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diff --git a/10605-h/10605-h.htm b/10605-h/10605-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c333c71 --- /dev/null +++ b/10605-h/10605-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5102 @@ +<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?> +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<title>Adventures in Contentment</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> +<style type="text/css"> +body { font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; + background-color: #ffffff;} +a:link {color:#000000} +a:visited {color:#000000} +a:hover {color:#000000} + +</style> +</head> +<!-- Converted to HTML for the Gutenberg Project by Sjaani --> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10605 ***</div> + +<table width="80%" align="center"> + <tr> + <td> +<img src="images/01.jpg" alt=" " /> +</td> +<td> + + + <h1 align="center">ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT</h1> +<h2 align="center">David Grayson</h2> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/02.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> + <h1 align="center">I</h1> + <h2 align="center">"THE BURDEN OF THE VALLEY OF VISION"</h2> + +<p>I came here eight years ago as the renter of this farm, of which soon +afterward I became the owner. The time before that I like to forget. The +chief impression it left, upon my memory, now happily growing +indistinct, is of being hurried faster than I could well travel. From +the moment, as a boy of seventeen, I first began to pay my own way, my +days were ordered by an inscrutable power which drove me hourly to my +task. I was rarely allowed to look up or down, but always forward, +toward that vague Success which we Americans love to glorify.</p> + +<p>My senses, my nerves, even my muscles were continually strained to the +utmost of attainment. If I loitered or paused by the wayside, as it +seems natural for me to do, I soon heard the sharp crack of the lash. +For many years, and I can say it truthfully, I never rested. I neither +thought nor reflected. I had no pleasure, even though I pursued it +fiercely during the brief respite of vacations. Through many feverish +years I did not work: I merely produced.</p> + +<p>The only real thing I did was to hurry as though every moment were my +last, as though the world, which now seems so rich in everything, held +only one prize which might be seized upon before I arrived. Since then I +have tried to recall, like one who struggles to restore the visions of a +fever, what it was that I ran to attain, or why I should have borne +without rebellion such indignities to soul and body. That life seems +now, of all illusions, the most distant and unreal. It is like the +unguessed eternity before we are born: not of concern compared with that +eternity upon which we are now embarked.</p> + +<p>All these things happened in cities and among crowds. I like to forget +them. They smack of that slavery of the spirit which is so much worse +than any mere slavery of the body.</p> + +<p>One day—it was in April, I remember, and the soft maples in the city +park were just beginning to blossom—I stopped suddenly. I did not +intend to stop. I confess in humiliation that it was no courage, no will +of my own. I intended to go on toward Success: but Fate stopped me. It +was as if I had been thrown violently from a moving planet: all the +universe streamed around me and past me. It seemed to me that of all +animate creation, I was the only thing that was still or silent. Until I +stopped I had not known the pace I ran; and I had a vague sympathy and +understanding, never felt before, for those who left the running. I lay +prostrate with fever and close to death for weeks and watched the world +go by: the dust, the noise, the very colour of haste. The only sharp +pang that I suffered was the feeling that I should be broken-hearted and +that I was not; that I should care and that I did not. It was as though +I had died and escaped all further responsibility. I even watched with +dim equanimity my friends racing past me, panting as they ran. Some of +them paused an instant to comfort me where I lay, but I could see that +their minds were still upon the running and I was glad when they went +away. I cannot tell with what weariness their haste oppressed me. As for +them, they somehow blamed me for dropping out. I knew. Until we +ourselves understand, we accept no excuse from the man who stops. While +I felt it all, I was not bitter. I did not seem to care. I said to +myself: "This is Unfitness. I survive no longer. So be it."</p> + +<p>Thus I lay, and presently I began to hunger and thirst. Desire rose +within me: the indescribable longing of the convalescent for the food of +recovery. So I lay, questioning wearily what it was that I required. One +morning I wakened with a strange, new joy in my soul. It came to me at +that moment with indescribable poignancy, the thought of walking +barefoot in cool, fresh plow furrows as I had once done when a boy. So +vividly the memory came to me—the high airy world as it was at that +moment, and the boy I was walking free in the furrows—that the weak +tears filled my eyes, the first I had shed in many years. Then I thought +of sitting in quiet thickets in old fence corners, the wood behind me +rising still, cool, mysterious, and the fields in front stretching away +in illimitable pleasantness. I thought of the good smell of cows at +milking—you do not know, if you do not know!—I thought of the sights +and sounds, the heat and sweat of the hay fields. I thought of a certain +brook I knew when a boy that flowed among alders and wild parsnips, +where I waded with a three-foot rod for trout. I thought of all these +things as a man thinks of his first love. Oh, I craved the soil. I +hungered and thirsted for the earth. I was greedy for growing things.</p> + +<p>And thus, eight years ago, I came here like one sore-wounded creeping +from the field of battle. I remember walking in the sunshine, weak yet, +but curiously satisfied. I that was dead lived again. It came to me then +with a curious certainty, not since so assuring, that I understood the +chief marvel of nature hidden within the Story of the Resurrection, the +marvel of plant and seed, father and son, the wonder of the seasons, the +miracle of life. I, too, had died: I had lain long in darkness, and now +I had risen again upon the sweet earth. And I possessed beyond others a +knowledge of a former existence, which I knew, even then, I could never +return to.</p> + +<p>For a time, in the new life, I was happy to drunkenness—working, +eating, sleeping. I was an animal again, let out to run in green +pastures. I was glad of the sunrise and the sunset. I was glad at noon. +It delighted me when my muscles ached with work and when, after supper, +I could not keep my eyes open for sheer weariness. And sometimes I was +awakened in the night out of a sound sleep—seemingly by the very +silences—and lay in a sort of bodily comfort impossible to describe.</p> + +<p>I did not want to feel or to think: I merely wanted to live. In the sun +or the rain I wanted to go out and come in, and never again know the +pain of the unquiet spirit. I looked forward to an awakening not without +dread for we are as helpless before birth as in the presence of death.</p> + +<p>But like all birth, it came, at last, suddenly. All that summer I had +worked in a sort of animal content. Autumn had now come, late autumn, +with coolness in the evening air. I was plowing in my upper field—not +then mine in fact—and it was a soft afternoon with the earth turning up +moist and fragrant. I had been walking the furrows all day long. I had +taken note, as though my life depended upon it, of the occasional stones +or roots in my field, I made sure of the adjustment of the harness, I +drove with peculiar care to save the horses. With such simple details of +the work in hand I had found it my joy to occupy my mind. Up to that +moment the most important things in the world had seemed a straight +furrow and well-turned corners—to me, then, a profound accomplishment.</p> + +<p>I cannot well describe it, save by the analogy of an opening door +somewhere within the house of my consciousness. I had been in the dark: +I seemed to emerge. I had been bound down: I seemed to leap up—and with +a marvellous sudden sense of freedom and joy.</p> + +<p>I stopped there in my field and looked up. And it was as if I had never +looked up before. I discovered another world. It had been there before, +for long and long, but I had never seen nor felt it. All discoveries are +made in that way: a man finds the new thing, not in nature but in +himself.</p> + +<p>It was as though, concerned with plow and harness and furrow, I had +never known that the world had height or colour or sweet sounds, or +that there was <i>feeling</i> in a hillside. I forgot myself, or where I was. +I stood a long time motionless. My dominant feeling, if I can at all +express it, was of a strange new friendliness, a warmth, as though these +hills, this field about me, the woods, had suddenly spoken to me and +caressed me. It was as though I had been accepted in membership, as +though I was now recognised, after long trial, as belonging here.</p> + +<p>Across the town road which separates my farm from my nearest +neighbour's, I saw a field, familiar, yet strangely new and unfamiliar, +lying up to the setting sun, all red with autumn, above it the +incalculable heights of the sky, blue, but not quite clear, owing to the +Indian summer haze. I cannot convey the sweetness and softness of that +landscape, the airiness of it, the mystery of it, as it came to me at +that moment. It was as though, looking at an acquaintance long known, I +should discover that I loved him. As I stood there I was conscious of +the cool tang of burning leaves and brush heaps, the lazy smoke of which +floated down the long valley and found me in my field, and finally I +heard, as though the sounds were then made for the first time, all the +vague murmurs of the country side—a cow-bell somewhere in the distance, +the creak of a wagon, the blurred evening hum of birds, insects, frogs. +So much it means for a man to stop and look up from his task. So I +stood, and I looked up and down with a glow and a thrill which I cannot +now look back upon without some envy and a little amusement at the very +grandness and seriousness of it all. And I said aloud to myself:</p> + +<p>"I will be as broad as the earth. I will not be limited."</p> + +<p>Thus I was born into the present world, and here I continue, not knowing +what other world I may yet achieve. I do not know, but I wait in +expectancy, keeping my furrows straight and my corners well turned. +Since that day in the field, though my fences include no more acres, and +I still plow my own fields, my real domain has expanded until I crop +wide fields and take the profit of many curious pastures. From my farm I +can see most of the world; and if I wait here long enough all people +pass this way.</p> + +<p>And I look out upon them not in the surroundings which they have chosen +for themselves, but from the vantage ground of my familiar world. The +symbols which meant so much in cities mean little here. Sometimes it +seems to me as though I saw men naked. They come and stand beside my +oak, and the oak passes solemn judgment; they tread my furrows and the +clods give silent evidence; they touch the green blades of my corn, the +corn whispers its sure conclusions. Stern judgments that will be +deceived by no symbols!</p> + +<p>Thus I have delighted, secretly, in calling myself an unlimited farmer, +and I make this confession in answer to the inner and truthful demand of +the soul that we are not, after all, the slaves of things, whether corn, +or banknotes, or spindles; that we are not the used, but the users; that +life is more than profit and loss. And so I shall expect that while I am +talking farm some of you may be thinking dry goods, banking, literature, +carpentry, or what-not. But if you can say: I am an unlimited dry goods +merchant, I am an unlimited carpenter, I will give you an old-fashioned +country hand-shake, strong and warm. We are friends; our orbits +coincide.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/03.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> + <h1 align="center">II</h1> + <h2 align="center">I BUY A FARM </h2> + <p>As I have said, when I came here I came as a renter, working all of the +first summer without that "open vision" of which the prophet Samuel +speaks. I had no memory of the past and no hope of the future. I fed +upon the moment. My sister Harriet kept the house and I looked after the +farm and the fields. In all those months I hardly knew that I had +neighbours, although Horace, from whom I rented my place, was not +infrequently a visitor. He has since said that I looked at him as though +he were a "statute." I was "citified," Horace said; and "citified" with +us here in the country is nearly the limit of invective, though not +violent enough to discourage such a gift of sociability as his. The +Scotch Preacher, the rarest, kindest man I know, called once or twice, +wearing the air of formality which so ill becomes him. I saw nothing in +him: it was my fault, not his, that I missed so many weeks of his +friendship. Once in that time the Professor crossed my fields with his +tin box slung from his shoulder; and the only feeling I had, born of +crowded cities, was that this was an intrusion upon my property. +Intrusion: and the Professor! It is now unthinkable. I often passed the +Carpentry Shop on my way to town. I saw Baxter many times at his bench. +Even then Baxter's eyes attracted me: he always glanced up at me as I +passed, and his look had in it something of a caress. So the home of +Starkweather, standing aloof among its broad lawns and tall trees, +carried no meaning for me.</p> + +<p>Of all my neighbours, Horace is the nearest. From the back door of my +house, looking over the hill, I can see the two red chimneys of his +home, and the top of the windmill. Horace's barn and corn silo are more +pretentious by far than his house, but fortunately they stand on lower +ground, where they are not visible from my side of the hill. Five +minutes' walk in a straight line across the fields brings me to Horace's +door; by the road it takes at least ten minutes.</p> + +<p>In the fall after my arrival I had come to love the farm and its +surroundings so much that I decided to have it for my own. I did not +look ahead to being a farmer. I did not ask Harriet's advice. I found +myself sitting one day in the justice's office. The justice was bald and +as dry as corn fodder in March. He sat with spectacled impressiveness +behind his ink-stained table. Horace hitched his heel on the round of +his chair and put his hat on his knee. He wore his best coat and his +hair was brushed in deference to the occasion. He looked uncomfortable, +but important. I sat opposite him, somewhat overwhelmed by the business +in hand. I felt like an inadequate boy measured against solemnities too +large for him. The processes seemed curiously unconvincing, like a game +in which the important part is to keep from laughing; and yet when I +thought of laughing I felt cold chills of horror. If I had laughed at +that moment I cannot think what that justice would have said! But it was +a pleasure to have the old man read the deed, looking at me over his +spectacles from time to time to make sure I was not playing truant. +There are good and great words in a deed. One of them I brought away +with me from the conference, a very fine, big one, which I love to have +out now and again to remind me of the really serious things of life. It +gives me a peculiar dry, legal feeling. If I am about to enter upon a +serious bargain, like the sale of a cow, I am more avaricious if I work +with it under my tongue.</p> + +<p>Hereditaments! Hereditaments!</p> + +<p>Some words need to be fenced in, pig-tight, so that they cannot escape +us; others we prefer to have running at large, indefinite but inclusive. +I would not look up that word for anything: I might find it fenced in so +that it could not mean to me all that it does now.</p> + +<p>Hereditaments! May there be many of them—or it!</p> + +<p>Is it not a fine Providence that gives us different things to love? In +the purchase of my farm both Horace and I got the better of the +bargain—and yet neither was cheated. In reality a fairly strong lantern +light will shine through Horace, and I could see that he was hugging +himself with the joy of his bargain; but I was content. I had some money +left—what more does anyone want after a bargain?—and I had come into +possession of the thing I desired most of all. Looking at bargains from +a purely commercial point of view, someone is always cheated, but looked +at with the simple eye both seller and buyer always win.</p> + +<p>We came away from the gravity of that bargaining in Horace's wagon. On +our way home Horace gave me fatherly advice about using my farm. He +spoke from the height of his knowledge to me, a humble beginner. The +conversation ran something like this:</p> + +<p>HORACE: Thar's a clump of plum trees along the lower pasture fence. +Perhaps you saw 'm----</p> + +<p>MYSELF: I saw them: that is one reason I bought the back pasture. In May +they will be full of blossoms.</p> + +<p>HORACE: They're <i>wild</i> plums: they ain't good for nothing.</p> + +<p>MYSELF: But think how fine they will be all the year round.</p> + +<p>HORACE: Fine! They take up a quarter-acre of good land. I've been going +to cut 'em myself this ten years.</p> + +<p>MYSELF: I don't think I shall want them cut out.</p> + +<p>HORACE: Humph.</p> + +<p>After a pause:</p> + +<p>HORACE: There's a lot of good body cord-wood in that oak on the knoll.</p> + +<p>MYSELF: Cord-wood! Why, that oak is the treasure of the whole farm, I +have never seen a finer one. I could not think of cutting it.</p> + +<p>HORACE: It will bring you fifteen or twenty dollars cash in hand.</p> + +<p>MYSELF: But I rather have the oak.</p> + +<p>HORACE: Humph.</p> + +<p>So our conversation continued for some time. I let Horace know that I +preferred rail fences, even old ones, to a wire fence, and that I +thought a farm should not be too large, else it might keep one away from +his friends. And what, I asked, is corn compared with a friend? Oh, I +grew really oratorical! I gave it as my opinion that there should be +vines around the house (Waste of time, said Horace), and that no farmer +should permit anyone to paint medicine advertisements on his barn +(Brings you ten dollars a year, said Horace), and that I proposed to fix +the bridge on the lower road (What's a path-master for? asked Horace). I +said that a town was a useful adjunct for a farm; but I laid it down as +a principle that no town should be too near a farm. I finally became so +enthusiastic in setting forth my conceptions of a true farm that I +reduced Horace to a series of humphs. The early humphs were incredulous, +but as I proceeded, with some joy, they became humorously contemptuous, +and finally began to voice a large, comfortable, condescending +tolerance. I could fairly feel Horace growing superior as he sat there +beside me. Oh, he had everything in his favour. He could prove what he +said: One tree + one thicket = twenty dollars. One landscape = ten cords +of wood = a quarter-acre of corn = twenty dollars. These equations prove +themselves. Moreover, was not Horace the "best off" of any farmer in the +country? Did he not have the largest barn and the best corn silo? And +are there better arguments?</p> + +<p>Have you ever had anyone give you up as hopeless? And is it not a +pleasure? It is only after people resign you to your fate that you +really make friends of them. For how can you win the friendship of one +who is trying to convert you to his superior beliefs?</p> + +<p>As we talked, then, Horace and I, I began to have hopes of him. There is +no joy comparable to the making of a friend, and the more resistant the +material the greater the triumph. Baxter, the carpenter, says that when +he works for enjoyment he chooses curly maple.</p> + +<p>When Horace set me down at my gate that afternoon he gave me his hand +and told me that he would look in on me occasionally, and that if I had +any trouble to let him know.</p> + +<p>A few days later I heard by the roundabout telegraph common in country +neighbourhoods that Horace had found a good deal of fun in reporting +what I said about farming and that he had called me by a highly humorous +but disparaging name. Horace has a vein of humour all his own. I have +caught him alone in his fields chuckling to himself, and even breaking +out in a loud laugh at the memory of some amusing incident that +happened ten years ago. One day, a month or more after our bargain, +Horace came down across his field and hitched his jean-clad leg over my +fence, with the intent, I am sure, of delving a little more in the same +rich mine of humour.</p> + +<p>"Horace," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "did you call me +an—Agriculturist!"</p> + +<p>I have rarely seen a man so pitifully confused as Horace was at that +moment. He flushed, he stammered, he coughed, the perspiration broke out +on his forehead. He tried to speak and could not. I was sorry for him.</p> + +<p>"Horace," I said, "you're a Farmer."</p> + +<p>We looked at each other a moment with dreadful seriousness, and then +both of us laughed to the point of holding our sides. We slapped our +knees, we shouted, we wriggled, we almost rolled with merriment. Horace +put out his hand and we shook heartily. In five minutes I had the whole +story of his humorous reports out of him.</p> + +<p>No real friendship is ever made without an initial clashing which +discloses the metal of each to each. Since that day Horace's jean-clad +leg has rested many a time on my fence and we have talked crops and +calves. We have been the best of friends in the way of whiffle-trees, +butter tubs and pig killings—but never once looked up together at the +sky.</p> + +<p>The chief objection to a joke in the country is that it is so +imperishable. There is so much room for jokes and so few jokes to fill +it. When I see Horace approaching with a peculiar, friendly, reminiscent +smile on his face I hasten with all ardour to anticipate him:</p> + +<p>"Horace," I exclaim, "you're a Farmer."</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/04.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<p>[Illustration: "The heat and sweat of the hay fields"]</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/05.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">III</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE JOY OF POSSESSION</h2> + +<p>"How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees: +How graceful climb these shadows on my hill."</p> + +<p>Always as I travel, I think, "Here I am, let anything happen!"</p> + +<p>I do not want to know the future; knowledge is too certain, too cold, +too real.</p> + +<p>It is true that I have not always met the fine adventure nor won the +friend, but if I had, what should I have more to look for at other +turnings and other hilltops?</p> + +<p>The afternoon of my purchase was one of the great afternoons of my life. +When Horace put me down at my gate, I did not go at once to the house; +I did not wish, then, to talk with Harriet. The things I had with myself +were too important. I skulked toward my barn, compelling myself to walk +slowly until I reached the corner, where I broke into an eager run as +though the old Nick himself were after me. Behind the barn I dropped +down on the grass, panting with laughter, and not without some of the +shame a man feels at being a boy. Close along the side of the barn, as I +sat there in the cool of the shade, I could see a tangled mat of +smartweed and catnip, and the boards of the barn, brown and +weather-beaten, and the gables above with mud swallows' nests, now +deserted; and it struck me suddenly, as I observed these homely pleasant +things:</p> + +<p>"All this is mine."</p> + +<p>I sprang up and drew a long breath.</p> + +<p>"Mine," I said.</p> + +<p>It came to me then like an inspiration that I might now go out and take +formal possession of my farm. I might experience the emotion of a +landowner. I might swell with dignity and importance—for once, at +least.</p> + +<p>So I started at the fence corner back of the barn and walked straight +up through the pasture, keeping close to my boundaries, that I might not +miss a single rod of my acres. And oh, it was a prime afternoon! The +Lord made it! Sunshine—and autumn haze—and red trees—and yellow +fields—and blue distances above the far-away town. And the air had a +tang which got into a man's blood and set him chanting all the poetry he +ever knew.</p> + +<p>"I climb that was a clod, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">I run whose steps were slow,</span> +<br /> +I reap the very wheat of God +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">That once had none to sow!"</span> +</p> +<p>So I walked up the margin of my field looking broadly about me: and +presently, I began to examine my fences—<i>my</i> fences—with a critical +eye. I considered the quality of the soil, though in truth I was not +much of a judge of such matters. I gloated over my plowed land, lying +there open and passive in the sunshine. I said of this tree: "It is +mine," and of its companion beyond the fence: "It is my neighbour's." +Deeply and sharply within myself I drew the line between <i>meum</i> and +<i>tuum</i>: for only thus, by comparing ourselves with our neighbours, can +we come to the true realisation of property. Occasionally I stopped to +pick up a stone and cast it over the fence, thinking with some +truculence that my neighbour would probably throw it back again. Never +mind, I had it out of <i>my</i> field. Once, with eager surplusage of energy, +I pulled down a dead and partly rotten oak stub, long an eye-sore, with +an important feeling of proprietorship. I could do anything I liked. The +farm was <i>mine</i>.</p> + +<p>How sweet an emotion is possession! What charm is inherent in ownership! +What a foundation for vanity, even for the greater quality of +self-respect, lies in a little property! I fell to thinking of the +excellent wording of the old books in which land is called "real +property," or "real estate." Money we may possess, or goods or chattels, +but they give no such impression of mineness as the feeling that one's +feet rest upon soil that is his: that part of the deep earth is his with +all the water upon it, all small animals that creep or crawl in the +holes of it, all birds or insects that fly in the air above it, all +trees, shrubs, flowers, and grass that grow upon it, all houses, barns +and fences—all, his. As I strode along that afternoon I fed upon +possession. I rolled the sweet morsel of ownership under my tongue. I +seemed to set my feet down more firmly on the good earth. I straightened +my shoulders: <i>this land was mine</i>. I picked up a clod of earth and let +it crumble and drop through my fingers: it gave me a peculiar and +poignant feeling of possession. I can understand why the miser enjoys +the very physical contact of his gold. Every sense I possessed, sight, +hearing, smell, touch, led upon the new joy.</p> + +<p>At one corner of my upper field the fence crosses an abrupt ravine upon +leggy stilts. My line skirts the slope halfway up. My neighbour owns the +crown of the hill which he has shorn until it resembles the tonsured +pate of a monk. Every rain brings the light soil down the ravine and +lays it like a hand of infertility upon my farm. It had always bothered +me, this wastage; and as I looked across my fence I thought to myself:</p> + +<p>"I must have that hill. I will buy it. I will set the fence farther up. +I will plant the slope. It is no age of tonsures either in religion or +agriculture."</p> + +<p>The very vision of widened acres set my thoughts on fire. In +imagination I extended my farm upon all sides, thinking how much better +I could handle my land than my neighbours. I dwelt avariciously upon +more possessions: I thought with discontent of my poverty. More land I +wanted. I was enveloped in clouds of envy. I coveted my neighbour's +land: I felt myself superior and Horace inferior: I was consumed with +black vanity.</p> + +<p>So I dealt hotly with these thoughts until I reached the top of the +ridge at the farther corner of my land. It is the highest point on the +farm.</p> + +<p>For a moment I stood looking about me on a wonderful prospect of serene +beauty. As it came to me—hills, fields, woods—the fever which had been +consuming me died down. I thought how the world stretched away from my +fences—just such fields—for a thousand miles, and in each small +enclosure a man as hot as I with the passion of possession. How they all +envied, and hated, in their longing for more land! How property kept +them apart, prevented the close, confident touch of friendship, how it +separated lovers and ruined families! Of all obstacles to that complete +democracy of which we dream, is there a greater than property?</p> + +<p>I was ashamed. Deep shame covered me. How little of the earth, after +all, I said, lies within the limits of my fences. And I looked out upon +the perfect beauty of the world around me, and I saw how little excited +it was, how placid, how undemanding.</p> + +<p>I had come here to be free and already this farm, which I thought of so +fondly as my possession, was coming to possess me. Ownership is an +appetite like hunger or thirst, and as we may eat to gluttony and drink +to drunkenness so we may possess to avarice. How many men have I seen +who, though they regard themselves as models of temperance, wear the +marks of unbridled indulgence of the passion of possession, and how like +gluttony or licentiousness it sets its sure sign upon their faces.</p> + +<p>I said to myself, Why should any man fence himself in? And why hope to +enlarge one's world by the creeping acquisition of a few acres to his +farm? I thought of the old scientist, who, laying his hand upon the +grass, remarked: "Everything under my hand is a miracle"—forgetting +that everything outside was also a miracle.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/06.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<p>[Illustration: "HOW GRACEFUL CLIMB THESE SHADOWS ON MY HILL"]</p> + +<p>As I stood there I glanced across the broad valley wherein lies the most +of my farm, to a field of buckwheat which belongs to Horace. For an +instant it gave me the illusion of a hill on fire: for the late sun +shone full on the thick ripe stalks of the buckwheat, giving forth an +abundant red glory that blessed the eye. Horace had been proud of his +crop, smacking his lips at the prospect of winter pancakes, and here I +was entering his field and taking without hindrance another crop, a crop +gathered not with hands nor stored in granaries: a wonderful crop, +which, once gathered, may long be fed upon and yet remain unconsumed.</p> + +<p>So I looked across the countryside; a group of elms here, a tufted +hilltop there, the smooth verdure of pastures, the rich brown of +new-plowed fields—and the odours, and the sounds of the country—all +cropped by me. How little the fences keep me out: I do not regard +titles, nor consider boundaries. I enter either by day or by night, but +not secretly. Taking my fill, I leave as much as I find.</p> + +<p>And thus standing upon the highest hill in my upper pasture, I thought +of the quoted saying of a certain old abbot of the middle ages—"He +that is a true monk considers nothing as belonging to him except a +lyre."</p> + +<p>What finer spirit? Who shall step forth freer than he who goes with +nothing save his lyre? He shall sing as he goes: he shall not be held +down nor fenced in.</p> + +<p>With a lifting of the soul I thought of that old abbot, how smooth his +brow, how catholic his interest, how serene his outlook, how free his +friendships, how unlimited his whole life. Nothing but a lyre!</p> + +<p>So I made a covenant there with myself. I said: "I shall use, not be +used. I do not limit myself here. I shall not allow possessions to come +between me and my life or my friends."</p> + +<p>For a time—how long I do not know—I stood thinking. Presently I +discovered, moving slowly along the margin of the field below me, the +old professor with his tin botany box. And somehow I had no feeling that +he was intruding upon my new land. His walk was slow and methodical, his +head and even his shoulders were bent—almost habitually—from looking +close upon the earth, and from time to time he stooped, and once he +knelt to examine some object that attracted his eye. It seemed +appropriate that he should thus kneel to the earth. So he gathered <i>his</i> +crop and fences did not keep him out nor titles disturb him. He also was +free! It gave me at that moment a peculiar pleasure to have him on my +land, to know that I was, if unconsciously, raising other crops than I +knew. I felt friendship for this old professor: I could understand him, +I thought. And I said aloud but in a low tone, as though I were +addressing him:</p> + +<p>—Do not apologise, friend, when you come into my field. You do not +interrupt me. What you have come for is of more importance at this +moment than corn. Who is it that says I must plow so many furrows this +day? Come in, friend, and sit here on these clods: we will sweeten the +evening with fine words. We will invest our time not in corn, or in +cash, but in life.—</p> + +<p>I walked with confidence down the hill toward the professor. So +engrossed was he with his employment that he did not see me until I was +within a few paces of him. When he looked up at me it was as though his +eyes returned from some far journey. I felt at first out of focus, +unplaced, and only gradually coming into view. In his hand he held a +lump of earth containing a thrifty young plant of the purple +cone-flower, having several blossoms. He worked at the lump deftly, +delicately, so that the earth, pinched, powdered and shaken out, fell +between his fingers, leaving the knotty yellow roots in his hand. I +marked how firm, slow, brown, the old man was, how little obtrusive in +my field. One foot rested in a furrow, the other was set among the grass +of the margin, near the fence—his place, I thought.</p> + +<p>His first words, though of little moment in themselves, gave me a +curious satisfaction, as when a coin, tested, rings true gold, or a +hero, tried, is heroic.</p> + +<p>"I have rarely," he said, "seen a finer display of rudbeckia than this, +along these old fences."</p> + +<p>If he had referred to me, or questioned, or apologised, I should have +been disappointed. He did not say, "your fences," he said "these +fences," as though they were as much his as mine. And he spoke in his +own world, knowing that if I could enter I would, but that if I could +not, no stooping to me would avail either of us.</p> + +<p>"It has been a good autumn for flowers," I said inanely, for so many +things were flying through my mind that I could not at once think of the +great particular words which should bring us together. At first I +thought my chance had passed, but he seemed to see something in me after +all, for he said:</p> + +<p>"Here is a peculiarly large specimen of the rudbeckia. Observe the deep +purple of the cone, and the bright yellow of the petals. Here is another +that grew hardly two feet away, in the grass near the fence where the +rails and the blackberry bushes have shaded it. How small and +undeveloped it is."</p> + +<p>"They crowd up to the plowed land," I observed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, they reach out for a better chance in life—like men. With more +room, better food, freer air, you see how much finer they grow."</p> + +<p>It was curious to me, having hitherto barely observed the cone-flowers +along my fences, save as a colour of beauty, how simply we fell to +talking of them as though in truth they were people like ourselves, +having our desires and possessed of our capabilities. It gave me then, +for the first time, the feeling which has since meant such varied +enjoyment, of the peopling of the woods.</p> + +<p>"See here," he said, "how different the character of these individuals. +They are all of the same species. They all grow along this fence within +two or three rods; but observe the difference not only in size but in +colouring, in the shape of the petals, in the proportions of the cone. +What does it all mean? Why, nature trying one of her endless +experiments. She sows here broadly, trying to produce better +cone-flowers. A few she plants on the edge of the field in the hope that +they may escape the plow. If they grow, better food and more sunshine +produce more and larger flowers."</p> + +<p>So we talked, or rather he talked, finding in me an eager listener. And +what he called botany seemed to me to be life. Of birth, of growth, of +reproduction, of death, he spoke, and his flowers became sentient +creatures under my eyes.</p> + +<p>And thus the sun went down and the purple mists crept silently along the +distant low spots, and all the great, great mysteries came and stood +before me beckoning and questioning. They came and they stood, and out +of the cone-flower, as the old professor spoke, I seemed to catch a +glimmer of the true light. I reflected how truly everything is in +anything. If one could really understand a cone-flower he could +understand this Earth. Botany was only one road toward the Explanation.</p> + +<p>Always I hope that some traveller may have more news of the way than I, +and sooner or later, I find I must make inquiry of the direction of +every thoughtful man I meet. And I have always had especial hope of +those who study the sciences: they ask such intimate questions of +nature. Theology possesses a vain-gloriousness which places its faith in +human theories; but science, at its best, is humble before nature +herself. It has no thesis to defend: it is content to kneel upon the +earth, in the way of my friend, the old professor, and ask the simplest +questions, hoping for some true reply.</p> + +<p>I wondered, then, what the professor thought, after his years of work, +of the Mystery; and finally, not without confusion, I asked him. He +listened, for the first time ceasing to dig, shake out and arrange his +specimens. When I had stopped speaking he remained for a moment silent, +then he looked at me with a new regard. Finally he quoted quietly, but +with a deep note in his voice:</p> + +<p>"Canst thou by searching find God? Canst thou +find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high +as heaven: what canst thou do? deeper than hell, +what canst thou know?"</p> + +<p>When the professor had spoken we stood for a moment silent, then he +smiled and said briskly:</p> + +<p>"I have been a botanist for fifty-four years. When I was a boy I +believed implicitly in God. I prayed to him, having a vision of him—a +person—before my eyes. As I grew older I concluded that there was no +God. I dismissed him from the universe. I believed only in what I could +see, or hear, or feel. I talked about Nature and Reality."</p> + +<p>He paused, the smile still lighting his face, evidently recalling to +himself the old days. I did not interrupt him. Finally he turned to me +and said abruptly,</p> + +<p>"And now—it seems to me—there is nothing but God."</p> + +<p>As he said this he lifted his arm with a peculiar gesture that seemed +to take in the whole world.</p> + +<p>For a time we were both silent. When I left him I offered my hand and +told him I hoped I might become his friend. So I turned my face toward +home. Evening was falling, and as I walked I heard the crows calling, +and the air was keen and cool, and I thought deep thoughts.</p> + +<p>And so I stepped into the darkened stable. I could not see the outlines +of the horse or the cow, but knowing the place so well I could easily +get about. I heard the horse step aside with a soft expectant whinny. I +smelled the smell of milk, the musty, sharp odour of dry hay, the +pungent smell of manure, not unpleasant. And the stable was warm after +the cool of the fields with a sort of animal warmth that struck into me +soothingly. I spoke in a low voice and laid my hand on the horse's +flank. The flesh quivered and shrunk away from my touch—coming back +confidently, warmly. I ran my hand along his back and up his hairy neck. +I felt his sensitive nose in my hand. "You shall have your oats," I +said, and I gave him to eat. Then I spoke as gently to the cow, and she +stood aside to be milked.</p> + +<p>And afterward I came out into the clear bright night, and the air was +sweet and cool, and my dog came bounding to meet me.—So I carried the +milk into the house, and Harriet said in her heartiest tone:</p> + +<p>"You are late, David. But sit up, I have kept the biscuits warm."</p> + +<p>And that night my sleep was sound.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/07.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/08.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">IV</h1> +<h2 align="center">ENTERTAIN AN AGENT UNAWARES</h2> + +<p>With the coming of winter I thought the life of a farmer might lose +something of its charm. So much interest lies in the growth not only of +crops but of trees, vines, flowers, sentiments and emotions. In the +summer the world is busy, concerned with many things and full of gossip: +in the winter I anticipated a cessation of many active interests and +enthusiasms. I looked forward to having time for my books and for the +quiet contemplation of the life around me. Summer indeed is for +activity, winter for reflection. But when winter really came every day +discovered some new work to do or some new adventure to enjoy. It is +surprising how many things happen on a small farm. Examining the book +which accounts for that winter, I find the history of part of a +forenoon, which will illustrate one of the curious adventures of a +farmer's life. It is dated January 5.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>I went out this morning with my axe and hammer to mend the fence along +the public road. A heavy frost fell last night and the brown grass and +the dry ruts of the roads were powdered white. Even the air, which was +perfectly still, seemed full of frost crystals, so that when the sun +came up one seemed to walk in a magic world. I drew in a long breath and +looked out across the wonderful shining country and I said to myself:</p> + +<p>"Surely, there is nowhere I would rather be than here." For I could have +travelled nowhere to find greater beauty or a better enjoyment of it +than I had here at home.</p> + +<p>As I worked with my axe and hammer, I heard a light wagon come rattling +up the road. Across the valley a man had begun to chop a tree. I could +see the axe steel flash brilliantly in the sunshine before I heard the +sound of the blow.</p> + +<p>The man in the wagon had a round face and a sharp blue eye. I thought he +seemed a businesslike young man.</p> + +<p>"Say, there," he shouted, drawing up at my gate, "would you mind holding +my horse a minute? It's a cold morning and he's restless."</p> + +<p>"Certainly not," I said, and I put down my tools and held his horse.</p> + +<p>He walked up to my door with a brisk step and a certain jaunty poise of +the head.</p> + +<p>"He is well contented with himself," I said. "It is a great blessing for +any man to be satisfied with what he has got."</p> + +<p>I heard Harriet open the door—how every sound rang through the still +morning air!</p> + +<p>The young man asked some question and I distinctly heard Harriet's +answer:</p> + +<p>"He's down there."</p> + +<p>The young man came back: his hat was tipped up, his quick eye darted +over my grounds as though in a single instant he had appraised +everything and passed judgment upon the cash value of the inhabitants. +He whistled a lively little tune.</p> + +<p>"Say," he said, when he reached the gate, not at all disconcerted, "I +thought you was the hired man. Your name's Grayson, ain't it? Well, I +want to talk with you."</p> + +<p>After tying and blanketing his horse and taking a black satchel from his +buggy he led me up to my house. I had a pleasurable sense of excitement +and adventure. Here was a new character come to my farm. Who knows, I +thought, what he may bring with him: who knows what I may send away by +him? Here in the country we must set our little ships afloat on small +streams, hoping that somehow, some day, they will reach the sea.</p> + +<p>It was interesting to see the busy young man sit down so confidently in +our best chair. He said his name was Dixon, and he took out from his +satchel a book with a fine showy cover. He said it was called "Living +Selections from Poet, Sage and Humourist."</p> + +<p>"This," he told me, "is only the first of the series. We publish six +volumes full of literchoor. You see what a heavy book this is?"</p> + +<p>I tested it in my hand: it was a heavy book.</p> + +<p>"The entire set," he said, "weighs over ten pounds. There are 1,162 +pages, enough paper if laid down flat, end to end, to reach half a +mile."</p> + +<p>I cannot quote his exact language: there was too much of it, but he made +an impressive showing of the amount of literature that could be had at a +very low price per pound. Mr. Dixon was a hypnotist. He fixed me with +his glittering eye, and he talked so fast, and his ideas upon the +subject were so original that he held me spellbound. At first I was +inclined to be provoked: one does not like to be forcibly hypnotised, +but gradually the situation began to amuse me, the more so when Harriet +came in.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?" asked the agent, holding +his book admiringly at arm's length. "This up here," he said, pointing +to the illuminated cover, "is the Muse of Poetry She is scattering +flowers—poems, you know. Fine idea, ain't it? Colouring fine, too."</p> + +<p>He jumped up quickly and laid the book on my table, to the evident +distress of Harriet.</p> + +<p>"Trims up the room, don't it?" he exclaimed, turning his head a little +to one side and observing the effect with an expression of affectionate +admiration.</p> + +<p>"How much," I asked, "will you sell the covers for without the +insides?"</p> + +<p>"Without the insides?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "the binding will trim up my table just as well without +the insides."</p> + +<p>I thought he looked at me a little suspiciously, but he was evidently +satisfied by my expression of countenance, for he answered promptly:</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you want the insides. That's what the books are for. The +bindings are never sold alone."</p> + +<p>He then went on to tell me the prices and terms of payment, until it +really seemed that it would be cheaper to buy the books than to let him +carry them away again. Harriet stood in the doorway behind him frowning +and evidently trying to catch my eye. But I kept my face turned aside so +that I could not see her signal of distress and my eyes fixed on the +young man Dixon. It was as good as a play. Harriet there, +serious-minded, thinking I was being befooled, and the agent thinking he +was befooling me, and I, thinking I was befooling both of them—and all +of us wrong. It was very like life wherever you find it.</p> + +<p>Finally, I took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which +Harriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. She knew the danger +when I really got my hands on a book. But I made up as innocent as a +child. I opened the book almost at random—and it was as though, walking +down a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before +in years. For there on the page before me I read:</p> + +<p>"The world is too much with us; late and soon, +Getting and spending we lay waste our powers: +Little we see in Nature that is ours; +We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! +The sea that bares her bosom to the moon; +The winds that will be howling at all hours, +But are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; +For this, for everything, we are out of tune; +It moves us not."</p> + +<p>And as I read it came back to me—a scene like a picture—the place, the +time, the very feel of the hour when I first saw those lines. Who shall +say that the past does not live! An odour will sometimes set the blood +coursing in an old emotion, and a line of poetry is the resurrection and +the life. For a moment I forgot Harriet and the agent, I forgot myself, +I even forgot the book on my knee—everything but that hour in the +past—a view of shimmering hot housetops, the heat and dust and noise of +an August evening in the city, the dumb weariness of it all, the +loneliness, the longing for green fields; and then these great lines of +Wordsworth, read for the first time, flooding in upon me:</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.75em;">"Great God! I'd rather be</span> +<br /> +A pagan suckled in a creed outworn: +So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, +Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; +Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; +And hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn."</p> + +<p>When I had finished I found myself standing in my own room with one arm +raised, and, I suspect, a trace of tears in my eyes—there before the +agent and Harriet. I saw Harriet lift one hand and drop it hopelessly. +She thought I was captured at last. I was past saving. And as I looked +at the agent I saw "grim conquest glowing in his eye!" So I sat down not +a little embarrassed by my exhibition—when I had intended to be +self-poised.</p> + +<p>"You like it, don't you?" said Mr. Dixon unctuously.</p> + +<p>"I don't see," I said earnestly, "how you can afford to sell such +things as this so cheap."</p> + +<p>"They <i>are</i> cheap," he admitted regretfully. I suppose he wished he had +tried me with the half-morocco.</p> + +<p>"They are priceless," I said, "absolutely priceless. If you were the +only man in the world who had that poem, I think I would deed you my +farm for it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dixon proceeded, as though it were all settled, to get out his black +order book and open it briskly for business. He drew his fountain pen, +capped it, and looked up at me expectantly. My feet actually seemed +slipping into some irresistible whirlpool. How well he understood +practical psychology! I struggled within myself, fearing engulfment: I +was all but lost.</p> + +<p>"Shall I deliver the set at once," he said, "or can you wait until the +first of February?"</p> + +<p>At that critical moment a floating spar of an idea swept my way and I +seized upon it as the last hope of the lost.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/09.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<p>[Illustration: 'Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?']</p> + +<p>"I don't understand," I said, as though I had not heard his last +question, "how you dare go about with all this treasure upon you. Are +you not afraid of being stopped in the road and robbed? Why, I've seen +the time when, if I had known you carried such things as these, such +cures for sick hearts, I think I should have stopped you myself!"</p> + +<p>"Say, you <i>are</i> an odd one," said Mr. Dixon.</p> + +<p>"Why do you sell such priceless things as these?" I asked, looking at +him sharply.</p> + +<p>"Why do I sell them?" and he looked still more perplexed. "To make +money, of course; same reason you raise corn."</p> + +<p>"But here is wealth," I said, pursuing my advantage. "If you have these +you have something more valuable than money."</p> + +<p>Mr. Dixon politely said nothing. Like a wise angler, having failed to +land me at the first rush, he let me have line. Then I thought of +Ruskin's words, "Nor can any noble thing be wealth except to a noble +person." And that prompted me to say to Mr. Dixon:</p> + +<p>"These things are not yours; they are mine. You never owned them; but I +will sell them to you."</p> + +<p>He looked at me in amazement, and then glanced around—evidently to +discover if there were a convenient way of escape.</p> + +<p>"You're all straight, are you?" he asked tapping his forehead; "didn't +anybody ever try to take you up?"</p> + +<p>"The covers are yours," I continued as though I had not heard him, "the +insides are mine and have been for a long time: that is why I proposed +buying the covers separately."</p> + +<p>I opened his book again. I thought I would see what had been chosen for +its pages. And I found there many fine and great things.</p> + +<p>"Let me read you this," I said to Mr. Dixon; "it has been mine for a +long time. I will not sell it to you. I will give it to you outright. +The best things are always given."</p> + +<p>Having some gift in imitating the Scotch dialect, I read:</p> + +<p>"November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The shortening winter day is near a close;</span> +<br /> +The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:</span> +<br /> +The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">This night his weekly moil is at an end,</span> +<br /> +Collects his spades, his mattocks and his hoes, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,</span> +<br /> +And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend."</p> + +<p>So I read "The Cotter's Saturday Night." I love the poem very much +myself, sometimes reading it aloud, not so much for the tenderness of +its message, though I prize that, too, as for the wonder of its music:</p> + +<p>"Compared with these, Italian trills are tame; +The tickl'd ear no heart-felt raptures raise."</p> + +<p>I suppose I showed my feeling in my voice. As I glanced up from time to +time I saw the agent's face change, and his look deepen and the lips, +usually so energetically tense, loosen with emotion. Surely no poem in +all the language conveys so perfectly the simple love of the home, the +quiet joys, hopes, pathos of those who live close to the soil.</p> + +<p>When I had finished—I stopped with the stanza beginning:</p> + +<p>"Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way";</p> + +<p>the agent turned away his head trying to brave out his emotion. Most of +us, Anglo-Saxons, tremble before a tear when we might fearlessly beard a +tiger.</p> + +<p>I moved up nearer to the agent and put my hand on his knee; then I read +two or three of the other things I found in his wonderful book. And once +I had him laughing and once again I had the tears in his eyes. Oh, a +simple young man, a little crusty without, but soft inside—like the +rest of us.</p> + +<p>Well, it was amazing once we began talking not of books but of life, how +really eloquent and human he became. From being a distant and +uncomfortable person, he became at once like a near neighbour and +friend. It was strange to me—as I have thought since—how he conveyed +to us in few words the essential emotional note of his life. It was no +violin tone, beautifully complex with harmonics, but the clear simple +voice of the flute. It spoke of his wife and his baby girl and his home. +The very incongruity of detail—he told us how he grew onions in his +back yard—added somehow to the homely glamour of the vision which he +gave us. The number of his house, the fact that he had a new cottage +organ, and that the baby ran away and lost herself in Seventeenth +Street—were all, curiously, fabrics of his emotion.</p> + +<p>It was beautiful to see commonplace facts grow phosphorescent in the +heat of true feeling. How little we may come to know Romance by the +cloak she wears and how humble must be he who would surprise the heart +of her!</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, with an indescribable thrill that I heard him add the +details, one by one—the mortgage on his place, now rapidly being paid +off, the brother who was a plumber, the mother-in-law who was not a +mother-in-law of the comic papers. And finally he showed us the picture +of the wife and baby that he had in the cover of his watch; a fat baby +with its head resting on its mother's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Mister," he said, "p'raps you think it's fun to ride around the country +like I do, and be away from home most of the time. But it ain't. When I +think of Minnie and the kid—"</p> + +<p>He broke off sharply, as if he had suddenly remembered the shame of such +confidences.</p> + +<p>"Say," he asked, "what page is that poem on?"</p> + +<p>I told him.</p> + +<p>"One forty-six," he said. "When I get home I'm going to read that to +Minnie. She likes poetry and all such things. And where's that other +piece that tells how a man feels when he's lonesome? Say, that fellow +knew!"</p> + +<p>We had a genuinely good time, the agent and I, and when he finally rose +to go, I said:</p> + +<p>"Well, I've sold you a new book."</p> + +<p>"I see now, mister, what you mean."</p> + +<p>I went down the path with him and began to unhitch his horse.</p> + +<p>"Let me, let me," he said eagerly.</p> + +<p>Then he shook hands, paused a moment awkwardly as if about to say +something, then sprang into his buggy without saying it.</p> + +<p>When he had taken up his reins he remarked:</p> + +<p>"Say! but you'd make an agent! You'd hypnotise 'em."</p> + +<p>I recognised it as the greatest compliment he could pay me: the craft +compliment.</p> + +<p>Then he drove off, but pulled up before he had gone five yards. He +turned in his seat, one hand on the back of it, his whip raised.</p> + +<p>"Say!" he shouted, and when I walked up he looked at me with fine +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>"Mister, perhaps you'd accept one of these sets from Dixon free gratis, +for nothing."</p> + +<p>"I understand," I said, "but you know I'm giving the books to you—and I +couldn't take them back again."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, "you're a good one, anyhow. Good-bye again," and then, +suddenly, business naturally coming uppermost, he remarked with great +enthusiasm:</p> + +<p>"You've given me a new idea. <i>Say</i>, I'll sell 'em."</p> + +<p>"Carry them carefully, man," I called after him; "they are precious."</p> + +<p>So I went back to my work, thinking how many fine people there are in +this world—if you scratch 'em deep enough.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "Horace 'hefted' it"]</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/10.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/11.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">V</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE AXE-HELVE</h2> + +<p><i>April the 15th.</i></p> + +<p>This morning I broke my old axe handle. I went out early while the fog +still filled the valley and the air was cool and moist as it had come +fresh from the filter of the night. I drew a long breath and let my axe +fall with all the force I could give it upon a new oak log. I swung it +unnecessarily high for the joy of doing it and when it struck it +communicated a sharp yet not unpleasant sting to the palms of my hands. +The handle broke short off at the point where the helve meets the steel. +The blade was driven deep in the oak wood. I suppose I should have +regretted my foolishness, but I did not. The handle was old and somewhat +worn, and the accident gave me an indefinable satisfaction: the +culmination of use, that final destruction which is the complement of +great effort.</p> + +<p>This feeling was also partly prompted by the thought of the new helve I +already had in store, awaiting just such a catastrophe. Having come +somewhat painfully by that helve, I really wanted to see it in use.</p> + +<p>Last spring, walking in my fields, I looked out along the fences for a +well-fitted young hickory tree of thrifty second growth, bare of knots +at least head high, without the cracks or fissures of too rapid growth +or the doziness of early transgression. What I desired was a fine, +healthy tree fitted for a great purpose and I looked for it as I would +look for a perfect man to save a failing cause. At last I found a +sapling growing in one of the sheltered angles of my rail fence. It was +set about by dry grass, overhung by a much larger cherry tree, and +bearing still its withered last year's leaves, worn diaphanous but +curled delicately, and of a most beautiful ash gray colour, something +like the fabric of a wasp's nest, only yellower. I gave it a shake and +it sprung quickly under my hand like the muscle of a good horse. Its +bark was smooth and trim, its bole well set and solid.</p> + +<p>A perfect tree! So I came up again with my short axe and after clearing +away the grass and leaves with which the wind had mulched it, I cut into +the clean white roots. I had no twinge of compunction, for was this not +fulfillment? Nothing comes of sorrow for worthy sacrifice. When I had +laid the tree low, I clipped off the lower branches, snapped off the top +with a single clean stroke of the axe, and shouldered as pretty a +second-growth sapling stick as anyone ever laid his eyes upon.</p> + +<p>I carried it down to my barn and put it on the open rafters over the cow +stalls. A cow stable is warm and not too dry, so that a hickory log +cures slowly without cracking or checking. There it lay for many weeks. +Often I cast my eyes up at it with satisfaction, watching the bark +shrink and slightly deepen in colour, and once I climbed up where I +could see the minute seams making way in the end of the stick.</p> + +<p>In the summer I brought the stick into the house, and put it in the dry, +warm storeroom over the kitchen where I keep my seed corn. I do not +suppose it really needed further attention, but sometimes when I chanced +to go into the storeroom, I turned it over with my foot. I felt a sort +of satisfaction in knowing that it was in preparation for service: good +material for useful work. So it lay during the autumn and far into the +winter.</p> + +<p>One cold night when I sat comfortably at my fireplace, listening to the +wind outside, and feeling all the ease of a man at peace with himself, +my mind took flight to my snowy field sides and I thought of the trees +there waiting and resting through the winter. So I came in imagination +to the particular corner in the fence where I had cut my hickory +sapling. Instantly I started up, much to Harriet's astonishment, and +made my way mysteriously up the kitchen stairs. I would not tell what I +was after: I felt it a sort of adventure, almost like the joy of seeing +a friend long forgotten. It was as if my hickory stick had cried out at +last, after long chrysalishood:</p> + +<p>"I am ready."</p> + +<p>I stood it on end and struck it sharply with my knuckles: it rang out +with a certain clear resonance.</p> + +<p>"I am ready."</p> + +<p>I sniffed at the end of it. It exhaled a peculiar good smell, as of old +fields in the autumn.</p> + +<p>"I am ready."</p> + +<p>So I took it under my arm and carried it down.</p> + +<p>"Mercy, what are you going to do?" exclaimed Harriet.</p> + +<p>"Deliberately, and with malice aforethought," I responded, "I am going +to litter up your floor. I have decided to be reckless. I don't care +what happens."</p> + +<p>Having made this declaration, which Harriet received with becoming +disdain, I laid the log by the fireplace—not too near—and went to +fetch a saw, a hammer, a small wedge, and a draw-shave.</p> + +<p>I split my log into as fine white sections as a man ever saw—every +piece as straight as morality, and without so much as a sliver to mar +it. Nothing is so satisfactory as to have a task come out in perfect +time and in good order. The little pieces of bark and sawdust I swept +scrupulously into the fireplace, looking up from time to time to see how +Harriet was taking it. Harriet was still disdainful.</p> + +<p>Making an axe-helve is like writing a poem (though I never wrote one). +The material is free enough, but it takes a poet to use it. Some people +imagine that any fine thought is poetry, but there was never a greater +mistake. A fine thought, to become poetry, must be seasoned in the upper +warm garrets of the mind for long and long, then it must be brought down +and slowly carved into words, shaped with emotion, polished with love. +Else it is no true poem. Some people imagine that any hickory stick will +make an axe-helve. But this is far from the truth. When I had whittled +away for several evenings with my draw-shave and jack-knife, both of +which I keep sharpened to the keenest edge, I found that my work was not +progressing as well as I had hoped.</p> + +<p>"This is more of a task," I remarked one evening, "than I had imagined."</p> + +<p>Harriet, rocking placidly in her arm-chair, was mending a number of +pairs of new socks, Poor Harriet! Lacking enough old holes to occupy her +energies, she mends holes that may possibly appear. A frugal person!</p> + +<p>"Well, David," she said, "I warned you that you could buy a helve +cheaper than you could make it."</p> + +<p>"So I can buy a book cheaper than I can write it," I responded.</p> + +<p>I felt somewhat pleased with my return shot, though I took pains not to +show it. I squinted along my hickory stick which was even then beginning +to assume, rudely, the outlines of an axe-handle. I had made a +prodigious pile of fine white shavings and I was tired, but quite +suddenly there came over me a sort of love for that length of wood. I +sprung it affectionately over my knee, I rubbed it up and down with my +hand, and then I set it in the corner behind the fireplace.</p> + +<p>"After all," I said, for I had really been disturbed by Harriet's +remark—"after all, power over one thing gives us power over everything. +When you mend socks prospectively—into futurity—Harriet, that is an +evidence of true greatness."</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I think it doesn't pay," remarked Harriet, though she was +plainly pleased.</p> + +<p>"Pretty good socks," I said, "can be bought for fifteen cents a pair."</p> + +<p>Harriet looked at me suspiciously, but I was as sober as the face of +nature.</p> + +<p>For the next two or three evenings I let the axe-helve stand alone in +the corner. I hardly looked at it, though once in a while, when occupied +with some other work, I would remember, or rather half remember, that I +had a pleasure in store for the evening. The very thought of sharp tools +and something, to make with them acts upon the imagination with peculiar +zest. So we love to employ the keen edge of the mind upon a knotty and +difficult subject.</p> + +<p>One evening the Scotch preacher came in. We love him very much, though +he sometimes makes us laugh—perhaps, in part, because he makes us +laugh. Externally he is a sort of human cocoanut, rough, brown, shaggy, +but within he has the true milk of human kindness. Some of his qualities +touch greatness. His youth was spent in stony places where strong winds +blew; the trees where he grew bore thorns; the soil where he dug was +full of roots. But the crop was human love. He possesses that quality, +unusual in one bred exclusively in the country, of magnanimity toward +the unlike. In the country we are tempted to throw stones at strange +hats! But to the Scotch preacher every man in one way seems transparent +to the soul. He sees the man himself, not his professions any more than +his clothes. And I never knew anyone who had such an abiding disbelief +in the wickedness of the human soul. Weakness he sees and comforts; +wickedness he cannot see.</p> + +<p>When he came in I was busy whittling my axe-helve, it being my pleasure +at that moment to make long, thin, curly shavings so light that many of +them were caught on the hearth and bowled by the draught straight to +fiery destruction.</p> + +<p>There is a noisy zest about the Scotch preacher: he comes in "stomping" +as we say, he must clear his throat, he must strike his hands together; +he even seems noisy when he unwinds the thick red tippet which he wears +wound many times around his neck. It takes him a long time to unwind it, +and he accomplishes the task with many slow gyrations of his enormous +rough head. When he sits down he takes merely the edge of the chair, +spreads his stout legs apart, sits as straight as a post, and blows his +nose with a noise like the falling of a tree.</p> + +<p>His interest in everything is prodigious. When he saw what I was doing +he launched at once upon an account of the methods of axe-helving, +ancient and modern, with true incidents of his childhood.</p> + +<p>"Man," he exclaimed, "you've clean forgotten one of the preenciple +refinements of the art. When you chop, which hand do you hold down?"</p> + +<p>At the moment, I couldn't have told "to save my life, so we both got up +on our feet and tried.</p> + +<p>"It's the right hand down," I decided; "that's natural to me."</p> + +<p>"You're a normal right-handed chopper, then," said the Scotch preacher, +"as I was thinking. Now let me instruct you in the art. Being +right-handed, your helve must bow out—so. No first-class chopper uses a +straight handle."</p> + +<p>He fell to explaining, with gusto, the mysteries of the bowed handle, +and as I listened I felt a new and peculiar interest in my task This +was a final perfection to be accomplished, the finality of technique!</p> + +<p>So we sat with our heads together talking helves and axes, axes with +single blades and axes with double blades, and hand axes and great +choppers' axes, and the science of felling trees, with the true +philosophy of the last chip, and arguments as to the best procedure when +a log begins to "pinch"—until a listener would have thought that the +art of the chopper included the whole philosophy of existence—as indeed +it does, if you look at it in that way. Finally I rushed out and brought +in my old axe-handle, and we set upon it like true artists, with +critical proscription for being a trivial product of machinery.</p> + +<p>"Man," exclaimed the preacher, "it has no character. Now your helve +here, being the vision of your brain and work of your hands, will +interpret the thought of your heart."</p> + +<p>Before the Scotch preacher had finished his disquisition upon the art of +helve-making and its relations with all other arts, I felt like Peary +discovering the Pole.</p> + +<p>In the midst of the discourse, while I was soaring high, the Scotch +preacher suddenly stopped, sat up, and struck his knee with a tremendous +resounding smack.</p> + +<p>"Spoons!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>Harriet and I stopped and looked at him in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Spoons," repeated Harriet.</p> + +<p>"Spoons," said the Scotch preacher. "I've not once thought of my errand; +and my wife told me to come straight home. I'm more thoughtless every +day!"</p> + +<p>Then he turned to Harriet:</p> + +<p>"I've been sent to borrow some spoons," he said.</p> + +<p>"Spoons!" exclaimed Harriet.</p> + +<p>"Spoons," answered the Scotch preacher. "We've invited friends for +dinner to-morrow, and we must have spoons."</p> + +<p>"But why—how—I thought—" began Harriet, still in astonishment.</p> + +<p>The Scotch preacher squared around toward her and cleared his throat.</p> + +<p>"It's the baptisms," he said: "when a baby is brought for baptism, of +course it must have a baptismal gift. What is the best gift for a baby? +A spoon. So we present it with a spoon. To-day we discovered we had only +three spoons left, and company coming. Man, 'tis a proleefic +neighbourhood."</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/12.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<p>[Illustration: "LET MY AXE FALL"]</p> + +<p>He heaved a great sigh.</p> + +<p>Harriet rushed out and made up a package. When she came in I thought it +seemed suspiciously large for spoons, but the Scotch preacher having +again launched into the lore of the chopper, took it without at first +perceiving anything strange. Five minutes after we had closed the door +upon him he suddenly returned holding up the package.</p> + +<p>"This is an uncommonly heavy package," he remarked; "did I say +table-spoons?"</p> + +<p>"Go on!" commanded Harriet; "your wife will understand."</p> + +<p>"All right—good-bye again," and his sturdy figure soon disappeared in +the dark.</p> + +<p>"The impractical man!" exclaimed Harriet. "People impose on him."</p> + +<p>"What was in that package, Harriet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I put in a few jars of jelly and a cake of honey."</p> + +<p>After a moment Harriet looked up from her work.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the greatest sorrow of the Scotch preacher and his wife?"</p> + +<p>"What is it?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"They have no chick nor child of their own," said Harriet.</p> + +<p>It is prodigious, the amount of work required to make a good +axe-helve—I mean to make it according to one's standard. I had times of +humorous discouragement and times of high elation when it seemed to me I +could not work fast enough. Weeks passed when I did not touch the helve +but left it standing quietly in the corner. Once or twice I took it out +and walked about with it as a sort of cane, much to the secret +amusement, I think, of Harriet. At times Harriet takes a really wicked +delight in her superiority.</p> + +<p>Early one morning in March the dawn came with a roaring wind, sleety +snow drove down over the hill, the house creaked and complained in every +clapboard. A blind of one of the upper windows, wrenched loose from its +fastenings, was driven shut with such force that it broke a window pane. +When I rushed up to discover the meaning of the clatter and to repair +the damage, I found the floor covered with peculiar long fragments of +glass—the pane having been broken inward from the centre.</p> + +<p>"Just what I have wanted," I said to myself.</p> + +<p>I selected a few of the best pieces and so eager was I to try them that +I got out my axe-helve before breakfast and sat scratching away when +Harriet came down.</p> + +<p>Nothing equals a bit of broken glass for putting on the final perfect +touch to a work of art like an axe-helve. Nothing will so beautifully +and delicately trim out the curves of the throat or give a smoother turn +to the waist. So with care and an indescribable affection, I added the +final touches, trimming the helve until it exactly fitted my hand. Often +and often I tried it in pantomime, swinging nobly in the centre of the +sitting-room (avoiding the lamp), attentive to the feel of my hand as it +ran along the helve. I rubbed it down with fine sandpaper until it +fairly shone with whiteness. Then I borrowed a red flannel cloth of +Harriet and having added a few drops—not too much—of boiled oil, I +rubbed the helve for all I was worth. This I continued for upward of an +hour. At that time the axe-helve had taken on a yellowish shade, very +clear and beautiful.</p> + +<p>I do not think I could have been prouder if I had carved a statue or +built a parthenon. I was consumed with vanity; but I set the new helve +in the corner with the appearance of utter unconcern.</p> + +<p>"There," I remarked, "it's finished."</p> + +<p>I watched Harriet out of the corner of my eye: she made as if to speak +and then held silent.</p> + +<p>That evening friend Horace came in. I was glad to see him. Horace is or +was a famous chopper. I placed him at the fireplace where his eye, +sooner or later, must fall upon my axe-helve. Oh, I worked out my +designs! Presently he saw the helve, picked it up at once and turned it +over in his hands. I had a suffocating, not unhumorous, sense of +self-consciousness. I know how a poet must feel at hearing his first +poem read aloud by some other person who does not know its authorship. I +suffer and thrill with the novelist who sees a stranger purchase his +book in a book-shop. I felt as though I stood that moment before the +Great Judge.</p> + +<p>Horace "hefted" it and balanced it, and squinted along it; he rubbed it +with his thumb, he rested one end of it on the floor and sprung it +roughly.</p> + +<p>"David," he said severely, "where did you git this?"</p> + +<p>Once when I was a boy I came home with my hair wet. My father asked:</p> + +<p>"David, have you been swimming?"</p> + +<p>I had exactly the same feeling when Horace asked his question. Now I am, +generally speaking, a truthful man. I have written a good deal about the +immorality, the unwisdom, the short-sightedness, the sinful wastefulness +of a lie. But at that moment, if Harriet had not been present—and that +illustrates one of the purposes of society, to bolster up a man's +morals—I should have evolved as large and perfect a prevarication as it +lay within me to do—cheerfully. But I felt Harriet's moral eye upon me: +I was a coward as well as a sinner. I faltered so long that Horace +finally looked around at me.</p> + +<p>Horace has no poetry in his soul, neither does he understand the +philosophy of imperfection nor the art of irregularity.</p> + +<p>It is a tender shoot, easily blasted by cold winds, the creative +instinct: but persistent. It has many adventitious buds. A late frost +destroying the freshness of its early verdure, may be the means of a +richer growth in later and more favourable days.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>For a week I left my helve standing there in the corner. I did not even +look at it. I was slain. I even thought of getting up in the night and +putting the helve on the coals—secretly. Then, suddenly, one morning, I +took it up not at all tenderly, indeed with a humorous appreciation of +my own absurdities, and carried it out into the yard. An axe-helve is +not a mere ornament but a thing of sober purpose. The test, after all, +of axe-helves is not sublime perfection, but service. We may easily find +flaws in the verse of the master—how far the rhythm fails of the final +perfect music, how often uncertain the rhyme—but it bears within it, +hidden yet evident, that certain incalculable fire which kindles and +will continue to kindle the souls of men. The final test is not the +perfection of precedent, not regularity, but life, spirit.</p> + +<p>It was one of those perfect, sunny, calm mornings that sometimes come in +early April: the zest of winter yet in the air, but a promise of summer.</p> + +<p>I built a fire of oak chips in the middle of the yard, between two flat +stones. I brought out my old axe, and when the fire had burned down +somewhat, leaving a foundation of hot coals, I thrust the eye of the axe +into the fire. The blade rested on one of the flat stones, and I kept it +covered with wet rags in order that it might not heat sufficiently to +destroy the temper of the steel. Harriet's old gray hen, a garrulous +fowl, came and stood on one leg and looked at me first with one eye and +then with the other. She asked innumerable impertinent questions and was +generally disagreeable.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, madam," I said finally, "but I have grown adamant to +criticism. I have done my work as well as it lies in me to do it. It is +the part of sanity to throw it aside without compunction. A work must +prove itself. Shoo!"</p> + +<p>I said this with such conclusiveness and vigour that the critical old +hen departed hastily with ruffled feathers.</p> + +<p>So I sat there in the glorious perfection of the forenoon, the great day +open around me, a few small clouds abroad in the highest sky, and all +the earth radiant with sunshine. The last snow of winter was gone, the +sap ran in the trees, the cows fed further afield.</p> + +<p>When the eye of the axe was sufficiently expanded by the heat I drew it +quickly from the fire and drove home the helve which I had already +whittled down to the exact size. I had a hickory wedge prepared, and it +was the work of ten seconds to drive it into the cleft at the lower end +of the helve until the eye of the axe was completely and perfectly +filled. Upon cooling the steel shrunk upon the wood, clasping it with +such firmness that nothing short of fire could ever dislodge it. Then, +carefully, with knife and sandpaper I polished off the wood around the +steel of the axe until I had made as good a job of it as lay within my +power.</p> + +<p>So I carried the axe to my log-pile. I swung it above my head and the +feel of it was good in my hands. The blade struck deep into the oak +wood. And I said to myself with satisfaction:</p> + +<p>"It serves the purpose."</p> + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/13.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">VI</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE MARSH DITCH</h2> + +<p>"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy and life +emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-smelling herbs—is more +elastic, more starry, more immortal—that is your Success."</p> +<br /> + +<p>In all the days of my life I have never been so well content as I am +this spring. Last summer I thought I was happy, the fall gave me a +finality of satisfaction, the winter imparted perspective, but spring +conveys a wholly new sense of life, a quickening the like of which I +never before experienced. It seems to me that everything in the world is +more interesting, more vital, more significant. I feel like "waving +aside all roofs," in the way of Le Sage's Asmodeus.</p> + +<p>I even cease to fear Mrs. Horace, who is quite the most formidable +person in this neighbourhood. She is so avaricious in the saving of +souls—and so covetous of mine, which I wish especially to retain. When +I see her coming across the hill I feel like running and hiding, and if +I were as bold as a boy, I should do it, but being a grown-up coward I +remain and dissemble.</p> + +<p>She came over this morning. When I beheld her afar off, I drew a long +breath: "One thousand," I quoted to myself, "shall flee at the rebuke of +one."</p> + +<p>In calmness I waited. She came with colours flying and hurled her +biblical lance. When I withstood the shock with unexpected jauntiness, +for I usually fall dead at once, she looked at me with severity and +said:</p> + +<p>"Mr. Grayson, you are a materialist."</p> + +<p>"You have shot me with a name," I replied. "I am unhurt."</p> + +<p>It would be impossible to slay me on a day like this. On a day like +this I am immortal.</p> + +<p>It comes to me as the wonder of wonders, these spring days, how surely +everything, spiritual as well as material, proceeds out of the earth. I +have times of sheer Paganism when I could bow and touch my face to the +warm bare soil. We are so often ashamed of the Earth—the soil of it, +the sweat of it, the good common coarseness of it. To us in our fine +raiment and soft manners, it seems indelicate. Instead of seeking that +association with the earth which is the renewal of life, we devise +ourselves distant palaces and seek strange pleasures. How often and +sadly we repeat the life story of the yellow dodder of the moist lanes +of my lower farm. It springs up fresh and clean from the earth itself, +and spreads its clinging viny stems over the hospitable wild balsam and +golden rod. In a week's time, having reached the warm sunshine of the +upper air, it forgets its humble beginnings. Its roots wither swiftly +and die out, but the sickly yellow stems continue to flourish and +spread, drawing their nourishment not from the soil itself, but by +strangling and sucking the life juices of the hosts on which it feeds. +I have seen whole byways covered thus with yellow dodder—rootless, +leafless, parasitic—reaching up to the sunlight, quite cutting off and +smothering the plants which gave it life. A week or two it flourishes +and then most of it perishes miserably. So many of us come to be like +that: so much of our civilization is like that. Men and women there +are—the pity of it—who, eating plentifully, have never themselves +taken a mouthful from the earth. They have never known a moment's real +life of their own. Lying up to the sun in warmth and comfort—but +leafless—they do not think of the hosts under them, smothered, +strangled, starved. They take <i>nothing</i> at first hand. They experience +described emotion, and think prepared thoughts. They live not in life, +but in printed reports of life. They gather the odour of odours, not the +odour itself: they do not hear, they overhear. A poor, sad, second-rate +existence!</p> + +<p>Bring out your social remedies! They will fail, they will fail, every +one, until each man has his feet somewhere upon the soil!</p> + +<p>My wild plum trees grow in the coarse earth, among excrementitious +mould, a physical life which finally blossoms and exhales its perfect +odour: which ultimately bears the seed of its immortality.</p> + +<p>Human happiness is the true odour of growth, the sweet exhalation of +work: and the seed of human immortality is borne secretly within the +coarse and mortal husk. So many of us crave the odour without +cultivating the earthly growth from which it proceeds: so many, wasting +mortality, expect immortality!</p> + +<p>----"Why," asks Charles Baxter, "do you always put the end of your +stories first?"</p> + +<p>"You may be thankful," I replied, "that I do not make my remarks all +endings. Endings are so much more interesting than beginnings."</p> + +<p>Without looking up from the buggy he was mending, Charles Baxter +intimated that my way had at least one advantage: one always knew, he +said, that I really had an end in view—and hope deferred, he said----</p> + +<p>----How surely, soundly, deeply, the physical underlies the spiritual. +This morning I was up and out at half-past four, as perfect a morning as +I ever saw: mists yet huddled in the low spots, the sun coming up over +the hill, and all the earth fresh with moisture, sweet with good +odours, and musical with early bird-notes.</p> + +<p>It is the time of the spring just after the last seeding and before the +early haying: a catch-breath in the farmer's year. I have been utilising +it in digging a drainage ditch at the lower end of my farm. A spot of +marsh grass and blue flags occupies nearly half an acre of good land and +I have been planning ever since I bought the place to open a drain from +its lower edge to the creek, supplementing it in the field above, if +necessary, with submerged tiling. I surveyed it carefully several weeks +ago and drew plans and contours of the work as though it were an +inter-oceanic canal. I find it a real delight to work out in the earth +itself the details of the drawing.</p> + +<p>This morning, after hastening with the chores, I took my bag and my +spade on my shoulder and set off (in rubber boots) for the ditch. My way +lay along the margin of my cornfield in the deep grass. On my right as I +walked was the old rail fence full of thrifty young hickory and cherry +trees with here and there a clump of blackberry bushes. The trees +beyond the fence cut off the sunrise so that I walked in the cool broad +shadows. On my left stretched the cornfield of my planting, the young +corn well up, very attractive and hopeful, my really frightful scarecrow +standing guard on the knoll, a wisp of straw sticking up through a hole +in his hat and his crooked thumbs turned down—"No mercy."</p> + +<p>"Surely no corn ever before grew like this," I said to myself. +"To-morrow I must begin cultivating again."</p> + +<p>So I looked up and about me—not to miss anything of the morning—and I +drew in a good big breath and I thought the world had never been so open +to my senses.</p> + +<p>I wonder why it is that the sense of smell is so commonly +under-regarded. To me it is the source of some of my greatest pleasures. +No one of the senses is more often allied with robustity of physical +health. A man who smells acutely may be set down as enjoying that which +is normal, plain, wholesome. He does not require seasoning: the ordinary +earth is good enough for him. He is likely to be sane—which means +sound, healthy—in his outlook upon life.</p> + +<p>Of all hours of the day there is none like the early morning for +downright good odours—the morning before eating. Fresh from sleep and +unclogged with food a man's senses cut like knives. The whole world +comes in upon him. A still morning is best, for the mists and the +moisture seem to retain the odours which they have distilled through the +night. Upon a breezy morning one is likely to get a single predominant +odour as of clover when the wind blows across a hay field or of apple +blossoms when the wind comes through the orchard, but upon a perfectly +still morning, it is wonderful how the odours arrange themselves in +upright strata, so that one walking passes through them as from room to +room in a marvellous temple of fragrance, (I should have said, I think, +if I had not been on my way to dig a ditch, that it was like turning the +leaves of some delicate volume of lyrics!)</p> + +<p>So it was this morning. As I walked along the margin of my field I was +conscious, at first, coming within the shadows of the wood, of the cool, +heavy aroma which one associates with the night: as of moist woods and +earth mould. The penetrating scent of the night remains long after the +sights and sounds of it have disappeared. In sunny spots I had the +fragrance of the open cornfield, the aromatic breath of the brown earth, +giving curiously the sense of fecundity—a warm, generous odour of +daylight and sunshine. Down the field, toward the corner, cutting in +sharply, as though a door opened (or a page turned to another lyric), +came the cloying, sweet fragrance of wild crab-apple blossoms, almost +tropical in their richness, and below that, as I came to my work, the +thin acrid smell of the marsh, the place of the rushes and the flags and +the frogs.</p> + +<p>How few of us really use our senses! I mean give ourselves fully at any +time to the occupation of the senses. We do not expect to understand a +treatise on Economics without applying our minds to it, nor can we +really smell or hear or see or feel without every faculty alert. Through +sheer indolence we miss half the joy of the world!</p> + +<p>Often as I work I stop to see: really see: see everything, or to listen, +and it is the wonder of wonders, how much there is in this old world +which we never dreamed of, how many beautiful, curious, interesting +sights and sounds there are which ordinarily make no impression upon our +clogged, overfed and preoccupied minds. I have also had the feeling—it +may be unscientific but it is comforting—that any man might see like an +Indian or smell like a hound if he gave to the senses the brains which +the Indian and the hound apply to them. And I'm pretty sure about the +Indian! It is marvellous what a man can do when he puts his entire mind +upon one faculty and bears down hard.</p> + +<p>So I walked this morning, not hearing nor seeing, but smelling. Without +desiring to stir up strife among the peaceful senses, there is this +further marvel of the sense of smell. No other possesses such an +after-call. Sight preserves pictures: the complete view of the aspect of +objects, but it is photographic and external. Hearing deals in echoes, +but the sense of smell, while saving no vision of a place or a person, +will re-create in a way almost miraculous the inner <i>emotion</i> of a +particular time or place. I know of nothing that will so "create an +appetite under the ribs of death."</p> + +<p>Only a short time ago I passed an open doorway in the town. I was busy +with errands, my mind fully engaged, but suddenly I caught an odour from +somewhere within the building I was passing. I stopped! It was as if in +that moment I lost twenty years of my life: I was a boy again, living +and feeling a particular instant at the time of my father's death. Every +emotion of that occasion, not recalled in years, returned to me sharply +and clearly as though I experienced it for the first time. It was a +peculiar emotion: the first time I had ever felt the oppression of +space—can I describe it?—the utter bigness of the world and the +aloofness of myself, a little boy, within it—now that my father was +gone. It was not at that moment sorrow, nor remorse, nor love: it was an +inexpressible cold terror—that anywhere I might go in the world, I +should still be alone!</p> + +<p>And there I stood, a man grown, shaking in the sunshine with that old +boyish emotion brought back to me by an odour! Often and often have I +known this strange rekindling of dead fires. And I have thought how, if +our senses were really perfect, we might lose nothing, out of our lives: +neither sights, nor sounds, nor emotions: a sort of mortal immortality. +Was not Shakespeare great because he lost less of the savings of his +senses than other men? What a wonderful seer, hearer, smeller, taster, +feeler, he must have been—and how, all the time, his mind must have +played upon the gatherings of his senses! All scenes, all men, the very +turn of a head, the exact sound of a voice, the taste of food, the feel +of the world—all the emotions of his life must he have had there before +him as he wrote, his great mind playing upon them, reconstructing, +re-creating and putting them down hot upon his pages. There is nothing +strange about great men; they are like us, only deeper, higher, broader: +they think as we do, but with more intensity: they suffer as we do, more +keenly: they love as we do, more tenderly.</p> + +<p>I may be over-glorifying the sense of smell, but it is only because I +walked this morning in a world of odours. The greatest of the senses, of +course, is not smell or hearing, but sight. What would not any man +exchange for that: for the faces one loves, for the scenes one holds +most dear, for all that is beautiful and changeable and beyond +description? The Scotch Preacher says that the saddest lines in all +literature are those of Milton, writing of his blindness.</p> + +<p>"Seasons return; but not to me returns +Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, +Or sight of vernal bloom or Summer's rose, +Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine."</p> + +<p>—I have wandered a long way from ditch-digging, but not wholly without +intention. Sooner or later I try to get back into the main road. I throw +down my spade in the wet trampled grass at the edge of the ditch. I take +off my coat and hang it over a limb of the little hawthorn tree. I put +my bag near it. I roll up the sleeves of my flannel shirt: I give my hat +a twirl; I'm ready for work.</p> + +<p>—The senses are the tools by which we lay hold upon the world: they are +the implements of consciousness and growth. So long as they are used +upon the good earth—used to wholesome weariness—they remain healthy, +they yield enjoyment, they nourish growth; but let them once be removed +from their natural employment and they turn and feed upon themselves, +they seek the stimulation of luxury, they wallow in their own +corruption, and finally, worn out, perish from off the earth which they +have not appreciated. Vice is ever the senses gone astray.</p> + +<p>—So I dug. There is something fine in hard physical labour, straight +ahead: no brain used, just muscles. I stood ankle-deep in the cool +water: every spadeful came out with a smack, and as I turned it over at +the edge of the ditch small turgid rivulets coursed back again. I did +not think of anything in particular. I dug. A peculiar joy attends the +very pull of the muscles. I drove the spade home with one foot, then I +bent and lifted and turned with a sort of physical satisfaction +difficult to describe. At first I had the cool of the morning, but by +seven o'clock the day was hot enough! I opened the breast of my shirt, +gave my sleeves another roll, and went at it again for half an hour, +until I dripped with perspiration.</p> + +<p>"I will knock off," I said, so I used my spade as a ladder and climbed +out of the ditch. Being very thirsty, I walked down through the marshy +valley to the clump of alders which grows along the creek. I followed a +cow-path through the thicket and came to the creek side, where I knelt +on a log and took a good long drink. Then I soused my head in the cool +stream, dashed the water upon my arms and came up dripping and gasping! +Oh, but it was fine!</p> + +<p>So I came back to the hawthorn tree, where I sat down comfortably and +stretched my legs. There is a poem in stretched legs—after hard +digging—but I can't write it, though I can feel it! I got my bag and +took out a half loaf of Harriet's bread. Breaking off big crude pieces, +I ate it there in the shade. How rarely we taste the real taste of +bread! We disguise it with butter, we toast it, we eat it with milk or +fruit. We even soak it with gravy (here in the country where we aren't +at all polite—but very comfortable), so that we never get the downright +delicious taste of the bread itself. I was hungry this morning and I ate +my half loaf to the last crumb—and wanted more. Then I lay down for a +moment in the shade and looked up into the sky through the thin outer +branches of the hawthorn. A turkey buzzard was lazily circling +cloud-high above me: a frog boomed intermittently from the little marsh, +and there were bees at work in the blossoms.</p> + +<p>—I had another drink at the creek and went back somewhat reluctantly, +I confess, to the work. It was hot, and the first joy of effort had worn +off. But the ditch was to be dug and I went at it again. One becomes a +sort of machine—unthinking, mechanical: and yet intense physical work, +though making no immediate impression on the mind, often lingers in the +consciousness. I find that sometimes I can remember and enjoy for long +afterward every separate step in a task.</p> + +<p>It is curious, hard physical labour! One actually stops thinking. I +often work long without any thought whatever, so far as I know, save +that connected with the monotonous repetition of the labour itself—down +with the spade, out with it, up with it, over with it—and repeat. And +yet sometimes—mostly in the forenoon when I am not at all tired—I will +suddenly have a sense as of the world opening around me—a sense of its +beauty and its meanings—giving me a peculiar deep happiness, that is +near complete content—</p> + +<p>Happiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work. +It is one of the follies of men to imagine that they can enjoy mere +thought, or emotion, or sentiment! As well try to eat beauty! For +happiness must be tricked! She loves to see men at work. She loves +sweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will be found not in palaces but +lurking in cornfields and factories and hovering over littered desks: +she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child. If you look up +suddenly from hard work you will see her, but if you look too long she +fades sorrowfully away.</p> + +<p>—Down toward the town there is a little factory for barrel hoops and +staves. It has one of the most musical whistles I ever heard in my life. +It toots at exactly twelve o'clock: blessed sound! The last half-hour at +ditch-digging is a hard, slow pull. I'm warm and tired, but I stick down +to it and wait with straining ear for the music. At the very first note, +of that whistle I drop my spade. I will even empty out a load of dirt +half way up rather than expend another ounce of energy; and I spring out +of the ditch and start for home with a single desire in my heart—or +possibly lower down. And Harriet, standing in the doorway, seems to me +a sort of angel—a culinary angel!</p> + +<p>Talk of joy: there may be things better than beef stew and baked +potatoes and home-made bread—there may be—</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/14.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/15.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">VII</h1> +<h2 align="center">AN ARGUMENT WITH A MILLIONNAIRE</h2> + +<p>"Let the mighty and great +Roll in splendour and state, +I envy them not, I declare it. +I eat my own lamb, +My own chicken and ham, +I shear my own sheep and wear it.</p> + +<p>I have lawns, I have bowers, +I have fruits, I have flowers. +The lark is my morning charmer; +So you jolly dogs now, +Here's God bless the plow— +Long life and content to the farmer."</p> + +<p>---<i>Rhyme on an old pitcher of English pottery</i>.</p> + +<p>I have been hearing of John Starkweather ever since I came here. He is a +most important personage in this community. He is rich. Horace +especially loved to talk about him. Give Horace half a chance, whether +the subject be pigs or churches, and he will break in somewhere with the +remark: "As I was saying to Mr. Starkweather—" or, "Mr. Starkweather +says to me—" How we love to shine by reflected glory! Even Harriet has +not gone unscathed; she, too, has been affected by the bacillus of +admiration. She has wanted to know several times if I saw John +Starkweather drive by: "the finest span of horses in this country," she +says, and "<i>did</i> you see his daughter?" Much other information +concerning the Starkweather household, culinary and otherwise, is +current among our hills. We know accurately the number of Mr. +Starkweather's bedrooms, we can tell how much coal he uses in winter and +how many tons of ice in summer, and upon such important premises we +argue his riches.</p> + +<p>Several times I have passed John Starkweather's home. It lies between my +farm and the town, though not on the direct road, and it is really +beautiful with the groomed and guided beauty possible to wealth. A +stately old house with a huge end chimney of red brick stands with +dignity well back from the road; round about lie pleasant lawns that +once were cornfields: and there are drives and walks and exotic shrubs. +At first, loving my own hills so well, I was puzzled to understand why I +should also enjoy Starkweather's groomed surroundings. But it came to me +that after all, much as we may love wildness, we are not wild, nor our +works. What more artificial than a house, or a barn, or a fence? And the +greater and more formal the house, the more formal indeed must be the +nearer natural environments. Perhaps the hand of man might well have +been less evident in developing the surroundings of the Starkweather +home—for art, dealing with nature, is so often too accomplished!</p> + +<p>But I enjoy the Starkweather place and as I look in from the road, I +sometimes think to myself with satisfaction: "Here is this rich man who +has paid his thousands to make the beauty which I pass and take for +nothing—and having taken, leave as much behind." And I wonder sometimes +whether he, inside his fences, gets more joy of it than I, who walk the +roads outside. Anyway, I am grateful to him for using his riches so much +to my advantage.</p> + +<p>On fine mornings John Starkweather sometimes comes out in his slippers, +bare-headed, his white vest gleaming in the sunshine, and walks slowly +around his garden. Charles Baxter says that on these occasions he is +asking his gardener the names of the vegetables. However that may be, he +has seemed to our community the very incarnation of contentment and +prosperity—his position the acme of desirability.</p> + +<p>What was my astonishment, then, the other morning to see John +Starkweather coming down the pasture lane through my farm. I knew him +afar off, though I had never met him. May I express the inexpressible +when I say he had a rich look; he walked rich, there was richness in the +confident crook of his elbow, and in the positive twitch of the stick he +carried: a man accustomed to having doors opened before he knocked. I +stood there a moment and looked up the hill at him, and I felt that +profound curiosity which every one of us feels every day of his life to +know something of the inner impulses which stir his nearest neighbour. I +should have liked to know John Starkweather; but I thought to myself as +I have thought so many times how surely one comes finally to imitate his +surroundings. A farmer grows to be a part of his farm; the sawdust on +his coat is not the most distinctive insignia of the carpenter; the poet +writes his truest lines upon his own countenance. People passing in my +road take me to be a part of this natural scene. I suppose I seem to +them as a partridge squatting among dry grass and leaves, so like the +grass and leaves as to be invisible. We all come to be marked upon by +nature and dismissed—how carelessly!—as genera or species. And is it +not the primal struggle of man to escape classification, to form new +differentiations?</p> + +<p>Sometimes—I confess it—when I see one passing in my road, I feel like +hailing him and saying:</p> + +<p>"Friend, I am not all farmer. I, too, am a person; I am different and +curious. I am full of red blood, I like people, all sorts of people; if +you are not interested in me, at least I am intensely interested in you. +Come over now and let's talk!"</p> + +<p>So we are all of us calling and calling across the incalculable gulfs +which separate us even from our nearest friends!</p> + +<p>Once or twice this feeling has been so real to me that I've been near +to the point of hailing utter strangers—only to be instantly overcome +with a sense of the humorous absurdity of such an enterprise. So I laugh +it off and I say to myself:</p> + +<p>"Steady now: the man is going to town to sell a pig; he is coming back +with ten pounds of sugar, five of salt pork, a can of coffee and some +new blades for his mowing machine. He hasn't time for talk"—and so I +come down with a bump to my digging, or hoeing, or chopping, or whatever +it is.</p> + +<p>----Here I've left John Starkweather in my pasture while I remark to +the extent of a page or two that I didn't expect him to see me when he +went by.</p> + +<p>I assumed that he was out for a walk, perhaps to enliven a worn appetite +(do you know, confidentially, I've had some pleasure in times past in +reflecting upon the jaded appetites of millionnaires!), and that he +would pass out by my lane to the country road; but instead of that, what +should he do but climb the yard fence and walk over toward the barn +where I was at work.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I was not consumed with excitement: here was fresh adventure!</p> + +<p>"A farmer," I said to myself with exultation, "has only to wait long +enough and all the world comes his way."</p> + +<p>I had just begun to grease my farm wagon and was experiencing some +difficulty in lifting and steadying the heavy rear axle while I took off +the wheel. I kept busily at work, pretending (such is the perversity of +the human mind) that I did not see Mr. Starkweather. He stood for a +moment watching me; then he said:</p> + +<p>"Good morning, sir."</p> + +<p>I looked up and said:</p> + +<p>"Oh, good morning!"</p> + +<p>"Nice little farm you have here."</p> + +<p>"It's enough for me," I replied. I did not especially like the "little." +One is human.</p> + +<p>Then I had an absurd inspiration: he stood there so trim and jaunty and +prosperous. So rich! I had a good look at him. He was dressed in a +woollen jacket coat, knee-trousers and leggins; on his head he wore a +jaunty, cocky little Scotch cap; a man, I should judge, about fifty +years old, well-fed and hearty in appearance, with grayish hair and a +good-humoured eye. I acted on my inspiration:</p> + +<p>"You've arrived," I said, "at the psychological moment."</p> + +<p>"How's that?"</p> + +<p>"Take hold here and help me lift this axle and steady it. I'm having a +hard time of it."</p> + +<p>The look of astonishment in his countenance was beautiful to see.</p> + +<p>For a moment failure stared me in the face. His expression said with +emphasis: "Perhaps you don't know who I am." But I looked at him with +the greatest good feeling and my expression said, or I meant it to say: +"To be sure I don't: and what difference does it make, anyway!"</p> + +<p>"You take hold there," I said, without waiting for him to catch his +breath, "and I'll get hold here. Together we can easily get the wheel +off."</p> + +<p>Without a word he set his cane against the barn and bent his back, up +came the axle and I propped it with a board.</p> + +<p>"Now," I said, "you hang on there and steady it while I get the wheel +off"—though, indeed, it didn't really need much steadying.</p> + +<p>As I straightened up, whom should I see but Harriet standing transfixed +in the pathway half way down to the barn, transfixed with horror. She +had recognised John Starkweather and had heard at least part of what I +said to him, and the vision of that important man bending his back to +help lift the axle of my old wagon was too terrible! She caught my eye +and pointed and mouthed. When I smiled and nodded, John Starkweather +straightened up and looked around.</p> + +<p>"Don't, on your life," I warned, "let go of that axle."</p> + +<p>He held on and Harriet turned and retreated ingloriously. John +Starkweather's face was a study!</p> + +<p>"Did you ever grease a wagon?" I asked him genially.</p> + +<p>"Never," he said.</p> + +<p>"There's more of an art in it than you think," I said, and as I worked I +talked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed him exactly how to +put it on—neither too much nor too little, and so that it would +distribute itself evenly when the wheel was replaced.</p> + +<p>"There's a right way of doing everything," I observed.</p> + +<p>"That's so," said John Starkweather: "if I could only get workmen that +believed it."</p> + +<p>By that time I could see that he was beginning to be interested. I put +back the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on the nut. He helped +me with the other end of the axle with all good humour.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," I said, as engagingly as I knew how, "you'd like to try the +art yourself? You take the grease this time and I'll steady the wagon."</p> + +<p>"All right!" he said, laughing, "I'm in for anything."</p> + +<p>He took the grease box and the paddle—less gingerly than I thought he +would.</p> + +<p>"Is that right?" he demanded, and so he put on the grease. And oh, it +was good to see Harriet in the doorway!</p> + +<p>"Steady there," I said, "not so much at the end: now put the box down on +the reach."</p> + +<p>And so together we greased the wagon, talking all the time in the +friendliest way. I actually believe that he was having a pretty good +time. At least it had the virtue of unexpectedness. He wasn't bored!</p> + +<p>When he had finished we both straightened our backs and looked at each +other. There was a twinkle in his eye: then we both laughed. "He's all +right," I said to myself. I held up my hands, then he held up his: it +was hardly necessary to prove that wagon-greasing was not a delicate +operation.</p> + +<p>"It's a good wholesome sign," I said, "but it'll come off. Do you happen +to remember a story of Tolstoi's called Ivan the Fool'?"</p> + +<p>("What is a farmer doing quoting Tolstoi!" remarked his +countenance—though he said not a word.)</p> + +<p>"In the kingdom of Ivan, you remember," I said, "it was the rule that +whoever had hard places on his hands came to table, but whoever had not +must eat what the others left."</p> + +<p>Thus I led him up to the back steps and poured him a basin of hot +water—which I brought myself from the kitchen, Harriet having +marvellously and completely disappeared. We both washed our hands, +talking with great good humour.</p> + +<p>When we had finished I said:</p> + +<p>"Sit down, friend, if you've time, and let's talk."</p> + +<p>So he sat down on one of the logs of my woodpile: a solid sort of man, +rather warm after his recent activities. He looked me over with some +interest and, I thought, friendliness.</p> + +<p>"Why does a man like you," he asked finally, "waste himself on a little +farm back here in the country?"</p> + +<p>For a single instant I came nearer to being angry than I have been for a +long time. <i>Waste</i> myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had a +sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest sarcasms I +could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh well," I thought, with +vainglorious superiority, "he doesn't know," So I said:</p> + +<p>"What would you have me be—a millionnaire?"</p> + +<p>He smiled, but with a sort of sincerity.</p> + +<p>"You might be," he said: "who can tell!"</p> + +<p>I laughed outright: the humour of it struck me as delicious. Here I had +been, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, rather gloating +over him as a poor suffering millionnaire (of course millionnaires <i>are</i> +unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying +<i>me</i> for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious, +this human nature of ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling!</p> + +<p>So I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed my legs. I +felt as though I had set foot in a new country.</p> + +<p>"Would you really advise me," I asked, "to start in to be a +millionnaire?"</p> + +<p>He chuckled:</p> + +<p>"Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to a star; but +begin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend. When I +began----" he stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did +not know who he was.</p> + +<p>"Of course," I said, "I understand that."</p> + +<p>"A man must begin small"—he was on pleasant ground—"and anywhere he +likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must save, +he must be both bold and cautious. I know a man who began when he was +about your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good digestion. +He's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in the city, a +place in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes. He has so +arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and he draws the +dividends—and all in a little more than twenty years. I made every +single cent—but as I said, it's a penny business to start with. The +point is, I like to see young men ambitious."</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/16.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<p>[Illustration: "What would you have me be—a millionaire?]</p> + +<p>"Ambitious," I asked, "for what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, to rise in the world; to get ahead."</p> + +<p>"I know you'll pardon me," I said, "for appearing to cross-examine you, +but I'm tremendously interested in these things. What do you mean by +rising? And who am I to get ahead of?"</p> + +<p>He looked at me in astonishment, and with evident impatience at my +consummate stupidity.</p> + +<p>"I am serious," I said. "I really want to make the best I can of my +life. It's the only one I've got."</p> + +<p>"See here," he said: "let us say you clear up five hundred a year from +this farm----"</p> + +<p>"You exaggerate—" I interrupted.</p> + +<p>"Do I?" he laughed; "that makes my case all the better. Now, isn't it +possible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand or five +thousand or even fifty thousand a year?"</p> + +<p>It seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars!</p> + +<p>"I suppose I might," I said, "but do you think I'd be any better off or +happier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? You see, I like all +these surroundings better than any other place I ever knew. That old +green hill over there with the oak on it is an intimate friend of mine. +I have a good cornfield in which every year I work miracles. I've a cow +and a horse, and a few pigs. I have a comfortable home. My appetite is +perfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep every night +like a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to disturb me. I enjoy +the mornings here in the country: and the evenings are pleasant. Some of +my neighbours have come to be my good friends. I like them and I am +pretty sure they like me. Inside the house there I have the best books +ever written and I have time in the evenings to read them—I mean +<i>really</i> read them. Now the question is, would I be any better off, or +any happier, if I had fifty thousand a year?"</p> + +<p>John Starkweather laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, sir," he said, "I see I've made the acquaintance of a +philosopher."</p> + +<p>"Let us say," I continued, "that you are willing to invest twenty years +of your life in a million dollars." ("Merely an illustration," said +John Starkweather.) "You have it where you can put it in the bank and +take it out again, or you can give it form in houses, yachts, and other +things. Now twenty years of my life—to me—is worth more than a million +dollars. I simply can't afford to sell it for that. I prefer to invest +it, as somebody or other has said, unearned in life. I've always had a +liking for intangible properties."</p> + +<p>"See here," said John Starkweather, "you are taking a narrow view of +life. You are making your own pleasure the only standard. Shouldn't a +man make the most of the talents given him? Hasn't he a duty to +society?"</p> + +<p>"Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the question of +personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me ask +you: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be plowed +and cultivated?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but----"</p> + +<p>"Isn't it honest and useful work?"</p> + +<p>"Of course."</p> + +<p>"Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good farmer."</p> + +<p>"But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties applied to +other things yield better and bigger results?"</p> + +<p>"That is a problem, of course," I said. "I tried money-making once—in a +city—and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am both successful and +happy. I suppose I was one of the young men who did the work while some +millionnaire drew the dividends." (I was cutting close, and I didn't +venture to look at him). "No doubt he had his houses and yachts and went +to Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs—back—where there +wasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill, or a +brook: only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord be thanked for +my escape! Sometimes I think that Success has formed a silent conspiracy +against Youth. Success holds up a single glittering apple and bids Youth +strip and run for it; and Youth runs and Success still holds the apple."</p> + +<p>John Starkweather said nothing.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said, "there are duties. We realise, we farmers, that we must +produce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or burn. We realise that +we are the foundation: we connect human life with the earth. We dig and +plant and produce, and having eaten at the first table ourselves, we +pass what is left to the bankers and millionnaires. Did you ever think, +stranger, that most of the wars of the world have been fought for the +control of this farmer's second table? Have you thought that the surplus +of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads are struggling to +carry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and mills; a little of it +gathered in cash makes a millionnaire. But we farmers, we sit back +comfortably after dinner, and joke with our wives and play with our +babies, and let all the rest of you fight for the crumbs that fall from +our abundant tables. If once we really cared and got up and shook +ourselves, and said to the maid: 'Here, child, don't waste the crusts: +gather 'em up and to-morrow we'll have a cottage pudding,' where in the +world would all the millionnaires be?"</p> + +<p>Oh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Starkweather, or +any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionnaire is +better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of the +millionnaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with the +symbols of life, whether cash or houses. Any day the symbols may change; +a little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue or a +western breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't scattering as +many crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but I've noticed that +the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat) and then what happens +to your millionnaire? Not knowing how to produce anything himself, he +would starve to death if there were not always, somewhere, a farmer to +take him up to the table."</p> + +<p>"You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather.</p> + +<p>"Strong!" I said. "It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society a +few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a +man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to +dislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, a farmer is like an oak, his +roots strike deep in the soil, he draws a sufficiency of food from the +earth itself, he breathes the free air around him, his thirst is +quenched by heaven itself—and there's no tax on sunshine."</p> + +<p>I paused for very lack of breath. John Starkweather was laughing.</p> + +<p>"When you commiserate me, therefore" ("I'm sure I shall never do it +again," said John Starkweather)—"when you commiserate me, therefore, +and advise me to rise, you must give me really good reasons for changing +my occupation and becoming a millionnaire. You must prove to me that I +can be more independent, more honest, more useful as a millionnaire, and +that I shall have better and truer friends!"</p> + +<p>John Starkweather looked around at me (I knew I had been absurdly eager +and I was rather ashamed of myself) and put his hand on my knee (he has +a wonderfully fine eye!).</p> + +<p>"I don't believe," he said, "you'd have any truer friends."</p> + +<p>"Anyway," I said repentantly, "I'll admit that millionnaires have their +place—at present I wouldn't do entirely away with them, though I do +think they'd enjoy farming better. And if I were to select a +millionnaire for all the best things I know, I should certainly choose +you, Mr. Starkweather."</p> + +<p>He jumped up.</p> + +<p>"You know who I am?" he asked.</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>"And you knew all the time?"</p> + +<p>I nodded.</p> + +<p>"Well, you're a good one!"</p> + +<p>We both laughed and fell to talking with the greatest friendliness. I +led him down my garden to show him my prize pie-plant, of which I am +enormously proud, and I pulled for him some of the finest stalks I could +find.</p> + +<p>"Take it home," I said, "it makes the best pies of any pie-plant in this +country."</p> + +<p>He took it under his arm.</p> + +<p>"I want you to come over and see me the first chance you get," he said. +"I'm going to prove to you by physical demonstration that it's better +sport to be a millionnaire than a farmer—not that I am a millionnaire: +I'm only accepting the reputation you give me."</p> + +<p>So I walked with him down to the lane.</p> + +<p>"Let me know when you grease up again," he said, "and I'll come over."</p> + +<p>So we shook hands: and he set off sturdily down the road with the +pie-plant leaves waving cheerfully over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "Somehow, and suddenly, I was a boy again"]</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/17.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">VIII</h1> +<h2 align="center">A BOY AND A PREACHER</h2> + +<p>This morning I went to church with Harriet. I usually have some excuse +for not going, but this morning I had them out one by one and they were +altogether so shabby that I decided not to use them. So I put on my +stiff shirt and Harriet came out in her best black cape with the silk +fringes. She looked so immaculate, so ruddy, so cheerfully sober (for +Sunday) that I was reconciled to the idea of driving her up to the +church. And I am glad I went, for the experience I had.</p> + +<p>It was an ideal summer Sunday: sunshiny, clear and still. I believe if +I had been some Rip Van Winkle waking after twenty years' sleep I should +have known it for Sunday. Away off over the hill somewhere we could hear +a lazy farm boy singing at the top of his voice: the higher cadences of +his song reached us pleasantly through the still air. The hens sitting +near the lane fence, fluffing the dust over their backs, were holding a +small and talkative service of their own. As we turned into the main +road we saw the Patterson children on their way to church, all the +little girls in Sunday ribbons, and all the little boys very +uncomfortable in knit stockings.</p> + +<p>"It seems a pity to go to church on a day like this," I said to Harriet.</p> + +<p>"A pity!" she exclaimed. "Could anything be more appropriate?"</p> + +<p>Harriet is good because she can't help it. Poor woman!—but I haven't +any pity for her.</p> + +<p>It sometimes seems to me the more worshipful I feel the less I want to +go to church. I don't know why it is, but these forms, simple though +they are, trouble me. The moment an emotion, especially a religious +emotion, becomes an institution, it somehow loses life. True emotion is +rare and costly and that which is awakened from without never rises to +the height of that which springs spontaneously from within.</p> + +<p>Back of the church stands a long low shed where we tied our horse. A +number of other buggies were already there, several women were standing +in groups, preening their feathers, a neighbour of ours who has a +tremendous bass voice was talking to a friend:</p> + +<p>"Yas, oats is showing up well, but wheat is backward."</p> + +<p>His voice, which he was evidently trying to subdue for Sunday, boomed +through the still air. So we walked among the trees to the door of the +church. A smiling elder, in an unaccustomed long coat, bowed and greeted +us. As we went in there was an odour of cushions and our footsteps on +the wooden floor echoed in the warm emptiness of the church. The Scotch +preacher was finding his place in the big Bible; he stood solid and +shaggy behind the yellow oak pulpit, a peculiar professional look on his +face. In the pulpit the Scotch preacher is too much minister, too little +man. He is best down among us with his hand in ours. He is a sort of +human solvent. Is there a twisted and hardened heart in the community he +beams upon it from his cheerful eye, he speaks out of his great charity, +he gives the friendly pressure of his large hand, and that hardened +heart dissolves and its frozen hopelessness loses itself in tears. So he +goes through life, seeming always to understand. He is not surprised by +wickedness nor discouraged by weakness: he is so sure of a greater +Strength!</p> + +<p>But I must come to my experience, which I am almost tempted to call a +resurrection—the resurrection of a boy, long since gone away, and of a +tall lank preacher who, in his humility, looked upon himself as a +failure. I hardly know how it all came back to me; possibly it was the +scent-laden breeze that came in from the woods and through the half-open +church window, perhaps it was a line in one of the old songs, perhaps it +was the droning voice of the Scotch preacher—somehow, and suddenly, I +was a boy again.</p> + +<p>----To this day I think of death as a valley: a dark shadowy valley: +the Valley of the Shadow of Death. So persistent are the impressions of +boyhood! As I sat in the church I could see, as distinctly as though I +were there, the church of my boyhood and the tall dyspeptic preacher +looming above the pulpit, the peculiar way the light came through the +coarse colour of the windows, the barrenness and stiffness of the great +empty room, the raw girders overhead, the prim choir. There was +something in that preacher, gaunt, worn, sodden though he appeared: a +spark somewhere, a little flame, mostly smothered by the gray dreariness +of his surroundings, and yet blazing up at times to some warmth.</p> + +<p>As I remember it, our church was a church of failures. They sent us the +old gray preachers worn out in other fields. Such a succession of them I +remember, each with some peculiarity, some pathos. They were of the old +sort, indoctrinated Presbyterians, and they harrowed well our barren +field with the tooth of their hard creed. Some thundered the Law, some +pleaded Love; but of all of them I remember best the one who thought +himself the greatest failure. I think he had tried a hundred churches—a +hard life, poorly paid, unappreciated—in a new country. He had once had +a family, but one by one they had died. No two were buried in the same +cemetery; and finally, before he came to our village, his wife, too, had +gone. And he was old, and out of health, and discouraged: seeking some +final warmth from his own cold doctrine. How I see him, a trifle bent, +in his long worn coat, walking in the country roads: not knowing of a +boy who loved him!</p> + +<p>He told my father once: I recall his exact, words:</p> + +<p>"My days have been long, and I have failed. It was not given me to reach +men's hearts."</p> + +<p>Oh, gray preacher, may I now make amends? Will you forgive me? I was a +boy and did not know; a boy whose emotions were hidden under mountains +of reserve: who could have stood up to be shot more easily than he could +have said: "I love you!"</p> + +<p>Of that preacher's sermons I remember not one word, though I must have +heard scores of them—only that they were interminably long and dull and +that my legs grew weary of sitting and that I was often hungry. It was +no doubt the dreadful old doctrine that he preached, thundering the +horrors of disobedience, urging an impossible love through fear and a +vain belief without reason. All that touched me not at all, save with a +sort of wonder at the working of his great Adam's apple and the strange +rollings of his cavernous eyes. This he looked upon as the work of God; +thus for years he had sought, with self-confessed failure, to touch the +souls of his people. How we travel in darkness and the work we do in all +seriousness counts for naught, and the thing we toss off in play-time, +unconsciously, God uses!</p> + +<p>One tow-headed boy sitting there in a front row dreaming dreams, if the +sermons touched him not, was yet thrilled to the depths of his being by +that tall preacher. Somewhere, I said, he had a spark within him. I +think he never knew it: or if he knew it, he regarded it as a wayward +impulse that might lead him from his God. It was a spark of poetry: +strange flower in such a husk. In times of emotion it bloomed, but in +daily life it emitted no fragrance. I have wondered what might have been +if some one—some understanding woman—had recognised his gift, or if he +himself as a boy had once dared to cut free! We do not know: we do not +know the tragedy of our nearest friend!</p> + +<p>By some instinct the preacher chose his readings mostly from the Old +Testament—those splendid, marching passages, full of oriental imagery. +As he read there would creep into his voice a certain resonance that +lifted him and his calling suddenly above his gray surroundings.</p> + +<p>How vividly I recall his reading of the twenty-third Psalm—a particular +reading. I suppose I had heard the passage many times before, but upon +this certain morning----</p> + +<p>Shall I ever forget? The windows were open, for it was May, and a boy +could look out on the hillside and see with longing eyes the inviting +grass and trees. A soft wind blew in across the church; it was full of +the very essence of spring. I smell it yet. On the pulpit stood a bunch +of crocuses crowded into a vase: some Mary's offering. An old man named +Johnson who sat near us was already beginning to breathe heavily, +preparatory to sinking into his regular Sunday snore. Then those words +from the preacher, bringing me suddenly—how shall I express it?—out of +some formless void, to intense consciousness—a miracle of creation:</p> + +<p>"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will +fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort +me."</p> + +<p>Well, I saw the way to the place of death that morning; far more vividly +I saw it than any natural scene I know: and myself walking therein. I +shall know it again when I come to pass that way; the tall, dark, rocky +cliffs, the shadowy path within, the overhanging dark branches, even the +whitened dead bones by the way—and as one of the vivid phantasms of +boyhood—cloaked figures I saw, lurking mysteriously in deep recesses, +fearsome for their very silence. And yet I with magic rod and staff +walking within—boldly, fearing no evil, full of faith, hope, courage, +love, invoking images of terror but for the joy of braving them. Ah, +tow-headed boy, shall I tread as lightly that dread pathway when I come +to it? Shall I, like you, fear no evil!</p> + +<p>So that great morning went away. I heard nothing of singing or sermon +and came not to myself until my mother, touching my arm, asked me if I +had been asleep! And I smiled and thought how little grown people +knew—and I looked up at the sad sick face of the old preacher with a +new interest and friendliness. I felt, somehow, that he too was a +familiar of my secret valley. I should have liked to ask him, but I did +not dare. So I followed my mother when she went to speak to him, and +when he did not see, I touched his coat.</p> + +<p>After that how I watched when he came to the reading. And one great +Sunday, he chose a chapter from Ecclesiastes, the one that begins +sonorously:</p> + +<p>"Remember now thy creator in the days of thy +youth."</p> + +<p>Surely that gaunt preacher had the true fire in his gray soul. How his +voice dwelt and quivered and softened upon the words!</p> + +<p>"While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the +stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after +the rain----" +Thus he brought in the universe to that +small church and filled the heart of a boy.</p> + +<p>"In the days when the keepers of the house shall +tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, +and the grinders cease because they are few, and those +that look out of the windows be darkened.</p> + +<p>"And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when +the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up +at the voice of the bird and all the daughters of music +shall be brought low."</p> + +<p>Do not think that I understood the meaning of those passages: I am not +vain enough to think I know even now—but the <i>sound</i> of them, the roll +of them, the beautiful words, and above all, the pictures!</p> + +<p>Those Daughters of Music, how I lived for days imagining them! They were +of the trees and the hills, and they were very beautiful but elusive; +one saw them as he heard singing afar off, sweet strains fading often +into silences. Daughters of Music! Daughters of Music! And why should +they be brought low?</p> + +<p>Doors shut in the street—how I <i>saw</i> them—a long, long street, silent, +full of sunshine, and the doors shut, and no sound anywhere but the low +sound of the grinding: and the mill with the wheels drowsily turning and +no one there at all save one boy with fluttering heart, tiptoeing in the +sunlit doorway.</p> + +<p>And the voice of the bird. Not the song but the <i>voice</i>. Yes, a bird had +a voice. I had known it always, and yet somehow I had not dared to say +it. I felt that they would look at me with that questioning, +incredulous look which I dreaded beyond belief. They might laugh! But +here it was in the Book—the voice of a bird. How my appreciation of +that Book increased and what a new confidence it gave me in my own +images! I went about for days, listening, listening, listening—and +interpreting.</p> + +<p>So the words of the preacher and the fire in them:</p> + +<p>"And when they shall be afraid of that which is +high and fears shall be in the way----"</p> + +<p>I knew the fear of that which is high: I had dreamed of it commonly. And +I knew also the Fear that stood in the way: him I had seen in a myriad +of forms, looming black by darkness in every lane I trod; and yet with +what defiance I met and slew him!</p> + +<p>And then, more thrilling than all else, the words of the preacher:</p> + +<p>"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden +bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, +or the wheel broken at the cistern."</p> + +<p>Such pictures: that silver cord, that golden bowl! And why and +wherefore?</p> + +<p>A thousand ways I turned them in my mind—and always with the sound of +the preacher's voice in my ears—the resonance of the words conveying an +indescribable fire of inspiration. Vaguely and yet with certainty I knew +the preacher spoke out of some unfathomable emotion which I did not +understand—which I did not care to understand. Since then I have +thought what those words must have meant to him!</p> + +<p>Ah, that tall lank preacher, who thought himself a failure: how long I +shall remember him and the words he read and the mournful yet resonant +cadences of his voice—and the barren church, and the stony religion! +Heaven he gave me, unknowing, while he preached an ineffectual hell.</p> + +<p>As we rode home Harriet looked into my face.</p> + +<p>"You have enjoyed the service," she said softly.</p> + +<p>"Yes," I said.</p> + +<p>"It <i>was</i> a good sermon," she said.</p> + +<p>"Was it?" I replied.</p> + + +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/18.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">IX</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE TRAMP</h2> + +<p>I have had a new and strange experience—droll in one way, grotesque in +another and when everything is said, tragic: at least an adventure. +Harriet looks at me accusingly, and I have had to preserve the air of +one deeply contrite now for two days (no easy accomplishment for me!), +even though in secret I have smiled and pondered.</p> + +<p>How our life has been warped by books! We are not contented with +realities: we crave conclusions. With what ardour our minds respond to +real events with literary deductions. Upon a train of incidents, as +unconnected as life itself, we are wont to clap a booky ending. An +instinctive desire for completeness animates the human mind (a struggle +to circumscribe the infinite). We would like to have life "turn +out"—but it doesn't—it doesn't. Each event is the beginning of a whole +new genealogy of events. In boyhood I remember asking after every story +I heard: "What happened next?" for no conclusion ever quite satisfied +me—even when the hero died in his own gore. I always knew there was +something yet remaining to be told. The only sure conclusion we can +reach is this: Life changes. And what is more enthralling to the human +mind than this splendid, boundless, coloured mutability!—life in the +making? How strange it is, then, that we should be contented to take +such small parts of it as we can grasp, and to say, "This is the true +explanation." By such devices we seek to bring infinite existence within +our finite egoistic grasp. We solidify and define where solidification +means loss of interest; and loss of interest, not years, is old age.</p> + +<p>So I have mused since my tramp came in for a moment out of the Mystery +(as we all do) and went away again into the Mystery (in our way, too).</p> + +<p>There are strange things in this world!</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>As I came around the corner I saw sitting there on my steps the very +personification of Ruin, a tumble-down, dilapidated wreck of manhood. He +gave one the impression of having been dropped where he sat, all in a +heap. My first instinctive feeling was not one of recoil or even of +hostility, but rather a sudden desire to pick him up and put him where +he belonged, the instinct, I should say, of the normal man who hangs his +axe always on the same nail. When he saw me he gathered himself together +with reluctance and stood fully revealed. It was a curious attitude of +mingled effrontery and apology. "Hit me if you dare," blustered his +outward personality. "For God's sake, don't hit me," cried the innate +fear in his eyes. I stopped and looked at him sharply, His eyes dropped, +his look slid away, so that I experienced a sense of shame, as though I +had trampled upon him. A damp rag of humanity! I confess that my first +impulse, and a strong one, was to kick him for the good of the human +race. No man has a right to be like that.</p> + +<p>And then, quite suddenly, I had a great revulsion of feeling. What was I +that I should judge without knowledge? Perhaps, after all, here was one +bearing treasure. So I said:</p> + +<p>"You are the man I have been expecting."</p> + +<p>He did not reply, only flashed his eyes up at me, wherein fear deepened.</p> + +<p>"I have been saving up a coat for you," I said, "and a pair of shoes. +They are not much worn," I said, "but a little too small for me. I think +they will fit you."</p> + +<p>He looked at me again, not sharply, but with a sort of weak cunning. So +far he had not said a word.</p> + +<p>"I think our supper is nearly ready," I said: "let us go in."</p> + +<p>"No, mister," he mumbled, "a bite out here—no, mister"—and then, as +though the sound of his own voice inspired him, he grew declamatory.</p> + +<p>"I'm a respectable man, mister, plumber by trade, but----"</p> + +<p>"But," I interrupted, "you can't get any work, you're cold and you +haven't had anything to eat for two days, so you are walking out here in +the country where we farmers have no plumbing to do. At home you have a +starving wife and three small children----"</p> + +<p>"Six, mister----"</p> + +<p>"Well, six—And now we will go in to supper."</p> + +<p>I led him into the entry way and poured for him a big basin of hot +water. As I stepped out again with a comb he was slinking toward the +doorway.</p> + +<p>"Here," I said, "is a comb; we are having supper now in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>I wish I could picture Harriet's face when I brought him into her +immaculate kitchen. But I gave her a look, one of the commanding sort +that I can put on in times of great emergency, and she silently laid +another place at the table.</p> + +<p>When I came to look at our Ruin by the full lamplight I was surprised to +see what a change a little warm water and a comb had wrought in him. He +came to the table uncertain, blinking, apologetic. His forehead, I saw, +was really impressive—high, narrow and thin-skinned. His face gave one +somehow the impression of a carving once full of significant lines, now +blurred and worn as though Time, having first marked it with the lines +of character, had grown discouraged and brushed the hand of +forgetfulness over her work. He had peculiar thin, silky hair of no +particular colour, with a certain almost childish pathetic waviness +around the ears and at the back of the neck. Something, after all, about +the man aroused one's compassion.</p> + +<p>I don't know that he looked dissipated, and surely he was not as dirty +as I had at first supposed. Something remained that suggested a care for +himself in the past. It was not dissipation, I decided; it was rather an +indefinable looseness and weakness, that gave one alternately the +feeling I had first experienced, that of anger, succeeded by the +compassion that one feels for a child. To Harriet, when she had once +seen him, he was all child, and she all compassion.</p> + +<p>We disturbed him with no questions. Harriet's fundamental quality is +homeliness, comfortableness. Her tea-kettle seems always singing; an +indefinable tabbiness, as of feather cushions, lurks in her +dining-room, a right warmth of table and chairs, indescribably +comfortable at the end of a chilly day. A busy good-smelling steam +arises from all her dishes at once, and the light in the middle of the +table is of a redness that enthralls the human soul. As for Harriet +herself, she is the personification of comfort, airy, clean, warm, +inexpressibly wholesome. And never in the world is she so engaging as +when she ministers to a man's hunger. Truthfully, sometimes, when she +comes to me out of the dimmer light of the kitchen to the radiance of +the table with a plate of muffins, it is as though she and the muffins +were a part of each other, and that she is really offering some of +herself. And down in my heart I know she is doing just that!</p> + +<p>Well, it was wonderful to see our Ruin expand in the warmth of Harriet's +presence. He had been doubtful of me; of Harriet, I could see, he was +absolutely sure. And how he did eat, saying nothing at all, while +Harriet plied him with food and talked to me of the most disarming +commonplaces. I think it did her heart good to see the way he ate: as +though he had had nothing before in days. As he buttered his muffin, +not without some refinement, I could see that his hand was long, a +curious, lean, ineffectual hand, with a curving little finger. With the +drinking of the hot coffee colour began to steal up into his face, and +when Harriet brought out a quarter of pie saved over from our dinner and +placed it before him—a fine brown pie with small hieroglyphics in the +top from whence rose sugary bubbles—he seemed almost to escape himself. +And Harriet fairly purred with hospitality.</p> + +<p>The more he ate the more of a man he became. His manners improved, his +back straightened up, he acquired a not unimpressive poise of the head. +Such is the miraculous power of hot muffins and pie!</p> + +<p>"As you came down," I asked finally, "did you happen to see old man +Masterson's threshing machine?"</p> + +<p>"A big red one, with a yellow blow-off?"</p> + +<p>"That's the one," I said.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was just turning into a field about two miles above here," he +replied.</p> + +<p>"Big gray, banked barn?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, and a little unpainted house," said our friend.</p> + +<p>"That's Parsons'," put in Harriet, with a mellow laugh. "I wonder if he +ever <i>will</i> paint that house. He builds bigger barns every year and +doesn't touch the house. Poor Mrs. Parsons----"</p> + +<p>And so we talked of barns and threshing machines in the way we farmers +love to do and I lured our friend slowly into talking about himself. At +first he was non-committal enough and what he said seemed curiously made +to order; he used certain set phrases with which to explain simply what +was not easy to explain—a device not uncommon to all of us. I was +fearful of not getting within this outward armouring, but gradually as +we talked and Harriet poured him a third cup of hot coffee he dropped +into a more familiar tone. He told with some sprightliness of having +seen threshings in Mexico, how the grain was beaten out with flails in +the patios, and afterwards thrown up in the wind to winnow out.</p> + +<p>"You must have seen a good deal of life," remarked Harriet +sympathetically.</p> + +<p>At this remark I saw one of our Ruin's long hands draw up and clinch. He +turned his head toward Harriet. His face was partly in the shadow, but +there was something striking and strange in the way he looked at her, +and a deepness in his voice when he spoke:</p> + +<p>"Too much! I've seen too much of life." He threw out one arm and brought +it back with a shudder.</p> + +<p>"You see what it has left me," he said, "I am an example of too much +life."</p> + +<p>In response to Harriet's melting compassion he had spoken with +unfathomable bitterness. Suddenly he leaned forward toward me with a +piercing gaze as though he would look into my soul. His face had changed +completely; from the loose and vacant mask of the early evening it had +taken on the utmost tensity of emotion.</p> + +<p>"You do not know," he said, "what it is to live too much—and to be +afraid."</p> + +<p>"Live too much?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes, live too much, that is what I do—and I am afraid."</p> + +<p>He paused a moment and then broke out in a higher key:</p> + +<p>"You think I am a tramp. Yes—you do. I know—a worthless fellow, lying, +begging, stealing when he can't beg. You have taken me in and fed me. +You have said the first kind words I have heard, it seems to me, in +years. I don't know who you are. I shall never see you again."</p> + +<p>I cannot well describe the intensity of the passion with which he spoke, +his face shaking with emotion, his hands trembling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," I said easily, "we are comfortable people here—and it is a +good place to live."</p> + +<p>"No no," he returned. "I know, I've got my call—" Then leaning forward +he said in a lower, even more intense voice—"I live everything +beforehand."</p> + +<p>I was startled by the look of his eyes: the abject terror of it: and I +thought to myself, "The man is not right in his mind." And yet I longed +to know of the life within this strange husk of manhood.</p> + +<p>"I know," he said, as if reading my thought, "you think"—and he tapped +his forehead with one finger—"but I'm not. I'm as sane as you are."</p> + +<p>It was a strange story he told. It seems almost unbelievable to me as I +set it down here, until I reflect how little any one of us knows of the +deep life within his nearest neighbour—what stories there are, what +tragedies enacted under a calm exterior! What a drama there <i>may</i> be in +this commonplace man buying ten pounds of sugar at the grocery store, or +this other one driving his two old horses in the town road! We do not +know. And how rarely are the men of inner adventure articulate! +Therefore I treasure the curious story the tramp told me. I do not +question its truth. It came as all truth does, through a clouded and +unclean medium: and any judgment of the story itself must be based upon +a knowledge of the personal equation of the Ruin who told it.</p> + +<p>"I am no tramp," he said, "in reality, I am no tramp. I began as well as +anyone—It doesn't matter now, only I won't have any of the sympathy +that people give to the man who has seen better days. I hate sentiment. +<i>I hate it</i>----"</p> + +<p>I cannot attempt to set down the story in his own words. It was broken +with exclamations and involved with wandering sophistries and diatribes +of self-blame. His mind had trampled upon itself in throes of +introspection until it was often difficult to say which way the paths of +the narrative really led. He had thought so much and acted so little +that he travelled in a veritable bog of indecision. And yet, withal, +some ideas, by constant attrition, had acquired a really striking form. +"I am afraid before life," he said. "It makes me dizzy with thought."</p> + +<p>At another time he said, "If I am a tramp at all, I am a mental tramp. I +have an unanchored mind."</p> + +<p>It seems that he came to a realisation that there was something peculiar +about him at a very early age. He said they would look at him and +whisper to one another and that his sayings were much repeated, often in +his hearing. He knew that he was considered an extraordinary child: they +baited him with questions that they might laugh at his quaint replies. +He said that as early as he could remember he used to plan situations so +that he might say things that were strange and even shocking in a +child. His father was a small professor in a small college—a "worm" he +called him bitterly—"one of those worms that bores in books and finally +dries up and blows off." But his mother—he said she was an angel. I +recall his exact expression about her eyes that "when she looked at one +it made him better." He spoke of her with a softening of the voice, +looking often at Harriet. He talked a good deal about his mother, trying +to account for himself through her. She was not strong, he said, and +very sensitive to the contact of either friends or enemies—evidently a +nervous, high-strung woman.</p> + +<p>"You have known such people," he said, "everything hurt her."</p> + +<p>He said she "starved to death." She starved for affection and +understanding.</p> + +<p>One of the first things he recalled of his boyhood was his passionate +love for his mother.</p> + +<p>"I can remember," he said, "lying awake in my bed and thinking how I +would love her and serve her—and I could see myself in all sorts of +impossible places saving her from danger. When she came to my room to +bid me good night, I imagined how I should look—for I have always been +able to see myself doing things—when I threw my arms around her neck to +kiss her."</p> + +<p>Here he reached a strange part of his story. I had been watching Harriet +out of the corner of my eye. At first her face was tearful with +compassion, but as the Ruin proceeded it became a study in wonder and +finally in outright alarm. He said that when his mother came in to bid +him good night he saw himself so plainly beforehand ("more vividly than +I see you at this moment") and felt his emotion so keenly that when his +mother actually stooped to kiss him, somehow he could not respond, he +could not throw his arms around her neck. He said he often lay quiet, in +waiting, trembling all over until she had gone, not only suffering +himself but pitying her, because he understood how she must feel. Then +he would follow her, he said, in imagination through the long hall, +seeing himself stealing behind her, just touching her hand, wistfully +hoping that she might turn to him again—and yet fearing. He said no one +knew the agonies he suffered at seeing his mother's disappointment over +his apparent coldness and unresponsiveness.</p> + +<p>"I think," he said, "it hastened her death." He would not go to the +funeral; he did not dare, he said. He cried and fought when they came to +take him away, and when the house was silent he ran up to her room and +buried his head in her pillows and ran in swift imagination to her +funeral. He said he could see himself in the country road, hurrying in +the cold rain—for it seemed raining—he said he could actually feel the +stones and ruts, although he could not tell how it was possible that he +should have seen himself at a distance and <i>felt</i> in his own feet the +stones of the road. He said he saw the box taken from the wagon—<i>saw</i> +it—and that he heard the sound of the clods thrown in, and it made him +shriek until they came running and held him.</p> + +<p>As he grew older he said he came to live everything beforehand, and that +the event as imagined was so far more vivid and affecting that he had no +heart for the reality itself.</p> + +<p>"It seems strange to you," he said, "but I am telling you exactly what +my experience was."</p> + +<p>It was curious, he said, when his father told him he must not do a +thing, how he went on and imagined in how many different ways he could +do it—and how, afterward, he imagined he was punished by that "worm," +his father, whom he seemed to hate bitterly. Of those early days, in +which he suffered acutely—in idleness, apparently—and perhaps that was +one of the causes of his disorder—he told us at length, but many of the +incidents were so evidently worn by the constant handling of his mind +that they gave no clear impression.</p> + +<p>Finally, he ran away from home, he said. At first he found that a wholly +new place and new people took him out of himself ("surprised me," he +said, "so that I could not live everything beforehand"). Thus he fled. +The slang he used, "chased himself all over the country," seemed +peculiarly expressive. He had been in foreign countries; he had herded +sheep in Australia (so he said), and certainly from his knowledge of the +country he had wandered with the gamboleros of South America; he had +gone for gold to Alaska, and worked in the lumber camps of the Pacific +Northwest. But he could not escape, he said. In a short time he was no +longer "surprised." His account of his travels, while fragmentary, had a +peculiar vividness. He <i>saw</i> what he described, and he saw it so plainly +that his mind ran off into curious details that made his words strike +sometimes like flashes of lightning. A strange and wonderful +mind—uncontrolled. How that man needed the discipline of common work!</p> + +<p>I have rarely listened to a story with such rapt interest. It was not +only what he said, nor how he said it, but how he let me see the strange +workings of his mind. It was continuously a story of a story. When his +voice finally died down I drew a long breath and was astonished to +perceive that it was nearly midnight—and Harriet speechless with her +emotions. For a moment he sat quiet and then burst out:</p> + +<p>"I cannot get away: I cannot escape," and the veritable look of some +trapped creature came into his eyes, fear so abject that I reached over +and laid my hand on his arm:</p> + +<p>"Friend," I said, "stop here. We have a good country. You have travelled +far enough. I know from experience what a cornfield will do for a man."</p> + +<p>"I have lived all sorts of life," he continued as if he had not heard a +word I said, "and I have lived it all twice, and I am afraid."</p> + +<p>"Face it," I said, gripping his arm, longing for some power to "blow +grit into him."</p> + +<p>"Face it!" he exclaimed, "don't you suppose I have tried. If I could do +a thing—anything—a few times without thinking—<i>once</i> would be +enough—I might be all right. I should be all right."</p> + +<p>He brought his fist down on the table, and there was a note of +resolution in his voice. I moved my chair nearer to him, feeling as +though I were saving an immortal soul from destruction. I told him of +our life, how the quiet and the work of it would solve his problems. I +sketched with enthusiasm my own experience and I planned swiftly how he +could live, absorbed in simple work—and in books.</p> + +<p>"Try it," I said eagerly.</p> + +<p>"I will," he said, rising from the table, and grasping my hand. "I'll +stay here."</p> + +<p>I had a peculiar thrill of exultation and triumph. I know how the priest +must feel, having won a soul from torment!</p> + +<p>He was trembling with excitement and pale with emotion and weariness. +One must begin the quiet life with rest. So I got him off to bed, first +pouring him a bathtub of warm water. I laid out clean clothes by his +bedside and took away his old ones, talking to him cheerfully all the +time about common things. When I finally left him and came downstairs I +found Harriet standing with frightened eyes in the middle of the +kitchen.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid to have him sleep in this house," she said.</p> + +<p>But I reassured her. "You do not understand," I said.</p> + +<p>Owing to the excitement of the evening I spent a restless night. Before +daylight, while I was dreaming a strange dream of two men running, the +one who pursued being the exact counterpart of the one who fled, I heard +my name called aloud:</p> + +<p>"David, David!"</p> + +<p>I sprang out of bed.</p> + +<p>"The tramp has gone," called Harriet.</p> + +<p>He had not even slept in his bed. He had raised the window, dropped out +on the ground and vanished.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/19.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/20.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">X</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE INFIDEL</h2> + +<p>I find that we have an infidel in this community. I don't know that I +should set down the fact here on good white paper; the walls, they say, +have eyes, the stones have ears. But consider these words written in +bated breath! The worst of it is—I gather from common report—this +infidel is a Cheerful Infidel, whereas a true infidel should bear upon +his face the living mark of his infamy. We are all tolerant enough of +those who do not agree with us, provided only they are sufficiently +miserable! I confess when I first heard of him—through Mrs. Horace +(with shudders)—I was possessed of a consuming secret desire to see +him. I even thought of climbing a tree somewhere along the public +road—like Zaccheus, wasn't it?—and watching him go by. If by any +chance he should look my way I could easily avoid discovery by crouching +among the leaves. It shows how pleasant must be the paths of +unrighteousness that we are tempted to climb trees to see those who walk +therein. My imagination busied itself with the infidel. I pictured him +as a sort of Moloch treading our pleasant countryside, flames and smoke +proceeding from his nostrils, his feet striking fire, his voice like the +sound of a great wind. At least that was the picture I formed of him +from common report.</p> + +<p>And yesterday afternoon I met the infidel and I must here set down a +true account of the adventure. It is, surely, a little new door opened +in the house of my understanding. I might travel a whole year in a city, +brushing men's elbows, and not once have such an experience. In country +spaces men develop sensitive surfaces, not calloused by too frequent +contact, accepting the new impression vividly and keeping it bright to +think upon.</p> + +<p>I met the infidel as the result of a rather unexpected series of +incidents. I don't think I have said before that we have for some time +been expecting a great event on this farm. We have raised corn and +buckwheat, we have a fertile asparagus bed and onions and pie-plant +(enough to supply the entire population of this community) and I can't +tell how many other vegetables. We have had plenty of chickens hatched +out (I don't like chickens, especially hens, especially a certain gaunt +and predatory hen named [so Harriet says] Evangeline, who belongs to a +neighbour of ours) and we have had two litters of pigs, but until this +bright moment of expectancy we never have had a calf.</p> + +<p>Upon the advice of Horace, which I often lean upon as upon a staff, I +have been keeping my young heifer shut up in the cow-yard now for a week +or two. But yesterday, toward the middle of the afternoon, I found the +fence broken down and the cow-yard empty. From what Harriet said, the +brown cow must have been gone since early morning. I knew, of course, +what that meant, and straightway I took a stout stick and set off over +the hill, tracing the brown cow as far as I could by her tracks. She had +made way toward a clump of trees near Horace's wood lot, where I +confidently expected to find her. But as fate would have it, the pasture +gate, which is rarely used, stood open and the tracks led outward into +an old road. I followed rapidly, half pleased that I had not found her +within the wood. It was a promise of new adventure which I came to with +downright enjoyment (confidentially—I should have been cultivating +corn!). I peered into every thicket as I passed: once I climbed an old +fence and, standing on the top rail, intently surveyed my neighbour's +pasture. No brown cow was to be seen. At the crossing of the brook I +shouldered my way from the road down a path among the alders, thinking +the brown cow might have gone that way to obscurity.</p> + +<p>It is curious how, in spite of domestication and training, Nature in her +great moments returns to the primitive and instinctive! My brown cow, +never having had anything but the kindest treatment, is as gentle an +animal as could be imagined, but she had followed the nameless, +ages-old law of her breed: she had escaped in her great moment to the +most secret place she knew. It did not matter that she would have been +safer in my yard—both she and her calf—that she would have been surer +of her food; she could only obey the old wild law. So turkeys will hide +their nests. So the tame duck, tame for unnumbered generations, hearing +from afar the shrill cry of the wild drake, will desert her quiet +surroundings, spread her little-used wings and become for a time the +wildest of the wild.</p> + +<p>So we think—you and I—that we are civilised! But how often, how often, +have we felt that old wildness which is our common heritage, scarce +shackled, clamouring in our blood!</p> + +<p>I stood listening among the alders, in the deep cool shade. Here and +there a ray of sunshine came through the thick foliage: I could see it +where it silvered the cobweb ladders of those moist spaces. Somewhere in +the thicket I heard an unalarmed catbird trilling her exquisite song, a +startled frog leaped with a splash into the water; faint odours of some +blossoming growth, not distinguishable, filled the still air. It was +one of those rare moments when one seems to have caught Nature unaware. +I lingered a full minute, listening, looking; but my brown cow had not +gone that way. So I turned and went up rapidly to the road, and there I +found myself almost face to face with a ruddy little man whose +countenance bore a look of round astonishment. We were both surprised. I +recovered first.</p> + +<p>"Have you seen a brown cow?" I asked.</p> + +<p>He was still so astonished that he began to look around him; he thrust +his hands nervously into his coat pockets and pulled them out again.</p> + +<p>"I think you won't find her in there," I said, seeking to relieve his +embarrassment.</p> + +<p>But I didn't know, then, how very serious a person I had encountered.</p> + +<p>"No—no," he stammered, "I haven't seen your cow."</p> + +<p>So I explained to him with sobriety, and at some length, the problem I +had to solve. He was greatly interested and inasmuch as he was going my +way he offered at once to assist me in my search. So we set off +together. He was rather stocky of build, and decidedly short of breath, +so that I regulated my customary stride to suit his deliberation. At +first, being filled with the spirit of my adventure, I was not +altogether pleased with this arrangement. Our conversation ran something +like this:</p> + +<p>STRANGER: Has she any spots or marks on her?</p> + +<p>MYSELF: No, she is plain brown.</p> + +<p>STRANGER: How old a cow is she?</p> + +<p>MYSELF: This is her first calf.</p> + +<p>STRANGER: Valuable animal?</p> + +<p>MYSELF: <i>(fencing):</i> I have never put a price on her; she is a promising +young heifer.</p> + +<p>STRANGER: Pure blood?</p> + +<p>MYSELF: No, grade.</p> + +<p>After a pause:</p> + +<p>STRANGER: Live around here?</p> + +<p>MYSELF: Yes, half a mile below here. Do you?</p> + +<p>STRANGER: Yes, three miles above here. My name's Purdy.</p> + +<p>MYSELF: Mine is Grayson.</p> + +<p>He turned to me solemnly and held out his hand. "<i>I'm</i> glad to meet you, +Mr. Grayson," he said. "And I'm glad," I said, "to meet you, Mr. Purdy."</p> + +<p>I will not attempt to put down all we said: I couldn't. But by such +devices is the truth in the country made manifest.</p> + +<p>So we continued to walk and look. Occasionally I would unconsciously +increase my pace until I was warned to desist by the puffing of Mr. +Purdy. He gave an essential impression of genial timidity: and how he +<i>did</i> love to talk!</p> + +<p>We came at last to a rough bit of land grown up to scrubby oaks and +hazel brush.</p> + +<p>"This," said Mr. Purdy, "looks hopeful."</p> + +<p>We followed the old road, examining every bare spot of earth for some +evidence of the cow's tracks, but without finding so much as a sign. I +was for pushing onward but Mr. Purdy insisted that this clump of woods +was exactly such a place as a cow would like. He developed such a +capacity for argumentation and seemed so sure of what he was talking +about that I yielded, and we entered the wood.</p> + +<p>"We'll part here," he said: "you keep over there about fifty yards and +I'll go straight ahead. In that way we'll cover the ground. Keep +a-shoutin'."</p> + +<p>So we started and I kept a-shoutin'. He would answer from time to time: +"Hulloo hulloo!"</p> + +<p>It was a wild and beautiful bit of forest. The ground under the trees +was thickly covered with enormous ferns or bracken, with here and there +patches of light where the sun came through the foliage. The low spots +were filled with the coarse green verdure of skunk cabbage. I was so +sceptical about finding the cow in a wood where concealment was so easy +that I confess I rather idled and enjoyed the surroundings. Suddenly, +however, I heard Mr. Purdy's voice, with a new note in it:</p> + +<p>"Hulloo, hulloo----"</p> + +<p>"What luck?"</p> + +<p>"Hulloo, hulloo----"</p> + +<p>"I'm coming—" and I turned and ran as rapidly as I could through the +trees, jumping over logs and dodging low branches, wondering what new +thing my friend had discovered. So I came to his side.</p> + +<p>"Have you got trace of her?" I questioned eagerly."</p> + +<p>"Sh!" he said, "over there. Don't you see her?"</p> + +<p>"Where, where?"</p> + +<p>He pointed, but for a moment I could see nothing but the trees and the +bracken. Then all at once, like the puzzle in a picture, I saw her +plainly. She was standing perfectly motionless, her head lowered, and in +such a peculiar clump of bushes and ferns that she was all but +indistinguishable. It was wonderful, the perfection with which her +instinct had led her to conceal herself.</p> + +<p>All excitement, I started toward her at once. But Mr. Purdy put his hand +on my arm.</p> + +<p>"Wait," he said, "don't frighten her. She has her calf there."</p> + +<p>"No!" I exclaimed, for I could see nothing of it.</p> + +<p>We went, cautiously, a few steps nearer. She threw up her head and +looked at us so wildly for a moment that I should hardly have known her +for my cow. She was, indeed, for the time being, a wild creature of the +wood. She made a low sound and advanced a step threateningly.</p> + +<p>"Steady," said Mr. Purdy, "this is her first calf. Stop a minute and +keep quiet. She'll soon get used to us."</p> + +<p>Moving to one side cautiously, we sat down on an old log. The brown +heifer paused, every muscle tense, her eyes literally blazing, We sat +perfectly still. After a minute or two she lowered her head, and with +curious guttural sounds she began to lick her calf, which lay quite +hidden in the bracken.</p> + +<p>"She has chosen a perfect spot," I thought to myself, for it was the +wildest bit of forest I had seen anywhere in this neighbourhood. At one +side, not far off, rose a huge gray rock, partly covered on one side +with moss, and round about were oaks and a few ash trees of a poor +scrubby sort (else they would long ago have been cut out). The earth +underneath was soft and springy with leaf mould.—</p> + +<p>Mr. Purdy was one to whom silence was painful; he fidgeted about, +evidently bursting with talk, and yet feeling compelled to follow his +own injunction of silence. Presently he reached into his capacious +pocket and handed me a little paper-covered booklet. I took it, curious, +and read the title:</p> + +<p>"Is There a Hell?"</p> + +<p>It struck me humorously. In the country we are always—at least some of +us are—more or less in a religious ferment, The city may distract +itself to the point where faith is unnecessary; but in the country we +must, perforce, have something to believe in. And we talk about it, too! +I read the title aloud, but in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"Is There a Hell?" Then I asked: "Do you really want to know?"</p> + +<p>"The argument is all there," he replied.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "I can tell you off-hand, out of my own experience, that +there certainly is a hell----"</p> + +<p>He turned toward me with evident astonishment, but I proceeded with +tranquillity:</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir, there's no doubt about it. I've been near enough myself +several times to smell the smoke. It isn't around here," I said.</p> + +<p>As he looked at me his china-blue eyes grew larger, if that were +possible, and his serious, gentle face took on a look of pained +surprise.</p> + +<p>"Before you say such things," he said, "I beg you to read my book."</p> + +<p>He took the tract from my hands and opened it on his knee.</p> + +<p>"The Bible tells us," he said, "that in the beginning God created the +heavens and the earth, He made the firmament and divided the waters. +But does the Bible say that He created a hell or a devil? Does it?"</p> + +<p>I shook my head.</p> + +<p>"Well, then!" he said triumphantly, "and that isn't all, either. The +historian Moses gives in detail a full account of what was made in six +days. He tells how day and night were created, how the sun and the moon +and the stars were made; he tells how God created the flowers of the +field, and the insects, and the birds, and the great whales, and said, +'Be fruitful and multiply,' He accounts for every minute of the time in +the entire six days—and of course God rested on the seventh—and there +is not one word about hell. Is there?"</p> + +<p>I shook my head.</p> + +<p>"Well then—" exultantly, "where is it? I'd like to have any man, no +matter how wise he is, answer that. Where is it?"</p> + +<p>"That," I said, "has troubled me, too. We don't always know just where +our hells are. If we did we might avoid them. We are not so sensitive to +them as we should be—do you think?"</p> + +<p>He looked at me intently: I went on before he could answer:</p> + +<p>"Why, I've seen men in my time living from day to day in the very +atmosphere of perpetual torment, and actually arguing that there was no +hell. It is a strange sight, I assure you, and one that will trouble you +afterwards. From what I know of hell, it is a place of very loose +boundaries. Sometimes I've thought we couldn't be quite sure when we +were in it and when we were not."</p> + +<p>I did not tell my friend, but I was thinking of the remark of old +Swedenborg: "The trouble with hell is we shall not know it when we +arrive."</p> + +<p>At this point Mr. Purdy burst out again, having opened his little book +at another page.</p> + +<p>"When Adam and Eve had sinned," he said, "and the God of Heaven walked +in the garden in the cool of the evening and called for them and they +had hidden themselves on account of their disobedience, did God say to +them: Unless you repent of your sins and get forgiveness I will shut you +up in yon dark and dismal hell and torment you (or have the devil do it) +for ever and ever? Was there such a word?"</p> + +<p>I shook my head.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/21.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<p>[Illustration: "He reached into his pocket and handed me a little +paper-covered booklet"]</p> + +<p>"No, sir," he said vehemently, "there was not."</p> + +<p>"But does it say," I asked, "that Adam and Eve had not themselves been +using their best wits in creating a hell? That point has occurred to me. +In my experience I've known both Adams and Eves who were most adroit in +their capacity for making places of torment—and afterwards of getting +into them. Just watch yourself some day after you've sown a crop of +desires and you'll see promising little hells starting up within you +like pigweeds and pusley after a warm rain in your garden. And our +heavens, too, for that matter—they grow to our own planting: and how +sensitive they are too! How soon the hot wind of a passion withers them +away! How surely the fires of selfishness blacken their perfection!"</p> + +<p>I'd almost forgotten Mr. Purdy—and when I looked around, his face wore +a peculiar puzzled expression not unmixed with alarm. He held up his +little book eagerly almost in my face.</p> + +<p>"If God had intended to create a hell," he said, "I assert without fear +of successful contradiction that when God was there in the Garden of +Eden it was the time for Him to have put Adam and Eve and all their +posterity on notice that there was a place of everlasting torment. It +would have been only a square deal for Him to do so. But did He?"</p> + +<p>I shook my head.</p> + +<p>"He did not. If He had mentioned hell on that occasion I should not now +dispute its existence. But He did not. This is what He said to Adam—the +very words: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou +return unto the ground: for out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou +art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' You see He did not say 'Unto hell +shalt thou return.' He said, 'Unto dust.' That isn't hell, is it?"</p> + +<p>"Well," I said, "there are in my experience a great many different kinds +of hells. There are almost as many kinds of hells as there are men and +women upon this earth. Now, your hell wouldn't terrify me in the least. +My own makes me no end of trouble. Talk about burning pitch and +brimstone: how futile were the imaginations of the old fellows who +conjured up such puerile torments. Why, I can tell you of no end of +hells that are worse—and not half try. Once I remember, when I was +younger----"</p> + +<p>I happened to glance around at my companion. He sat there looking at me +with horror—fascinated horror.</p> + +<p>"Well, I won't disturb your peace of mind by telling <i>that</i> story," I +said.</p> + +<p>"Do you believe that we shall go to hell?" he asked in a low voice.</p> + +<p>"That depends," I said. "Let's leave out the question of 'we'; let's be +more comfortably general in our discussion. I think we can safely say +that some go and some do not. It's a curious and noteworthy thing," I +said, "but I've known of cases—There are some people who aren't really +worth good honest tormenting—let alone the rewards of heavenly bliss. +They just haven't anything to torment! What is going to become of such +folks? I confess I don't know. You remember when Dante began his journey +into the infernal regions----"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe a word of that Dante," he interrupted excitedly; "it's +all a made up story. There isn't a word of truth in it; it is a +blasphemous book. Let me read you what I say about it in here."</p> + +<p>"I will agree with you without argument," I said, "that it is not <i>all</i> +true. I merely wanted to speak of one of Dante's experiences as an +illustration of the point I'm making. You remember that almost the first +spirits he met on his journey were those who had never done anything in +this life to merit either heaven or hell. That always struck me as being +about the worst plight imaginable for a human being. Think of a creature +not even worth good honest brimstone!"</p> + +<p>Since I came home, I've looked up the passage; and it is a wonderful +one. Dante heard wailings and groans and terrible things said in many +tongues. Yet these were not the souls of the wicked. They were only +those "who had lived without praise or blame, thinking of nothing but +themselves." "Heaven would not dull its brightness with those, nor would +lower hell receive them."</p> + +<p>"And what is it," asked Dante, "that makes them so grievously suffer?"</p> + +<p>"Hopelessness of death," said Virgil, "Their blind existence here, and +immemorable former life, make them so wretched that they envy every +other lot. Mercy and Justice alike disdain them. Let us speak of them +no more. Look, and pass!"</p> + +<p>But Mr. Purdy, in spite of his timidity, was a man of much persistence.</p> + +<p>"They tell me," he said, "when they try to prove the reasonableness of +hell, that unless you show sinners how they're goin' to be tormented, +they'd never repent. Now, I say that if a man has to be scared into +religion, his religion ain't much good."</p> + +<p>"There," I said, "I agree with you completely."</p> + +<p>His face lighted up, and he continued eagerly:</p> + +<p>"And I tell 'em: You just go ahead and try for heaven; don't pay any +attention to all this talk about everlasting punishment."</p> + +<p>"Good advice!" I said.</p> + +<p>It had begun to grow dark. The brown cow was quiet at last. We could +hear small faint sounds from the calf. I started slowly through the +bracken. Mr. Purdy hung at my elbow, stumbling sideways as he walked, +but continuing to talk eagerly. So we came to the place where the calf +lay. I spoke in a low voice:</p> + +<p>"So boss, so boss."</p> + +<p>I would have laid my hand on her neck but she started back with a wild +toss of her horns. It was a beautiful calf! I looked at it with a +peculiar feeling of exultation, pride, ownership. It was red-brown, with +a round curly pate and one white leg. As it lay curled there among the +ferns, it was really beautiful to look at. When we approached, it did +not so much as stir. I lifted it to its legs, upon which the cow +uttered a strange half-wild cry and ran a few steps off, her head thrown +in the air. The calf fell back as though it had no legs.</p> + +<p>"She is telling it not to stand up," said Mr. Purdy.</p> + +<p>I had been afraid at first that something was the matter!</p> + +<p>"Some are like that," he said. "Some call their calves to run. Others +won't let you come near 'em at all; and I've even known of a case where a +cow gored its calf to death rather than let anyone touch it."</p> + +<p>I looked at Mr. Purdy not without a feeling of admiration. This was a +thing he knew: a language not taught in the universities. How well it +became him to know it; how simply he expressed it! I thought to myself: +There are not many men in this world, after all, that it will not pay +us to go to school to—for something or other.</p> + +<p>I should never have been able, indeed, to get the cow and calf home, +last night at least, if it had not been for my chance friend. He knew +exactly what to do and how to do it. He wore a stout coat of denim, +rather long in the skirts. This he slipped off, while I looked on in +some astonishment, and spread it out on the ground. He placed my staff +under one side of it and found another stick nearly the same size for +the other side. These he wound into the coat until he had made a sort of +stretcher. Upon this we placed the unresisting calf. What a fine one it +was! Then, he in front and I behind, we carried the stretcher and its +burden out of the wood. The cow followed, sometimes threatening, +sometimes bellowing, sometimes starting off wildly, head and tail in the +air, only to rush back and, venturing up with trembling muscles, touch +her tongue to the calf, uttering low maternal sounds.</p> + +<p>"Keep steady," said Mr. Purdy, "and everything'll be all right."</p> + +<p>When we came to the brook we stopped to rest. I think my companion would +have liked to start his argument again, but he was too short of breath.</p> + +<p>It was a prime spring evening! The frogs were tuning up. I heard a +drowsy cowbell somewhere over the hills in the pasture. The brown cow, +with eager, outstretched neck, was licking her calf as it lay there on +the improvised stretcher. I looked up at the sky, a blue avenue of +heaven between the tree tops; I felt the peculiar sense of mystery which +nature so commonly conveys.</p> + +<p>"I have been too sure!" I said. "What do we know after all! Why may +there not be future heavens and hells—'other heavens for other earths'? +We do not know—we do not <i>know</i>—"</p> + +<p>So, carrying the calf, in the cool of the evening, we came at last to my +yard. We had no sooner put the calf down than it jumped nimbly to its +feet and ran, wobbling absurdly, to meet its mother.</p> + +<p>"The rascal," I said, "after all our work."</p> + +<p>"It's the nature of the animal," said Mr. Purdy, as he put on his coat.</p> + +<p>I could not thank him enough. I invited him to stay with us to supper, +but he said he must hurry home.</p> + +<p>"Then come down soon to see me," I said, "and we will settle this +question as to the existence of a hell."</p> + +<p>He stepped up close to me and said, with an appealing note in his voice:</p> + +<p>"You do not really believe in a hell, do you?"</p> + +<p>How human nature loves collusiveness: nothing short of the categorical +will satisfy us! What I said to Mr. Purdy evidently appeased him, for he +seized my hand and shook and shook.</p> + +<p>"We haven't understood each other," he said eagerly. "You don't believe +in eternal damnation any more than I do." Then he added, as though some +new uncertainty puzzled him, "Do you?"</p> + +<p>At supper I was telling Harriet with gusto of my experiences. Suddenly +she broke out:</p> + +<p>"What was his name?"</p> + +<p>"Purdy."</p> + +<p>"Why, he's the infidel that Mrs. Horace tells about!"</p> + +<p>"Is that possible?" I said, and I dropped my knife and fork. The +strangest sensation came over me.</p> + +<p>"Why," I said, "then I'm an infidel too!"</p> + +<p>So I laughed and I've been laughing gloriously ever since—at myself, at +the infidel, at the entire neighbourhood. I recalled that delightful +character in "The Vicar of Wakefield" (my friend the Scotch Preacher +loves to tell about him), who seasons error by crying out "Fudge!"</p> + +<p>"Fudge!" I said.</p> + +<p>We're all poor sinners!</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/22.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/23.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">XI</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE COUNTRY DOCTOR</h2> + +<p><i>Sunday afternoon, June 9.</i></p> + +<p>We had a funeral to-day in this community and the longest funeral +procession, Charles Baxter says, he has seen in all the years of his +memory among these hills. A good man has gone away—and yet remains. In +the comparatively short time I have been here I never came to know him +well personally, though I saw him often in the country roads, a ruddy +old gentleman with thick, coarse, iron-gray hair, somewhat stern of +countenance, somewhat shabby of attire, sitting as erect as a trooper in +his open buggy, one muscular hand resting on his knee, the other holding +the reins of his familiar old white horse. I said I did not come to know +him well personally, and yet no one who knows this community can help +knowing Doctor John North. I never so desired the gift of moving +expression as I do at this moment, on my return from his funeral, that I +may give some faint idea of what a good man means to a community like +ours—as the more complete knowledge of it has come to me to-day.</p> + +<p>In the district school that I attended when a boy we used to love to +leave our mark, as we called it, wherever our rovings led us. It was a +bit of boyish mysticism, unaccountable now that we have grown older and +wiser (perhaps); but it had its meaning. It was an instinctive +outreaching of the young soul to perpetuate the knowledge of its +existence upon this forgetful earth. My mark, I remember, was a notch +and a cross. With what secret fond diligence I carved it in the gray +bark of beech trees, on fence posts, or on barn doors, and once, I +remember, on the roof-ridge of our home, and once, with high imaginings +of how long it would remain, I spent hours chiseling it deep in a +hard-headed old boulder in the pasture, where, if man has been as kind +as Nature, it remains to this day. If you should chance to see it you +would not know of the boy who carved it there.</p> + +<p>So Doctor North left his secret mark upon the neighbourhood—as all of +us do, for good or for ill, upon <i>our</i> neighbourhoods, in accordance +with the strength of that character which abides within us. For a long +time I did not know that it was he, though it was not difficult to see +that some strong good man had often passed this way. I saw the mystic +sign of him deep-lettered in the hearthstone of a home; I heard it +speaking bravely from the weak lips of a friend; it is carved in the +plastic heart of many a boy. No, I do not doubt the immortalities of the +soul; in this community, which I have come to love so much, dwells more +than one of John North's immortalities—and will continue to dwell. I, +too, live more deeply because John North was here.</p> + +<p>He was in no outward way an extraordinary man, nor was his life +eventful. He was born in this neighbourhood: I saw him lying quite still +this morning in the same sunny room of the same house where he first saw +the light of day. Here among these common hills he grew up, and save for +the few years he spent at school or in the army, he lived here all his +life long. In old neighbourhoods and especially farm neighbourhoods +people come to know one another—not clothes knowledge, or money +knowledge—but that sort of knowledge which reaches down into the hidden +springs of human character. A country community may be deceived by a +stranger, too easily deceived, but not by one of its own people. For it +is not a studied knowledge; it resembles that slow geologic uncovering +before which not even the deep buried bones of the prehistoric saurian +remain finally hidden.</p> + +<p>I never fully realised until this morning what a supreme triumph it is, +having grown old, to merit the respect of those who know us best. Mere +greatness offers no reward to compare with it, for greatness compels +that homage which we freely bestow upon goodness. So long as I live I +shall never forget this morning. I stood in the door-yard outside of +the open window of the old doctor's home. It was soft, and warm, and +very still—a June Sunday morning. An apple tree not far off was still +in blossom, and across the road on a grassy hillside sheep fed +unconcernedly. Occasionally, from the roadway where the horses of the +countryside were waiting, I heard the clink of a bit-ring or the low +voice of some new-comer seeking a place to hitch. Not half those who +came could find room in the house: they stood uncovered among the trees. +From within, wafted through the window, came the faint odour of flowers, +and the occasional minor intonation of someone speaking—and finally our +own Scotch Preacher! I could not see him, but there lay in the cadences +of his voice a peculiar note of peacefulness, of finality. The day +before he died Dr. North had said:</p> + +<p>"I want McAlway to conduct my funeral, not as a minister but as a man. +He has been my friend for forty years; he will know what I mean."</p> + +<p>The Scotch Preacher did not say much. Why should he? Everyone there +<i>knew</i>: and speech would only have cheapened what we knew. And I do not +now recall even the little he said, for there was so much all about me +that spoke not of the death of a good man, but of his life. A boy who +stood near me—a boy no longer, for he was as tall as a man—gave a more +eloquent tribute than any preacher could have done. I saw him stand his +ground for a time with that grim courage of youth which dreads emotion +more than a battle: and then I saw him crying behind a tree! He was not +a relative of the old doctor's; he was only one of many into whose deep +life the doctor had entered.</p> + +<p>They sang "Lead, Kindly Light," and came out through the narrow doorway +into the sunshine with the coffin, the hats of the pallbearers in a row +on top, and there was hardly a dry eye among us.</p> + +<p>And as they came out through the narrow doorway, I thought how the +Doctor must have looked out daily through so many, many years upon this +beauty of hills and fields and of sky above, grown dearer from long +familiarity—which he would know no more. And Kate North, the Doctor's +sister, his only relative, followed behind, her fine old face gray and +set, but without a tear in her eye. How like the Doctor she looked: the +same stern control!</p> + +<p>In the hours which followed, on the pleasant winding way to the +cemetery, in the groups under the trees, on the way homeward again, the +community spoke its true heart, and I have come back with the feeling +that human nature, at bottom, is sound and sweet. I knew a great deal +before about Doctor North, but I knew it as knowledge, not as emotion, +and therefore it was not really a part of my life.</p> + +<p>I heard again the stories of how he drove the country roads, winter and +summer, how he had seen most of the population into the world and had +held the hands of many who went out! It was the plain, hard life of a +country doctor, and yet it seemed to rise in our community like some +great tree, its roots deep buried in the soil of our common life, its +branches close to the sky. To those accustomed to the outward +excitements of city life it would have seemed barren and uneventful. It +was significant that the talk was not so much of what the Doctor did as +of <i>how</i> he did it, not so much of his actions as of the natural +expression of his character. And when we come to think of it, goodness +<i>is</i> uneventful. It does not flash, it glows. It is deep, quiet and very +simple. It passes not with oratory, it is commonly foreign to riches, +nor does it often sit in the places of the mighty: but may be felt in +the touch of a friendly hand or the look of a kindly eye.</p> + +<p>Outwardly, John North often gave the impression of brusqueness. Many a +woman, going to him for the first time, and until she learned that he +was in reality as gentle as a girl, was frightened by his manner. The +country is full of stories of such encounters. We laugh yet over the +adventure of a woman who formerly came to spend her summers here. She +dressed very beautifully and was "nervous." One day she went to call on +the Doctor. He made a careful examination and asked many questions. +Finally he said, with portentous solemnity:</p> + +<p>"Madam, you're suffering from a very common complaint."</p> + +<p>The Doctor paused, then continued, impressively:</p> + +<p>"You haven't enough work to do. This is what I would advise. Go home, +discharge your servants, do your own cooking, wash your own clothes and +make your own beds. You'll get well."</p> + +<p>She is reported to have been much offended, and yet to-day there was a +wreath of white roses in Doctor North's room sent from the city by that +woman.</p> + +<p>If he really hated anything in this world the Doctor hated whimperers. +He had a deep sense of the purpose and need of punishment, and he +despised those who fled from wholesome discipline.</p> + +<p>A young fellow once went to the Doctor—so they tell the story—and +asked for something to stop his pain.</p> + +<p>"Stop it!" exclaimed the Doctor: "why, it's good for you. You've done +wrong, haven't you? Well, you're being punished; take it like a man. +There's nothing more wholesome than good honest pain."</p> + +<p>And yet how much pain he alleviated in this community—in forty years!</p> + +<p>The deep sense that a man should stand up to his fate was one of the +key-notes of his character; and the way he taught it, not only by word +but by every action of his life, put heart into many a weak man and +woman, Mrs. Patterson, a friend of ours, tells of a reply she once had +from the Doctor to whom she had gone with a new trouble. After telling +him about it she said:</p> + +<p>"I've left it all with the Lord."</p> + +<p>"You'd have done better," said the Doctor, "to keep it yourself. Trouble +is for your discipline: the Lord doesn't need it."</p> + +<p>It was thus out of his wisdom that he was always telling people what +they knew, deep down in their hearts, to be true. It sometimes hurt at +first, but sooner or later, if the man had a spark of real manhood in +him, he came back, and gave the Doctor an abiding affection.</p> + +<p>There were those who, though they loved him, called him intolerant. I +never could look at it that way. He <i>did</i> have the only kind of +intolerance which is at all tolerable, and that is the intolerance of +intolerance. He always set himself with vigour against that unreason and +lack of sympathy which are the essence of intolerance; and yet there was +a rock of conviction on many subjects behind which he could not be +driven. It was not intolerance: it was with him a reasoned certainty of +belief. He had a phrase to express that not uncommon state of mind in +this age particularly, which is politely willing to yield its foothold +within this universe to almost any reasoner who suggests some other +universe, however shadowy, to stand upon. He called it a "mush of +concession." He might have been wrong in his convictions, but he, at +least, never floundered in a "mush of concession." I heard him say once:</p> + +<p>"There are some things a man can't concede, and one is, that a man who +has broken a law, like a man who has broken a leg, has got to suffer for +it."</p> + +<p>It was only with the greatest difficulty that he could be prevailed upon +to present a bill. It was not because the community was poor, though +some of our people are poor, and it was certainly not because the Doctor +was rich and could afford such philanthropy, for, saving a rather +unproductive farm which during the last ten years of his life lay wholly +uncultivated, he was as poor as any man in the community. He simply +seemed to forget that people owed him.</p> + +<p>It came to be a common and humorous experience for people to go to the +Doctor and say:</p> + +<p>"Now, Doctor North, how much do I owe you? You remember you attended my +wife two years ago when the baby came—and John when he had the +diphtheria----"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," said the Doctor, "I remember."</p> + +<p>"I thought I ought to pay you."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll look it up when I get time."</p> + +<p>But he wouldn't. The only way was to go to him and say:</p> + +<p>"Doctor, I want to pay ten dollars on account."</p> + +<p>"All right," he'd answer, and take the money.</p> + +<p>To the credit of the community I may say with truthfulness that the +Doctor never suffered. He was even able to supply himself with the best +instruments that money could buy. To him nothing was too good for our +neighbourhood. This morning I saw in a case at his home a complete set +of oculist's instruments, said to be the best in the county—a very +unusual equipment for a country doctor. Indeed, he assumed that the +responsibility for the health of the community rested upon him. He was a +sort of self-constituted health officer. He was always sniffing about +for old wells and damp cellars—and somehow, with his crisp humour and +sound sense, getting them cleaned. In his old age he even grew +querulously particular about these things—asking a little more of human +nature than it could quite accomplish. There were innumerable other +ways—how they came out to-day all glorified now that he is gone!—in +which he served the community.</p> + +<p>Horace tells how he once met the Doctor driving his old white horse in +the town road.</p> + +<p>"Horace," called the Doctor, "why don't you paint your barn?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Horace, "it <i>is</i> beginning to look a bit shabby."</p> + +<p>"Horace," said the Doctor, "you're a prominent citizen. We look to you +to keep up the credit of the neighbourhood."</p> + +<p>Horace painted his barn.</p> + +<p>I think Doctor North was fonder of Charles Baxter than of anyone else, +save his sister. He hated sham and cant: if a man had a single <i>reality</i> +in him the old Doctor found it; and Charles Baxter in many ways exceeds +any man I ever knew in the downright quality of genuineness. The Doctor +was never tired of telling—and with humour—how he once went to Baxter +to have a table made for his office. When he came to get it he found +the table upside clown and Baxter on his knees finishing off the under +part of the drawer slides. Baxter looked up and smiled in the engaging +way he has, and continued his work. After watching him for some time the +Doctor said:</p> + +<p>"Baxter, why do you spend so much time on that table? Who's going to +know whether or not the last touch has been put on the under side of +it?"</p> + +<p>Baxter straightened up and looked at the Doctor in surprise.</p> + +<p>"Why, I will," he said.</p> + +<p>How the Doctor loved to tell that story! I warrant there is no boy who +ever grew up in this country who hasn't heard it.</p> + +<p>It was a part of his pride in finding reality that made the Doctor such +a lover of true sentiment and such a hater of sentimentality. I prize +one memory of him which illustrates this point. The district school gave +a "speaking" and we all went. One boy with a fresh young voice spoke a +"soldier piece"—the soliloquy of a one-armed veteran who sits at a +window and sees the troops go by with dancing banners and glittering +bayonets, and the people cheering and shouting. And the refrain went +something like this:</p> + +<p>"Never again call 'Comrade' +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To the men who were comrades for years;</span> +<br /> +Never again call 'Brother' +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">To the men we think of with tears."</span> +</p> + +<p>I happened to look around while the boy was speaking, and there sat the +old Doctor with the tears rolling unheeded down his ruddy face; he was +thinking, no doubt, of <i>his</i> war time and the comrades <i>he</i> knew.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, how he despised fustian and bombast. His "Bah!" +delivered explosively, was often like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy +room. Several years ago, before I came here—and it is one of the +historic stories of the county—there was a semi-political Fourth of +July celebration with a number of ambitious orators. One of them, a +young fellow of small worth who wanted to be elected to the legislature, +made an impassioned address on "Patriotism." The Doctor was present, for +he liked gatherings: he liked people. But he did not like the young +orator, and did not want him to be elected. In the midst of the speech, +while the audience was being carried through the clouds of oratory, the +Doctor was seen to be growing more and more uneasy. Finally he burst +out:</p> + +<p>"Bah!"</p> + +<p>The orator caught himself, and then swept on again.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>By this time the audience was really interested. The orator stopped. He +knew the Doctor, and he should have known better than to say what he +did. But he was very young and he knew the Doctor was opposing him.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he remarked sarcastically, "the Doctor can make a better +speech than I can."</p> + +<p>The Doctor rose instantly, to his full height—and he was an +impressive-looking man.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," he said, "I can, and what is more, I will." He stood up on a +chair and gave them a talk on Patriotism—real patriotism—the +patriotism of duty done in the small concerns of life. That speech, +which ended the political career of the orator, is not forgotten to-day.</p> + +<p>One thing I heard to-day about the old Doctor impressed me deeply. I +have been thinking about it ever since: it illuminates his character +more than anything I have heard. It is singular, too, that I should not +have known the story before. I don't believe it was because it all +happened so long ago; it rather remained untold out of deference to a +sort of neighbourhood delicacy.</p> + +<p>I had, indeed, wondered why a man of such capacities, so many qualities +of real greatness and power, should have escaped a city career. I said +something to this effect to a group of men with whom I was talking this +morning. I thought they exchanged glances; one said:</p> + +<p>"When he first came out of the army he'd made such a fine record as a +surgeon that everyone-urged him to go to the city and practice----"</p> + +<p>A pause followed which no one seemed inclined to fill.</p> + +<p>"But he didn't go," I said.</p> + +<p>"No, he didn't go. He was a brilliant young fellow. He <i>knew</i> a lot, and +he was popular, too. He'd have had a great success----"</p> + +<p>Another pause.</p> + +<p>"But he didn't go?" I asked promptingly.</p> + +<p>"No; he staid here. He was better educated than any man in this county. +Why, I've seen him more'n once pick up a book of Latin and read it <i>for +pleasure</i>."</p> + +<p>I could see that all this was purposely irrelevant, and I liked them for +it. But walking home from the cemetery Horace gave me the story; the +community knew it to the last detail. I suppose it is a story not +uncommon among men, but this morning, told of the old Doctor we had just +laid away, it struck me with a tragic poignancy difficult to describe.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Horace, "he was to have been married, forty years ago, and +the match was broken off because he was a drunkard."</p> + +<p>"A drunkard!" I exclaimed, with a shock I cannot convey.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," said Horace, "one o' the worst you ever see. He got it in +the army. Handsome, wild, brilliant—that was the Doctor. I was a little +boy but I remember it mighty well."</p> + +<p>He told me the whole distressing story. It was all a long time ago and +the details do not matter now. It was to be expected that a man like the +old Doctor should love, love once, and love as few men do. And that is +what he did—and the girl left him because he was a drunkard!</p> + +<p>"They all thought," said Horace, "that he'd up an' kill himself. He +said he would, but he didn't. Instid o' that he put an open bottle on +his table and he looked at it and said: 'Which is stronger, now, you or +John North? We'll make that the test,' he said, 'we'll live or die by +that.' Them was his exact words. He couldn't sleep nights and he got +haggard like a sick man, but he left the bottle there and never touched +it."</p> + +<p>How my heart throbbed with the thought of that old silent struggle! How +much it explained; how near it brought all these people around him! It +made him so human. It is the tragic necessity (but the salvation) of +many a man that he should come finally to an irretrievable experience, +to the assurance that everything is lost. For with that moment, if he be +strong, he is saved. I wonder if anyone ever attains real human sympathy +who has not passed through the fire of some such experience. Or to +humour either! For in the best laughter do we not hear constantly that +deep minor note which speaks of the ache in the human heart? It seems to +me I can understand Doctor North!</p> + +<p>He died Friday morning. He had been lying very quiet all night; +suddenly he opened his eyes and said to his sister: "Good-bye, Kate," +and shut them again. That was all. The last call had come and he was +ready for it. I looked at his face after death. I saw the iron lines of +that old struggle in his mouth and chin; and the humour that it brought +him in the lines around his deep-set eyes.</p> + +<p>----And as I think of him this afternoon, I can see him—curiously, for +I can hardly explain it—carrying a banner as in battle right here among +our quiet hills. And those he leads seem to be the people we know, the +men, and the women, and the boys! He is the hero of a new age. In olden +days he might have been a pioneer, carrying the light of civilisation to +a new land; here he has been a sort of moral pioneer—a pioneering far +more difficult than any we have ever known. There are no heroics +connected with it, the name of the pioneer will not go ringing down the +ages; for it is a silent leadership and its success is measured by +victories in other lives. We see it now, only too dimly, when he is +gone. We reflect sadly that we did not stop to thank him. How busy we +were with our own affairs when he was among us! I wonder is there +anyone here to take up the banner he has laid down!</p> + +<p>----I forgot to say that the Scotch Preacher chose the most impressive +text in the Bible for his talk at the funeral:</p> + +<p>"He that is greatest among you, let him be ... as he that doth serve."</p> + +<p>And we came away with a nameless, aching sense of loss, thinking how, +perhaps, in a small way, we might do something for somebody else—as the +old Doctor did.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/24.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/25.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">XII</h1> +<h2 align="center">AN EVENING AT HOME</h2> + +<p>"How calm and quiet a delight +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">Is it, alone,</span> +<br /> +To read and meditate and write, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">By none offended, and offending none.</span> +<br /> +To walk, ride, sit or sleep at one's own ease, +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 0.5em;">And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease."</span> +</p> + +<p>—<i>Charles Cotton, a friend of Izaak Walton</i>, 1650</p> +<br /> + +<p>During the last few months so many of the real adventures of life have +been out of doors and so much of the beauty, too, that I have scarcely +written a word about my books. In the summer the days are so long and +the work so engrossing that a farmer is quite willing to sit quietly on +his porch after supper and watch the long evenings fall—and rest his +tired back, and go to bed early. But the winter is the true time for +indoor enjoyment!</p> + +<p>Days like these! A cold night after a cold day! Well wrapped, you have +made arctic explorations to the stable, the chicken-yard and the +pig-pen; you have dug your way energetically to the front gate, stopping +every few minutes to beat your arms around your shoulders and watch the +white plume of your breath in the still air—and you have rushed in +gladly to the warmth of the dining-room and the lamp-lit supper. After +such a day how sharp your appetite, how good the taste of food! +Harriet's brown bread (moist, with thick, sweet, dark crusts) was never +quite so delicious, and when the meal is finished you push back your +chair feeling like a sort of lord.</p> + +<p>"That was a good supper, Harriet," you say expansively.</p> + +<p>"Was it?" she asks modestly, but with evident pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Cookery," you remark, "is the greatest art in the world----"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you were hungry!"</p> + +<p>"Next to poetry," you conclude, "and much better appreciated. Think how +easy it is to find a poet who will turn you a presentable sonnet, and +how very difficult it is to find a cook who will turn you an edible +beefsteak----"</p> + +<p>I said a good deal more on this subject which I shall not attempt to +repeat. Harriet did not listen through it all. She knows what I am +capable of when I really get started; and she has her well-defined +limits. A practical person, Harriet! When I have gone about so far, she +begins clearing the table or takes up her mending—but I don't mind it +at all. Having begun talking, it is wonderful how pleasant one's own +voice becomes. And think of having a clear field—and no interruptions!</p> + +<p>My own particular room, where I am permitted to revel in the desert of +my own disorder, opens comfortably off the sitting-room. A lamp with a +green shade stands invitingly on the table shedding a circle of light on +the books and papers underneath, but leaving all the remainder of the +room in dim pleasantness. At one side stands a comfortable big chair +with everything in arm's reach, including my note books and ink bottle. +Where I sit I can look out through the open doorway and see Harriet near +the fireplace rocking and sewing. Sometimes she hums a little tune which +I never confess to hearing, lest I miss some of the unconscious +cadences. Let the wind blow outside and the snow drift in piles around +the doorway and the blinds rattle—I have before me a whole long +pleasant evening.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>What a convenient and delightful world is this world of books!—if you +bring to it not the obligations of the student, or look upon it as an +opiate for idleness, but enter it rather with the enthusiasm of the +adventurer! It has vast advantages over the ordinary world of daylight, +of barter and trade, of work and worry. In this world every man is his +own King—the sort of King one loves to imagine, not concerned in such +petty matters as wars and parliaments and taxes, but a mellow and +moderate despot who is a true patron of genius—a mild old chap who has +in his court the greatest men and women in the world—and all of them +vying to please the most vagrant of his moods! Invite any one of them to +talk, and if your highness is not pleased with him you have only to put +him back in his corner—and bring some jester to sharpen the laughter of +your highness, or some poet to set your faintest emotion to music!</p> + +<p>I have marked a certain servility in books. They entreat you for a +hearing: they cry out from their cases—like men, in an eternal struggle +for survival, for immortality.</p> + +<p>"Take me," pleads this one, "I am responsive to every mood. You will +find in me love and hate, virtue and vice. I don't preach: I give you +life as it is. You will find here adventures cunningly linked with +romance and seasoned to suit the most fastidious taste. Try <i>me</i>."</p> + +<p>"Hear such talk!" cries his neighbour. "He's fiction. What he says never +happened at all. He tries hard to make you believe it, but it isn't +true, not a word of it. Now, I'm fact. Everything you find in me can be +depended upon."</p> + +<p>"Yes," responds the other, "but who cares! Nobody wants to read you, +you're dull."</p> + +<p>"You're false!"</p> + +<p>As their voices grow shriller with argument your highness listens with +the indulgent smile of royalty when its courtiers contend for its +favour, knowing that their very life depends upon a wrinkle in your +august brow.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>As for me I confess to being a rather crusty despot. When Horace was +over here the other evening talking learnedly about silos and ensilage I +admit that I became the very pattern of humility, but when I take my +place in the throne of my arm-chair with the light from the green-shaded +lamp falling on the open pages of my book, I assure you I am decidedly +an autocratic person. My retainers must distinctly keep their places! I +have my court favourites upon whom I lavish the richest gifts of my +attention. I reserve for them a special place in the worn case nearest +my person, where at the mere outreaching of an idle hand I can summon +them to beguile my moods. The necessary slavies of literature I have +arranged in indistinct rows at the farther end of the room where they +can be had if I require their special accomplishments.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>How little, after all, learning counts in this world either in books or +in men. I have often been awed by the wealth of information I have +discovered in a man or a book: I have been awed and depressed. How +wonderful, I have thought, that one brain should hold so much, should be +so infallible in a world of fallibility. But I have observed how soon +and completely such a fount of information dissipates itself. Having +only things to give, it comes finally to the end of its things: it is +empty. What it has hived up so painfully through many a studious year +comes now to be common property. We pass that way, take our share, and +do not even say "Thank you." Learning is like money; it is of prodigious +satisfaction to the possessor thereof, but once given forth it diffuses +itself swiftly.</p> + +<p>"What have you?" we are ever asking of those we meet. "Information, +learning, money?"</p> + +<p>We take it cruelly and pass onward, for such is the law of material +possessions.</p> + +<p>"What have you?" we ask. "Charm, personality, character, the great gift +of unexpectedness?"</p> + +<p>How we draw you to us! We take you in. Poor or ignorant though you may +be, we link arms and loiter; we love you not for what you have or what +you give us, but for what you are.</p> + +<p>I have several good friends (excellent people) who act always as I +expect them to act. There is no flight! More than once I have listened +to the edifying conversation of a certain sturdy old gentleman whom I +know, and I am ashamed to say that I have thought:</p> + +<p>"Lord! if he would jump up now and turn an intellectual handspring, or +slap me on the back (figuratively, of course: the other would be +unthinkable), or—yes, swear! I—think I could love him."</p> + +<p>But he never does—and I'm afraid he never will!</p> + +<p>When I speak then of my books you will know what I mean. The chief charm +of literature, old or new, lies in its high quality of surprise, +unexpectedness, spontaneity: high spirits applied to life. We can fairly +hear some of the old chaps you and I know laughing down through the +centuries. How we love 'em! They laughed for themselves, not for us!</p> + +<p>Yes, there must be surprise in the books that I keep in the worn case at +my elbow, the surprise of a new personality perceiving for the first +time the beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the greatness of +truth. It doesn't matter at all whether the writer is a poet, a +scientist, a traveller, an essayist or a mere daily space-maker, if he +have the God-given grace of wonder.</p> + +<p>"What on <i>earth</i> are you laughing about?" cries Harriet from the +sitting-room.</p> + +<p>When I have caught my breath, I say, holding up my book:</p> + +<p>"This absurd man here is telling of the adventures of a certain +chivalrous Knight."</p> + +<p>"But I can't see how you can laugh out like that, sitting all alone +there. Why, it's uncanny."</p> + +<p>"You don't know the Knight, Harriet, nor his squire Sancho."</p> + +<p>"You talk of them just as though they were real persons."</p> + +<p>"Real!" I exclaim, "real! Why they are much more real than most of the +people we know. Horace is a mere wraith compared with Sancho."</p> + +<p>And then I rush out.</p> + +<p>"Let me read you this," I say, and I read that matchless chapter wherein +the Knight, having clapped on his head the helmet which Sancho has +inadvertently used as a receptacle for a dinner of curds and, sweating +whey profusely, goes forth to fight two fierce lions. As I proceed with +that prodigious story, I can see Harriet gradually forgetting her +sewing, and I read on the more furiously until, coming to the point of +the conflict wherein the generous and gentle lion, having yawned, "threw +out some half yard of tongue wherewith he licked and washed his face," +Harriet begins to laugh.</p> + +<p>"There!" I say triumphantly.</p> + +<p>Harriet looks at me accusingly.</p> + +<p>"Such foolishness!" she says. "Why should any man in his senses try to +fight caged lions!"</p> + +<p>"Harriet," I say, "you are incorrigible."</p> + +<p>She does not deign to reply, so I return with meekness to my room.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>The most distressing thing about the ordinary fact writer is his +cock-sureness. Why, here is a man (I have not yet dropped him out of +the window) who has written a large and sober book explaining life. And +do you know when he gets through he is apparently much discouraged about +this universe. This is the veritable moment when I am in love with my +occupation as a despot! At this moment I will exercise the prerogative +of tyranny:</p> + +<p>"Off with his head!"</p> + +<p>I do not believe this person though he have ever so many titles to +jingle after his name, nor in the colleges which gave them, if they +stand sponsor for that which he writes, I do not believe he has +compassed this universe. I believe him to be an inconsequent being like +myself—oh, much more learned, of course—and yet only upon the +threshold of these wonders. It goes too deep—life—to be solved by +fifty years of living. There is far too much in the blue firmament, too +many stars, to be dissolved in the feeble logic of a single brain. We +are not yet great enough, even this explanatory person, to grasp the +"scheme of things entire." This is no place for weak pessimism—this +universe. This is Mystery and out of Mystery springs the fine +adventure! What we have seen or felt, what we think we know, are +insignificant compared with that which may be known.</p> + +<p>What this person explains is not, after all, the Universe—but himself, +his own limited, faithless personality. I shall not accept his +explanation. I escape him utterly!</p> + +<p>Not long ago, coming in from my fields, I fell to thinking of the +supreme wonder of a tree; and as I walked I met the Professor.</p> + +<p>"How," I asked, "does the sap get up to the top of these great maples +and elms? What power is there that should draw it upward against the +force of gravity?"</p> + +<p>He looked at me a moment with his peculiar slow smile.</p> + +<p>"I don't know," he said.</p> + +<p>"What!" I exclaimed, "do you mean to tell me that science has not solved +this simplest of natural phenomena?"</p> + +<p>"We do not know," he said. "We explain, but we do not know."</p> + +<p>No, my Explanatory Friend, we do not know—we do not know the why of the +flowers, or the trees, or the suns; we do not even know why, in our own +hearts, we should be asking this curious question—and other deeper +questions.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>No man becomes a great writer unless he possesses a highly developed +sense of Mystery, of wonder. A great writer is never <i>blasé</i>; everything +to him happened not longer ago than this forenoon.</p> + +<p>The other night the Professor and the Scotch Preacher happened in here +together and we fell to discussing, I hardly know how, for we usually +talk the neighbourhood chat of the Starkweathers, of Horace and of +Charles Baxter, we fell to discussing old Izaak Walton—and the nonsense +(as a scientific age knows it to be) which he sometimes talked with such +delightful sobriety.</p> + +<p>"How superior it makes one feel, in behalf of the enlightenment and +progress of his age," said the Professor, "when he reads Izaak's +extraordinary natural history."</p> + +<p>"Does it make you feel that way?" asked the Scotch Preacher. "It makes +me want to go fishing."</p> + +<p>And he took the old book and turned the leaves until he came to page +54.</p> + +<p>"Let me read you," he said, "what the old fellow says about the +'fearfulest of fishes.'"</p> + +<p>"'... Get secretly behind a tree, and stand as +free from motion as possible; then put a grasshopper +on your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of +a yard short of the water, to which end you must rest +your rod on some bough of a tree; but it is likely +that the Chubs will sink down towards the bottom +of the water at the first shadow of your rod, for a +Chub is the fearfulest of fishes, and will do so if but +a bird flies over him and makes the least shadow +on the water; but they will presently rise up to the +top again, and there lie soaring until some shadow +affrights them again; I say, when they lie upon the +top of the water, look at the best Chub, which you, +getting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see, +and move your rod as slowly as a snail moves, to +that Chub you intend to catch, let your bait fall +gently upon the water three or four inches before +him, and he will infallibly take the bait, and you +will be as sure to catch him.... Go your way +presently, take my rod, and do as I bid you, and I +will sit down and mend my tackling till you return +back----'"</p> + +<p>"Now I say," said the Scotch Preacher, "that it makes me want to go +fishing."</p> + +<p>"That," I said, "is true of every great book: it either makes us want +to do things, to go fishing, or fight harder or endure more +patiently—or it takes us out of ourselves and beguiles us for a time +with the friendship of completer lives than our own."</p> + +<p>The great books indeed have in them the burning fire of life;</p> + +<p>.... "nay, they do preserve, as in a violl, +the purest efficacie and extraction of that living +intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, +and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous +Dragon's teeth; which being sown up and down, may +chance to spring up armed men."</p> + +<p>How soon we come to distinguish the books of the mere writers from the +books of real men! For true literature, like happiness, is ever a +by-product; it is the half-conscious expression of a man greatly engaged +in some other undertaking; it is the song of one working. There is +something inevitable, unrestrainable about the great books; they seemed +to come despite the author. "I could not sleep," says the poet Horace, +"for the pressure of unwritten poetry." Dante said of his books that +they "made him lean for many days." I have heard people say of a writer +in explanation of his success:</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, he has the literary knack."</p> + +<p>It is not so! Nothing is further from the truth. He writes well not +chiefly because he is interested in writing, or because he possesses any +especial knack, but because he is more profoundly, vividly interested in +the activities of life and he tells about them—over his shoulder. For +writing, like farming, is ever a tool, not an end.</p> + +<p>How the great one-book men remain with us! I can see Marcus Aurelius +sitting in his camps among the far barbarians writing out the +reflections of a busy life. I see William Penn engaged in great +undertakings, setting down "Some of the Fruits of Solitude," and Abraham +Lincoln striking, in the hasty paragraphs written for his speeches, one +of the highest notes in our American literature.</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>"David?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Harriet."</p> + +<p>"I am going up now; it is very late."</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You will bank the fire and see that the doors are locked?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>After a pause: "And, David, I didn't mean—about the story you read. Did +the Knight finally kill the lions?"</p> + +<p>"No," I said with sobriety, "it was not finally necessary."</p> + +<p>"But I thought he set out to kill them."</p> + +<p>"He did; but he proved his valour without doing it."</p> + +<p>Harriet paused, made as if to speak again, but did not do so.</p> + +<p>"Valour"—I began in my hortatory tone, seeing a fair opening, but at +the look in her eye I immediately desisted.</p> + +<p>"You won't stay up late?" she warned.</p> + +<p>"N-o," I said.</p> + +<p>Take John Bunyan as a pattern of the man who forgot himself into +immortality. How seriously he wrote sermons and pamphlets, now happily +forgotten! But it was not until he was shut up in jail (some writers I +know might profit by his example) that he "put aside," as he said, "a +more serious and important work" and wrote "Pilgrim's Progress." It is +the strangest thing in the world—the judgment of men as to what is +important and serious! Bunyan says in his rhymed introduction:</p> +<p> +<span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1em;">"I only thought to make</span> +<br /> +I knew not what: nor did I undertake +Thereby to please my neighbour; no, not I: +I did it my own self to gratify."</p> + +<p>Another man I love to have at hand is he who writes of Blazing Bosville, +the Flaming Tinman, and of The Hairy Ones.</p> + +<p>How Borrow escapes through his books! His object was not to produce +literature but to display his erudition as a master of language and of +outlandish custom, and he went about the task in all seriousness of +demolishing the Roman Catholic Church. We are not now so impressed with +his erudition that we do not smile at his vanity and we are quite +contented, even after reading his books, to let the church survive; but +how shall we spare our friend with his inextinguishable love of life, +his pugilists, his gypsies, his horse traders? We are even willing to +plow through arid deserts of dissertation in order that we may enjoy the +perfect oases in which the man forgets himself!</p> + +<p>Reading such books as these and a hundred others, the books of the worn +case at my elbow.</p> + +<p>"The bulged and the bruised octavos, +The dear and the dumpy twelves----"</p> + +<p>I become like those initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries who, as +Cicero tells us, have attained "the art of living joyfully and of dying +with a fairer hope."</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>It is late, and the house is still. A few bright embers glow in the +fireplace. You look up and around you, as though coming back to the +world from some far-off place. The clock in the dining-room ticks with +solemn precision; you did not recall that it had so loud a tone. It has +been a great evening, in this quiet room on your farm, you have been +able to entertain the worthies of all the past!</p> + +<p>You walk out, resoundingly, to the kitchen and open the door. You look +across the still white fields. Your barn looms black in the near +distance, the white mound close at hand is your wood-pile, the great +trees stand like sentinels in the moonlight; snow has drifted upon the +doorstep and lies there untracked. It is, indeed, a dim and untracked +world: coldly beautiful but silent—and of a strange unreality! You +close the door with half a shiver and take the real world with you up to +bed. For it is past one o'clock.</p> + +<p>[Illustration: "The beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the +greatness of truth"]</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/26.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/27.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">XIII</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE POLITICIAN</h2> + +<p>In the city, as I now recall it (having escaped), it seemed to be the +instinctive purpose of every citizen I knew not to get into politics but +to keep out. We sedulously avoided caucuses and school-meetings, our +time was far too precious to be squandered in jury service, we forgot to +register for elections, we neglected to vote. We observed a sort of +aristocratic contempt for political activity and then fretted and fumed +over the low estate to which our government had fallen—and never saw +the humour of it all.</p> + +<p>At one time I experienced a sort of political awakening: a "boss" we +had was more than ordinarily piratical. I think he had a scheme to steal +the city hall and sell the monuments in the park (something of that +sort), and I, for one, was disturbed. For a time I really wanted to bear +a man's part in helping to correct the abuses, only I did not know how +and could not find out.</p> + +<p>In the city, when one would learn anything about public matters, he +turns, not to life, but to books or newspapers. What we get in the city +is not life, but what someone else tells us about life. So I acquired a +really formidable row of works on Political Economy and Government (I +admire the word "works" in that application) where I found Society laid +out for me in the most perfect order—with pennies on its eyes. How +often, looking back, I see myself as in those days, read my learned +books with a sort of fury of interest!—</p> + +<p>From the reading of books I acquired a sham comfort. Dwelling upon the +excellent theory of our institutions, I was content to disregard the +realities of daily practice. I acquired a mock assurance under which I +proceeded complacently to the polls, and cast my vote without knowing a +single man on the ticket, what he stood for, or what he really intended +to do. The ceremony of the ballot bears to politics much the +relationship that the sacrament bears to religion: how often, observing +the formality, we yet depart wholly from the spirit of the institution.</p> + +<p>It was good to escape that place of hurrying strangers. It was good to +get one's feet down into the soil. It was good to be in a place where +things <i>are</i> because they <i>grow</i>, and politics, not less than corn! Oh, +my friend, say what you please, argue how you like, this crowding +together of men and women in unnatural surroundings, this haste to be +rich in material things, this attempt to enjoy without production, this +removal from first-hand life, is irrational, and the end of it is ruin. +If our cities were not recruited constantly with the fresh, clean blood +of the country, with boys who still retain some of the power and the +vision drawn from the soil, where would they be!</p> + +<p>"We're a great people," says Charles Baxter, "but we don't always work +at it."</p> + +<p>"But we talk about it," says the Scotch Preacher.</p> + +<p>"By the way," says Charles Baxter, "have you seen George Warren? He's up +for supervisor."</p> + +<p>"I haven't yet."</p> + +<p>"Well, go around and see him. We must find out exactly what he intends +to do with the Summit Hill road. If he is weak on that we'd better look +to Matt Devine. At least Matt is safe."</p> + +<p>The Scotch Preacher looked at Charles Baxter and said to me with a note +of admiration in his voice:</p> + +<p>"Isn't this man Baxter getting to be intolerable as a political boss!"</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>Baxter's shop! Baxter's shop stands close to the road and just in the +edge of a grassy old apple orchard. It is a low, unpainted building, +with generous double doors in front, standing irresistibly open as you +go by. Even as a stranger coming here first from the city I felt the +call of Baxter's shop. Shall I ever forget! It was a still morning—one +of those days of warm sunshine—and perfect quiet in the country—and +birds in the branches—and apple trees all in bloom. Baxter whistling +at his work in the sunlit doorway of his shop, in his long, faded apron, +much worn at the knees. He was bending to the rhythmic movement of his +plane, and all around him as he worked rose billows of shavings. And oh, +the odours of that shop! the fragrant, resinous odour of new-cut pine, +the pungent smell of black walnut, the dull odour of oak wood—how they +stole out in the sunshine, waylaying you as you came far up the road, +beguiling you as you passed the shop, and stealing reproachfully after +you as you went onward down the road.</p> + +<p>Never shall I forget that grateful moment when I first passed Baxter's +shop—a failure from the city—and Baxter looking out at me from his +deep, quiet, gray eyes—eyes that were almost a caress!</p> + +<p>My wayward feet soon took me, unintroduced, within the doors of that +shop, the first of many visits. And I can say no more in appreciation of +my ventures there than that I came out always with more than I had when +I went in.</p> + +<p>The wonders there! The long bench with its huge-jawed wooden vises, and +the little dusty windows above looking out into the orchard, and the +brown planes and the row of shiny saws, and the most wonderful pattern +squares and triangles and curves, each hanging on its own peg; and +above, in the rafters, every sort and size of curious wood. And oh! the +old bureaus and whatnots and high-boys in the corners waiting their turn +to be mended; and the sticky glue-pot waiting, too, on the end of the +sawhorse. There is family history here in this shop—no end of it—the +small and yet great (because intensely human) tragedies and humours of +the long, quiet years among these sunny hills. That whatnot there, the +one of black walnut with the top knocked off, that belonged in the old +days to----</p> + +<p>"Charles Baxter," calls my friend Patterson from the roadway, "can you +fix my cupboard?"</p> + +<p>"Bring it in," says Charles Baxter, hospitably, and Patterson brings it +in, and stops to talk—and stops—and stops—There is great talk in +Baxter's shop—the slow-gathered wisdom of the country, the lore of +crops and calves and cabinets. In Baxter's shop we choose the next +President of these United States!</p> + +<p>You laugh! But we do—exactly that. It is in the Baxters' shops (not in +Broadway, not in State Street) where the presidents are decided upon. In +the little grocery stores you and I know, in the blacksmithies, in the +schoolhouses back in the country!</p> + +<hr style="width:35%;" /> + +<p>Forgive me! I did not intend to wander away. I meant to keep to my +subject—but the moment I began to talk of politics in the country I was +beset by a compelling vision of Charles Baxter coming out of his shop in +the dusk of the evening, carrying his curious old reflector lamp and +leading the way down the road to the schoolhouse. And thinking of the +lamp brought a vision of the joys of Baxter's shop, and thinking of the +shop brought me naturally around to politics and presidents; and here I +am again where I started!</p> + +<p>Baxter's lamp is, somehow, inextricably associated in my mind with +politics. Being busy farmers, we hold our caucuses and other meetings in +the evening and usually in the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse is +conveniently near to Baxter's shop, so we gather at Baxter's shop. +Baxter takes his lamp down from the bracket above his bench, reflector +and all, and you will see us, a row of dusky figures, Baxter in the +lead, proceeding down the roadway to the schoolhouse. Having arrived, +some one scratches a match, shields it with his hand (I see yet the +sudden fitful illumination of the brown-bearded, watchful faces of my +neighbours!) and Baxter guides us into the schoolhouse—with its shut-in +dusty odours of chalk and varnished desks and—yes, leftover lunches!</p> + +<p>Baxter's lamp stands on the table, casting a vast shadow of the chairman +on the wall.</p> + +<p>"Come to order," says the chairman, and we have here at this moment in +operation the greatest institution in this round world: the institution +of free self-government. Great in its simplicity, great in its +unselfishness! And Baxter's old lamp with its smoky tin reflector, is +not that the veritable torch of our liberties?</p> + +<p>This, I forgot to say, though it makes no special difference—a caucus +would be the same—is a school meeting.</p> + +<p>You see, ours is a prolific community. When a young man and a young +woman are married they think about babies; they want babies, and what +is more, they have them! and love them afterward! It is a part of the +complete life. And having babies, there must be a place to teach them to +live.</p> + +<p>Without more explanation you will understand that we needed an addition +to our schoolhouse. A committee reported that the amount required would +be $800. We talked it over. The Scotch Preacher was there with a plan +which he tacked up on the blackboard and explained to us. He told us of +seeing the stone-mason and the carpenter, he told us what the seats +would cost, and the door knobs and the hooks in the closet. We are a +careful people; we want to know where every penny goes!</p> + +<p>"If we put it all in the budget this year what will that make the rate?" +inquires a voice from the end of the room.</p> + +<p>We don't look around; we know the voice. And when the secretary has +computed the rate, if you listen closely you can almost hear the buzz of +multiplications and additions which is going on in each man's head as he +calculates exactly how much the addition will mean to him in taxes on +his farm, his daughter's piano his wife's top-buggy.</p> + +<p>And many a man is saying to himself:</p> + +<p>"If we build this addition to the schoolhouse, I shall have to give up +the new overcoat I have counted upon, or Amanda won't be able to get the +new cooking-range."</p> + +<p>That's <i>real</i> politics: the voluntary surrender of some private good for +the upbuilding of some community good. It is in such exercises that the +fibre of democracy grows sound and strong. There is, after all, in this +world no real good for which we do not have to surrender something. In +the city the average voter is never conscious of any surrender. He never +realises that he is giving anything himself for good schools or good +streets. Under such conditions how can you expect self-government? No +service, no reward!</p> + +<p>The first meeting that I sat through watching those bronzed farmers at +work gave me such a conception of the true meaning of self-government as +I never hoped to have.</p> + +<p>"This is the place where I belong," I said to myself.</p> + +<p>It was wonderful in that school meeting to see how every essential +element of our government was brought into play. Finance? We discussed +whether we should put the entire $800 into the next year's budget or +divide it paying part in cash and bonding the district for the +remainder. The question of credit, of interest, of the obligations of +this generation and the next, were all discussed. At one time long ago I +was amazed when I heard my neighbours arguing in Baxter's shop about the +issuance of certain bonds by the United States government: how +completely they understood it! I know now where they got that +understanding. Right in the school meetings and town caucuses where they +raise money yearly for the expenses of our small government! There is +nothing like it in the city.</p> + +<p>The progress of a people can best be judged by those things which they +accept as matters-of-fact. It was amazing to me, coming from the city, +and before I understood, to see how ingrained had become some of the +principles which only a few years ago were fiercely-mooted problems. It +gave me a new pride in my country, a new appreciation of the steps in +civilisation which we have already permanently gained. Not a question +have I ever heard in any school meeting of the necessity of educating +every American child—at any cost. Think of it! Think how far we have +come in that respect, in seventy—yes, fifty—years. Universal education +has become a settled axiom of our life.</p> + +<p>And there was another point—so common now that we do not appreciate the +significance of it. I refer to majority rule. In our school meeting we +were voting money out of men's pockets—money that we all needed for +private expenses—and yet the moment the minority, after full and honest +discussion, failed to maintain its contention in opposition to the new +building, it yielded with perfect good humour and went on with the +discussion of other questions. When you come to think of it, in the +light of history, is not that a wonderful thing?</p> + +<p>One of the chief property owners in our neighbourhood is a rather +crabbed old bachelor. Having no children and heavy taxes to pay, he +looks with jaundiced eye on additions to schoolhouses. He will object +and growl and growl and object, and yet pin him down as I have seen the +Scotch Preacher pin him more than once, he will admit that children ("of +course," he will say, "certainly, of course") must be educated.</p> + +<p>"For the good of bachelors as well as other people?" the Scotch +Preacher will press it home.</p> + +<p>"Certainly, of course."</p> + +<p>And when the final issue comes, after full discussion, after he has +tried to lop off a few yards of blackboard or order cheaper desks or +dispense with the clothes-closet, he votes for the addition with the +rest of us.</p> + +<p>It is simply amazing to see how much grows out of these discussions—how +much of that social sympathy and understanding which is the very +tap-root of democracy. It's cheaper to put up a miserable shack of an +addition. Why not do it? So we discuss architecture—blindly, it is +true; we don't know the books on the subject—but we grope for the big +true things, and by our own discussion we educate ourselves to know why +a good building is better than a bad one. Heating and ventilation in +their relation to health, the use of "fad studies"—how I have heard +those things discussed!</p> + +<p>How Dr. North, who has now left us forever, shone in those meetings, and +Charles Baxter and the Scotch Preacher—broad men, every one—how they +have explained and argued, with what patience have they brought into +that small schoolhouse, lighted by Charles Baxter's lamp, the grandest +conceptions of human society—not in the big words of the books, but in +the simple, concrete language of our common life.</p> + +<p>"Why teach physiology?"</p> + +<p>What a talk Dr. North once gave us on that!</p> + +<p>"Why pay a teacher $40 a month when one can be had for $30?"</p> + +<p>You should have heard the Scotch Preacher answer that question! Many a +one of us went away with some of the education which we had come, +somewhat grudgingly, to buy for our children.</p> + +<p>These are our political bosses: these unknown patriots, who preach the +invisible patriotism which expresses itself not in flags and oratory, +but in the quiet daily surrender of private advantage to the public +good.</p> + +<p>There is, after all, no such thing as perfect equality; there must be +leaders, flag-bearers, bosses—whatever you call them. Some men have a +genius for leading; others for following; each is necessary and +dependent upon the other. In cities, that leadership is often perverted +and used to evil ends. Neither leaders nor followers seem to +understand. In its essence politics is merely a mode of expressing human +sympathy. In the country many and many a leader like Baxter works +faithfully year in and year out, posting notices of caucuses, school +meetings and elections, opening cold schoolhouses, talking to +candidates, prodding selfish voters—and mostly without reward. +Occasionally they are elected to petty offices where they do far more +work than they are paid for (we have our eyes on 'em); often they are +rewarded by the power and place which leadership gives them among their +neighbours, and sometimes—and that is Charles Baxter's case—they +simply like it! Baxter is of the social temperament: it is the natural +expression of his personality. As for thinking of himself as a patriot, +he would never dream of it. Work with the hands, close touch with the +common life of the soil, has given him much of the true wisdom of +experience. He knows us and we know him; he carries the banner, holds it +as high as he knows how, and we follow.</p> + +<p>Whether there can be a real democracy (as in a city) where there is not +that elbow knowledge, that close neighbourhood sympathy, that conscious +surrender of little personal goods for bigger public ones, I don't know.</p> + +<p>We haven't many foreigners in our district, but all three were there on +the night we voted for the addition. They are Polish. Each has a farm +where the whole family works—and puts on a little more Americanism each +year. They're good people. It is surprising how much all these Poles, +Italians, Germans and others, are like us, how perfectly human they are, +when we know them personally! One Pole here, named Kausky, I have come +to know pretty well, and I declare I have forgotten that he <i>is</i> a Pole. +There's nothing like the rub of democracy! The reason why we are so +suspicious of the foreigners in our cities is that they are crowded +together in such vast, unknown, undigested masses. We have swallowed +them too fast, and we suffer from a sort of national dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>Here in the country we promptly digest our foreigners and they make as +good Americans as anybody.</p> + +<p>"Catch a foreigner when he first comes here," says Charles Baxter, "and +he takes to our politics like a fish to water."</p> + +<p>The Scotch Preacher says they "gape for education," And when I see +Kausky's six children going by in the morning to school, all their +round, sleepy, fat faces shining with soap, I believe it! Baxter tells +with humour how he persuaded Kausky to vote for the addition to the +schoolhouse. It was a pretty stiff tax for the poor fellow to pay, but +Baxter "figgered children with him," as he said. With six to educate, +Baxter showed him that he was actually getting a good deal more than he +paid for!</p> + +<p>Be it far from me to pretend that we are always right or that we have +arrived in our country at the perfection of self-government. I do not +wish to imply that all of our people are interested, that all attend the +caucuses and school-meetings (some of the most prominent never come +near—they stay away, and if things don't go right they blame Charles +Baxter!) Nor must I over-emphasise the seriousness of our public +interest. But we certainly have here, if anywhere in this nation, real +self-government. Growth is a slow process. We often fail in our election +of delegates to State conventions; we sometimes vote wrong in national +affairs. It is an easy thing to think school district; difficult, +indeed, to think State or nation. But we grow. When we make mistakes, +it is not because we are evil, but because we don't know. Once we get a +clear understanding of the right or wrong of any question you can depend +upon us—absolutely—to vote for what is right. With more education we +shall be able to think in larger and larger circles—until we become, +finally, really national in our interests and sympathies. Whenever a man +comes along who knows how simple we are, and how much we really want to +do right, if we can be convinced that a thing <i>is</i> right—who explains +how the railroad question, for example, affects us in our intimate daily +lives, what the rights and wrongs of it are, why, we can understand and +do understand—and we are ready to act.</p> + +<p>It is easy to rally to a flag in times of excitement. The patriotism of +drums and marching regiments is cheap; blood is material and cheap; +physical weariness and hunger are cheap. But the struggle I speak of is +not cheap. It is dramatised by few symbols. It deals with hidden +spiritual qualities within the conscience of men. Its heroes are yet +unsung and unhonoured. No combats in all the world's history were ever +fought so high upward in the spiritual air as these; and, surely, not +for nothing!</p> + +<p>And so, out of my experience both in city and country, I feel—yes, I +<i>know</i>—that the real motive power of this democracy lies back in the +little country neighbourhoods like ours where men gather in dim +schoolhouses and practice the invisible patriotism of surrender and +service.</p> + + <div align="center"><img src="images/28.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<hr style="width: 35%;" /> + <div align="center"><img src="images/29.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +<h1 align="center">XIV</h1> +<h2 align="center">THE HARVEST</h2> + +<p>"Oh, Universe, what thou wishest, I wish."</p> + +<p>—<i>Marcus Aurelius</i></p> + +<p>I come to the end of these Adventures with a regret I can scarcely +express. I, at least, have enjoyed them. I began setting them down with +no thought of publication, but for my own enjoyment; the possibility of +a book did not suggest itself until afterwards. I have tried to relate +the experiences of that secret, elusive, invisible life which in every +man is so far more real, so far more important than his visible +activities—the real expression of a life much occupied in other +employment.</p> + +<p>When I first came to this farm, I came empty-handed. I was the veritable +pattern of the city-made failure. I believed that life had nothing more +in store for me. I was worn out physically, mentally and, indeed, +morally. I had diligently planned for Success; and I had reaped defeat. +I came here without plans. I plowed and harrowed and planted, expecting +nothing. In due time I began to reap. And it has been a growing marvel +to me, the diverse and unexpected crops that I have produced within +these uneven acres of earth. With sweat I planted corn, and I have here +a crop not only of corn but of happiness and hope. My tilled fields have +miraculously sprung up to friends!</p> + +<p>This book is one of the unexpected products of my farm. It is this way +with the farmer. After the work of planting and cultivating, after the +rain has fallen in his fields, after the sun has warmed them, after the +new green leaves have broken the earth—one day he stands looking out +with a certain new joy across his acres (the wind bends and half turns +the long blades of the corn) and there springs up within him a song of +the fields. No matter how little poetic, how little articulate he is, +the song rises irrepressibly in his heart, and he turns aside from his +task with a new glow of fulfillment and contentment. At harvest time in +our country I hear, or I imagine I hear, a sort of chorus rising over +all the hills, and I meet no man who is not, deep down within him, a +singer! So song follows work: so art grows out of life!</p> + +<p>And the friends I have made! They have come to me naturally, as the corn +grows in my fields or the wind blows in my trees. Some strange potency +abides within the soil of this earth! When two men stoop (there must be +stooping) and touch it together, a magnetic current is set up between +them: a flow of common understanding and confidence. I would call the +attention of all great Scientists, Philosophers, and Theologians to this +phenomenon: it will repay investigation. It is at once the rarest and +the commonest thing I know. It shows that down deep within us, where we +really live, we are all a good deal alike. We have much the same +instincts, hopes, joys, sorrows. If only it were not for the outward +things that we commonly look upon as important (which are in reality not +at all important) we might come together without fear, vanity, envy, or +prejudice and be friends. And what a world it would be! If civilisation +means anything at all it means the increasing ability of men to look +through material possessions, through clothing, through differences of +speech and colour of skin, and to see the genuine man that abides within +each of us. It means an escape from symbols!</p> + +<p>I tell this merely to show what surprising and unexpected things have +grown out of my farm. All along I have had more than I bargained for. +From now on I shall marvel at nothing! When I ordered my own life I +failed; now that I work from day to day, doing that which I can do best +and which most delights me, I am rewarded in ways that I could not have +imagined. Why, it would not surprise me if heaven were at the end of all +this!</p> + +<p>Now, I am not so foolish as to imagine that a farm is a perfect place. +In these Adventures I have emphasised perhaps too forcibly the joyful +and pleasant features of my life. In what I have written I have +naturally chosen only those things which were most interesting and +charming. My life has not been without discouragement and loss and +loneliness (loneliness most of all). I have enjoyed the hard work; the +little troubles have troubled me more than the big ones. I detest +unharnessing a muddy horse in the rain! I don't like chickens in the +barn. And somehow Harriet uses an inordinate amount of kindling wood. +But once in the habit, unpleasant things have a way of fading quickly +and quietly from the memory.</p> + +<p>And you see after living so many years in the city the worst experience +on the farm is a sort of joy!</p> + +<p>In most men as I come to know them—I mean men who dare to look +themselves in the eye—I find a deep desire for more naturalness, more +directness. How weary we all grow of this fabric of deception which is +called modern life. How passionately we desire to escape but cannot see +the way! How our hearts beat with sympathy when we find a man who has +turned his back upon it all and who says "I will live it no longer." How +we flounder in possessions as in a dark and suffocating bog, wasting +our energies not upon life but upon <i>things</i>. Instead of employing our +houses, our cities, our gold, our clothing, we let these inanimate +things possess and employ us—to what utter weariness. "Blessed be +nothing," sighs a dear old lady of my knowledge.</p> + +<p>Of all ways of escape I know, the best, though it is far from +perfection, is the farm. There a man may yield himself most nearly to +the quiet and orderly processes of nature. He may attain most nearly to +that equilibrium between the material and spiritual, with time for the +exactions of the first, and leisure for the growth of the second, which +is the ideal of life.</p> + +<p>In times past most farming regions in this country have suffered the +disadvantages of isolation, the people have dwelt far distant from one +another and from markets, they have had little to stimulate them +intellectually or socially. Strong and peculiar individuals and families +were often developed at the expense of a friendly community life: +neighbourhood feuds were common. Country life was marked with the +rigidity of a hard provincialism. All this, however, is rapidly +changing. The closer settlement of the land, the rural delivery of +mails (the morning newspaper reaches the tin box at the end of my lane +at noon), the farmer's telephone, the spreading country trolleys, more +schools and churches, and cheaper railroad rates, have all helped to +bring the farmer's life well within the stimulating currents of world +thought without robbing it of its ancient advantages. And those +advantages are incalculable: Time first for thought and reflection +(narrow streams cut deep) leading to the growth of a sturdy freedom of +action—which is, indeed, a natural characteristic of the man who has +his feet firmly planted upon his own land.</p> + +<p>A city hammers and polishes its denizens into a defined model: it +worships standardisation; but the country encourages differentiation, it +loves new types. Thus it is that so many great and original men have +lived their youth upon the land. It would be impossible to imagine +Abraham Lincoln brought up in a street of tenements. Family life on the +farm is highly educative; there is more discipline for a boy in the +continuous care of a cow or a horse than in many a term of school. +Industry, patience, perseverance are qualities inherent in the very +atmosphere of country life. The so-called manual training of city +schools is only a poor makeshift for developing in the city boy those +habits which the country boy acquires naturally in his daily life. An +honest, hard-working country training is the best inheritance a father +can leave his son.</p> + +<p>And yet a farm is only an opportunity, a tool. A cornfield, a plow, a +woodpile, an oak tree, will cure no man unless he have it in himself to +be cured. The truth is that no life, and least of all a farmer's life, +is simple—unless it is simple. I know a man and his wife who came out +here to the country with the avowed purpose of becoming, forthwith, +simple. They were unable to keep the chickens out of their summer +kitchen. They discovered microbes in the well, and mosquitoes in the +cistern, and wasps in the garret. Owing to the resemblance of the seeds, +their radishes turned out to be turnips! The last I heard of them they +were living snugly in a flat in Sixteenth Street—all their troubles +solved by a dumb-waiter.</p> + +<p>The great point of advantage in the life of the country is that if a man +is in reality simple, if he love true contentment, it is the place of +all places where he can live his life most freely and fully, where he +can <i>grow</i>. The city affords no such opportunity; indeed, it often +destroys, by the seductiveness with which it flaunts its carnal graces, +the desire for the higher life which animates every good man.</p> + +<p>While on the subject of simplicity it may be well to observe that +simplicity does not necessarily, as some of those who escape from the +city seem to think, consist in doing without things, but rather in the +proper use of things. One cannot return, unless with affectation, to the +crudities of a former existence. We do not believe in Diogenes and his +tub. Do you not think the good Lord has given us the telephone (that we +may better reach that elbow-rub of brotherhood which is the highest of +human ideals) and the railroad (that we may widen our human knowledge +and sympathy)—and even the motor-car? (though, indeed, I have sometimes +imagined that the motor-cars passing this way had a different origin!). +He may have given these things to us too fast, faster than we can bear; +but is that any reason why we should denounce them all and return to +the old, crude, time-consuming ways of our ancestors? I am no +reactionary. I do not go back. I neglect no tool of progress. I am too +eager to know every wonder in this universe. The motor-car, if I had +one, could not carry me fast enough! I must yet fly!</p> + +<p>After my experience in the country, if I were to be cross-examined as to +the requisites of a farm, I should say that the chief thing to be +desired in any sort of agriculture, is good health in the farmer. What, +after all, can touch that! How many of our joys that we think +intellectual are purely physical! This joy of the morning that the poet +carols about so cheerfully, is often nothing more than the exuberance +produced by a good hot breakfast. Going out of my kitchen door some +mornings and standing for a moment, while I survey the green and +spreading fields of my farm, it seems to me truly as if all nature were +making a bow to me. It seems to me that there never was a better cow +than mine, never a more really perfect horse, and as for pigs, could any +in this world herald my approach with more cheerful gruntings and +squealings!</p> + +<p>But there are other requisites for a farm. It must not be too large, +else it will keep you away from your friends. Provide a town not too far +off (and yet not too near) where you can buy your flour and sell your +grain. If there is a railroad convenient (though not so near that the +whistling of the engines reaches you), that is an added advantage. +Demand a few good old oak trees, or walnuts, or even elms will do. No +well-regulated farm should be without trees; and having secured the +oaks—buy your fuel of your neighbours. Thus you will be blessed with +beauty both summer and winter.</p> + +<p>As for neighbours, accept those nearest at hand; you will find them +surprisingly human, like yourself. If you like them you will be +surprised to find how much they all like you (and will upon occasion +lend you a spring-tooth harrow or a butter tub, or help you with your +plowing); but if you hate them they will return your hatred with +interest. I have discovered that those who travel in pursuit of better +neighbours never find them.</p> + +<p>Somewhere on every farm, along with the other implements, there should +be a row of good books, which should not be allowed to rust with +disuse: a book, like a hoe, grows brighter with employment. And no farm, +even in this country where we enjoy the even balance of the seasons, +rain and shine, shine and rain, should be devoid of that irrigation from +the currents of the world's thought which is so essential to the +complete life. From the papers which the postman puts in the box flow +the true waters of civilisation. You will find within their columns how +to be good or how to make pies: you will get out of them what you look +for! And finally, down the road from your farm, so that you can hear the +bell on Sunday mornings, there should be a little church. It will do you +good even though, like me, you do not often attend. It's a sort of Ark +of the Covenant; and when you get to it, you will find therein the True +Spirit—if you take it with you when you leave home. Of course you will +look for good land and comfortable buildings when you buy your farm: +they are, indeed, prime requisites. I have put them last for the reason +that they are so often first. I have observed, however, that the joy of +the farmer is by no means in proportion to the area of his arable land. +It is often a nice matter to decide between acres and contentment: men +perish from too much as well as from too little. And if it be possible +there should be a long table in the dining-room and little chairs around +it, and small beds upstairs, and young voices calling at their play in +the fields—if it be possible.</p> + +<p>Sometimes I say to myself: I have grasped happiness! Here it is; I have +it. And yet, it always seems at that moment of complete fulfillment as +though my hand trembled, that I might not take it!</p> + +<p>I wonder if you recall the story of Christian and Hopeful, how, standing +on the hill Clear (as we do sometimes—at our best) they looked for the +gates of the Celestial City (as we look—how fondly!):</p> + +<p>"Then they essayed to look, but the remembrance +of that last thing that the shepherds had showed them +made their hands shake, by means of which impediment +they could not look steadily through the glass: +yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and +also some of the glory of the place."</p> + +<p>How often I have thought that I saw some of the glory of the place +(looking from the hill Clear) and how often, lifting the glass, my hand +has trembled!</p> + <div align="center"><img src="images/30.jpg" alt=" " /> </div> +</td></tr></table> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10605 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git 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