain for the spirit of life, when, as a matter of fact, he has all +the time there is, all that anybody has--to wit, _this_ moment, this +great and golden moment!--but knows not how to employ it. He creeps when +he might walk, walks when he might run, runs when he might fly--and +lives like a woodchuck in the dark body of himself. + +Why, there are men in this valley who scout the idea that farming, +carpentry, merchantry, are anything but drudgery, defend all the evils +known to humankind with the argument that "a man must live," and laugh +at any one who sees beauty or charm in being here, in working with the +hands, or, indeed, in just living! While they think of themselves +cannily as "practical" men, I think them the most impractical men I +know, for in a world full of boundless riches they remain obstinately +poor. They are unwilling to invest even a few of their dollars unearned +in the real wealth of the earth. For it is only the sense of the spirit +of life, whether in nature or in other human beings, that lifts men +above the beasts and curiously leads them to God, who is the spirit both +of beauty and of friendliness. I say truly, having now reached the point +in my life where it seems to me I care only for writing that which is +most deeply true for me, that I rarely walk in my garden or upon the +hills of an evening without thinking of God. It is in my garden that all +things become clearer to me, even that miracle whereby one who has +offended may still see God; and this I think a wonderful thing. In my +garden I understand dimly why evil is in the world, and in my garden +learn how transitory it is. + +Just now I have come in from work, and will note freshly one of the best +odours I have had to-day. As I was working in the corn, a lazy breeze +blew across the meadows from the west, and after loitering a moment +among the blackberry bushes sought me out where I was busiest. Do you +know the scent of the blackberry? Almost all the year round it is a +treasure-house of odours, even when the leaves first come out; but it +reaches crescendo in blossom time when, indeed, I like it least, for +being too strong. It has a curious fragrance, once well called by a poet +"the hot scent of the brier," and aromatically hot it is and sharp like +the briers themselves. At times I do not like it at all, for it gives me +a kind of faintness, while at other times, as to-day, it fills me with a +strange sense of pleasure as though it were the very breath of the spicy +earth. It is also a rare friend of the sun, for the hotter and brighter +the day, the hotter and sharper the scent of the brier. + +Many of the commonest and least noticed of plants, flowers, trees, +possess a truly fragrant personality if once we begin to know them. I +had an adventure in my own orchard, only this spring, and made a fine +new acquaintance in a quarter least of all expected. I had started down +the lane through the garden one morning in the most ordinary way, with +no thought of any special experience, when I suddenly caught a whiff of +pure delight that stopped me short. + +"What now can _that_ be?" and I thought to myself that nature had played +some new prank on me. + +I turned into the orchard, following my nose. It was not the peach buds, +nor the plums, nor the cherries, nor yet the beautiful new coloured +leaves of the grape, nor anything I could see along the grassy margin of +the pasture. There were other odours all about, old friends of mine, but +this was some shy and pleasing stranger come venturing upon my land. + +A moment later I discovered a patch of low green verdure upon the +ground, and dismissed it scornfully as one of my ancient enemies. But +it is this way with enemies, once we come to know them, they often turn +out to have a fragrance that is kindly. + +Well, this particular fierce enemy was a patch of chickweed. Chickweed! +Invader of the garden, cossack of the orchard! I discovered, however, +that it was in full bloom and covered with small, star-like white +blossoms. + +"Well, now," said I, "are you the guilty rascal?" + +So I knelt there and took my delight of it and a rare, delicate good +odour it was. For several days afterward I would not dig out the patch, +for I said to myself, "What a cheerful claim it makes these early days, +when most of the earth is still cold and dead, for a bit of +immortality." + +The bees knew the secret already, and the hens and the blackbirds! And I +thought it no loss, but really a new and valuable pleasure, to divert my +path down the lane for several days that I might enjoy more fully this +new odour, and make a clear acquaintance with something fine upon the +earth I had not known before. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +OF GOOD AND EVIL ODOURS + +Of all times of the day for good odours I think the early morning the +very best, although the evening just after sunset, if the air falls +still and cool, is often as good. Certain qualities or states of the +atmosphere seem to favour the distillation of good odours and I have +known times even at midday when the earth was very wonderful to smell. +There is a curious, fainting fragrance that comes only with sunshine and +still heat. Not long ago I was cutting away a thicket of wild spiraea +which was crowding in upon the cultivated land. It was a hot day and +the leaves wilted quickly, giving off such a penetrating, fainting +fragrance that I let the branches lie where they fell the afternoon +through and came often back to smell of them, for it was a fine thing +thus to discover an odour wholly new to me. + +I like also the first wild, sweet smell of new-cut meadow grass, not the +familiar odour of new-mown hay, which comes a little later, and is +worthy of its good report, but the brief, despairing odour of grass just +cut down, its juices freshly exposed to the sun. One, as it richly in +the fields at the mowing. I like also the midday smell of peach leaves +and peach-tree bark at the summer priming: and have never let any one +else cut out the old canes from the blackberry rows in my garden for the +goodness of the scents which wait upon that work. + +Another odour I have found animating is the odour of burning wastage in +new clearings or in old fields, especially in the evening when the smoke +drifts low along the land and takes to itself by some strange chemical +process the tang of earthy things. It is a true saying that nothing will +so bring back the emotion of a past time as a remembered odour. I have +had from a whiff of fragrance caught in a city street such a vivid +return of an old time and an old, sad scene that I have stopped, +trembling there, with an emotion long spent and I thought forgotten. + +Once in a foreign city, passing a latticed gateway that closed in a +narrow court, I caught the odour of wild sweet balsam. I do not know now +where it came from, or what could have caused it--but it stopped me +short where I stood, and the solid brick walls of that city rolled aside +like painted curtains, and the iron streets dissolved before my eyes, +and with the curious dizziness of nostalgia, I was myself upon the hill +of my youth--with the gleaming river in the valley, and a hawk sailing +majestically in the high blue of the sky, and all about and everywhere +the balsams--and the balsams--full of the sweet, wild odours of the +north, and of dreaming boyhood. + +And there while my body, the shell of me, loitered in that strange city, +I was myself four thousand miles and a quarter of a century away, +reliving, with a conscious passion that boyhood never knew, a moment +caught up, like a torch, out of the smouldering wreckage of the past. + +Do not tell me that such things die! They all remain with us-all the +sights, and sounds, and thoughts of by-gone times awaiting only the +whiff from some latticed gateway, some closed-in court to spring again +into exuberant life. If only we are ready for the great moment! + +As for the odour of the burning wastage of the fields at evening I +scarcely know if I dare say it. I find it produces in the blood of me a +kind of primitive emotion, as though it stirred memories older than my +present life. Some drowsy cells of the brain awaken to a familiar +stimulus--the odour of the lodge-fire of the savage, the wigwam of the +Indian. Racial memories! + +But it is not the time of the day, nor the turn of the season, nor yet +the way of the wind that matters most but the ardour and glow we +ourselves bring to the fragrant earth. It is a sad thing to reflect that +in a world so overflowing with goodness of smell, of fine sights and +sweet sounds, we pass by hastily and take so little of them. Days pass +when we see no beautiful sight, hear no sweet sound, smell no memorable +odour: when we exchange no single word of deeper understanding with a +friend. We have lived a day and added nothing to our lives! A blind, +grubbing, senseless life--that! + +It is a strange thing, also, that instead of sharpening the tools by +which we take hold of life we make studied efforts to dull them. We seem +to fear life and early begin to stop our ears and close our eyes lest we +hear and see too much: we clog our senses and cloud our minds. We seek +dull security and ease and cease longer to desire adventure and +struggle. And then--the tragedy of it--the poet we all have in us in +youth begins to die, the philosopher in us dies, the martyr in us dies, +so that the long, long time beyond youth with so many of us becomes a +busy death. And this I think truer of men than of women: beyond forty +many women just begin to awaken to power and beauty, but most men beyond +that age go on dying. The task of the artist, whether poet, or musician, +or painter, is to keep alive the perishing spirit of free adventure in +men: to nourish the poet, the prophet, the martyr, we all have in us. + +One's sense of smell, like the sense of taste, is sharpest when he is +hungry, and I am convinced also that one sees and hears best when +unclogged with food, undulled with drink, undrugged with smoke. For me, +also, weariness, though not exhaustion, seems to sharpen all the +senses. Keenness goes with leanness. When I have been working hard or +tramping the country roads in the open air and come in weary and hungry +at night and catch the fragrance of the evening along the road or upon +the hill, or at barn-doors smell the unmilked cows, or at the doorway, +the comfortable odours of cooking supper how good that all is! At such +times I know Esau to the core: the forthright, nature-loving, simple man +he was, coming in dabbled with the blood of hunted animals and hungry +for the steaming pottage. + +It follows that if we take excessive joys of one sense, as of taste, +nature, ever seeking just balances, deprives us of the full enjoyment of +the others, "I am stuffed, cousin," cries Beatrice in the play, "I +cannot smell." "I have drunk," remarks the Clown in Arcady, "what are +roses to me?" We forget that there are five chords in the great scale of +life--sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and--few of us ever master +the chords well enough to get the full symphony of life, but are +something like little pig-tailed girls playing Peter Piper with one +finger while all the music of the universe is in the Great Instrument, +and all to be had for the taking. + +Of most evil odours, it can be said that they are temporary or +unnecessary: and any unpleasant odour, such as that of fruit sprays in +spring, or fertilizer newly spread on the land, can be borne and even +welcomed if it is appropriate to the time and place. Some smells, evil +at first, become through usage not unpleasant. I once stopped with a +wolf-trapper in the north country, who set his bottle of bait outside +when I came in. He said it was "good and strong" and sniffed it with +appreciation. I agreed with him that it was strong. To him it was not +unpleasant, though made of the rancid fat of the muscallonge. All nature +seems to strive against evil odours, for when she warns us of decay she +is speeding decay: and a manured field produces later the best of all +odours. Almost all shut-in places sooner or later acquire an evil odour: +and it seems a requisite for good smells that there be plenty of +sunshine and air; and so it is with the hearts and souls of men. If they +are long shut in upon themselves they grow rancid. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +FOLLOW YOUR NOSE! + +"Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn-- +Look to this day! For it is Life, +The very Life of Life!" + +On a spring morning one has only to step out into the open country, lift +his head to the sky--and follow his nose.... + +It was a big and golden morning, and Sunday to boot, and I walked down +the lane to the lower edge of the field, where the wood and the marsh +begin. The sun was just coming up over the hills and all the air was +fresh and clear and cool. High in the heavens a few fleecy clouds were +drifting, and the air was just enough astir to waken the hemlocks into +faint and sleepy exchanges of confidence. + +It seemed to me that morning that the world was never before so high, so +airy, so golden, All filled to the brim with the essence of sunshine +and spring morning--so that one's spirit dissolved in it, became a part +of it. Such a morning! Such a morning! + +From that place and just as I was I set off across the open land. + +It was the time of all times for good odours--soon after sunrise--before +the heat of the day had drawn off the rich distillations of the night. + +In that keen moment I caught, drifting, a faint but wild fragrance upon +the air, and veered northward full into the way of the wind. I could not +at first tell what this particular odour was, nor separate it from the +general good odour of the earth; but I followed it intently across the +moor-like open land. Once I thought I had lost it entirely, or that the +faint northern airs had shifted, but I soon caught it clearly again, and +just as I was saying to myself, "I've got it, I've got it!"--for it is a +great pleasure to identify a friendly odour in the fields--I saw, near +the bank of the brook, among ferns and raspberry bushes, a thorn-apple +tree in full bloom. + +"So there you are!" I said. + +I hastened toward it, now in the full current and glory of its +fragrance. The sun, looking over the taller trees to the east, had +crowned the top of it with gold, so that it was beautiful to see; and it +was full of honey bees as excited as I. + +A score of feet onward toward the wind, beyond the thorn-apple tree, I +passed wholly out of the range of its fragrance into another world, and +began trying for some new odour. After one or two false scents, for this +pursuit has all the hazards known to the hunter, I caught an odour long +known to me, not strong, nor yet very wonderful, but distinctive. It led +me still a little distance northward to a sunny slope just beyond a bit +of marsh, and, sure enough, I found an old friend, the wild sweet +geranium, a world of it, in full bloom, and I sat down there for some +time to enjoy it fully. + +Beyond that, and across a field wild with tangles of huckleberry bushes +and sheep laurel where the bluets and buttercups were blooming, and in +shady spots the shy white violet, I searched for the odour of a certain +clump of pine trees I discovered long ago. I knew that I must come upon +it soon, but could not tell just when or where. I held up a moistened +finger to make sure of the exact direction of the wind, and bearing, +then, a little eastward, soon came full upon it--as a hunter might +surprise a deer in the forest. I crossed the brook a second time and +through a little marsh, making it the rule of the game never to lose for +an instant the scent I was following--even though I stopped in a low +spot to admire a mass of thrifty blue flags, now beginning to bloom--and +came thus to the pines I was seeking. They are not great trees, nor +noble, but gnarled and angular and stunted, for the soil in that place +is poor and thin, and the winds in winter keen; but the brown blanket of +needles they spread and the shade they offer the traveller are not less +hospitable; nor the fragrance they give off less enchanting. The odour +of the pine is one I love. + +I sat down there in a place I chose long ago--a place already as +familiar with pleasing memories as a favourite room--so that I wonder +that some of the notes I have written there do not of themselves exhale +the very odour of the pines. + +And all about was hung a fair tapestry of green, and the earthy floor +was cleanly carpeted with brown, and the roof above was in arched +mosaic, the deep, deep blue of the sky seen through the gnarled and +knotted branches of the pines. Through a little opening among the +trees, as through a window, I could see the cattle feeding in the wide +meadows, all headed alike, and yellow butterflies drifted across the +open spaces, and there were bumblebees and dragonflies. And presently I +heard some one tapping, tapping, at the door of the wood and glancing up +quickly I saw my early visitor. There he was, as neighbourly as you +please, and not in the least awed by my intrusion; there he was, far out +on the limb of a dead tree, stepping energetically up and down, like a +sailor reefing a sail, and rapping and tapping as he worked--a downy +woodpecker. + +"Good morning, sir," I said. + +He stopped for scarcely a second, cocked one eye at me, and went back to +his work again. Who was I that I should interrupt his breakfast? + +And I was glad I was there, and I began enumerating, as though I were +the accredited reporter for the _Woodland Gazette_, all the good news of +the day. + +"The beech trees." said aloud, "have come at last to full leafage. The +wild blackberries are ready to bloom, the swamp roses are budded. Brown +planted fields I see, and drooping elms, and the young crows cry from +their nests on the knoll.... I know now that, whoever I am, whatever I +do, I am welcome here; the meadows are as green this spring for Tom the +drunkard, and for Jim the thief, as for Jonathan the parson, or for Walt +the poet: the wild cherry blooms as richly, and the odour of the pine is +as sweet--" + +At that moment, like a flame for clearness, I understood some of the +deep and simple things of life, as that we are to be like the friendly +pines, and the elm trees, and the open fields, and reject no man and +judge no man. Once, a long time ago, I read a sober treatise by one who +tried to prove with elaborate knowledge that, upon the whole, good was +triumphant in this world, and that probably there was a God, and I +remember going out dully afterward upon the hill, for I was weighed down +with a strange depression, and the world seemed to me a hard, cold, +narrow place where good must be heavily demonstrated in books. And as I +sat there the evening fell, a star or two came out in the clear blue of +the sky, and suddenly it became all simple to me, so that I laughed +aloud at that laborious big-wig for spending so many futile years in +seeking doubtful proof of what he might have learned in one rare home +upon my hill. And far more than he could prove far more. + +As I came away from that place I knew I should never again be quite the +same person I was before. + + + +[Illustration: And as I sat there the evening fell, a star or two came +out in the clear blue of the sky] + +Well, we cannot remain steadily upon the heights. At least I cannot, +and would not if I could. After I have been out about so long on such an +adventure as this, something lets go inside of me, and I come down out +of the mountain--and yet know deeply that I have been where the bush was +burning; and have heard the Voice in the Fire. + +So it was yesterday morning. I realized suddenly that I was +hungry--commonly, coarsely hungry. My whole attention, I was going to +say my whole soul, shifted to the thought of ham and eggs! This may seem +a tremendous anti-climax, but it is, nevertheless, a sober report of +what happened. At the first onset of this new mood, the ham-and-eggs +mood, let us call it, I was a little ashamed or abashed at the +remembrance of my wild flights, and had a laugh at the thought of myself +floundering around in the marshes and fields a mile from home, when +Harriet, no doubt, had breakfast waiting for me! What absurd, +contradictory, inconsistent, cowardly creatures we are, anyway! + +The house seemed an inconceivable distance away, and the only real thing +in the world the gnawing emptiness under my belt. And I was wet to my +knees, and the tangled huckleberry bashes and sheep laurel and hardback +I had passed through so joyously a short time before now clung heavily +about my legs as I struggled through them. And the sun was hot and +high--and there were innumerable small, black buzzing flies. + +To cap the climax, whom should I meet as I was crossing the fence into +the lower land but my friend Horace, He had been out early looking for a +cow that had dropped her calf in the woods, and was now driving them +slowly up the lane, the cow a true pattern of solicitous motherhood, the +calf a true pattern of youth, dashing about upon uncertain legs. + +"Takin' the air, David?" + +I amuse Horace. Horace is an important man in this community. He has +big, solid barns, and money in the bank, and a reputation for +hardheadedness. He is also known as a "driver"; and has had sore trouble +with a favourite son. He believes in "goin' it slow" and "playin' safe," +and he is convinced that "ye can't change human nature." + +His question came to me with a kind of shock. I imagined with a +vividness impossible to describe what Horace would think if I answered +him squarely and honestly, if I were to say: + +"I've been down in the marshes following my nose--enjoying the thorn +apples and the wild geraniums, talking with a woodpecker and reporting +the morning news of the woods for an imaginary newspaper." + +I was hungry, and in a mood to smile at myself anyway (good-humouredly +and forgivingly as we always smile at ourselves!) before I met Horace, +and the flashing vision I had of Horace's dry, superior smile finished +me. Was there really anything in this world but cows and calves, and +great solid barns, and oatcrops, and cash in the bank? + +"Been in the brook?" asked Horace, observing my wet legs. + +Talk about the courage to face cannon and Cossacks! It is nothing to the +courage required to speak aloud in broad daylight of the finest things +we have in us! I was not equal to it. + +"Oh, I've been down for a tramp in the marsh," I said, trying to put him +off. + +But Horace is a Yankee of the Yankees and loves nothing better than to +chase his friends into corners with questions, and leave them ultimately +with the impression that they are somehow less sound, sensible, +practical, than he is and he usually proves it, not because he is right, +but because he is sure, and in a world of shadowy halt-beliefs and +half-believers he is without doubts. + +"What ye find down there?" asked Horace. + +"Oh, I was just looking around to see how the spring was coming on." + +"Hm-m," said Horace, eloquently, and when I did not reply, he continued, +"Often git out in the morning as early as this?" + +"Yes," I said, "often." + +"And do you find things any different now from what they would be later +in the day?" + +At this the humour of the whole situation dawned on me and I began to +revive. When things grow hopelessly complicated, and we can't laugh, we +do either one of two things: we lie or we die. But if we can laugh, we +can fight! And be honest! + +"Horace," I said, "I know what you are thinking about." + +Horace's face remained perfectly impassive, but there was a glint of +curiosity in his eye. + +"You've been thinking I've been wasting my time beating around down +there in the swamp just to look at things and smell of things--which +you wouldn't do. You think I'm a kind of impractical dreamer, now, don't +you, Horace? I'll warrant you've told your wife just that more than +once. Come, now!" + +I think I made a rather shrewd hit, for Horace looked uncomfortable and +a little foolish. + +"Come now, honest!" I laughed and looked him in the eye. + +"Waal, now, ye see--" + +"Of course you do, and I don't mind it in the least." + +A little dry gleam of humour came in his eye. + +"Ain't ye?" + +It's a fine thing to have it straight out with a friend. + +"No," I said, "I'm the practical man and you're the dreamer. I've rarely +known in all my life, Horace, such a confirmed dreamer as you are, nor a +more impractical one." + +Horace laughed. + +"How do ye make that out?" + +With this my spirit returned to me and I countered with a question as +good as his. It is as valuable in argument as in war to secure the +offensive. + +"Horace, what are you working for, anyhow?" + +This is always a devastating shot. Ninety-nine out of every hundred +human beings are desperately at work grubbing, sweating, worrying, +thinking, sorrowing, enjoying, without in the least knowing why. + +"Why, to make a living--same as you," said Horace. + +"Oh, come now, if I were to spread the report in town that a poor +neighbour of mine, that's you, Horace, was just making his living, that +he himself had told me so, what would you say? Horace, what are you +working for? It's something more than a mere living." + +"Waal, now, I'll tell ye, if ye want it straight, I'm layin' aside a +little something for a rainy day." + +"A little something!" this in the exact inflection of irony by which +here in the country we express our opinion that a friend has really a +good deal more laid aside than anybody knows about. Horace smiled also +in the exact manner of one so complimented. + +"Horace, what are you going to do with that thirty thousand dollars?" + +"Thirty thousand!" Horace looks at me and smiles, and I look at Horace +and smile. + +"Honest now!" + +"Waal, I'll tell ye--a little peace and comfort for me and Josie in our +old age, and a little something to make the children remember us when +we're gone. Isn't that worth working for?" + +He said this with downright seriousness. I did not press him further, +but if I had tried I could probably have got the even deeper admission +of that faith that lies, like bed rock, in the thought of most men--that +honesty and decency here will not be without its reward there, however +they may define the "there." Some "prophet's paradise to come!" + +"I knew it!" I said. "Horace, you're a dreamer, too. You are dreaming of +peace and comfort in your old age, a little quiet house in town where +you won't have to labour as hard as you do now, where you won't be +worried by crops and weather, and where Mrs. Horace will be able to rest +after so many years of care and work and sorrow--a kind of earthly +heaven! And you are dreaming of leaving a bit to your children and +grandchildren, and dreaming of the gratitude they will express. All +dreams, Horace!" + +"Oh, waal---" + +"The fact is, you are working for a dream, and living on dreams--isn't +that true?" + +"Waal, now, if you mean it that way----" + +"I see I haven't got you beaten yet, Horace!" + +He smiled broadly, + +"We are all amiable enough with our own dreams. You think that what you +are working for--your dream--is somehow sounder and more practical than +what I am working for." + +Horace started to reply, but had scarcely debouched from his trenches +when I opened on him with one of my twenty-fours. + +"How do you know that you are ever going to be old?" + +It hit. + +"And if you do grow old, how do you know that thirty thousand +dollars--oh, we'll call it that--is really enough, provided you don't +lose it before, to buy peace and comfort for you, or that what you leave +your children will make either you or them any happier? Peace and +comfort and happiness are terribly expensive, Horace--and prices have +been going up fast since this war began!" + +Horace looked at me uncomfortably, as men do in the world when you shake +the foundations of the tabernacle. I have thought since that I probably +pressed him too far; but these things go deep with me. + +"No, Horace," I said, "you are the dreamer--and the impractical dreamer +at that!" + +For a moment Horace answered nothing; and we both stood still there in +the soft morning sunshine with the peaceful fields and woods all about +us, two human atoms struggling hotly with questions too large for us. +The cow and the new calf were long out of sight. Horace made a motion as +if to follow them up the lane, but I held him with my glittering eye--as +I think of it since, not without a kind of amusement at my own +seriousness. + +"I'm the practical man, Horace, for I want my peace now, and my +happiness now, and my God now. I can't wait. My barns may burn or my +cattle die, or the solid bank where I keep my deferred joy may fail, or +I myself by to-morrow be no longer here." + +So powerfully and vividly did this thought take possession of me that I +cannot now remember to have said a decent good-bye to Horace (never +mind, he knows me!). At least when I was halfway up the hill I found +myself gesticulating with one clenched fist and saying to myself with a +kind of passion: "Why wait to be peaceful? Why not he peaceful now? Why +not be happy now? Why not be rich now?" + +For I think it truth that a life uncommanded now is uncommanded; a life +unenjoyed now is unenjoyed; a life not lived wisely now is not lived +wisely: for the past is gone and no one knows the future. + +As for Horace is he convinced that he is an impractical dreamer. Not a +bit of it! He was merely flurried for a moment in his mind, and probably +thinks me now, more than ever before, just what I think him. Absurd +place, isn't it, this world? + +So I reached home at last. You have no idea, unless you have tried it +yourself, how good breakfast tastes alter a three-mile tramp in the +sharp morning air. The odour of ham and eggs, and new muffins, and +coffee, as you come up the hill, there is an odour for you! And it was +good to see Harriet. + +"Harriet," I said, "you are a sight for tired eyes." + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +THE GREEN PEOPLE + +I have always had a fondness, when upon my travels about the world of +the near-by woods and fields, for nipping a bit of a twig here and there +and tasting the tart or bitter quality of it. I suppose the instinct +descends to me from the herbivorous side of my distant ancestry. I love +a spray of white cedar, especially the spicy, sweet inside bark, or a +pine needle, or the tender, sweet, juicy end of a spike of timothy grass +drawn slowly from its close-fitting sheath, or a twig of the birch that +tastes like wintergreen. + +I think this no strange or unusual instinct, for I have seen many other +people doing it, especially farmers around here, who go through the +fields nipping the new oats, testing the red-top, or chewing a bit of +sassafras bark. I have in mind a clump of shrubbery in the town road, +where an old house once stood, of the kind called here by some the +"sweet-scented shrub," and the brandies of it nearest the road are quite +clipped and stunted I'm being nipped at by old ladies who pass that way +and take to it like cat to catnip. + +For a long time this was a wholly unorganized, indeed all but +unconscious, pleasure, a true pattern of the childish way we take hold +of the earth; but when I began to come newly alive to all things as I +have already related--I chanced upon this curious, undeveloped instinct. + +"What is it I have here?" I asked myself, for I thought this might be a +new handle for getting hold of nature. + +Along one edge of my field is a natural hedge of wild cherry, young elms +and ashes, dogwood, black raspberry bushes and the like, which has long +been a pleasure to the eye, especially in the early morning when the +shadows of it lie long and cool upon the meadow. Many times I have +walked that way to admire it, or to listen for the catbirds that nest +there, or to steal upon a certain gray squirrel who comes out from his +home in the chestnut tree on a fine morning to inspect his premises. + +It occurred to me one day that I would make the acquaintance of this +hedge in a new way; so I passed slowly along it where the branches of +the trees brushed my shoulder and picked a twig here and there and bit +it through. "This is cherry," I said; "this is elm, this is dogwood." +And it was a fine adventure to know old friends in new ways, for I had +never thought before to test the trees and shrubs by their taste and +smell. After that, whenever I passed that way, I closed my eyes and +tried for further identifications by taste, and was soon able to tell +quickly half a dozen other varieties of trees, shrubs, and smaller +plants along that bit of meadow. + +Presently, as one who learns to navigate still water near shore longs +for more thrilling voyages, I tried the grassy old roads in the woods, +where young trees and other growths were to be found in great variety: +and had a joy of it I cannot describe, for old and familiar places were +thus made new and wonderful to me. And when I think of those places, +now, say in winter, I grasp them more vividly and strongly than ever I +did before, for I think not only how they look, but how they taste and +smell, and I even know many of the growing things by the touch of them. +It is certain that our grasp of life is in direct proportion to the +variety and warmth of the ways in which we lay hold of it. No thought no +beauty and no joy. + +On these excursions I have often reflected that if I were blind, I +should still find here unexplored joys of life, and should make it a +point to know all the friendly trees and shrubs around about by the +taste or smell or touch of them. I think seriously that this method of +widening the world of the blind, and increasing their narrower joys, +might well be developed, though it would be wise for such as do take it +to borrow first the eyes of a friend to see that no poison ivy, which +certain rascally birds plant along our fences and hedges, is lurking +about. + +Save for this precaution I know of nothing that will injure the taster, +though he must be prepared, here and there, for shocks and thrills of +bitterness. A lilac leaf, for example, and to a scarcely lesser degree +the willow and the poplar are, when bitten through, of a penetrating and +intense bitterness; but do no harm, and will daunt no one who is really +adventurous. There is yet to be written a botany, or, better yet, a book +of nature, for the blind. + +It is by knowing human beings that we come to understand them, and by +understanding them come to love them, and so it is with the green +people. When I was a boy in the wild north country trees were enemies to +be ruthlessly fought--to be cut down, sawed, split, burned--anything to +be rid of them. The ideal in making a home place was to push the forest +as far away from it as possible. But now, when I go to the woods, it is +like going among old and treasured friends, and with riper acquaintance +the trees come to take on, curiously, a kind of personality, so that I +am much fonder of some trees than of others, and instinctively seek out +the companionship of certain trees in certain moods, as one will his +friends. + +I love the unfolding beeches in spring, and the pines in winter; the +elms I care for afar off, like great aloof men, whom I can admire; but +for friendly confidences give me an apple tree in an old green meadow. + + + +[Illustration: For friendly confidences give me an apple tree in an old +green meadow.] + +In this more complete understanding I have been much aided by getting +hold of my friends of the hedges and hills in the new ways I have +described. At times I even feel that I have become a fully accepted +member of the Fraternity of the Living Earth, for I have already +received many of the benefits which go with that association; and I know +now for a certainty that it makes no objection to its members because +they are old, or sad, or have sinned, but welcomes them all alike. + +The essential taste of the cherry and peach and all their numerous +relatives is, in variation, that of the peach pit, so that the whole +tribe may be easily recognized, though it was some time before I could +tell with certainty the peach from the cherry. The oak shoot, when +chewed a little, tastes exactly like the smell of new oak lumber; the +maple has a peculiar taste and smell of its own that I can find no +comparison for, and the poplar is one of the bitterest trees that ever I +have tasted. The trees--pines, spruces, hemlocks, balsams, cedars--are +to me about the pleasantest of all, both in taste and odour, and though +the spruces and pines taste and smell much alike at first, one soon +learns to distinguish them. The elm has a rather agreeable, nondescript, +bitterish taste, but the linden is gummy and of a mediocre quality, like +the tree itself, which I dislike. Some of the sweetest flowering +shrubs, such as the lilac, have the bitterest of leaves and twigs or, +like certain kinds of clematis, have a seed that when green is sharper +than cayenne pepper, while others, like the rose, are pleasanter in +flavour. The ash tree is not too bitter and a little sour. + +I give here only a few of the commoner examples, for I wish to make this +no tedious catalogue of the flavours of the green people. I am not a +scientist, nor would wish to be taken for one. Only last winter I had my +pretensions sadly shocked when I tasted twigs cut from various trees and +shrubs and tried to identify them by taste or by smell, and while it was +a pleasing experiment I found I could not certainly place above half of +them; partly, no doubt, because many growing things keep their flavours +well wrapped up in winter. No, I have not gone far upon this pleasant +road, but neither am I in any great hurry; for there yet remains much +time in this and my future lives to conquer the secrets of the earth. I +plan to devote at least one entire life to science, and may find I need +several! + +One great reason why the sense of taste and the sense of smell have not +the same honour as the sense of sight or of hearing is that no way has +yet been found to make a true art of either. For sight, we have +painting, sculpturing, photography, architecture, and the like; and for +hearing, music; and for both, poetry and the drama. But the other senses +are more purely personal, and have not only been little studied or +thought about, but are the ones least developed, and most dimmed and +clogged by the customs of our lives. + +For the sense of smell we have, indeed, the perfumer's art, but a poor +rudimentary art it is, giving little freedom for the artist who would +draw his inspirations freshly from nature. I can, indeed, describe +poorly in words the odours of this June morning--the mingled lilacs, +late wild cherries, new-broken soil, and the fragrance of the sun on +green verdure, for there are here both lyrical and symphonic odours--but +how inadequate it is! I can tell you what I feel and smell and taste, +and give you, perhaps, a desire another spring to spend the months of +May and June in the country, but I can scarcely make you live again the +very moment of life I have lived, which is the magic quality of the best +art. The art of the perfumer which, like all crude art, thrives upon +blatancy, does not make us go to gardens, or love the rose, but often +instils in us a kind of artificiality, so that perfumes, so far from +being an inspiration to us, increasing our lives, become often the badge +of the abnormal, used by those unsatisfied with simple, clean, natural +things. + +And as a people deficient in musical art delights in ragtime tunes, so a +people deficient in the true art of tasting and smelling delights in +ragtime odours and ragtime tastes. + +I do not know that the three so-called lesser senses will ever be +organized to the point where they are served by well-established arts, +but this I do know--that there are three great ways of entering upon a +better understanding of this magic earth which are now neglected. + +I think we have come upon hasty and heated days, and are too much +mastered by the god of hurry and the swift and greedy eye. We accept +flashing pictures of life for life itself; we rush here and rush there +and, having arrived, rush away again--to what sensible purpose? Be still +a little! Be still! + +I do not mean by stillness, stagnation not yet lazy contentment, but +life more deeply thought about, more intensely realized, an activity so +concentrated that it is quiet. Be still then! + +So it is that, though I am no worshipper of the old, I think the older +gardeners had in some ways a better practice of the art than we have, +for they planted not for the eye alone but for the nose and the sense of +taste and even, in growing such plants as the lamb's tongue, to gratify, +curiously, the sense of touch. They loved the scented herbs, and +appropriately called them simples. Some of these old simples I am +greatly fond of, and like to snip a leaf as I go by to smell or taste; +but many of them, I here confess, have for me a rank and culinary +odour--as sage and thyme and the bold scarlet monarda, sometimes called +bergamot. + +But if their actual fragrance is not always pleasing, and their uses are +now grown obscure, I love well the names of many of them--whether from +ancient association or because the words themselves fall pleasantly upon +the ear, as, for example, sweet marjoram and dill, anise and summer +savoury, lavender and sweet basil. Coriander! Caraway! Cumin! And +"there's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember,... +there's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you: and here's +some for me--" All sweet names that one loves to roll under his tongue. + +I have not any great number of these herbs in my own garden, but, when I +go among those I do have, I like to call them by their familiar names as +I would a dignified doctor or professor, if ever I knew him well enough. + +It is in this want of balance and quietude that the age fails most. We +are all for action, not at all for reflection; we think there are easy +ways to knowledge and shortcuts to perfection; we are for laws rather +than for life. + +And this reminds me inevitably of a mellow-spirited old friend who lives +not a thousand miles from here--I must not tell his name--whose greatest +word is "proportion." At this moment, as I write, I can hear the roll of +his resonant old voice on the syllable p-o-r--prop-o-rtion. He is the +kind of man good to know and to trust. + +If ever I bring him a hard problem, as, indeed, I delight to do, it is a +fine thing to see him square himself to meet it. A light comes in his +eye, he draws back his chin a little and exclaims occasionally: +"Well--well!" + +He will have all the facts and circumstances fully mobilized, standing +up side by side before him like an awkward squad, and there's nothing +more awkward than some facts that have to stand out squarely in +daylight! And he inquires into their ancestry, makes them run out their +tongues, and pokes them once or twice in the ribs, to make sure that +they are lively and robust facts capable of making a good fight for +their lives. He never likes to see any one thing too large, as a church, +a party, a reform, a new book, or a new fashion, lest he see something +else too small; but will have everything, as he says, in true +proportion. If he occasionally favours a little that which is old, +solid, well-placed, it is scarcely to be measured to him as a fault in +an age so overwhelmed with the shiny new. + +He is a fine, up-standing, hearty old gentleman with white hair and rosy +cheeks, and the bright eyes of one who has lived all his life with +temperance. One incident I cannot resist telling, though it has nothing +directly to do with this story, but it will let you know what kind of a +man my old friend is, and when all is said, it would be a fine thing to +know about any man. Not long ago he was afflicted with a serious loss, a +loss that would have crushed some men, but when I met him not long +afterward, though the lines around his eyes were grown deeper, he +greeted me in his old serene, courtly manner, When I would have +comforted him with my sympathy, for I felt myself near enough to speak +of his loss, he replied calmly: + +"How can we know whether a thing is evil until we reach the end of it? +It may be good!" + +One of the events I esteem among the finest of the whole year is my old +friend's birthday party. Every winter, on the twenty-sixth of February, +a party of his friends drop in to see him. Some of us go out of habit, +drawn by our affection for the old gentleman; others, I think, he +invites, for he knows to perfection the delicate shadings of +companionship which divide those who come unbidden from those, not less +loved but shyer, who must be summoned. + +Now this birthday gathering has one historic ceremony which none of us +would miss, because it expresses so completely the essence of our +friend's generous and tolerant, but just, nature. He is, as I have said, +a temperate man, and dislikes as much as any one I know the whole +alcohol business; but living in a community where the struggle for +temperance has often been waged intemperately, and where there is a +lurking belief that cudgelling laws can make men virtuous, he publishes +abroad once a year his declaration of independence. + +After we have been with our friend for an hour or so, and are well +warmed and happy with the occasion, he rises solemnly and goes to the +toby-closet at the end of his generous fireplace, where the apple-log +specially cut for the occasion is burning merrily, and as we all fall +silent, knowing well what is coming, he unlocks the door and takes from +the shelf a bottle of old peach brandy which, having uncorked, he +gravely smells of and possibly lets his nearest neighbour smell of too. +Then he brings from the sideboard a server set with diminutive glasses +that have been polished until they shine for the great occasion, and, +having filled them all with the ripe liquor, he passes them around to +each of us. We have all risen and are becomingly solemn as he now +proposes the toast of the year--and it is always the same toast: + +"Here's to moderation--in all things!" + +He takes a sip or two, and continues: + +"Here's to temperance--the queen of the virtues." + +So we all drink off our glasses. Our mellow old friend smacks his lips, +corks the tall bottle, and returns it to his toby-closet, where it +reposes undisturbed for another year. + +"And now, gentlemen," he says, heartily, "let us go in to dinner."... + +As I think of it, now that it is written, this story bears no very close +relationship to my original subject, and yet it seemed to follow +naturally enough as I set it down, and to belong with the simple and +well-flavoured things of the garden and fields; and recalling the advice +of Cobbett to his nephew on the art of writing, "never to alter a +thought, for that which has come of itself into your mind is likely to +pass into that of another more readily and with more effect than +anything which you can by reflection invent," I leave it here just as I +wrote it, hoping that the kinship of my genial old friend with simple +and natural and temperate things may plainly appear. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +PLACES OF RETIREMENT + +"Good God, how sweet are all things here! +How beautiful the fields appear! + How cleanly do we feed and lie! +Lord, what good hours do we keep! +How quietly we sleep!" + +CHARLES COTTON (a friend of Izaak Walton) + + +_April 29th_. + +I have been spending a Sunday of retirement in the woods. I came out +with a strange, deep sense of depression, and though I knew it was +myself and not the world that was sad, yet I could not put it away from +me. ... As I write, the wood seems full of voices, the little rustling +of leaves, the minute sounds of twigs chafing together, the cry of frogs +from the swamp so steady and monotonous that it scarcely arrests +attention. Of odours, a-plenty! Just behind me, so that by turning my +head I can see into their cool green depths, are a number of hemlock +trees, the breath of which is incalculably sweet. All the earth the very +earth itself has a good rich growing odour, pleasant to smell. + +These things have been here a thousand years a million years and yet +they are not stale, but are ever fresh, ever serene, ever here to loosen +one's crabbed spirit and make one quietly happy. It seems to me I could +not live if it were not possible often to come thus alone to the woods. + +...On later walking I discover that here and there on warm southern +slopes the dog-tooth violet is really in bloom, and worlds of hepatica, +both lavender and white, among the brown leaves. One of the notable +sights of the hillsides at this time of the year is the striped maple, +the long wands rising straight and chaste among thickets of +less-striking young birches and chestnuts, and having a bud of a +delicate pink--a marvel of minute beauty. A little trailing arbutus I +found and renewed my joy with one of the most exquisite odours of all +the spring; Solomon's seal thrusting up vivid green cornucopias from the +lifeless earth, and often near a root or stone the red partridge berries +among their bright leaves. The laurel on the hills is sharply visible, +especially when among deciduous trees, and along the old brown roads are +patches of fresh wintergreen. In a cleft of the hills near the top of +Norwottuck, though the day is warm, I found a huge snowbank--the last +held trench of old winter, the last guerilla of the cold, driven to the +fastnesses of the hills.... I have enjoyed this day without trying. +After the first hour or so of it all the worries dropped away, all the +ambitions, all the twisted thoughts-- + +It is strange how much thrilling joy there is in the discovery of the +ages-old miracle of returning life in the woods: each green adventurer, +each fragrant joy, each bird-call--and the feel of the soft, warm +sunshine upon one's back after months of winter. On any terms life is +good. The only woe, the only Great Woe, is the woe of never having been +born. Sorrow, yes; failure, yes; weakness, yes the sad loss of dear +friends--yes! But oh, the good God: I still live! + +Being alone without feeling alone is one of the great experiences of +life, and he who practises it has acquired an infinitely valuable +possession. People fly to crowds for happinesss not knowing that all the +happiness they find there they must take with them. Thus they divert and +distract that within them which creates power and joy, until by flying +always away from themselves, seeking satisfaction from without rather +than from within, they become infinitely boresome to themselves, so that +they can scarcely bear a moment of their own society. + +But if once a man have a taste of true and happy retirement, though it +be but a short hour, or day, now and then, he has found, or is beginning +to find, a sure place of refuge, of blessed renewal, toward which in the +busiest hours he will find his thoughts wistfully stealing. How stoutly +will he meet the buffets of the world if he knows he has such a place of +retirement where all is well-ordered and full of beauty, and right +counsels prevail, and true things are noted. + +As a man grows older, if he cultivate the art of retirement, not indeed +as an end in itself, but as a means of developing a richer and freer +life, he will find his reward growing surer and greater until in time +none of the storms or shocks of life any longer disturbs him. He might +in time even reach the height attained by Diogenes, of whom Epictetus +said, "It was not possible for any man to approach him, nor had any man +the means of laying hold upon him to enslave him. He had everything +easily loosed, everything only hanging to him. If you laid hold of his +property, he would rather have let it go and be yours than he would have +followed you for it; if you laid hold of his leg he would have let go +his leg: if all of his body, all his poor body; his intimates, friends, +country, just the same. For he knew from whence he had them, and from +whom and on what conditions." + +The best partners of solitude are books. I like to take a book with me +in my pocket, although I find the world so full of interesting +things--sights, sounds, odours--that often I never read a word in it. It +is like having a valued friend with you, though you walk for miles +without saying a word to him or he to you: but if you really know your +friend, it is a curious thing how, subconsciously, you are aware of +what he is thinking and feeling about this hillside or that distant +view. And so it is with books. It is enough to have this writer in your +pocket, for the very thought of him and what he would say to these old +fields and pleasant trees is ever freshly delightful. And he never +interrupts at inconvenient moments, nor intrudes his thoughts upon yours +unless you desire it. + +I do not want long books and least of all story books in the +woods--these are for the library--but rather scraps and extracts and +condensations from which thoughts can be plucked like flowers and +carried for a while in the buttonhole. So it is that I am fond of all +kinds of anthologies. I have one entitled "Traveller's Joy," another, +"Songs of Nature," and I have lately found the best one I know called +"The Spirit of Man" by Robert Bridges, the English laureate. Other +little books that fit well in the pocket on a tramp, because they are +truly companionable, are Ben Jonson's "Timber," one of the very best, +and William Penn's "Fruits of Solitude." An anthology of Elizabethan +verse, given me by a friend, is also a good companion. + +It is not a discourse or a narrative we want as we walk abroad, but +conversation. Neither do we want people or facts or stories, but a +person. So I open one of these little books and read therein the +thoughtful remark of a wise companion. This I may reply to, or merely +enjoy, as I please. I am in no hurry, as I might be with a living +companion, for my book friend, being long dead, is not impatient and +gives me time to reply, and is not resentful if I make no reply at all. +Submitted to such a test as this few writers, old or new, give continued +profit or delight. To be considered in the presence of the great and +simple things of nature, or worn long in the warm places of the spirit, +a writer must have supreme qualities of sense or humour, a great +sensitiveness to beauty, or a genuine love of goodness--but above all he +must somehow give us the flavour of personality. He must be a true +companion of the spirit. + + * * * * * + +There is an exercise given to young soldiers which consists in raising +the hands slowly above the head, taking in a full breath at the same +time, and then letting them down in such a way as to square the +shoulders. This leaves the body erect, the head high, the eyes straight +ahead, the lungs full of good air. It is the attitude that every man at +arms should wish to take, After a day in the woods I feel some such +erectness of spirit, a life of the head, and a clearer and calmer +vision, for I have raised up my hands to the heavens, and drawn in the +odours and sights and sounds of the good earth. + + * * * * * + +One of the great joys of such times of retirement perhaps the greatest +of the joys is the return, freshened and sweetened, to the common life. +How good then appear the things of the garden and farm, the house and +shop, that weariness had staled; how good the faces of friends. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + ++NO TRESPASS+ + +I live in a country of beautiful hills, and in the last few years, since +I have been here with Harriet, I have made familiar and pleasant +acquaintance with several of them.... + +One hill I know is precious to me for a peculiar reason. Upon the side +of it, along the town road, are two or three old farms with lilacs like +trees about their doorways, and ancient apple orchards with great gnarly +branches, and one has an old garden of hollyhocks, larkspurs, zinnias, +mignonette, and I know not how many other old-fashioned flowers. Wild +grapes there are along the neglected walls, and in a corner of one of +them, by a brook, a mass of sweet currant which in blossom time makes +all that bit of valley a bower of fragrance, I have gone that way often +in spring for the sheer joy of the friendly odours I had across the +ancient stone fences. + +The largest and stoniest of the farms is owned by an old man named +Howieson. A strange, brown-clad, crooked, crabbed old man, I have seen +him often creeping across his fields with his horses. An ineffective +worker all his life long, he has scarcely made a living from his stony +acres. His farm is tipped up behind upon the hill and runs below to the +brook, and the buildings are old and worn, and a rocky road goes by to +the town. Once, in more prosperous days, before the factories took over +the winter work of these hill farms, the busy families finished shoes, +and wove cloth, and plaited straw hats--and one I know was famous for +wooden bowls craftily hollowed out of maple knots--and the hill people +relied upon their stony fields for little more than their food. But in +these later days, the farm industries are gone, the houses are no longer +overflowing with children, for there is nothing for children to do, and +those who remain are old or discouraged. Some homes have entirely +disappeared, so that all that remains is a clump of lilacs or a wild +tangle of rose bushes about a grass-covered or bush-grown cellar wall. +The last thing to disappear is not that which the old farmers most set +their hearts upon, their fine houses and barns or their cultivated +fields, but the one touch of beauty they left--lilac clump or +rose-tangle. + +Old Howieson, with that passion for the sense of possession which +thrives best when the realities of possession are slipping away, has +posted all his fields with warnings against intrusion. You may not enter +this old field, nor walk by this brook, nor climb this hill, for all +this belongs, in fee simple, to James Howieson! + +[Illustration: NO TRESPASS +JAMES HOWIESON+] + +For a long time I did not meet James Howieson face to face, though I had +often seen his signs, and always with a curious sense of the futility of +them. I did not need to enter his fields, nor climb his hill, nor walk +by his brook, but as the springs passed and the autumns whitened into +winter, I came into more and more complete possession of all those +fields that he so jealously posted. I looked with strange joy upon his +hill, saw April blossom in his orchard, and May colour the wild grape +leaves along his walls. June I smelled in the sweet vernal of his hay +fields, and from the October of his maples and beeches I gathered rich +crops and put up no hostile signs of ownership, paid no taxes, worried +over no mortgage, and often marvelled that he should be so poor within +his posted domain and I so rich without. + +One who loves a hill, or a bit of valley, will experiment long until he +finds the best spot to take his joy of it; and this is no more than the +farmer himself does when he experiments year after year to find the best +acres for his potatoes, his corn, his oats, his hay. Intensive +cultivation is as important in these wider fields of the spirit as in +any other. If I consider the things that I hear and see and smell, and +the thoughts that go with them or grow out of them, as really valuable +possessions, contributing to the wealth of life, I cannot see why I +should not willingly give to them a tenth or a hundredth part of the +energy and thought I give to my potatoes or my blackberries or to the +writing I do. + +I chose a place in a field just below Old Howieson's farm, where there +is a thorn-apple tree to sit or lie under. From the thorn-apple tree, by +turning my head in one direction, I can look up at the crown of the hill +with its green hood of oaks and maples and chestnuts, and high above it +I can see the clouds floating in the deep sky, or, if I turn my head the +other way, for I am a kind of monarch there on the hill and command the +world to delight me, I can look off across the pleasant valley with its +spreading fields and farmsteads set about with trees, and the town +slumbering by the riverside. I come often with a little book in one +pocket to read from, and a little book in the other to write in, but I +rarely use either the one or the other, for there is far too much to see +and think about. + +From this spot I make excursions round about, and have had many strange +and interesting adventures: and now find thoughts of mine, like lichens, +upon all the boulders and old walls and oak trees of that hillside. +Sometimes I climb to the top of the hill. If I am in a leisurely mood I +walk lawfully around Old Howieson's farm by a kind of wood lane that +leads to the summit, but often I cross his walls, all regardless of his +trespass signs, and go that way to the top. + + +[Illustration: It was on one of these lawless excursions in Old +Howieson's field that I first saw that strange old fellow] + + + +It was on one of these lawless excursions in Old Howieson's field that I +first saw that strange old fellow who is known hereabout as the Herbman. +I came upon him so suddenly that I stopped short, curiously startled, as +one is startled at finding anything human that seems less than human. He +was kneeling there among the low verdure of a shallow valley, and looked +like an old gray rock or some prehistoric animal. I stopped to look at +him, but he paid no heed, and seemed only to shrink into himself as +though, if he kept silent, he might be taken for stock or stone. I +addressed him but he made no answer. I went nearer, with a sensation of +uncanny wonder; but he did not so much as glance up at me, though he +knew I was there. His old brown basket was near him and the cane beside +it. He was gathering pennyroyal. + +"Another man who is taking an unexpected crop from Old Howieson's +acres," I thought to myself. + +I watched him for some moments, quite still, as one might watch a turtle +or a woodchuck--and left him there. + +Since then I have heard something about him, and seen him once or +twice. A strange old man, a wanderer upon the face of the fragrant +earth. Spring and summer he wears always an old overcoat, and carries a +basket with double covers, very much worn and brown with usage. His cane +is of hickory with a crooked root for a handle, this also shiny with +age. He gathers bitter-bark, tansy; ginseng, calamus, smartweed, and +slippery elm, and from along old fences and barnyards, catnip and +boneset, I suppose he lives somewhere, a hole in a log, or the limb of a +tree, but no one knows where it is, or how he dries or cures his +findings. No one knows his name: perhaps he has forgotten it himself. A +name is no great matter anyway. He is called simply the Herbman. He +drifts into our valley in the spring, is seen here and there on the +hills or in the fields, like the crows or the blackbirds, and disappears +in the fall with the robins and the maple leaves. Perhaps he is one of +those favoured souls to whom life is all spring and summer. + +The age has passed him by, and except for certain furtive old women, few +care now for his sovereign remedies. + +I met him once in the town road, and he stopped humbly without lifting +his eyes, and opening his basket let out into the air such a fragrance +of ancient simples as I never smelled before. He said nothing at all; +but took out dry bundles of catnip, sassafras, slippery elm, to show me. +He had also pennyroyal for healing teas, and calamus and bitter-bark for +miseries. I selected a choice assortment of his wares to take home to +Harriet, but could get him to name no price. He took what I gave without +objection and without thanks, and went his way. A true man of the hills. + +As I said, I came often to the field below Old Howieson's farm. I think +the old man saw me coming and going, for the road winds along the side +of the hill within sight of his house, skirts a bit of wood, and with an +unexpected turn comes out triumphantly to the top of the ridge beyond. + +At the turn of the road I always disappeared, for I crossed the wall +into the field below Old Howieson's farm, and mysteriously failed to +appear to the watchful eye upon the ridge beyond. What could be more +provoking or suspicious! To go in at one end of a well-travelled road +and not to come out in the regular and expected way at the other! Or to +be suspected of not being deferential toward trespass signs, or +observant of closed ways! How disturbing to all those who dwell +tremulously within posted enclosures of whatever sort, or those who base +their sense of possession upon stumped paper, or take their God from a +book. Men have been crucified for less. + +Sooner or later those who cross boundaries clash with those who defend +boundaries: and those who adventure offend those who seek security; but +it was a long time before I came face to face with Old Man Howieson. + +This was the way of it: Well back of Howieson's buildings and reaching +upward upon the face of the hill stretches a long and narrow field, a +kind of barren back pasture with boulders in it, and gnarly hawthorn +trees, and a stunted wild apple or so. A stone fence runs down one side +of the cleared land and above it rises the hill. It is like a great +trough or ravine which upon still spring evenings gathers in all the +varied odours of Old Howieson's farm and orchard and brings them down to +me as I sit in the field below. I need no book then, nor sight of the +distant town, nor song of birds, for I have a singular and incomparable +album of the good odours of the hill. This is one reason why I chose +this particular spot in the fields for my own, and it has given me a +secret name for the place which I will not here disclose. If ever you +should come this way in May, my friend, I might take you there of an +evening, but could warrant you no joy of it that you yourself could not +take. But you need not come here, or go there, but stop where you are at +this moment, and I here assure you that if you look up, and look in, +you, also, will see something of the glory of the world. + +One evening I had been upon the hill to seek again the pattern and +dimensions of my tabernacle, and to receive anew the tables of the Jaw. +I had crossed Old Howieson's field so often that I had almost forgotten +it was not my own. It was indeed mine by the same inalienable right that +it belonged to the crows that flew across it, or to the partridges that +nested in its coverts, or the woodchucks that lived in its walls, or the +squirrels in its chestnut trees. It was mine by the final test of all +possession--that I could use it. + +He came out of a thicket of hemlocks like a wraith of the past, a gray +and crabbed figure, and confronted me there in the wide field. I +suppose he thought he had caught me at last. I was not at all startled +or even surprised, for as I look back upon it now I know that I had +always been expecting him. Indeed, I felt a lift of the spirit, the kind +of jauntiness with which one meets a crucial adventure. + +He stood there for a moment quite silent, a grim figure of denial, and I +facing him. + +"You are on my land, sir," he said. + +I answered him instantly and in a way wholly unexpected to myself: + +"You are breathing my air, sir." + +He looked at me dully, but with a curious glint of fear in his eye, fear +and anger, too. + +"Did you see the sign down there? This land is posted." + +"Yes," I said, "I have seen your signs. But let me ask you: If I were +not here would you own this land any more than you do now? Would it +yield you any better crops?" + +It is never the way of those who live in posted enclosures, of whatever +sort, to reason. They assert. + +"This land is posted," said the old man doggedly. + +"Are you sure you own it?" I asked. "Is it really yours?" + +"My father owned this farm before me," he said, "and my grandfather +cleared this field and built these walls. I was born in that house and +have lived there all my life." + +"Well, then, I must be going--and I will not come here again," I said. +"I am sorry I walked on your land--" + +I started to go down the hill, but stopped, and said, as though it were +an afterthought: + +"I have made some wonderful discoveries upon your land, and that hill +there. You don't seem to know how valuable this field is.... Good-bye." + +With that I took two or three steps down the hill--but felt the old +man's hand on my arm. + +"Say, mister," he asked, "are you one of the electric company men? Is +that high-tension line comin' across here?" + +"No," I said, "it is something more valuable than that!" + +I walked onward a few steps, as though I was quite determined to get out +of his field, but he followed close behind me. + +"It ain't the new trolley line, is it?" + +"No," I said, "it isn't the trolley line." + +"What is it, then?" + +In that question, eager and shrill, spoke the dry soul of the old man, +the lifelong hope that his clinging ownership of those barren acres +would bring him from the outside some miraculous profit. + +His whole bearing had changed. He had ceased to be truculent or even +fearful, but was now shrilly beseeching, A great wave of compassion came +over me, I was sorry for him, imprisoned there within the walls of his +own making, and expecting wealth from the outside when there was wealth +in plenty within and everywhere about him. + +But how could I help him? You can give no valuable thing to any man who +has not the vision to take it. If I had told him what I found upon his +hill or in his fields he would have thought me--well, crazy; or he would +have suspected that under cover of such a quest I hid some evil design. +As well talk adventure to an old party man, or growth to a set +churchman. + +So I left him there within his walls. So often when we think we are +barring other people out, we are only barring ourselves in. The last I +saw of him as I turned into the road was a gray and crabbed figure +standing alone, looking after me, and not far off his own sign: + +[Illustration: NO TRESPASS JAMES HOWIESON] + +Sometime, I thought, this old farm will be owned by a man who is also +capable of possessing it. More than one such place I know already has +been taken by those who value the beauty of the hills and the old walls, +and the boulder-strewn fields. One I know is really possessed by a man +who long ago had a vision of sheep feeding on fields too infertile to +produce profitable crops, and many others have been taken by men who saw +forests growing where forests ought to grow. For real possession is not +a thing of inheritance or of documents, but of the spirit; and passes by +vision and imagination. Sometimes, indeed, the trespass signs stand +long--so long that we grow impatient--but nature is in no hurry. Nature +waits, and presently the trespass signs rot away, one arm falls off, and +lo! where the adventurer found only denial before he is now invited +to--"pass." The old walls are conquered by the wild cherries and purple +ivy and blackberry bushes, and the old Howiesons sleep in calm +forgetfulness of their rights upon the hills they thought they +possessed, and all that is left is a touch of beauty--lilac clump and +wild-rose tangle. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +LOOK AT THE WORLD! + +"Give me to struggle with weather and wind; + Give me to stride through the snow; +Give me the feel of the chill on my cheeks, + And the glow and the glory within!" + +_March 17th._ + +The joy of winter: the downright joy of winter! I tramped to-day through +miles of open, snow-clad country. I slipped in the ruts of the roads or +ploughed through the drifts in the fields with such a sense of adventure +as I cannot describe. + +Day before yesterday we had a heavy north wind with stinging gusts of +snow. Yesterday fell bright and cold with snow lying fine and crumbly +like sugar. To the east of the house where I shovelled a path the heaps +are nearly as high as my shoulder.... + +This perfect morning a faint purplish haze is upon all the hills, with +bright sunshine and still, cold air through which the chimney smoke +rises straight upward. Hungry crows flap across the fields, or with +unaccustomed daring settle close in upon the manure heaps around the +barns. All the hillsides glisten and sparkle like cloth of gold, each +glass knob on the telephone poles is like a resplendent jewel, and the +long morning shadows of the trees lie blue upon the snow. Horses' feet +crunch upon the road as the early farmers go by with milk for the +creamery--the frosty breath of each driver fluttering aside like a white +scarf. Through the still air ordinary voices cut sharply and clearly, +and a laugh bounds out across the open country with a kind of +superabundance of joy. I see two men beating their arms as they follow +their wood sled. They are bantering one another noisily. I see a man +shovelling snow from his barn doors; as each shovelful rises and +scatters, the sun catches it for an instant and it falls, a silvery +shower. ... I tramped to-day through miles of it: and whether in broken +roads or spotless fields, had great joy of it. It was good to stride +through opposing drifts and to catch the tingling air upon one's face. +The spring is beautiful indeed, and one is happy at autumn, but of all +the year no other mornings set the blood to racing like these; none +gives a greater sense of youth, strength, or of the general goodness of +the earth. + +Give me the winter: give me the winter! Not all winter, but just winter +enough, just what nature sends. + +...Dry air in the throat so cold at first as to make one cough; and +dry, sharp, tingling air in the nostrils; frost on beard and eyebrows; +cheeks red and crusty, so that to wrinkle them hurts: but all the body +within aglow with warmth and health. Twice the ordinary ozone in the +air, so that one wishes to whistle or sing, and if the fingers grow +chill, what are shoulders for but to beat them around! + + * * * * * + +It is a strange and yet familiar experience how all things present their +opposites. Do you enjoy the winter? Your neighbour loathes or fears it. +Do you enjoy life? To your friend it is a sorrow and a heaviness. Even +to you it is not always alike. Though the world itself is the same +to-day as it was yesterday and will be to-morrow--the same snowy fields +and polar hills, the same wintry stars, the same infinitely alluring +variety of people--yet to-day you, that were a god, have become a +grieving child. + +Even at moments when we are well pleased with the earth we often have a +wistful feeling that we should conceal it lest it hurt those borne down +by circumstances too great or too sad for them. What is there to offer +one who cannot respond gladly to the beauty of the fields, or opens his +heart widely to the beckoning of friends? And we ask ourselves: Have I +been tried as this man has? Would I be happy then? Have I been wrung +with sorrow, worn down by ill-health, buffeted with injustice as this +man has? Would I be happy then? + +I saw on my walk to-day an old woman with a crossed shawl upon her +breast creeping out painfully to feed her hens. She lives on a small, +ill-kept farm I have known for years. She is old and poor and asthmatic, +and the cold bites through her with the sharpness of knives. The path to +the hen-house is a kind of via dolorosa, a terror of slipperiness and +cold. She might avoid it: her son, worthless as he is, might do it for +her, but she clings to it as she clings to her life. It is the last +reason for staying here! But the white fields and drifted roads are +never joyfully met, never desired. She spends half the summer dreading +the return of winter from the severities of which she cannot escape. + +Nor is it all mere poverty, though she is poor, for there are those who +would help to send her away, but she will not go. She is wrapped about +with Old Terrors, Ancient Tyrannies--that Terror of the Unknown which is +more painful even than the Terror of the Known: those Tyrannies of Habit +and of Place which so often and so ruthlessly rule the lives of the old. +She clings desperately to the few people she knows ("'tis hard to die +among strangers!") and the customs she has followed all her life. +Against the stark power of her tragic helplessness neither the good nor +the great of the earth may prevail. This reality too.... + +I had a curious experience not long ago: One of those experiences which +light up as in a flash some of the fundamental things of life. I met a +man in the town road whom I have come to know rather more than slightly. +He is a man of education and has been "well-off" in the country sense, +is still, so far as I know, but he has a sardonic outlook upon life. He +is discouraged about human nature. Thinks that politics are rotten, and +that the prices of potatoes and bread are disgraceful. The state of the +nation, and of the world, is quite beyond temperate expression. Few rays +of joy seem to illuminate his pathway. + +As we approached in the town road I called out to him: + +"Good morning." + +He paused and, to my surprise, responded: + +"Are you happy?" + +It had not occurred to me for some time whether I was happy or not, so I +replied: + +"I don't know; why do you ask?" + +He looked at me in a questioning, and I thought rather indignant, way. + +"Why shouldn't a man be happy?" I pressed him. + +"Why _should_ he be? Answer me that!" he responded, "Why should he be? +Look at the world!" + +With that he passed onward with a kind of crushing dignity. + +I have laughed since when I have recalled the tone of his voice as he +said, "Look at the world!" Gloomy and black it was. It evidently made +him indignant to be here. + +But at the moment his bitter query, the essential attitude of spirit +which lay behind it, struck into me with a poignancy that stopped me +where I stood. Was I, then, all wrong about the world? I actually had a +kind of fear lest when I should look up again I should find the earth +grown wan and bleak and unfriendly, so that I should no longer desire +it. + +"Look at the world!" I said aloud. + +And with that I suddenly looked all around me and it is a strange, deep +thing, as I have thought of it since, how the world came back upon me +with a kind of infinite, calm assurance, as beautiful as ever it was. +There were the hills and the fields and the great still trees--and the +open sky above. And even as I looked down the road and saw my sardonic +old friend plodding through the snow--his very back frowning--I had a +sense that he belonged in the picture, too--and couldn't help himself. +That he even had a kind of grace, and gave a human touch to that wintry +scene! He had probably said a great deal more than he meant! + +_Look at the world_! + +Well, look at it. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +A GOOD APPLE + +"I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible +goods." + +I have just had one of the pleasant experiences of life. From time to +time, these brisk winter days, I like to walk across the fields to +Horace's farm. I take a new way each time and make nothing of the snow +in the fields or the drifts along the fences.... + +"Why," asks Harriet, "do you insist on struggling through the snow when +there's a good beaten road around?" + +"Harriet," I said, "why should any one take a beaten road when there +are new and adventurous ways to travel?" + +When I cross the fields I never know at what moment I may come upon some +strange or surprising experience, what new sights I may see, what new +sounds I may hear, and I have the further great advantage of appearing +unexpectedly at Horace's farm. Sometimes I enter by the cow lane, +sometimes by way of the old road through the wood-lot, or I appear +casually, like a gust of wind, around the corner of the barn, or I let +Horace discover me leaning with folded arms upon his cattle fence. I +have come to love doing this, for unexpectedness in visitors, as in +religion and politics, is disturbing to Horace and, as sand-grits in +oysters produce pearls, my unexpected appearances have more than once +astonished new thoughts in Horace, or yielded pearly bits of native +humour. + +Ever since I have known him, Horace has been rather high-and-mighty with +me; but I know he enjoys my visits, for I give him always, I think, a +pleasantly renewed sense of his own superiority. When he sees me his eye +lights up with the comfortable knowledge that he can plough so much +better than I can, that his corn grows taller than mine, and his hens +lay more eggs. He is a wonderfully practical man, is Horace; +hard-headed, they call it here. And he never feels so superior, I think, +as when he finds me sometimes of a Sunday or an evening walking across +the fields where my land joins his, or sitting on a stone fence, or +lying on my back in the pasture under a certain friendly thorn-apple +tree. This he finds it difficult to understand, and thinks it highly +undisciplined, impractical, no doubt reprehensible. + +One incident of the sort I shall never forget. It was on a June day only +a year or so after I came here, and before Horace knew me as well as he +does now. I had climbed the hill to look off across his own high-field +pasture, where the white daisies, the purple fleabane, and the +buttercups made a wild tangle of beauty among the tall herd's grass. +Light airs moved billowing across the field, bobolinks and meadow larks +were singing, and all about were the old fences, each with its wild +hedgerow of choke cherry, young elms, and black raspberry bushes, and +beyond, across miles and miles of sunny green countryside, the +mysterious blue of the ever-changing hills. It was a spot I loved then, +and have loved more deeply every year since. + +Horace found me sitting on the stone fence which there divides our +possessions; I think he had been observing me with amusement for some +time before I saw him, for when I looked around his face wore a +comfortably superior, half-disdainful smile. + +"David," said he, "what ye doin' here?" + +"Harvesting my crops," I said. + +He looked at me sharply to see if I was joking, but I was perfectly +sober. + +"Harvestin' yer crops?" + +"Yes," I said, the fancy growing suddenly upon me, "and just now I've +been taking a crop from the field you think you own." + +I waved my hand to indicate his high-field pasture. + +"Don't I own it?" + +"No, Horace, I'm sorry to say, not all of it. To be frank with you, +since I came here, I've quietly acquired an undivided interest in that +land. I may as well tell you first as last. I'm like you, Horace, I'm +reaching out in all directions." + +I spoke in as serious a voice as I could command: the tone I use when I +sell potatoes. Horace's smile wholly disappeared. A city feller like me +was capable of anything! + +"How's that?" he exclaimed sharply. "What do you mean? That field came +down to me from my grandfather Jamieson." + +I continued to look at Horace with great calmness and gravity. + +"Judging from what I now know of your title, Horace," said I, "neither +your grandfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field. +And I've now acquired that part of it, in fee simple, that neither they +nor you ever really had." + +At this Horace began to look seriously worried. The idea that any one +could get away from him anything that he possessed, especially without +his knowledge, was terrible to him. + +"What do you mean, Mr. Grayson?" + +He had been calling me "David," but he now returned sharply to "Mister." +In our country when we "Mister" a friend something serious is about to +happen. It's the signal for general mobilization. + +I continued to look Horace rather coldly and severely in the eye. + +"Yes," said I, "I've acquired a share in that field which I shall not +soon surrender." + +An unmistakable dogged look came into Horace's face, the look inherited +from generations of land-owning, home-defending, fighting ancestors. +Horace is New England of New England. + +"Yes," I said, "I have already had two or three crops from that field." + +"Huh!" said Horace. "I've cut the grass and I've cut the rowen every +year since you bin here. What's more, I've got the money fer it in the +bank." + +He tapped his fingers on the top of the wall. + +"Nevertheless, Horace," said I, "I've got my crops, also, from that +field, and a steady income, too." + +"What crops?" + +"Well, Eve just now been gathering in one of them. What do you think of +the value of the fleabane, and the daisies, and the yellow five-finger +in that field?" + +"Huh!" said Horace. + +"Well, I've just been cropping them. And have you observed the wind in +the grass--and those shadows along the southern wall? Aren't they +valuable?" + +"Huh!" said Horace. + +"I've rarely seen anything more beautiful," I said, "than this field +and the view across it--I'm taking that crop now, and later I shall +gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of +the maple trees--and store it all away in _my_ bank--to live on next +winter." + +It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from +the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace; +and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with his +hand in a way he has. + +"Is that all!" said Horace. + +I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me. +Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered +crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content +with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our +farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their lands +without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious crops of +the good earth go to waste. + +After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and +his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession. + +"S'pose you think that's your field," he'd say. + +"The best part of it," I'd return, "but you can have all I've taken, and +there'll still be enough for both of us." + +"You're a queer one!" he'd say, and then add sometimes, dryly, "but +there's one crop ye don't git, David," and he'd tap his pocket where he +carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. "And as fer feelin's, it +can't be beat." + +So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world +desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or +eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will +haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to +the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange, +intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a feverish +world the unknown great possessions. + +So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus +bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him: + +"Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?" + +"Off that one little piece," he replied, "I figger fifty-two dollars." + +"Well, Horace," said I, "I have beaten you. I got more out of it this +year than you did." + +"Oh, I know what you mean----" + +"No, Horace, you don't. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash, +dollars." + +"How's that, now?" + +"Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the +grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the timothy, +and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week----" I leaned +over toward Horace and whispered behind my hand--in just the way he +tells me the price he gets for his pigs. + +"What!" he exclaimed. + +Horace had long known that I was "a kind of literary feller," but his +face was now a study in astonishment. + +"_What?_" + +Horace scratched his head, as he is accustomed to do when puzzled, with +one finger just under the rim of his hat. + +"Well, I vum!" said he. + +Here I have been wandering all around Horace's barn--in the +snow--getting at the story I really started to tell, which probably +supports Horace's conviction that I am an impractical and unsubstantial +person. If I had the true business spirit I should have gone by the +beaten road from my house to Horace's, borrowed the singletree I went +for, and hurried straight home. Life is so short when one is after +dollars! I should not have wallowed through the snow, nor stopped at the +top of the hill to look for a moment across the beautiful wintry +earth--gray sky and bare wild trees and frosted farmsteads with homely +smoke rising from the chimneys--I should merely have brought home a +singletree--and missed the glory of life! As I reflect upon it now, I +believe it took me no longer to go by the fields than by the road; and +I've got the singletree as securely with me as though I had not looked +upon the beauty of the eternal hills, nor reflected, as I tramped, upon +the strange ways of man. + +Oh, my friend, is it the settled rule of life that we are to accept +nothing not expensive? It is not so settled for me; that which is +freest, cheapest, seems somehow more valuable than anything I pay for; +that which is given better than that which is bought; that which passes +between you and me in the glance of an eye, a touch of the hand, is +better than minted money! + +I found Horace upon the March day I speak of just coming out of his new +fruit cellar. Horace is a progressive and energetic man, a leader in +this community, and the first to have a modern fruit cellar. By this +means he ministers profitably to that appetite of men which craves most +sharply that which is hardest to obtain: he supplies the world with +apples in March. + +It being a mild and sunny day, the door of the fruit cellar was open, +and as I came around the corner I had such of whiff of fragrance as I +cannot describe. It seemed as though the vials of the earth's most +precious odours had been broken there in Horace's yard! The smell of +ripe apples! + +In the dusky depths of the cellar, down three steps, I could see +Horace's ruddy face. + +"How are ye, David," said he. "Will ye have a Good Apple?" + +So he gave me a good apple. It was a yellow Bellflower without a +blemish, and very large and smooth. The body of it was waxy yellow, but +on the side where the sun had touched it, it blushed a delicious deep +red. Since October it had been in the dark, cool storage-room, and +Horace, like some old monkish connoisseur of wines who knows just when +to bring up the bottles of a certain vintage, had chosen the exact +moment in all the year when the vintage of the Bellflower was at its +best. As he passed it to me I caught, a scent as of old crushed apple +blossoms, or fancied I did or it may have been the still finer aroma of +friendship which passed at the touching of our fingers. + +It was a hand-filling apple and likewise good for tired eyes, an +antidote for winter, a remedy for sick souls. + +"A wonderful apple!" I said to Horace, holding it off at arm's length. + +"No better grown anywhere," said he, with scarcely restrained pride. + +I took my delight of it more nearly; and the odour was like new-cut +clover in an old orchard, or strawberry leaves freshly trod upon, or the +smell of peach wood at the summer pruning--how shall one describe it? at +least a compound or essence of all the good odours of summer. + +"Shall I eat it?" I asked myself, for I thought such a perfection of +nature should be preserved for the blessing of mankind. As I hesitated, +Horace remarked: + +"It was grown to be eaten." + +So I bit into it, a big liberal mouthful, which came away with a rending +sound such as one hears sometimes in a winter's ice-pond. The flesh +within, all dewy with moisture, was like new cream, except a rim near +the surface where the skin had been broken; here it was of a clear, deep +yellow. + +New odours came forth and I knew for the first time how perfect in +deliciousness such an apple could be. A mild, serene, ripe, rich +bouquet, compounded essence of the sunshine from these old Massachusetts +hills, of moisture drawn from our grudging soil, of all the peculiar +virtues of a land where the summers make up in the passion of growth for +the long violence of winter; the compensatory aroma of a life +triumphant, though hedged about by severity, was in the bouquet of this +perfect Bellflower. + +Like some of the finest of wines and the warmest of friends it was of +two flavours, and was not to be eaten for mere nourishment, but was to +be tasted and enjoyed. The first of the flavours came readily in a +sweetness, richness, a slight acidity, that it might not cloy; but the +deeper, more delicate flavour came later--if one were not crudely +impatient--and was, indeed, the very soul of the fruit. One does not +quickly arrive at souls either in apples or in friends. And I said to +Horace with solemnity, for this was an occasion not to be lightly +treated: + +"I have never in my life tasted a fine apple." + +"There is no finer apple," said Horace with conviction. + +With that we fell to discussing the kinds and qualities of all the +apples grown this side China, and gave our more or less slighting +opinions of Ben Davises and Greenings and Russets, and especially of +trivial summer apples of all sorts, and came to the conclusion at last +that it must have been just after God created this particular "tree +yielding fruit" that he desisted from his day's work and remarked that +what he saw was good. The record is silent upon the point, and Moses is +not given to adjectives, but I have often wondered what He would have +said if He had not only seen the product of His creation, but _tasted_ +it. + +I forgot to say that when I would have slurred the excellence of the +Baldwin in comparison with the Bellflower, Horace began at once to +interpose objections, and defended the excellence and perfection of that +variety. + +...He has fifty barrels of Baldwins in his cellar. + +While we talked with much enjoyment of the lore of apples and +apple-growing, I finished the Bellflower to the very core, and said to +Horace as I reluctantly tossed aside the stem and three seeds: + +"Surely this has been one of the rare moments of life." + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +I GO TO THE CITY. + +"Surely man is a wonderfull, vaine, divers and wavering subject: +It is very hard to * ground and directly constant and uniforme +judgement upon him." + +Though I live most of the time in the country, as I love best to do, +sometimes I go to the city and find there much that is strange and +amusing. I like to watch the inward flow of the human tide in the +morning, and the ebb at evening, and sometimes in the slack tide of noon +I drift in one of the eddies where the restless life of the city pauses +a moment to refresh itself. One of the eddies I like best of all is near +the corner of Madison Square, where the flood of Twenty-third Street +swirls around the bulkhead of the Metropolitan tower to meet the +transverse currents of Madison Avenue. Here, of a bright morning when +Down-at-Heels is generously warming himself on the park benches, and Old +Defeat watches Young Hurry striding by, one has a royal choice of +refreshment: a "red-hot" enfolded in a bun from the dingy sausage wagon +at the curb, or a plum for a penny from the Italian with the trundle +cart, or news of the world in lurid gulps from the noon edition of the +paper--or else a curious idea or so flung out stridently over the heads +of the crowd by a man on a soap box. + +I love this corner of the great city; I love the sense of the warm human +tide flowing all about me. I love to look into the strange, dark, eager, +sensitive, blunt faces. + +The other noon, drifting there in that human eddy, I stopped to listen +to a small, shabby man who stood in transitory eminence upon his soap +box, half his body reaching above the knobby black soil of human heads +around him--black, knobby soil that he was seeking, there in the spring +sunshine, to plough with strange ideas. He had ruddy cheeks and a tuft +of curly hair set like an upholstery button on each side of his bald +head. The front teeth in his upper jaw were missing, and as he opened +his mouth one could see the ample lining of red flannel. + +He raised his voice penetratingly to overcome the noise of the world, +straining until the dark-corded veins of his throat stood out sharply +and perspiration gleamed on his bald forehead. As though his life +depended upon the delivery of his great message he was explaining to +that close-packed crowd that there was no God. + +From time to time he offered for sale pamphlets by R.G. Ingersoll and +Frederic Harrison, with grimy back numbers of a journal called the +"Truth-Seeker." + +By the slant and timbre of his speech he was an Englishman; he had a +gift of vigorous statement, and met questioners like an intellectual +pugilist with skilful blows between the eyes: and his grammar was bad. + +I stood for some time listening to him while he proved with excellent +logic, basing his reasoning on many learned authorities, that there was +no God. His audience cheered with glee his clever hits, and held up +their hands for the books he had for sale. + +"Who is this speaker?" I asked the elbowing helper who came through the +crowd to deliver the speaker's wares and collect the silver for them. +"Who is this speaker who says there is no God?" + +"Henry Moore," he responded. + +"And who," I asked, "is Henry Moore?" + +"He is an Englishman and was brought up a Presbyterian--but he seen the +light." + +"And no longer thinks there is any God?" + +"Nope." + +"And these books prove the same thing?" + +"Yep." + +So I bought one of them, thinking it wonderful that proof of so +momentous a conclusion could be had for so small a sum. + +This Henry Moore could fling arguments like thunderbolts; he could +marshall his authorities like an army; he could talk against the roar of +the city and keep his restless audience about him; and if he did not +believe in God he had complete faith in Haeckel and Jacques Loeb, and +took at face value the lightest utterances of John Stuart Mill. + +I enjoyed listening to Henry Moore. I enjoyed looking into the faces all +around me--mostly keen foreign or half-foreign faces, and young faces, +and idle faces, and curious faces, and faces that drank in, and faces +that disdainfully rejected. + +After a time, however, I grew unaccountably weary of the vehemence of +Henry Moore and of the adroit helper who hawked his books. And suddenly +I looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. A pigeon was +flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting +on its wings. I saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and +the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the +heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, +contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter +century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the +Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself grandly to +the heavens, and all about I suddenly heard and felt the roar and surge +of the mighty city, the mighty, careless, busy city, thousands of people +stirring about me, souls full of hot hopes and mad desires, unsatisfied +longings, unrealized ideals. And I stepped out of the group who were +gathered around the man who said there was no God.... + +But I still drifted in the eddy, thinking how wonderful and strange all +these things were, and came thus to another group, close gathered at +the curb. It was much smaller than the other, and at the centre stood a +patriarchal man with a white beard, and with him two women. He was +leaning against the iron railing of the park, and several of the +free-thinker's audience, freshly stuffed with arguments, had engaged him +hotly. Just as I approached he drew from his pocket a worn, +leather-covered Bible, and said, tapping it with one finger: + +"For forty years I have carried this book with me. It contains more +wisdom than any other book in the world. Your friend there can talk +until he is hoarse--it will do no harm--but the world will continue to +follow the wisdom of this book." + +A kind of exaltation gleamed in his eye, and he spoke with an +earnestness equal to that of Henry Moore. He, too, was a street speaker, +waiting with his box at his side to begin. He would soon be standing up +there to prove, also with logic and authority, that there was a God. He, +also, would plough that knobby black soil of human heads with the share +of his vehement faith. The two women were with him to sing their belief, +and one had a basket to take up a collection, and the other, singling +me out as I listened with eagerness, gave me a printed tract, a kind of +advertisement of God. + +I looked at the title of it. It was called: "God in His World." + +"Does this prove that God is really in the world?" I asked. + +"Yes," she said. "Will you read it?" + +"Yes," I said, "I am glad to get it. It is wonderful that so great a +truth can he established in so small a pamphlet, and all for nothing." + +She looked at me curiously, I thought, and I put the tract by the side +of the pamphlet I had bought from the freethinker, and drifted again in +the eddy. + +The largest crowd of all was close packed about a swarthy young chap +whose bushy hair waved in response to the violence of his oratory. He, +too, was perspiring with his ideas. He had a marvellous staccato method +of question and answer. He would shoot a question like a rifle bullet at +the heads of his audience, and then stiffen back like a wary boxer, both +clenched hands poised in a tremulous gesticulation, and before any one +could answer his bullet-like question, he was answering it himself. As I +edged my way nearer to him I discovered that he, also, had a little pile +of books at his feet which a keen-eyed assistant was busily selling. How +well-established the technic of this art of the city eddies! How +well-studied the psychology! + +I thought this example the most perfect of them all, and watched with +eagerness the play of the argument as it was mirrored in the intent +faces all about me. And gradually I grew interested in what the man was +saying, and thought of many good answers I could give to his +questionings if he were not so cunning with answers of his own. Finally, +in the midst of one of his loftiest flights, he demanded, hotly: + +"Are you not, every one of you, a slave of the capitalist class?" + +It was perfectly still for a second after he spoke, and before I knew +what I was doing, I responded: + +"Why, no, I'm not." + +It seemed to astonish the group around me: white faces turned my way. + +But it would have been difficult to dash that swarthy young man. He was +as full of questions as a porcupine is full of quills. + +"Well, sir," said he, "if I can prove to you that you are a slave, will +you believe it?" + +"No," I said, "unless you make me feel like a slave, too! No man is a +slave who does not feel slavish." + +But I was no match for that astonishing young orator; and he had the +advantage over me of a soap box! Moreover, at that moment, the keen-eyed +assistant, never missing an opportunity, offered me one of his little +red books. + +"If you can read this without feeling a slave," he remarked, "you're +John D. himself in disguise." + +I bought his little red book and put it with the pamphlet of the +freethinker, and the tract of the God-fearing man, and stepped out of +that group, feeling no more servile than when I went in. And I said to +myself: + +"This, surely, is a curious place to be in." + +For I was now strangely interested in these men of the eddy. + +"There are more gods preached here," I said, "than ever were known on +the Acropolis." + +Up the square a few paces I saw a covered wagon with a dense crowd +around it. And in front of it upon a little platform which raised the +speaker high above the heads of the audience stood a woman, speaking +with shrill ardour. Most of the hearers were men; and she was telling +them with logic and authority that the progress of civilization waited +upon the votes of women. The army of the world stood still until the +rear rank of its women could be brought into line! Morals languished, +religion faded, industries were brutalized, home life destroyed! If only +women had their rights the world would at once become a beautiful and +charming place! Oh, she was a powerful and earnest speaker; she made me +desire above everything, at the first opportunity, to use my share of +the power in this Government to provide each woman with a vote. And just +as I had reached this compliant stage there came a girl smiling and +passing her little basket. The sheer art of it! So I dropped in my coin +and took the little leaflet she gave me and put it side by side with the +other literature of my accumulating library. + +And so I came away from those hot little groups with their perspiring +orators, and felt again the charm of the tall buildings and the wide +sunny square, and the park with Down-at-Heels warming his ragged shanks, +and the great city clanging heedlessly by. How serious they all were +there in their eddies! Is there no God? Will woman suffrage or socialism +cure all the evils of this mad world which, ill as it is, we would not +be without? Is a belief for forty years in the complete wisdom of the +Book the final solution? Why do not all of the seeking and suffering +thousands flowing by in Twenty-third Street stop here in the eddies to +seek the solution of their woes, the response to their hot desires? + +So I came home to the country, thinking of what I had seen and heard, +asking myself, "What is the truth, after all? What _is_ real?" + +And I was unaccountably glad to be at home again. As I came down the +hill through the town road the valley had a quiet welcome for me, and +the trees I know best, and the pleasant fields of corn and tobacco, and +the meadows ripe with hay. I know of nothing more comforting to the +questioning spirit than the sight of distant hills.... + +I found that Bill had begun the hay cutting. I saw him in the lower +field as I came by in the road. There he was, stationed high on the +load, and John, the Pole, was pitching on. When he saw me he lifted one +arm high in the air and waved his hand--and I in return gave him the +sign of the Free Fields. + +"Harriet," I said, "it seems to me I was never so glad before to get +home." + +"It's what you always say," she remarked placidly. + +"This time it's true!" And I put the pamphlets I had accumulated in the +city eddies upon the pile of documents which I fully intend to read but +rarely get to. + +The heavenly comfort of an old shirt! The joy of an old hat! + +As I walked down quickly into the field with my pitchfork on my shoulder +to help Bill with the hay, I was startled to see, hanging upon a peach +tree at the corner of the orchard, a complete suit of black clothes. +Near it, with the arms waving gently in the breeze, was a white shirt +and a black tie, and at the foot of the tree a respectable black hat. It +was as though the peach tree had suddenly, on that bright day, gone into +mourning. + +I laughed to myself. + +"Bill," I said, "what does this mean?" + +Bill is a stout jolly chap with cheeks that look, after half a day's +haying, like raw beef-steaks. He paused on his load, smiling broadly, +his straw hat set like a halo on the back of his head. + +"Expected a funeral," he said cheerfully. + +Bill is the undertaker's assistant, and is always on call in cases of +emergency. + +"What happened, Bill?" + +"They thought they'd bury 'im this afternoon, but they took an' kep' 'im +over till to-morrow." + +"But you came prepared." + +"Yas, no time to go home in hayin'. The pump fer me, and the black +togs." + +Bill calls the first rakings of the hay "tumbles," and the scattered +re-rakings, which he despises, he calls "scratchings." I took one side +of the load and John, the Pole, the other and we put on great forkfuls +from the tumbles which Bill placed skilfully at the corners and sides of +the load, using the scratchings for the centre. + +John, the Pole, watched the load from below. "Tank he too big here," he +would say, or, "Tank you put more there"; but Bill told mostly by the +feel of the load under his feet or by the "squareness of his eye." +John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the +load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but +gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main +strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork +through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a +twinkling--an admirable, deft performance. + +Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting its +clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very heavy, to +throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt and dry in +the burning sun--all full of good odours--the horse-rake draws it neatly +into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll the +billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was not +this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then +the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and +John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the +excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods +of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and +stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of '98 when two men and +one team saved four acres of hay by working all night--"with lanterns, I +jing"--much talk of how she goes on, "she" being the hay, and no end of +observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, and excesses +of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, half hidden +by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the tumbles as they go +by. + +Then the proud moment when Bill the driver, with legs apart, almost +pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill. + +"Go it, Dick. Let 'er out, Daisy. Stiddy, ol' boy. Whoa, there. Ease +down now. Hey, there, John, block the wheel--block the wheel I tell ye. +Ah-h now, jes' breathe a bit. I jing, it's hot." + +And then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses +thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in +the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, +dusty "pitching off" and "mowing in"--a fine process, an _honest_ +process: men sweating for what they get. + +As I came in from the field that night the sun was low in the hills, +and a faint breeze had begun to blow, sweetly cool after the burning +heat of the day. And I felt again that curious deep sense I have so +often here in the country, of the soundness and reality of the plain +things of life. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE OLD STONE MASON + +Of well-flavoured men, I know none better than those who live close to +the soil or work in common things. Men are like roses and lilacs, which, +too carefully cultivated to please the eye, lose something of their +native fragrance. One of the best-flavoured men I know is my friend, the +old stone mason. + +To-day I rode over with the old stone mason to select some wide stones +for steps in my new building. The old man loves stones. All his life +long--he is now beyond seventy years old--he has lived among stones, +lifted stones, fitted stones. He knows all the various kinds, shapes, +sizes, and where they will go best in a wall. He can tell at a glance +where to strike a stone to make it fit a particular place, and out of a +great pile he can select with a shrewd eye the stone for the exact +opening he has to fill. He will run his stubby rough hand over a stone +and remark: + +"Fine face that. Ye don't see many such stones these days," as though he +were speaking of the countenance of a friend. + +I veritably believe there are stones that smile at him, stones that +frown at him, stones that appear good or ill-humoured to him as he bends +his stocky strong body to lift or lay them. He is a slow man, a slow, +steady, geologic man, as befits one who works with the elemental stuff +of nature. His arms are short and his hands powerful. He has been a +servant of stones in this neighbourhood alone for upward of fifty years. + +He loves stones and can no more resist a good stone than I a good book. +When going about the country, if he sees comely stones in a wayside +pile, or in a fine-featured old fence he will have them, whether or no, +and dickers for them with all the eagerness, sly pride, and +half-concealed cunning with which a lover of old prints chaffers for a +Seymour Haden in a second-hand book shop. And when he has bought them he +takes the first idle day he has, and with his team of old horses goes +into the hills, or wherever it may be, and brings them down. He has them +piled about his barn and even in his yard, as another man might have +flower beds. And he can tell you, as he told me to-day, just where a +stone of such a size and such a face can be found, though it be at the +bottom of a pile. No book lover with a feeling sense for the place in +his cases where each of his books may be found has a sharper instinct +than he. In his pocket he carries a lump of red chalk, and when we had +made our selections he marked each stone with a broad red cross. + +I think it good fortune that I secured the old stone mason to do my +work, and take to myself some credit for skill in enticing him. He is +past seventy years old, though of a ruddy fresh countenance and a clear +bright eye, and takes no more contracts, and is even reluctantly +persuaded to do the ordinary stone work of the neighbourhood. He is +"well enough off," as the saying goes, to rest during the remainder of +his years, for he has lived a temperate and frugal life, owns his own +home with the little garden behind it, and has money in the bank. But he +can be prevailed upon, like an old artist who has reached the time of +life when it seems as important to enjoy as to create, he can sometimes +be prevailed upon to lay a wall for the joy of doing it. + +So I had the stone hauled onto the ground, the best old field stone I +could find, and I had a clean, straight foundation dug, and when all was +ready I brought the old man over to look at it. I said I wanted his +advice. No sooner did his glance light upon the stone, no sooner did he +see the open and ready earth than a new light came in his eye. His step +quickened and as he went about he began to hum an old tune under his +breath. I knew then that I had him! He had taken fire. I could see that +his eye was already selecting the stones that should "go down," the fine +square stones to make the corners or cap the wall, and measuring with a +true eye the number of little stones for the fillers. In no time at all +he had agreed to do my work; indeed, would have felt aggrieved if I had +not employed him. + +I enjoyed the building of the wall, I think, as much as he did, and +helped him what I could by rolling the larger stones close down to the +edge of the wall. As the old man works he talks, if any one cares to +listen, or if one does not care to listen he is well content to remain +silent among his stones. But I enjoyed listening, for nothing in this +world is so fascinating to me as the story of how a man has come to be +what he is. When we think of it there are no abstract adventures in this +world, but only your adventure and my adventure, and it is only as we +come to know a man that we can see how wonderful his life has been. + +He told me all about the great walls and the little walls--miles and +miles of them--he has built in the course of fifty years. He told of +crude boyhood walls when he was a worker for wages only, he told of +proud manhood walls when he took contracts for foundations, retaining +walls, and even for whole buildings, such as churches, where the work +was mostly of stone; he told me of thrilling gains and profits, and of +depressing losses; and he told me of his calm later work, again on +wages, for which he is chosen as a master of his craft. A whole long +lifetime of it--and the last years the best of all! + +As we drove up yesterday to select the steps from his piles of old field +stone, riding behind his great, slow, hairy-hoofed horse, in the +battered and ancient wagon, he pointed with his stubby whip to this or +that foundation, the work of his hands. + +"Fine job, that," said he, and I looked for the first time in my life at +the beautiful stonework beneath the familiar home of a friend. I had +seen the house a thousand times, and knew well the people in it, but my +unobservant eye had never before rested consciously upon that bit of +basement wall. How we go through life, losing most of the beauties of it +from sheer inability to see! But the old man, as he drives about, rarely +sees houses at all, especially wooden houses, and for all modern stucco +and cement work he entertains a kind of lofty contempt. Sham work of a +hasty and unskilled age! He never, I think, put in a shovelful of cement +except in the place where it belongs, as a mortar for good walls, and +never will do so as long as he lives. So long as he lives the standards +of high art will never be debased! + +He built that foundation, and this chimney, he worked on the tower of +the Baptist church in the town, "and never yet has there been a crack in +her, winter or summer"; and more than forty years ago he laid the +cornerstone of the old schoolhouse, the foundation walls of which stand +to-day as sound and strong as they were when they were put down. + +In dry walls I think the old stone mason takes the greatest pride of +all: for it is in the dry wall--I mean by that a wall laid without +mortar--that the sheer art of the mason comes most into play. Any one +can throw a wall together if he has mortar to make it stick, but a dry +wall must stand out for what it is, built solid from the bottom up, each +stone resting securely upon those below it, and braced and nested in by +the sheer skill of the mason. The art of the dry wall is the ancient +heritage of New England and speaks not only of the sincerity and the +conscientiousness of the old Puritan spirit but strikes the higher note +of beauty. Many of the older walls I know are worth going far to see, +for they exhibit a rare sense of form and proportion, and are sometimes +set in the landscape with a skill that only the Master-Artist himself +could exceed. Those old, hard-wrought stone fences of the Burnham Hills +and Crewsbury, the best of them, were honestly built, and built to last +a thousand years. A beautiful art--and one that is passing away! It is +the dry wall that stands of itself that the old stone mason loves best +of all. + +As we drove along the road the old man pointed out to me with his stubby +whip so many examples of his work that it seemed finally as if he had +borne a hand in nearly everything done in this neighbourhood in the last +half-century. He has literally built himself into the country and into +the town, and at seventy years of age he can look back upon it all with +honest pride. It stands. No jerry-work anywhere. No cracks. It stands. + +I never realized before how completely the neighbourhood rests upon the +work of this simple old man. He _founded_ most of the homes here, and +upon his secure walls rest many of the stores, the churches, and the +schools of the countryside. I see again how important each man is to the +complete fabric of civilization and know that we are to leave no one +out, despise no one, look down upon no one. + +He told me stories of this ancient settler and of that. + +He was a powerful queer man--he wanted the moss left on his stones +when I put 'em in; never a hammer touched the facings of _his_ wall... + +"That is properly a woman's wall. She was the boss, you might call it, +and wanted stone, but _he_ wanted brick. So you see the front, where +people can see it, is of stone, but the sides is all brick." + +Thus like the true artist that he is, he has not only built himself his +own honesty, truth, skill, into the town, but he has built in the +inexhaustible peculiarities, the radiant charm, the hates and the loves, +of the people of this place. He has mirrored his own little age in +stone. He knows the town, indeed, better than most of us, having a kind +of stone-age knowledge of it--the fundamental things men build in when +they set about building permanently. + +"And that is what you might call a spite-wall," said he, showing me a +long wall leading between two shady homes, making one of them a prison +on the south, and the other a prison on the north. He told me the story +of an ancient and bitter quarrel between two old friends, a story which +sounded to-day among spring blossoms like the account of some ancient +baronial feud. + +But if the old stone mason has built walls to keep enemies apart how +many more walls has he built to keep friends together? How many times +has he been consulted by shy lovers seeking a foundation for a new home, +a new family, how many times by Darby and Joan planning a resting place +for the sunny closing years of their lives! He could point, indeed, to +one wall that symbolized hatred; all the others meant homes, roof-trees, +families, or they were the foundations for the working places of men, or +else, like the tower of the church, they pointed heavenward and were +built to the glory of God. + +The old stone mason has not the slightest idea that he has done anything +unusual or wonderful. He is as simple and honest a man as ever I knew; +and if he has pride, simple and honest also in that. He was anxious not +to charge me too much for the stone I bought--in an age like this! I +have never talked with him about God, or about religion: I had no need +to. + +[Illustration: All the others meant homes, roof-trees, families, or +else, like the tower of the church, they pointed heavenward, and were +built to the glory of God.] + +He has done his duty in other ways by his time and his place. He has +brought up a large family of children; and has known sorrow and loss, +as well as happiness and contentment. Two of his children were taken in +one day with pneumonia. He told me about it with a quaver in his old +voice. + +"How long ago was it?" I asked. + +"Twenty-seven years." + +He has sons and daughters left, and two of the sons he has well trained +as stone masons after him. They are good as young men go in a degenerate +age. They insist on working in cement! He has grandchildren in school, +and spoils them. + +He is also a man of public interests and upon town-meeting day puts on +his good clothes and sits modestly toward the back of the hall. Though +he rarely says anything he always has a strong opinion, an opinion as +sound and hard as stones and as simple, upon most of the questions that +come up. And he votes as he thinks, though the only man in meeting who +votes that way. For when a man works in the open, laying walls true to +lines and measurements, being honest with natural things, he comes +clear, sane, strong, upon many things. I would sooner trust his judgment +upon matters that are really important as between man and man, and man +and God, than I would trust the town lawyer. And if he has grown a +little testy with some of the innovations of modern life, and thinks +they did everything better forty years ago--and says so--he speaks, at +least, his honest conviction. + +If I can lay my walls as true as he does, if I can build myself a third +part as firmly into any neighbourhood as he has into this, if at seventy +years of age--if ever I live to lay walls with joy at that time of +life--if I can look back upon _my_ foundations, _my_ heaven-pointing +towers, and find no cracks or strains in them, I shall feel that I have +made a great success of my life.... + +I went out just now: the old man was stooping to lift a heavy stone. His +hat was off and the full spring sunshine struck down warmly upon the +ruddy bald spot on the top of his head, the white hair around about it +looking silvery in that light. As he placed the stone in the wall, he +straightened up and rubbed his stubby hand along it. + +"A fine stone that!" said he. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +AN AUCTION OF ANTIQUES + +"I would not paint a face + Or rocks or streams or trees +Mere semblances of things-- + But something more than these." + +"I would not play a tune + Upon the sheng or lute +Which did not also sing + Meanings that else were mute." + +John Templeton died on the last day of August, but it was not until some +weeks later that his daughter Julida, that hard-favoured woman, set a +time for the auction. It fell happily upon a mellow autumn day, and as I +drove out I saw the apples ripening in all the orchards along the road, +and the corn was beginning to look brown, and the meadows by the brook +were green with rowen. It was an ideal day for an auction, and farmers +and townsmen came trooping from all parts of the country, for the +Templeton antiques were to be sold. + +John Templeton lived in one house for seventy-eight years; he was born +there, and you will find the like of that in few places in America. It +was a fine house for its time, for any time, and not new when John +Templeton was born. A great, solid, square structure, such as they built +when the Puritan spirit was virile in New England, with an almost Greek +beauty of measured lines. It has a fanlight over the front door, windows +exquisitely proportion, and in the center a vast brick chimney. Even +now, though weathered and unpainted, it stands four-square upon the +earth with a kind of natural dignity. A majestic chestnut tree grows +near it, and a large old barn and generous sheds, now somewhat +dilapidated, ramble away to the rear. + +Enclosing the fields around about are stone fences representing the +infinite labour of John Templeton's forebears. More toil has gone into +the stone fences of New England, free labour of a free people, than ever +went into the slave-driven building of the Pyramids of Egypt. + +I knew John Templeton in his old age--a stiff, weather-beaten old man +driving to town in a one-horse buggy. + +"How are you, Mr. Templeton?" + +"Comin' on, comin' on." This was his invariable reply. + +He had the old New England pronunciation, now disappearing. He said +"rud" for road, "daown" for down, and gave an indescribable twist to the +word garden, best spelled "gardin." He had also the old New England +ways. He was forehanded with his winter woodpile, immaculately neat with +his dooryard, determined in his Sunday observance, and if he put the +small apples in the middle of the barrel he refused to raise tobacco, +lest it become a cause of stumbling to his neighbour. He paid his debts, +disciplined his children, and in an age which has come to look chummily +upon God, he dreaded His wrath. + +He grew a peculiar, very fine variety of sweet apple which I have never +seen anywhere else. He called it the Pumpkin Sweet, for it was of a rich +yellow. I can see him yet, driving into town with a shallow wagon box +half full of this gold of the orchard; can see him turn stiffly to get +one of the apples for me; can hear him say in the squeaky voice of age: + +"Ye won't find no sweeter apples hereabout, I can tell ye that." + +He was a dyed-in-the-wool abolition Republican and took the Boston +_Transcript_ for forty-six years. He left two cords of them piled up in +a back storeroom. He loved to talk about Napoleon Bonaparte and the +Battle of Waterloo, and how, if there had not been that delay of half an +hour, the history of the world might have been different. I can see him +saying, with the words puffing out his loose cheeks: + +"And then Blooker kem up--" + +To the very last, even when his eyes were too dim to read and his voice +was cracked, he would start up, like some old machine set a-whirring +when you touched the rusty lever, and talk about the Battle of Waterloo. + +No one, so far as I know, ever heard him complain, or bemoan his age, or +regret the change in the times; and when his day came, he lay down upon +his bed and died. + +"Positively nothing will be reserved," were the familiar words of the +poster, and they have a larger meaning in an old country neighbourhood +than the mere sale of the last pan and jug and pig and highboy. Though +we live with our neighbours for fifty years we still secretly wonder +about them. We still suspect that something remains covered, something +kept in and hidden away, some bits of beauty unappreciated--as they are, +indeed, with ourselves. But death snatches away the last friendly +garment of concealment; and after the funeral the auction. We may enter +now. The doors stand at last flung widely open; all the attics have been +ransacked; all the chests have been turned out; a thousand privacies +stand glaringly revealed in the sunny open spaces of the yard. +Positively nothing will be reserved; everything will be knocked down to +the highest bidder. What wonder that the neighbourhood gathers, what +wonder that it nods its head, leaves sentences half uttered, smiles +enigmatically. + +Nearly all the contents of the house had been removed to the yard, under +the great chesnut tree. A crowd of people, mostly women, were moving +about among the old furniture, the old furniture that had been in John +Templeton's family for no one knows how long--old highboys and lowboys, +a beautifully simple old table or so, and beds with carved posts, and +hand-wrought brasses, and an odd tall clock that struck with sonorous +dignity. These things, which had been temptingly advertised as +"antiques," a word John Templeton never knew, were only the common +serviceable things of uncounted years of family life. + +Nothing about the place was of any great value except the antiques, and +it was these that drew the well-dressed women in automobiles from as far +away as Hempfield and Nortontown; and yet there were men in plenty to +poke the pigs, look sarcastically at the teeth of the two old horses, +and examine with calculating and rather jeering eyes John Templeton's +ancient buggy, and the harness and the worn plough and cultivator and +mowing machine. Everything seems so cheap, so poor, so unprotected, +when the spirit has departed. + +Under the chestnut tree the swarthy auctioneer with his amiable +countenance and ironical smile acquired through years of dispassionate +observation of the follies of human emotion, the mutability of human +affairs, the brevity of human endeavour, that brought everything at last +under his hammer--there by the chestnut tree the auctioneer had taken +his stand in temporary eminence upon an old chest, with an ancient +kitchen cupboard near him which served at once as a pulpit for +exhortation, and a block for execution. Already the well-worn smile had +come pat to his countenance, and the well-worn witticisms were ready to +his tongue. + +"Now, gentlemen, if you'll give me such attention as you can spare from +the ladies, we have here to-day----" + +But I could not, somehow, listen to him: the whole scene, the whole deep +event, had taken hold upon me strangely. It was so full of human +meaning, human emotion, human pathos. I drifted away from the crowd and +stepped in at the open door of the old house, and walked through the +empty, resounding rooms with their curious old wallpaper and low +ceilings and dusty windows. And there were the old fireplaces where the +heavy brick had been eaten away by the pokings and scrapings of a +century; and the thresholds worn by the passage of many feet, the +romping feet of children, the happy feet of youth the bride passed here +on her wedding night with her arm linked in the arm of the groom; the +sturdy, determined feet of maturity; the stumbling feet of old age +creeping in; the slow, pushing feet of the bearers with the last burden, +crowding out-- + +The air of the house had a musty, shut-in odour, ironically cut through, +as all old things are, by the stinging odour of the new: the boiling of +the auction coffee in the half-dismantled kitchen, the epochal moment in +the life of Julia Templeton. I could hear, occasionally, her high, +strident worried voice ordering a helper about. Such a hard-favoured +woman! + +It is the studied and profitable psychology of the auction that the +rubbish must be sold first--pots and bottles and jugs at five-cent bids, +and hoes at ten--and after that, the friction of the contest having +warmed in the bidders an amiable desire to purchase goods they do not +want and cannot use, the auctioneer gradually puts forth the treasures +of the day. + +As I came out of the old house I could see that the mystic web had been +spun, that the great moment of the sale was arriving. The auctioneer was +leaning forward now upon the tall cupboard with an air of command, and +surveying the assembled crowd with a lordly eye. + +"Now, Jake, careful there--pass it along--steady.... We come now to the +cheff dooves of the day, the creem delly creems of this sale. Gentleman +_and_ ladies, it is a great moment in the life of an auctioneer when he +can offer, for sale, free and without reservation, such treasures as +these...." + +I could feel the warming interest of the crowd gathering in more closely +about Mr. Harpworth, the furtive silences of shrewd bargainers, +eagerness masked as indifference, and covetousness cloaking itself with +smiling irony. It is in the auction that trade glorifies itself finally +as an Art. + +"Here, gentlemen _and_ ladies, is a genuine antique, hand-wrought and +solid all the way through. Just enough worn to give the flavour and +distinction of age. Well built in the first place, plain, simple lines, +but, ladies, _beautiful_." + +It was the tall four-post bed he was selling and he now put his hand +upon this object--a hardy service with a cunningly simulated air of +deference. It was to be profaned by no irreverent handling! + +"What am I offered for this heirloom of the Templeton family? Ten? Ten! +Fifteen over there, thank you, Mr. Cody. Why, gentlemen, that bed cannot +be duplicated in America! A real product of Colonial art! Look at the +colour of it! Where will you find such depth of colour in any modern +piece? Age varnished it, gentlemen, age and use--the use of a hundred +years.... Twenty over there, twenty I hear, twenty, twenty, make it +thirty.... Speak up now, Ike, we know you've come here to-day to make +your fortune--do I hear thirty?" + +No sooner had the great bed been sold ("it's yours, Mrs. Craigie, a +treasure and dirt cheap") there came an ancient pair of hand-wrought +andirons, and a spider-legged table, and a brass warming-pan, and a +banjo clock.... + +I scarcely know how to explain it, but the sale of these inanimate +antiques, so charged with the restrained grace, the reticent beauty, the +serviceable strength, of a passing age, took hold upon me with strange +intensity. In times of high emotion the veil between sight and insight +slips aside and that which lies about us suddenly achieves a higher +reality. We are conscious of + +"Something beside the form +Something beyond the sound." + +It came to me with a thrill that this was no mere sale of antique wood +and brass and iron, but a veritable auction, here symbolized, of the +decaying fragments of a sternly beautiful civilization. + +I looked off across the stony fields, now softly green in the sunlight, +from which three generations of the Templeton family had wrung an heroic +living; I looked up at the majestic old house where they had lived and +married and died.... + +As my eye came back to the busy scene beneath the chestnut tree it +seemed to me, how vividly I cannot describe--that beside or behind the +energetic and perspiring Mr. Harpworth there stood Another Auctioneer. +And I thought he had flowing locks and a patriarchal beard, and a scythe +for a sign of the uncertainty of life, and a glass to mark the swiftness +of its passage. He was that Great Auctioneer who brings all things at +last under his inexorable hammer. + +After that, though Mr. Harpworth did his best, he claimed my attention +only intermittently from that Greater Sale which was going on at his +side, from that Greater Auctioneer who was conducting it with such +consummate skill--for _he_ knew that nothing is for sale but life. The +mahogany highboy, so much packed and garnered life cut into inanimate +wood; the andirons, so much life; the bookshelves upon which John +Templeton kept his "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," so much life. Life for +sale, gentlemen! What am I offered to-day for this bit of life--and +this--and this-- + +Mr. Harpworth had paused, for even an auctioneer, in the high moment of +his art, remains human; and in the silence following the cessation of +the metallic click of his voice, "Thirty, thirty, thirt, thirt--make it +thirty-five--thank you--forty," one could hear the hens gossiping in the +distant yard. + +"There were craftsmen in those days, gentlemen," he was resuming; "look +at this example of their art--there is quality here and durability----" + +At this point the Great Auctioneer broke in upon my attention and caught +up Mr. Harpworth's words: + +"Yes, quality and durability--quality and durability. I also have here +to-day, and will offer you, gentlemen, a surpassing antique, not built +of wood nor fashioned in brass or iron, but a thing long attached to +these acres and this house. I present for your consideration the married +life of John Templeton and Hannah his wife. They lived together forty +years, and the record scarcely shows a dent. In all that time hardly a +word of love passed between them; but never a word of hatred, either. +They had a kind of hard and fast understanding, like the laws of Moses. +He did the work of the fields and she did the work of the house, from +sunrise to sunset. On Sunday they went to church together. He got out at +five o'clock to milk and harness up; and it made double work for her, +what with getting the children cleaned, and the milk taken care of, and +the Sunday dinner made ready. But neither he nor she every doubted or +complained. It was the Lord's way. She bore him eight children. She told +him before the last one came that she was not equal to it.... After that +she was an invalid for seventeen years until she died. And there was +loss of children to bear between them, and sickness, and creeping age, +but this bit of furniture held firm to the last. Gentlemen, it was mad +solid, no veneer, a good job all the way through." + +As he spoke I thought that his roving eye (perhaps it was only my own!) +fell upon Johnny Holcomb, whose married life has been full of +vicissitudes. + +"John, take this home with you; _you_ can use it." + +"Nope, no such married life for me," I thought I could hear him +responding, rather pleased than not to be the butt of the auctioneer. + +"Do I hear any bids?" the Great Auctioneer was saying, almost in the +words of Mr. Harpworth. "_What!_ No one wants n married life like this? +Well, put it aside, Jake. It isn't wanted. Too old-fashioned." + +It was Julia Templeton herself who now appeared with certain of the +intimate and precious "bedroom things"--a wonderful old linen +bedspread, wrought upon with woollen figures, and exaling an ancient and +exquisite odour of lavender, and a rag rug or so, and a little old +rocking chair with chintz coverings in which more than one Templeton +mother had rocked her baby to sleep. Julia herself---- + +I saw Julia, that hard-favoured woman, for the first time at that +moment, really saw her. How fiercely she threw down the spread and the +rugs! How bold and unweeping her eyes! How hard and straight the lines +of her mouth! + +"Here they are, Mr. Harpworth!" + +How shrill her voice; and how quickly she turned back to the noisy +kitchen! I could see the angular form, the streakings of gray in her +hair. ... + +"What am I offered now for this precious antique? This hand-made spread? +Everything sold without reserve! Come, now, don't let this opportunity +slip by." He leaned forward confidentially and persuasively: "Fellah +citizens, styles change and fashions pass away, but things made like +these, good lines, strong material, honest work, they never grow +old...." + +Here the Shadowy Auctioneer broke in again and lifted me out of that +limited moment. + +"A true word!" he was saying. "Styles change and fashions pass away, and +only those things that are well made, and made for service the beautiful +things remain. I am offering to-day, without reservation, another +precious antique. What will you give for such a religious faith as that +of John Templeton? Worn for a lifetime and sound to the end. He read the +Bible every Sunday morning of his life, went to church, and did his +religious duty by his children. Do you remember young Joe Templeton? +Wouldn't learn his chapter one Sunday, and the old gentleman prayed +about it and then beat him with a hitching strap. Joe ran away from home +and made his fortune in Minnesota. Nearly broke the mother's heart, and +old John's, too; but he thought it right, and never repented it. +Gentlemen, an honest man who feared God and lived righteously all his +days! What am I offered for this durable antique, this characteristic +product of New England? Do I hear a bid?" + +At this I felt coming over me that strange urge of the auction, to bid +and to buy. A rare possession indeed, not without a high, stern kind of +beauty! It would be wonderful to possess such a faith; but what had I to +offer that Shadowy Auctioneer? What coin that would redeem past times +and departed beliefs? + +It was curious how the words of Mr. Harpworth fitted into the fabric of +my imaginings. When he next attracted my attention he was throwing up +his hands in a fine semblance of despair. We were such obtuse +purchasers! + +"I think," said Mr. Harpworth, "that this crowd came here to-day only to +eat Julia Templeton's auction luncheon. What's the matter with this here +generation? You don't want things that are well made and durable, but +only things that are cheap and flashy. Put 'er aside, Jake. We'll sell +'er yet to some historical museum devoted to the habits and customs of +the early Americans." + +He was plainly disgusted with us, and we felt it keenly, and were glad +and pleased when, a moment later, he gave evidence of being willing to +go on with us, paltry as we were. + +"Jake, pass up that next treasure." + +His spirits were returning; his eyes gleamed approvingly upon the newly +presented antique. He looked at us with fresh confidence; he was still +hopeful that we would rise to his former good opinion of us. + +"And now before I sell the hail clock by Willard, date of 1822, I am +going to offer what is possibly the best single piece in this sale...." + +Here again the Old Auctioneer, having caught his cue broke in. When he +spoke, who could listen to Mr. Harpworth? + +"... the best single piece in this sale, gentlemen! I offer you now the +Templeton family pride! A choice product of old New England. A little +battered, but still good and sound. The Templetons! They never did +anything notable except to work, work early and late, summer and winter, +for three generations. They were proud of any one who bore the Templeton +name; they were proud even of Jim, simple Jim, who got a job driving the +delivery wagon at the hill store, and drove it for twenty-two years and +was drowned in Mill River. I'll tell you what family pride meant to old +John Templeton...." + +I thought he leaned forward to take us into his confidence, motioning +at the same time toward the house. + +"You know Julia Templeton----" + +Know her? Of course we knew her! Knew her as only the country knows its +own. + +"When Julia ran away with that sewing-machine agent--it was her only +chance!--old John Templeton drove his best cow into town and sold her, +he mortgaged his team of horses, and went after the girl and brought her +home with him. They were firm and strong and as righteous as God with +her; and they paid off, without whining, the mortgages on the horses, +and never spoke of the loss of the cow--but never forgot it. They held +up their heads to the end. Gentlemen, what am I offered for this +interesting antique, this rare work of art?" + + * * * * * + +The auction was considered, upon the whole, a great success. Mr. +Harpworth himself said so. Ike, the Jewish dealer, bought the family +clock and the spring-tooth harrow, and even bid on the family crayon +portraits (the frames could be sold for something or other); a Swede +bought the pigs and the old buggy; an Irish teamster bid in John +Templeton's horses, and a Pole, a good man, I know him well, bought the +land, and will no doubt keep his geese in the summer kitchen, and get +rich from the cultivation of the ancient fields. While old John +Templeton bowed himself humbly before a wrathful God he would never go +down on his knees, as the Poles do, to the fertile earth. And--I +forgot--an Italian from Nortontown bought for a song the apple and +chestnut crops, and busy third generation Americans loaded in the +antiques and drove off with them to the city. + +The last I saw of Julia Templeton, that hard-favoured woman, she was +standing, an angular figure, in the midst of the wreck of the luncheon +dishes, one arm wrapped in her apron, the other hand shading her eyes +while she watched the company, in wagons and automobiles, trailing away +to the westward, and the towns.... + +The sale was over; but the most valuable antiques of all found no +purchasers: they were left behind with Julia Templeton: only she could +use them. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +A WOMAN OF FORTY-FIVE + +We have an Astonishing Woman in this community. She acts in a way that +no one expects, and while we are intensely interested in everything she +does, and desire to know about it to the uttermost detail, we are +inclined to speak of her in bated breath. + +Some Woman to Talk About in a country neighbourhood is a kind of public +necessity. She fills one of the stated functions like the town assessor, +or the president of the Dorcas Society; and if ever the office falls +vacant we have immediate resort to one of those silent elections at +which we choose our town celebrities. There are usually several +candidates, and the campaign is accompanied by much heated argument and +exemplification. We have our staunch party men and our irresponsible +independents on whom you can never put your finger; and if we are +sometimes a little vague in our discussion of principles and issues we +share with our national political leaders an intense interest in +personalities. Prominent citizens "come out" for this candidate or that, +we "spring surprises," and launch new booms, and often, at the last +moment, we are taken off our feet by the circulation of comebacks. I +take a pardonable pride, however, in saying, to the credit of our +democratic institutions that most of the candidates elected are chosen +strictly upon merit. + +I shall never forget the afternoon, now more than a year ago, that +Harriet came up the road bearing the news which, beyond a doubt, placed +the present incumbent in office; and has served to keep her there, +despite the efforts in certain quarters, which shall be nameless, to use +that pernicious instrument of radicalism, the recall. + +I can always tell when Harriet brings important news. She has a slightly +quicker step, carries her head a little more firmly, and when she speaks +impresses her message upon me with a lowered voice. When Harriet looks +at me severely and drops down an octave I prepare for the worst. + +"David," she said, "Mary Starkweather has gone to live in the barn!" + +"In the _barn_!" + +"In the barn." + +I don't know quite why it is, but I dislike being surprised, and do my +best to cover it up, and, besides, I have always liked Mary +Starkweather. So I remarked, as casually as I could: + +"Why not? It's a perfectly good barn." + +"David Grayson!" + +"Well, it is. It's a better building to-day than many of the people of +this town live in. Why shouldn't Mary Starkweather live in the barn if +she wants to? It's her barn." + +"But, _David_--there are her children--and her husband!" + +"There always are, when anybody wants to live in a barn." + +"I shall not talk with you any more," said Harriet, "until you can be +serious." + +I had my punishment, as I richly deserved to have, in the gnawing of +unsatisfied curiosity, which is almost as distressing as a troubled +conscience. + +Within the next few days, I remember, I heard the great news buzzing +everywhere I went. We had conjectured that the barn was being refitted +for the family of a caretaker, and it was Mary Starkweather herself, our +sole dependable representative of the Rich, who was moving in! Mary +Starkweather, who had her house in town, and her home in the country, +and her automobiles, and her servants, and her pictures, and her books, +to say nothing of her husband and her children and her children's maid +going to live in her barn! I leave it to you if there was not a valid +reason for our commotion. + +It must have been two weeks later that I went to town by the upper hill +road in order to pass the Starkweather place. It is a fine old estate, +the buildings, except the barn, set well back from the road with a +spacious garden near them, and pleasant fields stretching away on every +hand. As I skirted the shoulder of the hill I looked eagerly for the +first glimpse of the barn. I confess that I had woven a thousand stories +to explain the mystery, and had reached the point where I could no +longer resist seeing if I could solve it. + +Well, the barn was transformed. Two or three new windows, a door with a +little porch, a lattice or so for vines, a gable upon the roof lifting +an inquiring eyebrow--and what was once a barn had become a charming +cottage. It seemed curiously to have come alive, to have acquired a +personality of its own. A corner of the great garden had been cut off +and included in the miniature grounds of the cottage; and a simple +arbour had been built against a background of wonderful beech trees. You +felt at once a kind of fondness for it. + +I saw Mary Starkweather in her garden, in a large straw hat, with a +trowel in her hand. + +"How are you, David Grayson?" she called out when I stopped. + +"I have been planning for several days," I said, "to happen casually by +your new house." + +"Have you?" + +"You don't know how you have stirred our curiosity. We haven't had a +good night's rest since you moved in." + +"I've no doubt of it," she laughed. "Won't you come in? I'd like to tell +you all about it." + +"I also prepared to make excuses for not stopping," I said, "and thought +up various kinds of urgent business, such as buying a new snow shovel to +use next winter, but after making these excuses I intended to stop--if +I were sufficiently urged." + +"You are more than urged: you are commanded." + +As I followed her up the walk she said earnestly: + +"Will you do me a favour? When you come in will you tell me the first +impression my living-room gives you? No second thoughts. Tell me +instantly." + +"I'll do it." I said, my mind leaping eagerly to all manner of +mysterious surprises. + +At the centre of the room she turned toward me and with a sweeping +backward motion of the arms, made me a bow--a strong figure instinct +with confident grace: a touch of gray in the hair, a fleeting look of +old sadness about the eyes. + +"Now, David Grayson," she said, "quick!" + +It was not that the room itself was so remarkable as that it struck me +as being confusingly different from the heavily comfortable rooms of the +old Starkweather house with their crowded furnishings, their overloaded +mantels, their plethoric bookcases. + +"I cannot think of you yet," I stumbled, "as being here." + +"Isn't it _like_ me?" + +"It is a beautiful room--" I groped lamely. + +"I was afraid you would say that." + +"But it is. It really is." + +"Then I've failed, after all." + +She said it lightly enough, but there was an undertone of real +disappointment in her voice. + +"I'm in rather the predicament," I said, "of old Abner Coates. You +probably don't know Abner. He sells nursery stock, and each spring when +he comes around and I tell him that the peach trees or the raspberry +bushes I bought of him the year before have not done well, he says, with +the greatest astonishment, 'Wal, now, ye ain't said what I hoped ye +would.' I see that I haven't said what you hoped I would." + +It was too serious a matter, however, for Mary Starkweather to joke +about. + +"But, David Grayson," she said, "isn't it _simple_?" + +I glanced around me with swift new comprehension. + +"Why, yes, it _is_ simple." + +I saw that my friend was undergoing some deep inner change of which this +room, this renovated barn, were mere symbols. + +"Tell me," I said, "how you came to such a right-about-face." + +"It's just that!" she returned earnestly, "It _is_ a right-about-face. +I think I am really in earnest for the first time in my life." + +I had a moment of flashing wonder if her marriage had not been in +earnest, a flashing picture of Richard Starkweather with his rather +tired, good-humoured face, and I wondered if her children were not +earnest realities to her, if her busy social life had meant nothing. +Then I reflected that we all have such moments, when the richest +experiences of the past seem as nothing in comparison with the fervour +of this glowing moment. + +"Everything in my life in the past," she was saying, "seems to have +happened to me. Life has done things _for_ me; I have had so few chances +of doing anything for myself." + +"And now you are expressing yourself." + +"Almost for the first time in my life!" + +She paused. "All my life, it seems to me, I have been smothered with +things. Just things! Too much of everything. All my time has been taken +up in caring for things and none in enjoying them." + +"I understand!" I said with a warm sense of corroboration and sympathy. + +"I had so many pictures on my walls that I never saw, really saw, any of +them. I saw the dust on them, I saw the cracks in the frames, that +needed repairing, I even saw better ways of arranging them, but I very +rarely saw, with the inner eye, what the artists were trying to tell me. +And how much time I have wasted on mere food and clothing--it is +appalling! I had become nothing short of a slave to my house and my +things." + +"I see now," I said, "why you have just one rose on your table." + +"Yes"--she returned eagerly--"isn't it a beauty! I spent half an hour +this morning looking for the best and most perfect rose in the garden, +and there it is!" + +She was now all alight with her idea, and I saw her, as we sometimes see +our oldest friends, as though I had not seen her before. She was that +phenomenon of the modern world--the free woman of forty-five. + +When a woman reaches the old age of youth, the years between forty and +forty-five, she either surrenders or revolts. In the older days in +America it was nearly always surrender. Those women of a past +generation bore many children: how many graves there are in our hill +cemeteries of women of forty to fifty who died leading families of five +or eight or ten children! How many second and third wives there were, +often with second and third families. Or if they did not die, how +terribly they toiled, keeping the house, clothing the children, cooking +the food. Or if they bore no children, yet they were bound down by a +thousand chains of convention and formality. + +But in these days we have a woman of forty-five who has not surrendered. +She is a vigorous, experienced, active-minded human being, just +beginning to look restlessly around her and take a new interest in the +world. Such a woman was Mary Starkweather; and this was her first +revolt. + +"You cannot imagine," she was saying, "what a joy it has been to +unaccumulate! To get rid of things! To select." + +"To become an artist in life!" + +"Yes! At last! What a lot of perfectly worthless trash accumulates +around us. Not beautiful, not even useful! And it is not only the lives +of the well-to-do that are choked and cluttered with things. I wish you +could see the house of our Polish farmer. He's been saving money, and +filling up his house with perfectly worthless ornaments--ornate clocks, +gorgeous plush furniture, impossible rugs--and yet he is only doing what +we are all doing on a more elaborate scale." + +I laughed. + +"That reminds me of a family of squirrels that lives in an oak tree on +my hill," I said. "I am never tired of watching them. In the fall they +work desperately, stealing all the hickory nuts and chestnuts on my +neighbour Horace's back pastures, five times as many as they need, and +then they forget, half the time, where they've hidden them. We're all +more or less in the squirrel stage of civilization." + +"Yes," she responded. "There are my books! I gathered up books for +years, just squirrel fashion, until I forgot what I had or where I put +them. You cannot know what joy I'm going to have in selecting just the +essential books, the ones I want by me for daily companions. All the +others, I see now, are temporary rubbish." + +"And you've made your selections?" + +"No, but I'm making them. You'll laugh when you come next time and I +show them to you. Oh, I am going to be stern with myself. I'm not going +to put a single book in that case for show, nor a single one to give the +impression that I'm profoundly interested in Egypt or Maeterlinck or +woman suffrage, when I'm positively not." + +"It's terribly risky," I said. + +"And I'm terribly reckless," she responded. + +As I went onward toward the town I looked back from the hilltop beyond +the big house for a last glimpse of the reconstructed barn, and with a +curious warm sense of having been admitted to a new adventure. Here was +life changing under my eyes! Here was a human being struggling with one +of the deep common problems that come to all of us. The revolt from +things! The struggle with superfluities! + +And yet as I walked along the cool aisles of the woods with the quiet +fields opening here and there to the low hill ridges, and saw the cattle +feeding, and heard a thrush singing in a thicket, I found myself letting +go--how can I explain it?--relaxing! I had been keyed up to a high pitch +there in that extraordinary room, Yes, it _was_ beautiful--and yet as I +thought of the sharp little green gate, the new gable, the hard, clean +mantel with the cloisonne vase, it wanted something.... + +As I was gathering the rowen crop of after-enjoyment which rewards us +when we reflect freshly upon our adventures, whom should I meet but +Richard Starkweather himself in his battered machine. The two boys, one +of whom was driving, and the little girl, were with him. + +"How are you, David?" he called out. "Whoa, there! Draw up, Jamie." + +We looked at each other for a moment with that quizzical, half-humorous +look that so often conveys, better than any spoken words, the +sympathetic greeting of friends. I like Richard Starkweather. + +He had come up from the city looking rather worn, for the weather had +been trying. He has blue, honest, direct-gazing eyes with small humour +wrinkles at the corners. I never knew a man with fewer theories, or with +a simpler devotion to the thing at hand, whatever it may be. At +everything else he smiles, not cynically, for he is too modest in his +regard for his own knowledge; he smiles at everything else because it +doesn't seem quite real to him. + +"Been up to see Mary's new house?" he asked. + +"Yes," And for the life of me I couldn't help smiling in response. + +"It's a wonder isn't it?" + +He thought his wife a very extraordinary woman. I remember his saying to +me once, "David, she's got the soul of a poet and the brain of a +general." + +"It _is_ a wonder," I responded. + +"I can't decide yet what chair to sit in, nor just what she wants the +kids to do." + +I still smiled. + +"I expect she hasn't determined yet," he went drawling on, "in what +chair I will look most decorative." + +He ruminated. + +"You know, she's got the idea that there's too much of everything. I +guess there is, too--and that she ought to select only those things that +an essential. I've been wondering, if she had more than one husband +whether or not she'd select me----" + +The restless young Jamie was now starting the machine, and Richard +Starkweather leaned out and said to me in parting: "isn't she a wonder! +Did all the planning herself--wouldn't have an architect--wouldn't have +a decorator--all I could do--" + +As he turned around I saw him throw one arm carelessly about the +shoulders of the sturdy younger boy who sat next him. + +When I got home I told Harriet all about what I had seen and heard. I +think I must feel when I am retailing such fascinating neighbourhood +events to Harriet--how she _does_ enjoy them!--I must feel very much as +she does when she is urging me to have just a little more of the new +gingerbread. + +In the next few months I watched with indescribable interest the +unfolding of the drama of Mary Starkweather. I saw her from time to time +that summer and she seemed, and I think she was, happier than ever she +had been before in her whole life. Making over her garden, selecting the +"essential books," choosing the best pictures for her rooms, even +reforming the clothing of the boys, all with an emphasis upon perfect +simplicity--her mind was completely absorbed. Occasionally Richard +appeared upon the stage, a kind of absurd Greek chorus of one, who +remarked what a wonderful woman this was and poked fun at himself and at +the new house, and asserted that Mary could be as simple as ever she +liked, he insisted on thick soup for dinner and would not sacrifice his +beloved old smoking jacket upon the altar of any new idea. + +"She's a wonder, David," he'd wind up: "but this simple life is getting +more complicated every day." + +It was in December, about the middle of the month, as I remember, that I +had a note one day from Mary Starkweather. + +"The next time you go to town," it ran, "stop in and see me. I've made a +discovery." + +With such a note as that us my hand it appeared imperative that I go to +town at once. I discovered, to Harriet's astonishment, that we were +running out of all sorts of necessaries. + +"Now, David," she said, "you know perfectly well that you're just making +up to call on Mary Starkweather." + +"That," I said, "relieves my conscience of a great burden." + +As I went out of the door I heard her saying: "Why Mary Starkweather +should _care_ to live in her barn...." + +It was a sparkling cold day, sun on the snow and the track crunching +under one's feet, and I walked swiftly and with a warm sense of coming +adventure. + +To my surprise there was no smoke in the cottage chimney, and when I +reached the door I found a card pinned upon it: + +PLEASE CALL AT THE HOUSE + +Mary Starkweather herself opened the door--she had seen me coming--and +took me into the big comfortable old living-room, the big, cluttered, +overfurnished living-room, with the two worn upholstered chairs at the +fireplace, in which a bright log fire was now burning. There was a +pleasant litter of books and magazines, and a work basket on the table, +and in the bay window an ugly but cheerful green rubber plant in a tub. + +"Well!" I exclaimed. + +"Don't smile--not yet." + +As I looked at her I felt not at all like smiling. + +"I know," she was saying, "it does have a humorous side. I can see that. +Dick has seen it all along. Do you know, although Dick pretends to +pooh-pooh everything intellectual, he has a really penetrating mind." + +I had a sudden vision of Dick in his old smoking jacket, standing in +the midst of the immaculate cottage that was once a barn, holding his +pipe with one finger crooked around the stem just in front of his nose +in the way he had, and smiling across at me. + +"Have you deserted the cottage entirely?" + +"Oh, we may possibly go back in the spring-----" She paused and looked +into the fire, her fine, strong face a little sad in composure, full of +thought. + +"I am trying to be honest with myself David. Honest above everything +else. That's fundamental. It seems to me I have wanted most of all to +learn how to live my life more freely and finely.... I thought I was +getting myself free of things when, as a matter of fact, I was devoting +more time to them than ever before-and, besides that, making life more +or less uncomfortable for Dick and the children. So I've taken my +courage squarely in my hands and come back here into this blessed old +home, this blessed, ugly, stuffy old home--I've learned _that_ lesson." + +At this, she glanced up at me with that rare smile which sometimes +shines out of her very nature: the smile that is herself. + +"I found," she said, "that when I had finished the work of becoming +simple--there was nothing else left to do." + +I laughed outright, for I couldn't help it, and she joined me. How we do +like people who can laugh at themselves. + +"But," I said, "there was sound sense in a great deal that you were +trying to do." + +"The fireplace smoked; and the kitchen sink froze up; and the cook left +because we couldn't keep her room warm." + +"But you were right," I interrupted, "and I am not going to be put off +by smoking fireplaces or chilly cooks; you were right. We do have too +much, we are smothered in things, we don't enjoy what we do have--" + +I paused. + +"And you were making a beautiful thing, a beautiful house." + +"The trouble with making a beautiful thing," she replied, "is that when +you have got it done you must straightway make another. Now I don't want +to keep on building houses or furnishing rooms. I am not after beauty--I +mean primarily--what I want is to _live_, live simply, live greatly." + +She was desperately in earnest. + +"Perhaps," I said, feeling as though I were treading on dangerous +ground, "you were trying to be simple for the sake of being simple. I +wonder if true simplicity is ever any thing but a by-product. If we aim +directly for it, it eludes us: but if we are on fire with some great +interest that absorbs on lives to the uttermost, we forget ourselves +into simplicity, Everything falls into simple lines around us, like a +worn garment." + +I had the rather uncomfortable feeling on the way home that I had been +preachy; and the moment you became preachy begin to build up barriers +between yourself and your friends: but that's a defect of character I've +never been able, quite, to overcome. I keep thinking I've got the better +of it, but along will come a beautiful temptation and down I go--and +come out as remorseful as I was that afternoon on the way home from Mary +Starkweather's. + +A week or two later I happened to meet Richard Starkweather on the +street in Hempfield. He was on his way home. + +"Yes," he said, "we're in the old house again until spring, anyway. I +haven't been so comfortable in a year. And, say," here he looked at me +quizzically, "Mary has joined the new cemetery association; you know +they're trying to improve the resting places of the forefathers, and, by +George, if they didn't elect her chairman at the first meeting. She's a +wonder!" + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +HIS MAJESTY--BILL RICHARDS + +Well, I have just been having an amusing and delightful adventure and +have come to know a Great Common Person. His name is Bill Richards, and +he is one of the hereditary monarchs of America. He belongs to our +ruling dynasty. + +I first saw Bill about two weeks ago, and while I was strongly +interested in him I had no idea, at the time, that I should ever come to +know him well. It was a fine June day, and I was riding on the new +trolley line that crosses the hills to Hewlett--a charming trip through +a charming country--and there in the open car just in front of me sat +Bill himself. One huge bare forearm rested on the back of the seat, the +rich red blood showing through the weathered brown of the skin. His +clean brown neck rose strongly from the loose collar of his shirt, which +covered but could not hide the powerful lines of his shoulders. He wore +blue denim and khaki, and a small round felt hat tipped up jauntily at +the back. He had crisp, coarse light hair rather thin--not by age, but +by nature--so that the ruddy scalp could be seen through it, and strong +jaws and large firm features, and if the beard was two days old, his +face was so brown, so full of youthful health, that it gave no ill +impression. + +He could not sit still for the very life that was in him. He seemed to +have some grand secret with the conductor and frequently looked around +at him, his eyes full of careless laughter, and once or twice he called +out--some jocose remark. He helped the conductor, in pantomime, to pull +the cord and stop or start the car, and he watched with the liveliest +interest each passenger getting on or getting off. A rather mincing +young girl with a flaring red ribbon at her throat was to him the finest +comedy in the world, so that he had to wink a telegram to the conductor +about her. An old woman with a basket of vegetables who delayed the car +was exquisitely funny. + +I set him down as being about twenty-two years old and some kind of +outdoor workman, not a farmer. + +When he got off, which was before the car stopped, so that he had to +jump and run with it, he gave a wild flourish with both arms, grimaced +at the conductor, and went off down the road whistling for all he was +worth. How I enjoyed the sight of him! He was so charged with youthful +energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely +contain himself. What a fine place the world was to him! And what +comical and interesting people it contained! I was sorry when he got +off. + +Two or three days later I was on my way up the town road north of my +farm when I was astonished and delighted to see Bill for the second +time. He was coming down the road pulling a wire over the crosspiece of +a tall telephone pole (the company is rebuilding and enlarging its +system through our town). He was holding the wire close drawn over his +right shoulder, his strong hands gripped and pressed upon his breast. +The veins stood out in his brown neck where the burlap shoulder pad he +wore was drawn aside by the wire. He leaned forward, stepping first on +his toe, which he dug into the earth and then, heavily letting down his +heel, he drew the other foot forward somewhat stiffly. The muscles stood +out in his powerful shoulders and thighs. His legs were double-strapped +with climbing spurs. He was a master lineman. + +As I came alongside he turned a good-humoured sweaty face toward me. + +"It's dang hot," said he. + +"It is," said I. + +There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a strong +workman in the full swing of his work, something--yes, beautiful! A +hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could be +finer to see? And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth and easy +strength! + +I watched him for some time, curiously interested, and thought I should +like well to know him, but could not see just how to go about it. + +The man astride the cross-arm who was heaving the wire forward from the +spool on the distant truck suddenly cried out: + +"Ease up there, Bill, she's caught." + +So Bill eased up and drew his arm across his dripping face. + +"How many wires are you putting up?" I asked, fencing for some opening. + +"Three," said Bill. + +Before I could get in another stroke the man on the pole shouted: + +"Let 'er go, Bill." And Bill let 'er go, and buckled down again to his +job. + +"Gee, but it's hot," said he. + +In the country there are not so many people passing our way that we +cannot be interested in all of them. That evening I could not help +thinking about Bill, the lineman, wondering where he came from, how he +happened to be what he was, who and what sort were the friends he made, +and the nature of his ambitions, if he had any. Talk about going to the +North Pole! It is not to be compared, for downright fascination, with +the exploration of an undiscovered human being. + +With that I began to think how I might get at Bill, the lineman, and not +merely weather talk, or wages talk, or work talk, but at Bill himself. +He was a character quite unusual in our daily lives here in the country. +I wondered what his interests could be, surely not mine nor Horace's nor +the Starkweathers'. As soon as I began trying to visualize what his life +might be, I warmed up to a grand scheme of capturing him, if by chance +he was to be found the next day upon the town road. + +All this may seem rather absurd in the telling, but I found it a +downright good adventure for a quiet evening, and fully believe I felt +for the moment like General Joffre planning to meet the Germans on the +Marne. + +"I have it!" I said aloud. + +"You have what?" asked Harriet, somewhat startled. + +"The grandest piece of strategy ever devised in this town," said I. + +With that I went delving in a volume of universal information I keep +near me, one of those knowing books that tells you how tall the great +Pryamid is and why a hen cackles after laying an egg, and having found +what I wanted I asked Harriet if she could find a tape measure around +the place. She is a wonderful person and knows where everything is. When +she handed me the tape measure she asked me what in the world I was so +mysterious about. + +"Harriet," I said, "I'm going on a great adventure. I'll tell you all +about it to-morrow." + +"Nonsense," said Harriet. + +It is this way with the fancies of the evening--they often look flat and +flabby and gray the next morning. Quite impossible! But if I'd acted on +half the good and grand schemes I've had o' nights I might now be quite +a remarkable person. + +I went about my work the next morning just as usual. I even avoided +looking at the little roll of tape on the corner of the mantel as I went +out. It seemed a kind of badge of my absurdity. But about the middle of +the fore-noon, while I was in my garden, I heard a tremendous racket up +the road. Rattle--bang, zip, toot! As I looked up I saw the boss +lineman and his crew careering up the road in their truck, and the bold +driver was driving like Jehu, the son of Nimshi. And there were ladders +and poles clattering out behind, and rolls of wire on upright spools +rattling and flashing in the sunshine, and the men of the crew were +sitting along the sides of the truck with hats off and hair flying as +they came bumping and bounding up the road. It was a brave thing to see +going by on a spring morning! + +As they passed, whom should I see but Bill himself, at the top of the +load, with a broad smile on his face. When his eye fell on me he threw +up one arm, and gave me the railroad salute. + +"Hey, there!" he shouted. + +"Hey there, yourself," I shouted in return--and could not help it. + +I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd +of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load. + +It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and +taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though +it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as +adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet +but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay +that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning. + +Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little +valley near the far corner of Horace's farm, I found the truck, and Bill +just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped pennies and +Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools while the others +went down to the mill pond in the valley below. + +"How are you?" said I. + +"How are _you_?" said he. + +I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind. + +"Fine day," said I. + +"You bet," said he. + +He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the +roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below +into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and +somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing. + +"Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?" I asked. + +He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest. + +"No, did you?" + +"Or Bob Fitzsimmons?" + +"Nope--but I was mighty near it once. I've seen 'em both in the movies." + +"Well, sir," said I, "that's interesting. I should like to see them +myself. Do you know what made me speak of them?" + +He had spread down a newspaper and was taking the luncheon out of his +"bucket," as he called it, including a large bottle of coffee; but he +paused and looked at me with keen interest. + +"Well," said I, "when I saw you dragging that wire yesterday I took you +to be a pretty husky citizen yourself." + +He grinned and took a big mouthful from one of his sandwiches. I could +see that my shot had gone home. + +"So when I got back last night," I said, "I looked up the arm +measurements of Sullivan and Fitzsimmons in a book I have and got to +wondering how they compared with mine and yours. They were considerably +larger than mine--" + +Bill thought this a fine joke and laughed out in great good humour. + +"But I imagine you'd not be far behind either of them." + +He looked at me a little suspiciously, as if doubtful what I was driving +at or whether or not I was joking him. But I was as serious as the face +of nature; and proceeded at once to get out my tape measure. + +"I get very much interested in such things," I said, "and I had enough +curiosity to want to see how big your arm really was." + +He smiled broadly. + +"You're a queer one," said he. + +But he took another bite of sandwich, and clenching his great fist drew +up his forearm until the biceps muscles looked like a roll of Vienna +bread--except that they had the velvety gleam of life. So I measured +first one arm, then the other. + +"By George!" said I, "you're ahead of Fitzsimmons, but not quite up to +Sullivan." + +"Fitz wasn't a heavy man," said Bill, "but a dead game fighter." + +I saw then that I had him! So I sat down on the grass near by and we had +great talk about the comparative merits of Fitzsimmons and Sullivan and +Corbett and Jack Johnson, a department of knowledge in which he +out-distanced me. He even told me of an exploit or two of his own, +which showed that he was able to take care of himself. + +While we talked he ate his luncheon, and a downright gargantuan luncheon +it was, backed by an appetite which if it were offered to the highest +bidder on the New York Stock Exchange would, I am convinced, bring at +least ten thousand dollars in cash. It even made me envious. + +There were three huge corned-beef sandwiches, three hard-boiled eggs, a +pickle six inches long and fat to boot, four doughnuts so big that they +resembled pitching quoits, a bottle of coffee and milk, a quarter of a +pie, and, to cap the climax, an immense raw onion. It was worth a long +journey to see Bill eat that onion. He took out his clasp knife, and +after stripping off the papery outer shell, cut the onion into thick +dewy slices. Then he opened one of the sandwiches and placed several of +them on the beef, afterward sprinkling them with salt from a small paper +parcel. Having restored the top slice of bread he took a moon-shaped +bite out of one end of this glorified sandwich. + +"I like onions," said he. + +When we first sat down he had offered to share his luncheon with me but +I told him I had just been to dinner, and I observed that he had no +difficulty in taking care of every crumb in his "bucket." It was +wonderful to see. + +Having finished his luncheon he went down to the brook and got a drink, +and then sat down comfortably with his back among the ferns of the +roadside, crossed his legs, and lit his pipe. There was a healthy and +wholesome flush in his face, and as he blew off the first cloud of smoke +he drew a sigh of complete comfort and looked around at me with a lordly +air such as few monarchs, no matter how well fed, could have bettered. +He had worked and sweat for what he got, and was now taking his ease in +his roadside inn. I wonder sometimes if anybody in the world experiences +keener joys than unwatched common people. + +How we talked! From pugilists we proceeded to telephones, and from that +to wages, hours, and strikes, and from that we leaped easily to Alaska +and gold-mining, and touched in passing upon Theodore Roosevelt. + +"I was just thinking," I said, "that you and I can enjoy some things +that were beyond the reach of the greatest kings of the world." + +"How's that?" said he. + +"Why, Napoleon never saw a telephone nor talked through one." + +"That's so!" he laughed. + +"And Caesar couldn't have dreamed that such a thing as you are doing now +was a possibility--nor George Washington, either." + +"Say, that's so. I never thought o' that." + +"Why," I said, "the world is only half as big as it was before you +fellows came along stringing your wires! I can get to town now from my +farm in two minutes, when it used to take me an hour." + +I really believe I gave him more of his own business than ever he had +before, for he listened so intently that his pipe went out. + +I found that Bill was from Ohio, and that he had been as far south as +Atlanta and as far west as Denver. He got his three dollars and a half a +day, rain or shine, and thought it wonderful pay; and besides, he was +seein' the country "free, gratis, fer nothing." + +He got his coat out of the truck and took from the pocket a +many-coloured folder. + +"Say, Mister, have you ever been to the Northwest?" + +"No," said I. + +"Well, it's a great country, and I'm goin' up there." + +He spread out the glittering folder and placed his big forefinger on a +spot about the size of Rhode Island somewhere this side of the Rockies. + +"How'll you do it?" I asked. + +"Oh, a lineman can go anywhere," said he with a flourish, "A lineman +don't have to beg a job. Besides, I got eighty dollars sewed up." + +Talk about freedom! Never have I got a clearer impression of it than +Bill gave me that day. No millionaire, no potentate, could touch him. + +The crew came back all too soon for me. Bill knocked the ashes out of +his pipe on his boot heel, and put his "bucket" back in the truck. Five +minutes later he was climbing a tall pole with legs bowed out, striking +in his spikes at each step. From the cross-arm, up among the hemlock +tops, he called out to me: + +"Good-bye, pard." + +"Stop in, Bill, and see me when you come by my place," said I. + +"You bet," said he. + +And he did, the next day, and I showed him off to Harriet, who brought +him a plate of her best doughnuts and asked him about his mother. + +Yesterday I saw him again careering by in the truck. The job was +finished. He waved his hand at me. + +"I'm off," said he. + +"Where?" I shouted. + +"Canada." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +ON LIVING IN THE COUNTRY + +"Why risk with men your hard won gold*? +Buy grain and sow your Brother Dust +Will pay you back a hundred fold-- +The earth commits no breach of trust." + +_Hindu Proverb, Translated by Arthur Guiterman_. + +It is astonishing how many people there are in cities and towns who have +a secret longing to get back into quiet country places, to own a bit of +the soil of the earth, and to cultivate it. To some it appears as a +troublesome malady only in spring and will be relieved by a whirl or two +in country roads, by a glimpse of the hills, or a day by the sea; but to +others the homesickness is deeper seated and will be quieted by no hasty +visits. These must actually go home. + +I have had, in recent years, many letters from friends asking about +life in the country, but the longer I remain here, the more I know about +it, the less able I am to answer them--at least briefly. It is as though +one should come and ask: "Is love worth trying?" or, "How about +religion?" For country life is to each human being a fresh, strange, +original adventure. We enjoy it, or we do not enjoy it, or more +probably, we do both. It is packed and crowded with the zest of +adventure, or it is dull and miserable. We may, if we are skilled +enough, make our whole living from the land, or only a part of it, or we +may find in a few cherished acres the inspiration and power for other +work, whatever it may be. There is many a man whose strength is renewed +like that of the wrestler of Irassa, every time his feet touch the +earth. + +Of all places in the world where life can be lived to its fullest and +freest, where it can be met in its greatest variety and beauty, I am +convinced that there is none to equal the open country, or the country +town. For all country people in these days may have the city--some city +or town not too far away: but there are millions of men and women in +America who have no country and no sense of the country. What do they +not lose out of life! + +I know well the disadvantages charged against country life at its worst. +At its worst there are long hours and much lonely labour and an income +pitifully small. Drudgery, yes, especially for the women, and +loneliness. But where is there not drudgery when men are poor--where +life is at its worst? I have never seen drudgery in the country +comparable for a moment to the dreary and lonely drudgery of city +tenements, city mills, factories, and sweat shops. And in recent years +both the drudgery and loneliness of country life have been disappearing +before the motor and trolley car, the telephone, the rural post, the +gasoline engine. I have seen a machine plant as many potatoes in one day +as a man, at hand work, could have planted in a week. While there is, +indeed, real drudgery in the country, much that is looked upon as +drudgery by people who long for easy ways and a soft life, is only good, +honest, wholesome hard work--the kind of work that makes for fiber in a +man or in a nation, the kind that most city life in no wise provides. + +There are a thousand nuisances and annoyances that men must meet who +come face to face with nature itself. You have set out your upper acres +to peach trees: and the deer come down from the hills at night and strip +the young foliage; or the field mice in winter, working under the snow, +girdle and kill them. The season brings too much rain and the potatoes +rot in the ground, the crows steal the corn, the bees swarm when no out +is watching, the cow smothers her calf, the hens' eggs prove infertile, +and a storm in a day ravages a crop that has been growing all summer. A +constant warfare with insects and blights and fungi--a real, bitter +warfare, which can cease neither summer nor winter! + +It is something to meet, year after year, the quiet implacability of the +land. While it is patient, it never waits long for you. There is a +chosen time for planting, a time for cultivating, a time for harvesting. +You accept the gauge thrown down--well and good, you shall have a chance +to fight! You do not accept it? There is no complaint. The land +cheerfully springs up to wild yellow mustard and dandelion and +pig-weed--and will be productive and beautiful in spite of you. + +Nor can you enter upon the full satisfaction of cultivating even a small +piece of land at second hand. To be accepted as One Who Belongs, there +must be sweat and weariness. + +The other day I was digging with Dick in a ditch that is to run down +through the orchard and connect finally with the land drain we put in +four years ago. We laid the tile just in the gravel below the silt, +about two feet deep, covering the openings with tar paper and then +throwing in gravel. It was a bright, cool afternoon. In the field below +a ploughman was at work: I could see the furrows of the dark earth +glisten as he turned it over. The grass in the meadow was a full rich +green, the new chickens were active in their yards, running to the cluck +of the hens, already the leaves of the orchard trees showed green. And +as I worked there with Dick I had the curious deep feeling of coming +somehow into a new and more intimate possession of my own land. For +titles do not really pass with signatures and red seals, nor with money +changing from one hand to another, but for true possession one must work +and serve according to the most ancient law. There is no mitigation and +no haggling of price. Those who think they can win the greatest joys of +country life on any easier terms are mistaken. + +But if one has drained his land, and ploughed it, and fertilized it, +and planted it and harvested it--even though it be only a few acres-- +how he comes to know and to love every rod of it. He knows the wet +spots, and the stony spots, and the warmest and most fertile spots +--until his acres have all the qualities of a personality, whose every +characteristic he knows. It is so also that he comes to know his horses +and cattle and pigs and hens. It is a fine thing, on a warm day in early +spring, to bring out the bee-hives and let the bees have their first +flight in the sunshine. What cleanly folk they are! And later to see +them coming in yellow all over with pollen from the willows! It is a +fine thing to watch the cherries and plum trees come into blossom, with +us about the first of May, while all the remainder of the orchard seems +still sleeping. It is a fine thing to see the cattle turned for the +first time in spring into the green meadows. It is a fine thing--one of +the finest of all--to see and smell the rain in a corn-field after weeks +of drought. How it comes softly out of gray skies, the first drops +throwing up spatters of dust and losing themselves in the dry soil. Then +the clouds sweep forward up the valley, darkening the meadows and +blotting out the hills, and then there is the whispering of the rain as +it first sweeps across the corn-field. At once what a stir of life! What +rustling of the long green leaves. What joyful shaking and swaying of +the tassels! And have you watched how eagerly the grooved leaves catch +the early drops, and, lest there be too little rain after all, conduct +them jealously down the stalks where they will soonest reach the thirsty +roots? What a fine thing is this to see! + +One who thus takes part in the whole process of the year comes soon to +have an indescribable affection for his land, his garden, his animals. +There are thoughts of his in every tree: memories in every fence corner. +Just now, the fourth of June, I walked down past my blackberry patch, +now come gorgeously into full white bloom--and heavy with fragrance. I +set out these plants with my own hands, I have fed them, cultivated +them, mulched them, pruned them, trellised them, and helped every year +to pick the berries. How could they be otherwise than full of +associations! They bear a fruit more beautiful than can be found in any +catalogue: and stranger and wilder than in any learned botany book! + +Why, one who comes thus to love a bit of countryside may enjoy it all +the year round. When he awakens in the middle of a long winter night he +may send his mind out to the snowy fields--I've done it a thousand +times!--and visit each part in turn, stroll through the orchard and pay +his respects to each tree--in a small orchard one comes to know +familiarly every tree as he knows his friends--stop at the strawberry +bed, consider the grape trellises, feel himself opening the door of the +warm, dark stable and listening to the welcoming whicker of his horses, +or visiting his cows, his pigs, his sheep, his hens, or so many of them +as he may have. + +So much of the best in the world seems to have come fragrant out of +fields, gardens, and hillsides. So many truths spoken by the Master Poet +come to us exhaling the odours of the open country. His stories were so +often of sowers, husbandmen, herdsmen: his similes and illustrations so +often dealt with the common and familiar beauty of the fields. "Consider +the lilies how they grow." It was on a hillside that he preached his +greatest Sermon, and when in the last agony he sought a place to meet +his God, where did he go but to a garden? A carpenter you say? Yes, but +of this one may be sure: there were gardens and fields all about: he +knew gardens, and cattle, and the simple processes of the land: he must +have worked in a garden and loved it well. + +A country life rather spoils one for the so-called luxuries. A farmer or +gardener may indeed have a small cash income, but at least he eats at +the first table. He may have the sweetest of the milk, there are +thousands, perhaps millions, of men and women in America who have never +in their lives tasted really sweet milk and the freshest of eggs, and +the ripest of fruit. One does not know how good strawberries or +raspberries are when picked before breakfast and eaten with the dew +still on them. And while he must work and sweat for what he gets, he may +have all these things in almost unmeasured abundance, and without a +thought of what they cost. A man from the country is often made +uncomfortable, upon visiting the city, to find two cans of sweet corn +served for twenty or thirty cents, or a dish of raspberries at +twenty-five or forty--and neither, even at their best, equal in quality +to those he may have fresh from the garden every day. One need say this +in no boastful spirit, but as a simple statement of the fact: for +fruits sent to the city are nearly always picked before they are fully +ripe--and lose that last perfection of flavour which the sun and the +open air impart: and both fruits and vegetables, as well as milk and +eggs, suffer more than most people think from handling and shipment. +These things can be set down as one of the make-weights against the +familiar presentation of the farmer's life as a hard one. + +One of the greatest curses of mill or factory work and with much city +work of all kinds, is its interminable monotony: the same process +repeated hour after hour and day after day. In the country there is +indeed monotonous work but rarely monotony. No task continues very long: +everything changes infinitely with the seasons. Processes are not +repetitive but creative. Nature hates monotony, is ever changing and +restless, brings up a storm to drive the haymakers from their hurried +work in the fields, sends rain to stop the ploughing, or a frost to +hurry the apple harvest. Everything is full of adventure and +vicissitude! A man who has been a farmer for two hours at the mowing +must suddenly turn blacksmith when his machine breaks down and tinker +with wrench and hammer; and later in the day he becomes dairyman, +farrier, harness-maker, merchant. No kind of wheat but is grist to his +mill, no knowledge that he cannot use! And who is freer to be a citizen +than he: freer to take his part in town meeting and serve his state in +some one of the innumerable small offices which form the solid blocks of +organization beneath our commonwealth. + +I thought last fall that corn-husking came as near being monotonous +work, as any I had ever done in the country. I presume in the great +corn-fields of the West, where the husking goes on for weeks at a time, +it probably does grow really monotonous. But I soon found that there was +a curious counter-reward attending even a process as repetitive as this. + +I remember one afternoon in particular. It was brisk and cool with +ragged clouds like flung pennants in a poverty-stricken sky, and the +hills were a hazy brown, rather sad to see, and in one of the apple +trees at the edge of the meadow the crows were holding their mournful +autumn parliament. + +At such work as this one's mind often drops asleep, or at least goes +dreaming, except for the narrow margin of awareness required for the +simple processes of the hands. Its orders have indeed been given: you +must kneel here, pull aside the stalks one by one, rip down the husks, +and twist off the ear--and there is the pile for the stripped stalks, +and here the basket for the gathered corn, and these processes +infinitely repeated. + +While all this is going on, the mind itself wanders off to its own far +sweet pastures, upon its own dear adventures--or rests, or plays. It is +in these times that most of the airy flying things of this beautiful +world come home to us--things that heavy-footed reason never quite +overtakes, nor stodgy knowledge ever knows. I think sometimes (as Sterne +says) we thus intercept thoughts never intended for us at all, or +uncover strange primitive memories of older times than these--racial +memories. + +At any rate, the hours pass and suddenly the mind comes home again, it +comes home from its wanderings refreshed, stimulated, happy. And +nowhere, whether in cities, or travelling in trains, or sailing upon the +sea, have I so often felt this curious enrichment as I have upon this +hillside, working alone in field, or garden, or orchard, It seems to +come up out of the soil, or respond to the touch of growing things. + +What makes any work interesting is the fact that one can make +experiments, try new things, develop specialties and _grow_. And where +can he do this with such success as on the land and in direct contact +with nature. The possibilities are here infinite new machinery, +spraying, seed testing, fertilizers, experimentation with new varieties. +A thousand and one methods, all creative, which may be tried out in that +great essential struggle of the farmer or gardener to command all the +forces of nature. + +Because there are farmers, and many of them, who do not experiment and +do not grow, but make their occupation a veritable black drudgery, this +is no reason for painting a sombre-hued picture of country life. Any +calling, the law, the ministry, the medical profession, can be blasted +by fixing one's eyes only upon its ugliest aspects. And farming, at its +best, has become a highly scientific, extraordinarily absorbing, and +when all is said, a profitable, profession. Neighbours of mine have +developed systems of overhead irrigation to make rain when there is no +rain, and have covered whole fields with cloth canopies to increase the +warmth and to protect the crops from wind and hail, and by the analysis +of the soil and exact methods of feeding it with fertilizers, have come +as near a complete command of nature as any farmers in the world. What +independent, resourceful men they are! And many of them have also grown +rich in money. It is not what nature does with a man that matters but +what he does with nature. + +Nor is it necessary in these days for the farmer or the country dweller +to be uncultivated or uninterested in what are often called, with no +very clear definition, the "finer things of life." Many educated men are +now on the farms and have their books and magazines, and their music and +lectures and dramas not too far off in the towns. A great change in this +respect has come over American country life in twenty years. The real +hardships of pioneering have passed away, and with good roads and +machinery, and telephones, and newspapers every day by rural post, the +farmer may maintain as close a touch with the best things the world has +to offer as any man. And if he really have such broader interests the +winter furnishes him time and leisure that no other class of people can +command. + +I do not know, truly, what we are here for upon this wonderful and +beautiful earth, this incalculably interesting earth, unless it is to +crowd into a few short years--when all is said, terribly short +years!--every possible fine experience and adventure: unless it is to +live our lives to the uttermost: unless it is to seize upon every fresh +impression, develop every latent capacity: to grow as much as ever we +have it in our power to grow. What else can there be? If there is no +life beyond this one, we have lived _here_ to the uttermost. We've had +what we've had! But if there is more life, and still more life, beyond +this one, and above and under this one, and around and through this one, +we shall be well prepared for that, whatever it may be. + +The real advantages of country life have come to be a strong lure to +many people in towns and cities: but no one should attempt to "go back +to the land" with the idea that it is an easy way to escape the real +problems and difficulties of life. The fact is, there is no escape. The +problems and the difficulties must be boldly met whether in city or +country. Farming in these days is not "easy living," but a highly +skilled profession, requiring much knowledge, and actual manual labour +and plenty of it. So many come to the country too light-heartedly, buy +too much land, attempt unfamiliar crops, expect to hire the work +done--and soon find themselves facing discouragement and failure. Any +city man who would venture on this new way of life should try it first +for a year or so before he commits himself--try himself out against the +actual problems. Or, by moving to the country, still within reach of his +accustomed work, he can have a garden or even a small farm to experiment +with. The shorter work-day has made this possible for a multitude of +wage-workers, and I know many instances in which life because of this +opportunity to get to the soil has become a very different and much +finer thing for them. + +It is easy also for many men who are engaged in professional work to +live where they can get their hands into the soil for part of the time +at least: and this may be made as real an experience as far as it goes +as though they owned wider acres and devoted their whole time to the +work. + +A man who thus faces the problem squarely will soon see whether country +life is the thing for him; if he finds it truly so, he can be as nearly +assured of "living happily ever after" as any one outside of a +story-book can ever be. Out of it all is likely to come some of the +greatest rewards that men can know, a robust body, a healthy appetite, a +serene and cheerful spirit! + +And finally there is one advantage not so easy to express. Long ago I +read a story of Tolstoi's called "The Candle"--how a peasant Russian +forced to plough on Easter Day lighted a candle to his Lord and kept it +burning on his plough as he worked through the sacred day. When I see a +man ploughing in his fields I often think of Tolstoi's peasant, and +wonder if this is not as true a way as any of worshipping God. I wonder +if any one truly worships God who sets about it with deliberation, or +knows quite why he does it. + +"My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, +as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as showers upon the grass." + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Great Possessions, by David Grayson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT POSSESSIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 10593.txt or 10593.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/5/9/10593/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sjaani and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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