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diff --git a/old/12021.txt b/old/12021.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ce544b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12021.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3132 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adopting An Abandoned Farm, by Kate Sanborn + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Adopting An Abandoned Farm + +Author: Kate Sanborn + +Release Date: April 14, 2004 [EBook #12021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM *** + + + + +Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + +Adopting An Abandoned Farm + +BY KATE SANBORN + + +1891 + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER + I.--FROM GOTHAM TO GOOSEVILLE + II.--AUCTIONS + III.--BUYING A HORSE + IV.--FOR THOSE WHO LOVE PETS + V.--STARTING A POULTRY FARM + VI.--GHOSTS + VII.--DAILY DISTRACTIONS +VIII.--THE PROSE OF NEW ENGLAND FARM LIFE + IX.--THE PASSING OF THE PEACOCKS + X.--LOOKING BACK + + + + +An old farm-house with meadows wide, +And sweet with clover on each side. + + MARION DOUGLASS. + + + + +ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +FROM GOTHAM TO GOOSEVILLE. + + + I have now come to the farmer's life, with which I am exceedingly + delighted, and which seems to me to belong especially to the life of + a wise man. + + CICERO. + +Weary of boarding at seashore and mountain, tired of traveling in search +of comfort, hating hotel life, I visited a country friend at Gooseville, +Conn. (an assumed name for Foxboro, Mass.), and passed three happy weeks +in her peaceful home. + +Far away at last from the garish horrors of dress, formal dinners, +visits, and drives, the inevitable and demoralizing gossip and scandal; +far away from hotel piazzas, with their tedious accompaniments of +corpulent dowagers, exclusive or inquisitive, slowly dying from too much +food and too little exercise; ennuied spinsters; gushing buds; athletic +collegians, cigarettes in mouths and hands in pockets; languid, drawling +dudes; old bachelors, fluttering around the fair human flower like +September butterflies; fancy work, fancy work, like Penelope's web, +never finished; pug dogs of the aged and asthmatic variety. Everything +there but MEN--they are wise enough to keep far away. + +Before leaving this haven of rest, I heard that the old-fashioned +farm-house just opposite was for sale. And, as purchasers of real estate +were infrequent at Gooseville, it would be rented for forty dollars a +year to any responsible tenant who would "keep it up." + +After examining the house from garret to cellar and looking over the +fields with a critical eye, I telegraphed to the owner, fearful of +losing such a prize, that I would take it for three years. For it +captivated me. The cosy "settin'-room," with a "pie closet" and an upper +tiny cupboard known as a "rum closet" and its pretty fire place--bricked +up, but capable of being rescued from such prosaic "desuetude"; a large +sunny dining-room, with a brick oven, an oven suggestive of brown bread +and baked beans--yes, the baked beans of my childhood, that adorned the +breakfast table on a Sunday morning, cooked with just a little molasses +and a square piece of crisp salt pork in center, a dish to tempt a dying +anchorite. + +There wore two broad landings on the stairs, the lower one just the +place for an old clock to tick out its impressive +"Forever--Never--Never--Forever" <i>a la</i> Longfellow. Then the long "shed +chamber" with a wide swinging door opening to the west, framing a +sunset gorgeous enough to inspire a mummy. And the attic, with its +possible treasures. + +There was also a queer little room, dark and mysterious, in the center +of house on the ground floor, without even one window, convenient to +retire to during severe thunder storms or to evade a personal interview +with a burglar; just the place, too, for a restless ghost to revisit. + +Best of all, every room was blessed with two closets. + +Outside, what rare attractions! Twenty-five acres of arable land, +stretching to the south; a grand old barn, with dusty, cobwebbed, +hay-filled lofts, stalls for two horses and five cows; hen houses, with +plenty of room to carry out a long-cherished plan of starting a poultry +farm. + +The situation, too, was exceptional, since the station from which I +could take trains direct to Boston and New York almost touched the +northern corner of the farm, and nothing makes one so willing to stay +in a secluded spot as the certainty that he or she can leave it at any +time and plunge directly into the excitements and pleasures which only a +large city gives. + +What charmed me most of all was a tiny but fascinating lakelet in the +pasture near the house; a "spring-hole" it was called by the natives, +but a lakelet it was to me, full of the most entrancing possibilities. +It could be easily enlarged at once, and by putting a wind-mill on the +hill, by the deep pool in "Chicken Brook" where the pickerel loved to +sport, and damming something, somewhere, I could create or evolve a +miniature pond, transplant water lilies, pink and white, set willow +shoots around the well-turfed, graveled edge, with roots of the +forget-me-not hiding under the banks their blue blossoms; just the +flower for happy lovers to gather as they lingered in their rambles to +feed my trout. And there should be an arbor, vine-clad and sheltered +from the curious gaze of the passers-by, and a little boat, moored at a +little wharf, and a plank walk leading up to the house. And--and oh, the +idealism possible when an enthusiastic woman first rents a farm--an +"abandoned" farm! + +It may be more exact to say that my farm was not exactly "abandoned," as +its owner desired a tenant and paid the taxes; say rather depressed, +full of evil from long neglect, suffering from lack of food and general +debility. + +As "abandoned farms" are now a subject of general interest, let me say +that my find was nothing unusual. The number of farms without occupants +in New Hampshire in August, 1889, was 1,342 and in Maine 3,318; and I +saw lately a farm of twenty acres advertised "free rent and a present of +fifty dollars." + +But it is my farm I want you to care about. I could hardly wait until +winter was over to begin my new avocation. By the last of March I was +assured by practical agriculturists (who regarded me with amusement +tempered with pity) that it was high time to prune the lazy fruit trees +and arouse, if possible, the debilitated soil--in short, begin to "keep +it up." + +So I left New York for the scene of my future labors and novel lessons +in life, accompanied by a German girl who proved to be merely an +animated onion in matters of cooking, a half-breed hired man, and a +full-bred setter pup who suffered severely from nostalgia and strongly +objected to the baggage car and separation from his playmates. + +If wit is, as has been averred, the "juxtaposition of dissimilar ideas," +then from "Gotham to Gooseville" is the most scintillating epigram ever +achieved. Nothing was going on at Gooseville except time and the milk +wagon collecting for the creamery. The latter came rumbling along every +morning at 4.30 precisely, with a clatter of cans that never failed to +arouse the soundest sleeper. + +The general dreariness of the landscape was depressing. Nature herself +seemed in a lethargic trance, and her name was mud. + +But with a house to furnish and twenty-five enfeebled acres to +resuscitate, one must not mind. Advanced scientists assure us of life, +motion, even intelligence, appetite, and affection in the most primitive +primordial atoms. So, after a little study, I found that the inhabitants +of Gooseville and its outlying hamlets were neither dead nor sleeping. +It was only by contrast that they appeared comatose and moribund. + +Indeed, the degree of gayety was quite startling. I was at once invited +to "gatherings" which rejoiced in the paradoxical title of "Mum +Sociables," where a penalty of five cents was imposed on each person +for speaking (the revenue to go toward buying a new hearse, a cheerful +object of benevolence), and the occasions were most enjoyable. There was +also a "crazy party" at Way-back, the next village. This special form of +lunacy I did not indulge in--farming was enough for me--but the painter +who was enlivening my dining-room with a coating of vivid red and green, +kindly told me all about it, how much I missed, and how the couple +looked who took the first prize. The lady wore tin plates, tin cans, tin +spoons, etc., sewed on to skirt and waist in fantastic patterns, making +music as she walked, and on her head a battered old coffee pot, with +artificial flowers which had outlived their usefulness sticking out of +the spout; and her winning partner was arrayed in rag patchwork of the +most demented variety. + +"Youdorter gone" said he; "'twas a great show. But I bet youder beaten +the hull lot on 'em if you'd set your mind on't!" + +My walls were now covered with old-fashioned papers, five and ten cents +a roll, and cheap matting improved the floors. But how to furnish eleven +rooms? This brings me to-- + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +AUCTIONS. + + +"Going, going, gone." + +Next came the excitement of auctions, great occasions, and of vital +importance to me, as I was ambitious to furnish the entire house for one +hundred dollars. + +When the head of a family dies a settlement of the estate seems to make +an auction necessary. I am glad of the custom, it proved of invaluable +service to me, and the mortality among old people was quite phenomenal +at Gooseville and thereabouts last year. While I deeply regretted the +demise of each and all, still this general taking off was opportune for +my needs. + +There were seventeen auctions last season, and all but two were +attended by me or my representatives. + +A country auction is not so exciting as one in the city; still you must +be wide-awake and cool, or you will be fleeced. An experienced friend, +acquainted with the auctioneer, piloted me through my first sale, and +for ten dollars I bought enough really valuable furniture to fill a +large express wagon--as a large desk with drawers, little and big, +fascinating pigeon holes, and a secret drawer, for two dollars; queer +old table, ten cents; good solid chairs, nine cents each; mahogany +center-table, one dollar and sixteen cents; and, best of all, a tall and +venerable clock for the landing, only eight dollars! Its "innards" sadly +demoralized, but capable of resuscitation, the weights being tin-cans +filled with sand and attached by strong twine to the "works." It has to +be wound twice daily, and when the hour hand points to six and the other +to ten, I guess that it is about quarter past two, and in five minutes +I hear the senile timepiece strike eleven! + +The scene was unique. The sale had been advertised in post-office and +stores as beginning at 10 A.M., but at eleven the farmers and their +women folks were driving toward the house. A dozen old men, chewing +tobacco and looking wise, were in the barn yard examining the stock to +be sold, the carts and farming tools; a flock of hens were also to be +disposed of, at forty cents each. + +On such occasions the families from far and near who want to dispose of +any old truck are allowed to bring it to add to the motley display. The +really valuable possessions, if any, are kept back, either for private +sale or to be divided among the heirs. I saw genuine antiques +occasionally--old oak chests, finely carved oaken chairs--but these were +rare. After the horses have been driven up and down the street, and +with the other stock disposed of, it is time for lunch. Following the +crowd into the kitchen, you see two barrels of crackers open, a mammoth +cheese of the skim-milk species with a big knife by it, and on the stove +a giant kettle in which cotton bags full of coffee are being distilled +in boiling water. You are expected to dip a heavy white mug into the +kettle for your share of the fragrant reviving beverage, cut off a hunk +of cheese, and eat as many crackers as you can. It tasted well, that +informal "free lunch." + +Finding after one or two trials that the interested parties raised +rapidly on anything I desired. I used to send Gusta and John, nicknamed +very properly "Omniscience and Omnipotence," which names did equally +well when reversed (like a paper cuff), and they, less verdant than +their mistress, would return with an amazing array of stuff. We now have +everything but a second-hand pulpit, a wooden leg, and a coffin plate. +We utilized a cradle and antique churn as a composite flower stand; an +immense spinning-wheel looks pretty covered with running vines, an old +carriage lantern gleams brightly on my piazza every evening. I nearly +bought a horse for fifteen dollars, and did secure a wagon for one +dollar and a half, which, after a few needed repairs, costing only +twenty-six dollars, was my pride, delight and comfort, and the envy of +the neighborhood. Men came from near and far to examine that wagon, felt +critically of every wheel, admired the shining coat of dark-green paint, +and would always wind up with: "I vum, if that 'ere wagon ain't fine! +Why, it's wuth fifty dollars, now, ef it's wuth a cent!" After a hard +day's work, it seemed a gratification to them to come with lanterns to +renew their critical survey, making a fine Rembrandtish study as they +stood around it and wondered. A sleigh was bought for three dollars +which, when painted by our home artist, is both comfortable and +effective. + +At one auction, where I was the only woman present, I bid on three +shovels (needed to dig worms for my prize hens!) and, as the excitement +increased with a rise in bids from two cents to ten, I cried, "Eleven!" +And the gallant old fellow in command roared out as a man opened his +mouth for "Twelve!": "I wouldn't bid ag'in a woman ef I'se you. Let 'er +have 'em! Madam, Mum, or Miss--I can't pernounce your name and don't +rightly know how to spell it--but the shovels are yourn!" + +Attending auctions may be an acquired taste, but it grows on one like +any other habit, and whenever a new and tempting announcement calls, I +rise to the occasion and hasten to the scene of action, be the weather +what it may. And many a treasure has been picked up in this way. Quaint +old mirrors with the queerest pictures above, brass knockers, +candlesticks of queer patterns, cups and saucers and plates, mugs of all +sizes, from one generous enough to satisfy the capacities of a +lager-soaked Dutchman to a dear little child's mug, evidently once +belonging to a series. Mine was for March. A mother sitting on a bench, +with a bowl of possibly Lenten soup by her side, is reproving a fat +little fellow for his gross appetite at this solemn season. He is +weeping, and on her other side a pet dog is pleading to be fed. The +rhyme explains the reason: + + The jovial days of feasting past, + 'Tis pious prudence come at last; + And eager gluttony is taught + To be content with what it ought. + +A warming pan and a foot stove, just as it was brought home from a merry +sleigh-ride, or a solemn hour at the "meetin'-house," recalling that +line of Thomas Gray's: + + E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires. + +Sometimes I would offer a little more to gain some coveted treasure +already bid off. How a city friend enjoyed the confidences of a man who +had agreed to sell for a profit! How he chuckled as he told of "one of +them women who he guessed was a leetle crazy." "Why, jest think on't! I +only paid ten cents for that hull lot on the table yonder, and <i>she</i>" +(pointing to me) "<i>she</i> gin me a quarter for that old pair o' tongs!" + +One day I heard some comments on myself after I had bid on a rag carpet +and offered more than the other women knew it was worth. + +"She's got a million, I hear." + +"Wanter know--merried?" + +"No; just an old maid." + +"Judas Priest! Howd she git it?" + +"Writin', I 'spoze. She writes love stories and sich for city papers. +Some on 'em makes a lot." + +It is not always cheering to overhear too much. When some of my friends, +whom I had taken to a favorite junk shop, felt after two hours of +purchase and exploration that they must not keep me waiting any longer, +the man, in his eagerness to make a few more sales, exclaimed: "Let her +wait; <i>her</i> time ain't wuth nothin'!" + +At an auction last summer, one man told me of a very venerable lantern, +an heirloom in his first wife's family, <i>so</i> long, measuring nearly a +yard with his hands. I said I should like to go with him to see it, as I +was making a collection of lanterns. He looked rather dazed, and as I +turned away he inquired of my friend "if I wusn't <i>rather</i>--" She never +allowed him to finish, and his lantern is now mine. + +People seem to have but little sentiment about their associations with +furniture long in the family. + +The family and a few intimate friends usually sit at the upper windows +gazing curiously on the crowd, with no evidence of feeling or pathetic +recollections. + +I lately heard a daughter say less than a month after her father's +death, pointing to a small cretonne-covered lounge: "Father made me that +lounge with his own hands when I's a little girl. He tho't a sight on't +it, and allers kep' it 'round. But my house is full now. I ain't got no +room for't." It sold for twelve cents! + +Arthur Helps says that human nature craves, nay <i>enjoys</i>, tragedy; and +when away from dramatic representation of crime and horrors and sudden +death, as in this quiet country life, the people gratify their needs in +the sorrows, sins, and calamities that befall their neighbors. + +I strongly incline to Hawthorne's idea that furniture becomes +magnetized, permeated, semi-vitalized, so that the chairs, sofas, and +tables that have outlived their dear owners in my own family have almost +a sacred value to me. + +Still, why moralize. Estates must be settled, and auctions are a +blessing in disguise. + +Of course, buying so much by substitutes, I amassed a lot of curious +things, of which I did not know the use or value, and therefore greatly +enjoyed the experience of the Spectator as given in the Christian Union. + +He attended an auction with the following result: "A long table was +covered with china, earthenware, and glass; and the mantel beyond, a +narrow shelf quite near the ceiling, glittered with a tangled maze of +clean brass candlesticks, steel snuffers, and plated trays. At one end +dangled a huge warming pan, and on the wall near it hung a bit of +canvas in a gilded frame, from which the portrait had as utterly faded +as he whom it represented had vanished into thin air. It was a strange +place, a room from which many a colonial citizen had passed to take a +stroll upon the village street; and here, in sad confusion to be sure, +the dishes that graced his breakfast table. The Spectator could have +lingered there if alone for half a day, but not willingly for half an +hour in such a crowd. The crowd, however, closed every exit and he had +to submit. A possible chance to secure some odd bit was his only +consolation. Why the good old soul who last occupied the house, and who +was born in it fourscore years ago, should necessarily have had only her +grandmother's tableware, why every generation of this family should have +suffered no losses by breakage, was not asked. Every bit, even to +baking-powder prizes of green and greasy glass, antedated the +Revolution, and the wise and mighty of Smalltown knew no better. A bit +of egg shell sticking to a cracked teacup was stolen as a relic of +Washington's last breakfast in Smalltown. + + * * * * * + +"While willow-pattern china was passing into other hands the Spectator +made a discovery. A curious piece of polished, crooked mahogany was seen +lying between soup tureens and gravy boats. He picked it up cautiously, +fearing to attract attention, and, with one eye everywhere else, scanned +it closely. What a curious paper-knife! he thought, and slyly tucked it +back of a pile of plates. This must be kept track of; it may prove a +veritable prize. But all his care went for naught. A curious old lady at +his elbow had seen every action. 'What is it?' she asked, and the wooden +wonder was brought to light. 'It's an old-fashioned wooden butter +knife. I've seen 'em 'afore this. Don't you know in old times it wasn't +everybody as had silver, and mahogany knives for butter was put on the +table for big folks. We folks each used our own knife.' All this was +dribbled into the Spectator's willing ears, and have the relic he would +at any cost. Time and again he nervously turned it over to be sure that +it was on the table, and so excited another's curiosity. 'What is it?' a +second and still older lady asked. 'A colonial butter knife,' the +Spectator replied with an air of much antiquarian lore. 'A butter knife! +No such thing. My grandfather had one just like this, and it's a pruning +knife. He wouldn't use a steel knife because it poisoned the sap.' What +next? Paper knife, butter knife, and pruning knife! At all events every +new name added a dollar to its value, and the Spectator wondered what +the crowd would say, for now it was in the auctioneer's hands. He +looked at it with a puzzled expression and merely cried: 'What is bid +for <i>this</i>?' His ignorance was encouraging. It started at a dime and the +Spectator secured it for a quarter. For a moment he little wondered at +the fascination of public sales. The past was forgiven, for now luck had +turned and he gloried in the possession of a prize. + +"To seek the outer world was a perilous undertaking for fear that the +triply-named knife might come to grief; but a snug harbor was reached at +last, and hugging the precious bit, the Spectator mysteriously +disappeared on reaching his home. No one must know of his success until +the mystery was cleaned, brightened, and restored to pristine beauty. +The Spectator rubbed the gummy surface with kerosene, and then polished +it with flannel. Then warm water and a tooth brush were brought into +play, and the oil all removed. Then a long dry polishing, and the +restoration was complete. Certainly no other Smalltowner had such a +wooden knife; and it was indeed beautiful. Black in a cross light, red +in direct light, and kaleidoscopic by gaslight. Ah, such a prize! The +family knew that something strange was transpiring, but what no one had +an inkling. They must wait patiently, and they did. The Spectator +proudly appeared, his prize in hand. 'See there!' he cried in triumph, +and they all looked eagerly; and when the Spectator's pride was soaring +at its highest, a younger daughter cried, 'Why, papa, it's the back of a +hair-brush!' And it was." + +An auctioneer usually tries to be off-hand, waggish, and brisk--a cross +between a street peddler and a circus clown, with a hint of the forced +mirth of the after-dinner speaker. Occasionally the jokes are good and +the answers from the audience show the ready Yankee wit. + +Once an exceedingly fat man, too obese to descend from his high wagon, +bought an immense dinner bell and he was hit unmercifully. A rusty old +fly-catcher elicited many remarks--as "no flies on that." I bought +several chests, half full of rubbish, but found, alas! no hidden +treasure, no missing jewels, no money hid away by miserly fingers and +forgotten. Jake Corey, who was doing some work for me, encouraged me to +hope. He said: "I hear ye patronize auctions putty reg'lar; sometimes +there is a good deal to be made that way, and then ag'in there isn't. I +never had no luck that way, but it's like getting married, it's a +lottery! Folks git queer and put money in some spot, where they're apt +to forgit all about it. Now I knew a man who bought an old hat and a +sight of other stuff; jest threw in the hat. And when he got home and +come to examine it ef thar warn't three hundred dollars in good bills, +chucked in under the sweater!" + +"You ought to git over to Mason's auction to Milldon, sure. It's day +after to-morrow at nine sharp. You see he'd a fortune left him, but he +run straight through it buying the goldarndest things you ever heerd +tell on--calves with six legs, dogs with three eyes or two tails, steers +that could be druv most as well as hosses (Barnum he got hold o' 'em and +tuk 'em round with his show); all sorts o' curious fowl and every +outlandish critter he could lay his hands on. 'T stands to reason he +couldn't run that rig many years. Your goin's on here made me think o' +Mason. He cut a wide swath for a time. + +"Wall, I hope you'll come off better'n he did. He sunk such a pile that +he got discouraged and took to drink; then his wife, a mighty likely +woman she is (one o' the Batchelders of Dull Corner), couldn't stand it +and went back to her old home, and he died ragged and friendless about a +month ago. Ef I's you, I'd go over, just to take warning and hold up in +time." + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +BUYING A HORSE. + + + "And you know this Deacon Elkins to be a thoroughly reliable man in + every respect?" + + "Indeed, I do," said honest Nathan Robbins. "He is the very soul of + honor; couldn't do a mean thing. I'd trust him with all I have." + + "Well, I'm glad to hear this, for I'm just going to buy a horse of + him." + + "A horse?" + + "Yes--a horse!" + + "Then I don't know anything about him!" + + A TRUE TALE. + +After furnishing my house in the aforesaid economical and nondescript +fashion, came the trials of "planting time." This was such an unfragrant +and expensive period that I pass over it as briefly as possible. I saw +it was necessary in conformity with the appalling situation to alter one +vowel in my Manorial Hall. The haul altogether amounted to eighteen +loads besides a hundred bags of vilely smelling fertilizers. Agents for +every kind of phosphates crowded around me, descanting on the needs of +the old land, until I began to comprehend what the owner meant by +"keeping it up." With Gail Hamilton, I had supposed the entire land of +this earth to be pretty much the same age until I adopted the +"abandoned." This I found was fairly senile in its worthless +decrepitude. + +My expenditure was something prodigious. + +Yes, "planting time" was a nightmare in broad daylight, but as I look +back, it seems a rosy dream, compared with the prolonged agonies of +buying a horse! + +All my friends said I must have a horse to truly enjoy the country, and +it seemed a simple matter to procure an animal for my own use. + +Livery-stable keepers, complaisant and cordial, were continually +driving around the corner into my yard, with a tremendous flourish and +style, chirking up old by-gones, drawing newly painted buggies, +patched-up phaetons, two-seated second-hand "Democrats," high wagons, low +chaises, just for me to try. They all said that seeing I was a lady and +had just come among 'em, they would trade easy and treat me well. Each +mentioned the <i>real</i> value, and a much lower price, at which I, as a +special favor, could secure the entire rig. Their prices were all +abominably exorbitant, so I decided to hire for a season. The dozen +beasts tried in two months, if placed in a row, would cure the worst +case of melancholia. Some shied; others were liable to be overcome by +"blind staggers"; three had the epizootic badly, and longed to lie down; +one was nearly blind. At last I was told of a lady who desired to leave +her pet horse and Sargent buggy in some country home during her three +months' trip abroad. + +Both were so highly praised as <i>just the thing</i> that I took them on +faith. + +I judge that a woman can lie worse than a man about a horse! + +"You will love my Nellie" she wrote. "I hate to part with her, even for +the summer. She has been a famous racer in Canada--can travel easily +twenty-five miles a day. Will go better at the end of the journey than +at the beginning. I hear you are an accomplished driver, so I send my +pet to your care without anxiety." + +I sent a man to her home to drive out with this delightful treasure, and +pictured myself taking long and daily drives over our excellent country +roads. Nellie, <i>dear</i> Nellie; I loved her already. How I would pet her, +and how fond she would become of me. Two lumps of sugar at least, every +day for her, and red ribbons for the whip. How she would dash along! A +horse for me at last! About 1.45 A.M., of the next day, a carriage was +heard slowly entering the yard. I could hardly wait until morning to +gloat over my gentle racer! At early dawn I visited the stable and found +John disgusted beyond measure with my bargain. A worn-out, tumble-down, +rickety carriage with wobbling wheels, and an equally worn-out, thin, +dejected, venerable animal, with an immense blood spavin on left hind +leg, recently blistered! It took three weeks of constant doctoring, +investment in Kendall's Spavin Cure, and consultation with an expensive +veterinary surgeon, to get the whilom race horse into a condition to +slowly walk to market. I understood now the force of the one truthful +clause--"She will go better at the end of the drive than at the +beginning," for it was well-nigh impossible to get her stiff legs +started without a fire kindled under them and a measure of oats held +enticingly before her. It was enraging, but nothing to after +experiences. All the disappointed livery men, their complaisance and +cordiality, wholly a thing of the past, were jubilant that I had been so +imposed upon by some one, even if they had failed. And their looks, as +they wheeled rapidly by me, as I crept along with the poor, suffering, +limping "Nellie," were almost more than I could endure. + +Horses were again brought for inspection, and there was a repetition of +previous horrors. At last a man came from Mossgrown. He had an honest +face; he knew of a man who knew of a man whose brother had just <i>the</i> +horse for me, "sound, stylish, kind, gentle as a lamb, fast as the +wind." Profiting by experience, I said I would look at it. Next day, a +young man, gawky and seemingly unsophisticated, brought the animal. It +looked well enough, and I was so tired. He was anxious to sell, but +only because he was going to be married and go West; needed money. And +he said with sweet simplicity: "Now I ain't no jockey, I ain't! You +needn't be afeard of me--I say just what I mean. I want spot cash, I do, +and you can have horse, carriage, and harness for $125 down." He gave me +a short drive, and we did go "like the wind." I thought the steed very +hard to hold in, but he convinced me that it was not so. I decided to +take the creature a week on trial, which was a blow to that guileless +young man. And that very afternoon I started for the long, pleasant +drive I had been dreaming about since early spring. + +The horse looked quiet enough, but I concluded to take my German +domestic along for extra safety. I remembered his drawling direction, +"Doan't pull up the reins unless you want him to go pretty lively," so +held the reins rather loosely for a moment only, for this last hope +wheeled round the corner as if possessed, and after trotting, then +breaking, then darting madly from side to side, started into a full run. +I pulled with all my might; Gusta stood up and helped. No avail. On we +rushed to sudden death. No one in sight anywhere. With one Herculean +effort, bred of the wildest despair, we managed to rein him in at a +sharp right angle, and we succeeded in calming his fury, and tied the +panting, trembling fiend to a post. Then Gusta mounted guard while I +walked home in the heat and dirt, fully half a mile to summon John. + +I learned that <i>that</i> horse had never before been driven by a woman. He +evidently was not pleased. + +Soon the following appeared among the local items of interest in the +Gooseville Clarion: + + Uriel Snooks, who has been working in the cheese factory at + Frogville, is now to preside over chair number four in Baldwin's + Tonsorial Establishment on Main Street. + + Kate Sanborn is trying another horse. + +These bits of information in the papers were a boon to the various +reporters, but most annoying to me. The Bungtown Gazetteer announced +that "a well-known Boston poetess had purchased the Britton Farm, and +was fitting up the old homestead for city boarders!" I couldn't import a +few hens, invest in a new dog, or order a lawn mower, but a full account +would grace the next issue of all the weeklies. I sympathized with the +old woman who exclaimed in desperation: + + "Great Jerusalem, ca'nt I stir, + Without a-raisin' some feller's fur?" + +At last I suspected the itinerant butcher of doing double duty as a +reporter, and found that he "was engaged by several editors to pick up +bits of news for the press" as he went his daily rounds. "But this," I +exclaimed, "is just what I don't want and can't allow. Now if you should +drive in here some day and discover me dead, reclining against yonder +noble elm, or stark at its base, surrounded by my various pets, don't +allude to it in the most indirect way. I prefer the funeral to be +strictly private. Moreover, if I notice another 'item' about me, I'll +buy of your rival." And the trouble ceased. + +But the horses! Still they came and went. I used to pay my friend the +rubicund surgeon to test some of these highly recommended animals in a +short drive with me. + +One pronounced absolutely unrivaled was discovered by my wise mentor to +be "watch-eyed," "rat-tailed," with a swollen gland on the neck, would +shy at a stone, stand on hind legs for a train, with various other minor +defects. I grew fainthearted, discouraged, cynical, bitter. Was there no +horse for me? I became town-talk as "a drefful fussy old maid who +didn't know her own mind, and couldn't be suited <i>no</i> way." + +I remember one horse brought by a butcher from West Bungtown. It was, in +the vernacular, a buck-skin. Hide-bound, with ribs so prominent they +suggested a wash-board. The two fore legs were well bent out at the +knees; both hind legs were swelled near the hoofs. His ears nearly as +large as a donkey's; one eye covered with a cataract, the other deeply +sunken. A Roman nose, accentuated by a wide stripe, aided the pensive +expression of his drooping under lip. He leaned against the shafts as if +he were tired. + +"There, Marm," said the owner, eying my face as an amused expression +stole over it; "ef you don't care for <i>style</i>, ef ye want a good, steddy +critter, and a critter that can <i>go</i>, and a critter that <i>any</i> lady can +drive, <i>there's</i> the critter for ye!" + +I did buy at last, for life had become a burden. An <i>interested</i> +neighbor (who really pitied me?) induced me to buy a pretty little black +horse. I named him "O.K." + +After a week I changed to "N.G." + +After he had run away, and no one would buy him, "D.B." + +At last I succeeded in exchanging this shying and dangerous creature for +a melancholy, overworked mare at a livery stable. I hear that "D.B." has +since killed two <i>I</i>-talians by throwing them out when not sufficiently +inebriated to fall against rocks with safety. + +And my latest venture is a <i>backer</i>. + +Horses have just as many disagreeable traits, just as much individuality +in their badness, as human beings. Under kind treatment, daily petting, +and generous feeding, "Dolly" is too frisky and headstrong for a lady to +drive. + +"Sell that treacherous beast at once or you will be killed," writes an +anxious friend who had a slight acquaintance with her moods. + +I want now to find an equine reliance whose motto is "Nulla vestigia +retrorsum," or "No steps backward." + +I have pasted Mr. Hale's famous motto, "Look forward and not back," over +her stall--but with no effect. The "Lend a Hand" applies to those we +yell for when the backing is going on. + +By the way, a witty woman said the other day that men always had the +advantage. A woman looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt; +Bellamy looked back and made sixty thousand dollars. + +Mr. Robert B. Roosevelt, in his amusing book "Five Acres too Much" gives +even a more tragic picture, saying: "My experience of horseflesh has +been various and instructive. I have been thrown over their heads and +slid over their tails; have been dragged by saddle, stirrups, and tossed +out of wagons. I have had them to back and to kick, to run and to bolt, +to stand on their hind feet and kick with their front, and then +reciprocate by standing on their front and kicking with their hind +feet.... I have been thrown much with horses and more by them." + +"Horses are the most miserable creatures, invariably doing precisely +what they ought not to do; a pest, a nuisance, a bore." Or, as some one +else puts it: + +"A horse at its best is an amiable idiot; at its worst, a dangerous +maniac." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +FOR THOSE WHO LOVE PETS. + + + "All were loved and all were regretted, but life is made up of + forgetting." + + "The best thing which a man possesses is his dog." + +When I saw a man driving into my yard after this, I would dart out of a +back door and flee to sweet communion with my cows. + +On one such occasion I shouted back that I did not want a horse of any +variety, could not engage any fruit trees, did not want the place +photographed, and was just going out to spend the day. I was courteously +but firmly informed that my latest visitor had, singular to relate, no +horse to dispose of, but he "would like fourteen dollars for my dog tax +for the current year!" As he was also sheriff, constable, and justice +of the peace, I did not think it worth while to argue the question, +although I had no more thought of being called up to pay a dog tax than +a hen tax or cat tax. I trembled, lest I should be obliged to enumerate +my entire menagerie--cats, dogs, canaries, rabbits, pigs, ducks, geese, +hens, turkeys, pigeons, peacocks, cows, and horses. + +Each kind deserves an entire chapter, and how easy it would be to write +of cats and their admirers from Cambyses to Warner; of dogs and their +friends from Ulysses to Bismarck. I agree with Ik Marvel that a cat is +like a politician, sly and diplomatic; purring--for food; and +affectionate--for a consideration; really caring nothing for friendship +and devotion, except as means to an end. Those who write books and +articles and verse and prose tributes to cats think very differently, +but the cats I have met have been of this type. + +And dogs. Are they really so affectionate, or are they also a little +shrewd in licking the hand that feeds them? I dislike to be pessimistic. +But when my dogs come bounding to meet me for a jolly morning greeting +they do seem expectant and hungry rather than affectionate. At other +hours of the day they plead with loving eyes and wagging tails for a +walk or a seat in the carriage or permission to follow the wagon. + +But I will not analyze their motives. They fill the house and grounds +with life and frolic, and a farm would be incomplete if they were +missing. Hamerton, in speaking of the one dog, the special pet and dear +companion of one's youth, observes that "the comparative shortness of +the lives of dogs is the only imperfection in the relation between them +and us. If they had lived to three-score and ten, man and dog might have +traveled through life together, but, as it is, we must either have a +succession of affections, or else, when the first is buried in its early +grave, live in a chill condition of dog-less-ness." + +I thank him for that expressive compound word. Almost every one might, +like Grace Greenwood and Gautier, write a History of my Pets and make a +readable book. Carlyle, the grand old growler, was actually attached to +a little white dog--his wife's special delight, for whom she used to +write cute little notes to the master. And when he met with a fatal +accident, he was tenderly nursed by both for months, and when the doctor +was at last obliged to put him out of pain by prussic acid, their grief +was sincere. They buried him at the top of the garden in Cheyne Row, and +planted cowslips round his grave, and his mistress placed a stone +tablet, with name and date, to mark the last resting place of her +blessed dog. + +"I could not have believed," writes Carlyle in the Memorials, "my grief +then and since would have been the twentieth part of what it was--nay, +that the want of him would have been to me other than a riddance. Our +last midnight walk together (for he insisted on trying to come), January +31st, is still painful to my thought. Little dim, white speck of life, +of love, of fidelity, girdled by the darkness of night eternal." + +Beecher said many a good thing about dogs, but I like this best: +Speaking of horseback riding, he incidentally remarked that in +evolution, the human door was just shut upon the horse, but the dog got +fully up before the door was shut. If there was not reason, +mirthfulness, love, honor, and fidelity in a dog, he did not know where +to look for it. Oh, if they only could speak, what wise and humorous and +sarcastic things they would say! Did you never feel snubbed by an +immense dog you had tried to patronize? And I have seen many a dog +smile. Bayard Taylor says: "I know of nothing more moving, indeed +semi-tragic, than the yearning helplessness in the face of a dog, who +understands what is said to him, and can not answer!" + +Dr. Holland wrote a poem to his dog Blanco, "his dear, dumb friend," in +which he expresses what we all have felt many times. + + I look into your great brown eyes, + Where love and loyal homage shine, + And wonder where the difference lies + Between your soul and mine. + +The whole poem is one of the best things Holland ever did in rhyme. He +was ambitious to be remembered as a poet, but he never excelled in verse +unless he had something to express that was very near his heart. He was +emphatically the Apostle of Common Sense. How beautifully he closes his +loving tribute-- + + Ah, Blanco, did I worship God + As truly as you worship me, + Or follow where my Master trod + With your humility, + + Did I sit fondly at his feet + As you, dear Blanco, sit at mine, + And watch him with a love as sweet, + My life would grow divine! + +Almost all our great men have more than one dog in their homes. When I +spent a day with the Quaker poet at Danvers, I found he had three dogs. +Roger Williams, a fine Newfoundland, stood on the piazza with the +questioning, patronizing air of a dignified host; a bright-faced Scotch +terrier, Charles Dickens, peered at us from the window, as if glad of a +little excitement; while Carl, the graceful greyhound, was indolently +coiled up on a shawl and took little notice of us. + +Whittier has also a pet cow, favorite and favored, which puts up her +handsome head for an expected caress. The kindly hearted old poet, so +full of tenderness for all created things, told me that years when nuts +were scarce he would put beech nuts and acorns here and there as he +walked over his farm, to cheer the squirrels by an unexpected find. + +Miss Mitford's tribute to her defunct doggie shows to what a degree of +imbecility an old maid may carry fondness for her pets, but it is +pathetically amusing. + +"My own darling Mossy's hair, cut off after he was dead by dear Drum, +August 22, 1819. He was the greatest darling that ever lived (son of +Maria and Mr. Webb's 'Ruler,' a famous dog given him by Lord Rivers), +and was, when he died, about seven or eight years old. He was a large +black dog, of the largest and strongest kind of greyhounds; very fast +and honest, and resolute past example; an excellent killer of hares, and +a most magnificent and noble-looking creature. His coat was of the +finest and most glossy black, with no white, except a very little under +his feet (pretty white shoe linings I used to call them)--a little +beautiful white spot, quite small, in the very middle of his neck, +between his chin and his breast--and a white mark on his bosom. His face +was singularly beautiful; the finest black eyes, very bright, and yet +sweet, and fond, and tender--eyes that seemed to speak; a beautiful, +complacent mouth, which used sometimes to show one of the long white +teeth at the side; a jet black nose; a brow which was bent and flexible, +like Mr. Fox's, and gave great sweetness and expression, and a look of +thought to his dear face. There never was such a dog! His temper was, +beyond comparison, the sweetest ever known. Nobody ever saw him out of +humor. And his sagacity was equal to his temper. Thank God, he went off +without suffering. He must have died in a moment. I thought I should +have broken my heart when I came home and found what had happened. I +shall miss him every moment of my life; I have missed him every instant +to-day--so have Drum and Granny. He was laid out last night in the +stable, and this morning we buried him in the middle plantation on the +house side of the fence, in the flowery corner, between the fence and +Lord Shrewsbury's fields. We covered his dear body with flowers; every +flower in the garden. <i>Everybody loved him</i>; 'dear saint,' as I used to +call him, and as <i>I do not doubt he now is!!</i> No human being was ever so +faithful, so gentle, so generous, and so fond! I shall never love +anything half so well. + +"It will always be pleasant to me to remember that I never teased him by +petting other things, and that everything I had he shared. He always ate +half my breakfast, and the very day before he died I fed him <i>all the +morning</i> with filberts." (There may have been a connection between the +filberts and the funeral.) + +"While I had him, I was always sure of having one who would love me +alike in riches or poverty, who always looked at me with looks of the +fondest love, always faithful and always kind. To think of him was a +talisman against vexing thoughts. A thousand times I have said, 'I want +my Mossy,' when that dear Mossy was close by and would put his dear +black nose under my hand on hearing his name. God bless you, my Mossy! I +cried when you died, and I can hardly help crying whenever I think of +you. All who loved me loved Mossy. He had the most perfect confidence in +me--always came to me for protection against any one who threatened him, +and, thank God, always found it. I value all things he had lately or +ever touched; even the old quilt that used to be spread on my bed for +him to lie on, and which we called Mossy's quilt; and the pan that he +used to drink out of in the parlor, and which was always called Mossy's +pan, dear darling! + +"I forgot to say that his breath was always sweet and balmy; his coat +always glossy like satin; and he never had any disease or anything to +make him disagreeable in his life. Many other things I have omitted; and +so I should if I were to write a whole volume of his praise; for he was +above all praise, sweet angel! I have inclosed some of his hair, cut off +by papa after his death, and some of the hay on which he was laid out. +He died Saturday, the 21st of August, 1819, at Bertram House. Heaven +bless him, beloved angel!" + +It is as sad as true that great natures are solitary, and therefore +doubly value the affections of their pets. + +Southey wrote a most interesting biography of the cats of Greta Hall, +and on the demise of one wrote to an old friend: "Alas! Grosvenor, this +day poor old Rumpel was found dead, after as long and as happy a life as +cat could wish for--if cats form wishes on that subject. There should be +a court mourning in Cat-land, and if the Dragon wear a black ribbon +round his neck, or a band of crape, <i>a la militaire</i>, round one of the +fore paws, it will be but a becoming mark of respect. As we have not +catacombs here, he is to be decently interred in the orchard and catnip +planted on his grave." + +And so closes this catalogue of Southey's "Cattery." + +But, hark! my cats are mewing, dogs all calling for me--no--for dinner! +After all, what is the highest civilization but a thin veneer over +natural appetites? What would a club be without its <i>chefs</i>, a social +affair without refreshment, a man without his dinner, a woman without +her tea? Come to think of it, I'm hungry myself! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +STARTING A POULTRY FARM. + + + If every hen should only raise five broods yearly of ten each, and + there were ten hens to start with, at the end of two years they + would number 344,760, after the superfluous roosters were sold; and + then, supposing the extra eggs to have paid for their keeping and + the produce to be worth only a dollar and a half a pair, there would + be a clear profit of $258,520. Allowing for occasional deaths, this + sum might be stated in round numbers at a quarter of a million, + which would be a liberal increase from ten hens. Of course I did not + expect to do as well as this, but merely mention what might be done + with good luck and forcing. + + ROBERT ROOSEVELT. + +Having always heard, on the best authority, that there was "money in +hens," I invested largely in prize fowls secured at State fairs and +large poultry shows, buying as many kinds as possible to make an +effective and brilliant display in their "runs." + +There <i>is</i> a good deal of money in my hens--how to get it back is the +present problem. These hens were all heralded as famous layers; several +did lay in the traveling coops on the journey, great pinky-brown +beauties, just to show what they could do if they chose, then stopped +suddenly. I wrote anxiously to former owners of this vaunted stock to +explain such disappointing behavior. Some guessed the hens were just +moulting, others thought "may be they were broody"; a few had the +frankness to agree with me that it was mighty curious, but hens always +were "sorter contrary critters." + +Their appetites remained normal, but, as the little girl said of her pet +bantam, they only lay about doing nothing. And when guests desired some +of my fine fresh eggs boiled for breakfast, I used to go secretly to a +neighbor and buy a dozen, but never gave away the mortifying situation. + +Seeing piles of ducks' eggs in a farmer's barn, all packed for market, +and picturing the producers, thirty white Pekins, a snowy, +self-supporting fleet on my reformed lakelet, I bought the whole lot, +and for long weary months they were fed and pampered and coaxed and +reasoned with, shut up, let out, kept on the water, forbidden to go to +it, but not one egg to be seen! + +It was considered a rich joke in that locality that a city woman who was +trying to farm, had applied for these ducks just as they had completed +their labors for the season of 1888-'90; they were also extremely +venerable, and the reticent owner rejoiced to be relieved of an +expensive burden at good rates. Knowing nothing of these facts in +natural history, I pondered deeply over the double phenomenon. I said +the hens seemed normal only as to appetite; the ducks proved abnormal in +this respect. They were always coming up to the back door, clamoring +for food--always unappeased. They preferred cake, fresh bread, hot +boiled potatoes, doted on tender bits of meat, but would gobble up +anything and everything, more voracious and less fastidious than the +ordinary hog of commerce. Bags of corn were consumed in a flash, +"shorts" were never long before their eager gaze, they went for every +kind of nourishment provided for the rest of the menagerie. A goat is +supposed to have a champion appetite and digestion, but a duck--at least +one of my ducks--leaves a goat so far behind that he never could regain +his reputation for omniverosity. They were too antique to be eaten +themselves--their longevity entitled them to respect; they could not be +disposed of by the shrewdest market man to the least particular of +boarding-house providers; I could only regard them with amazement and +horror and let them go on eating me out of house and home and +purse-strings. + +But at last I knew. I asked an honest man from afar, who called to sell +something, why those ducks would not lay a single egg. He looked at them +critically and wrote to me the next day: + + "DEAR MADAM: The reason your ducks won't lay is because they're too + old to live and the bigest part of 'em is drakes. + + Respectfully, + + JONAS HURLBERT." + +I hear that there are more ducks in the Chinese Empire than in all the +world outside of it. They are kept by the Celestials on every farm, on +the private and public roads, on streets of cities, and on all the +lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and brooks in the country. That is the +secret of their lack of progress. What time have they to advance after +the ducks are fed and cared for? No male inhabitant could ever squeeze +out a leisure half-hour to visit a barber, hence their long queues. + +About this time the statement of Mr. Crankin, of North Yeaston, Rhode +Island, that he makes a clear and easy profit of five dollars and twenty +cents per hen each year, and nearly forty-four dollars to every duck, +and might have increased said profit if he had hatched, rather than +sold, seventy-two dozen eggs, struck me as wildly apocryphal. Also that +caring for said hens and ducks was merely an incident of his day's work +on the large farm, he working with his laborers. Heart-sick and +indignant, contrasting his rosy success with my leaden-hued failure, I +decided to give all my ducks away, as they wouldn't, couldn't drown, and +there would be no use in killing them. But no one wanted them! And +everybody smiled quizzically when I proposed the gift. + +Just then, as if in direct sarcasm, a friend sent me a paper with an +item marked to the effect that a poor young girl had three ducks' eggs +given her as the basis of a solid fortune, and actually cleared one +hundred and eighteen dollars from those three eggs the first year. + +Another woman solemnly asserts in print a profit of $448.69 from one +hundred hens each year. + +The census man told me of a woman who had only eighteen hens. They gave +her sixteen hundred and ninety eggs, of which she sold eighteen dollars' +worth, leaving plenty for household use. + +And my hens and my ducks! In my despair I drove a long way to consult a +"duck man." He looked like the typical Brother Jonathan, only with a +longer beard, and his face was haggard, unkempt, anxious. He could +scarcely stop to converse, evidently grudged the time, devotes his +entire energies from dawn to twilight to slaving for his eight hundred +ducklings. He also kept an incubator going all the time. + +"Do ducks pay you?" I asked. + +"Wall, I'm gettin' to be somewhat of a bigotist," he said; "I barely git +a livin'." + +"Why Mr. Crankin--" I began. + +The name roused his jealous ire, and his voice, a low mumble before, now +burst into a loud roar. "Yes, Crankin makes money, has a sight o' +incubators, makes 'em himself, sells a lot, but some say they don't act +like his do when they git off his place; most on 'em seem possessed, but +Crankin, <i>he</i> can manage 'em and makes money too." + +"Do your ducks lay much?" + +"Lay! I don't want 'em to lay! Sell 'em all out at nine weeks, 'fore the +pin feathers come; then they're good eatin'--for them as likes 'em. I've +heard of yure old lot. Kill 'em, I say, and start new!" + +"Crankin says--" + +"I don't care nothing what Crankin says" (here the voice would have +filled a cathedral), "I tell ye; me and Crankin's two different +critters!" + +So I felt; but it would not do to give up. I purchased an expensive +incubator and brooder--needn't have bought a brooder. I put into the +incubator at a time when eggs were scarce and high priced, two hundred +eggs--hens' eggs, ducks' eggs, goose eggs. The temperature must be kept +from 102 deg. to 104 deg.. The lamps blazed up a little on the first day, but +after that we kept the heat exactly right by daily watching and night +vigils. It engrossed most of the time of four able-bodied victims. + +Nothing ever was developed. The eggs were probably cooked that first +day! + +Now I'm vainly seeking for a purchaser for my I. and B. Terms of sale +very reasonable. Great reduction from original price; shall no doubt be +forced to give them away to banish painful recollections. + +I also invested in turkeys, geese, and peacocks, and a pair of guinea +hens to keep hawks away. + +For long weary months the geese seemed the only fowls truly at home on +my farm. They did their level best. Satisfied that my hens would neither +lay nor set, I sent to noted poultry fanciers for "settings" of eggs at +three dollars per thirteen, then paid a friendly "hen woman" for +assisting in the mysterious evolution of said eggs into various +interesting little families old enough to be brought to me. + +Many and curious were the casualties befalling these young broods. +Chickens are subject to all the infantile diseases of children and many +more of their own, and mine were truly afflicted. <i>Imprimis</i>, most +would not hatch; the finest Brahma eggs contained the commonest +barn-yard fowls. Some stuck to the shell, some were drowned in a saucer +of milk, some perished because no lard had been rubbed on their heads, +others passed away discouraged by too much lard. Several ate rose bugs +with fatal results; others were greedy as to gravel and agonized with +distended crops till released by death. They had more "sand" than was +good for them. They were raised on "Cat Hill," and five were captured by +felines, and when the remnant was brought to me they disappeared day by +day in the most puzzling manner until we caught our mischievous pug, +"Tiny Tim," holding down a beautiful young Leghorn with his cruel paw +and biting a piece out of her neck. + +So they left me, one by one, like the illusions of youth, until there +was no "survival of the fittest." + +In a ragged old barn opposite, a hen had stolen her nest and brought +out seventeen vigorous chicks. I paid a large bill for the care of what +might have been a splendid collection, and meekly bought that faithful +old hen with her large family. It is now a wonder to me that any +chickens arrive at maturity. Fowls are afflicted with parasitic +wrigglers in their poor little throats. The disease is called "gapes," +because they try to open their bills for more air until a red worm in +the trachea causes suffocation. This horrid red worm, called +scientifically <i>Scelorostoma syngamus</i>, destroys annually <i>half a +million</i> of chickens. + +Dr. Crisp, of England, says it would be of truly national importance to +find the means of preventing its invasion. + +The unpleasant results of hens and garden contiguous, Warner has +described. They are incompatible if not antagonistic. One man wisely +advises: "Fence the garden in and let the chickens run, as the man +divided the house with his quarrelsome wife, by taking the inside +himself and giving her the outside, that she might have room according +to her strength." + +Looking over the long list of diseases to which fowls are subject is +dispiriting. I am glad they can't read them, or they would have all at +once, as J.K. Jerome, the witty playwright, decided he had every disease +found in a medical dictionary, except housemaid's knee. Look at this +condensed list: + + DISEASES OF NERVOUS SYSTEM.--1. Apoplexy. 2. Paralysis. 3. Vertigo. + 4. Neuralgia. 5. Debility. + + DISEASES OF DIGESTIVE ORGANS.--99. + + DISEASES OF LOCOMOTIVE ORGANS.--1. Rheumatism. 2. Cramp. 3. Gout. 4. + Leg weakness. 5. Paralysis of legs. 6. Elephantiasis. + + Next, diseases caused by parasites. + + Then, injuries. + + Lastly, miscellaneous. + +I could add a still longer list of unclassified ills: Homesickness, +fits, melancholia, corns, blindness from fighting too much, etc. + +Now that I have learned to raise chickens, it is a hard and slow +struggle to get any killed. I say in an off-hand manner, with assumed +nonchalance: "Ellen, I want Tom to kill a rooster at once for tomorrow's +dinner, and I have an order from a friend for four more, so he must +select five to-night." Then begins the trouble. "Oh," pleads Ellen, +"don't kill dear Dick! poor, dear Dick! That is Tom's pet of all; so big +and handsome and knows so much! He will jump up on Tom's shoulder and +eat out of his hand and come when he calls--and those big Brahmas--don't +you know how they were brought up by hand, as you might say, and they +know me and hang around the door for crumbs, and that beauty of a +Wyandock, you <i>couldn't</i> eat <i>him</i>!" When the matter is decided, as the +guillotining is going on, Ellen and I sit listening to the axe thuds and +the death squaks, while she wrings her hands, saying: "O dearie me! What +a world--the dear Lord ha' mercy on us poor creatures! What a thing to +look into, that we must kill the poor innocents to eat them. And they +were so tame and cunning, and would follow me all around!" Then I tell +her of the horrors of the French Revolution to distract her attention +from the present crisis, and alluded to the horrors of cannibalism +recently disclosed in Africa. Then I fall into a queer reverie and +imagine how awful it would be if we should ever be called to submit to a +race of beings as much larger than we are as we are above the fowls. I +almost hear such a monster of a house-wife, fully ninety feet high, say +to a servant, looking sternly and critically at me: + +"That fat, white creature must be killed; just eats her old head +off--will soon be too tough"--Ugh! Here Tom comes with five headless +fowls. Wasn't that a weird fancy of mine? + +Truly "Me and Crankin's two different critters." + +From the following verse, quoted from a recent poultry magazine, I +conclude that I must be classed as a "chump." As it contains the secret +of success in every undertaking, it should be committed to memory by all +my readers. + + "Grit makes the man, + The want of it the chump. + The men who win, + Lay hold, hang on, and hump." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +GHOSTS. + + + "But stop," says the courteous and prudent reader, "are there any + such things as ghosts?" + + "Any ghostesses!" cries Superstition, who settled long since in the + country, near a church yard on a "rising ground," "any ghostesses! + Ay, man, lots on 'em! Bushels on 'em! Sights on 'em! Why, there's + one as walks in our parish, reglar as the clock strikes twelve--and + always the same round, over church-stile, round the corner, through + the gap, into Shorts Spinney, and so along into our close, where he + takes a drink at the pump--for ye see he died in liquor, and then + arter he squenched hisself, wanishes into waper. + + "Then there's the ghost of old Beales, as goes o' nights and sows + tares in his neighbor's wheat--I've often seed 'em in seed time. + They do say that Black Ben, the poacher, have riz, and what's more, + walked slap through all the squire's steel traps, without springing + on 'em. And then there's Bet Hawkey as murdered her own infant--only + the poor little babby hadn't learned to walk, and so can't appear + ag'in her." + + THOMAS HOOD, <i>The Grimsby Ghost</i>. + +That dark little room I described as so convenient during a terrific +thunderstorm or the prowling investigations of a burglar, began after a +while to get mysterious and uncanny, and I disliked, nay, dreaded to +enter it after dark. It was so still, so black, so empty, so chilly with +a sort of supernatural chill, so silent, that imagination conjured up +sounds such as I had never heard before. I had been told of an extremely +old woman, a great-great-grandmother, bed-ridden, peevish, and +weak-minded, who had occupied that room for nearly a score of years, +apparently forgotten by fate, and left to drag out a monotonous, weary +existence on not her "mattress grave" (like the poet Heine), but on an +immensely thick feather bed; only a care, a burden, to her relations. + +As twilight came on, I always carefully closed that door and shut the +old lady in to sleep by herself. For it seemed that she was still there, +still propped up in an imaginary bed, mumbling incoherently of the +past, or moaning out some want, or calling for some one to bring a +light, as she used to. + +Once in a while, they told me, she would regain her strength suddenly +and astonish the family by appearing at the door. When the +grand-daughter was enjoying a Sunday night call from her "intended" it +was rather embarrassing. + +I said nothing to my friends about this unpleasant room. But several +were susceptible to the strange influence. One thought she should not +mind so much if the door swung open, and a <i>portiere</i> concealed the +gloom. So a cheerful cretonne soon was hung. Then the fancy came that +the curtain stirred and swayed as if some one or something was groping +feebly with ghostly or ghastly fingers behind it. And one night, when +sitting late and alone over the embers of my open fire, feeling a little +forlorn, I certainly heard moans coming from that direction. + +It was not the wind, for, although it was late October and the breezes +were sighing over summer's departure, this sound was entirely different +and distinct. Then (and what a shiver ran down my back!) I remembered +hearing that a woman had been killed by falling down the steep cellar +stairs, and the spot on the left side where she was found unconscious +and bleeding had been pointed out to me. There, I heard it again! Was it +the wraith of the aged dame or the cries of that unfortunate creature? +Hush! Ellen can't have fallen down! + +I am really scared; the lamp seems to be burning dim and the last coal +has gone out. Is it some restless spirit, so unhappy that it must moan +out its weary plaint? I ought to be brave and go at once and look boldly +down the cellar stairs and draw aside that waving <i>portiere</i>. Oh, dear! +If I only had some one to go with me and hold a light and--there it +is--the third time. Courage vanished. It might be some dreadful tramp +hiding and trying to drive me up-stairs, so he could get the silver, and +he would gladly murder me for ten cents-- + +"Tom," I cried. "Tom, come here." But Tom, my six-footer factotum, made +no response. + +I could stand it no longer--the <i>portiere</i> seemed fairly alive, and I +rushed out to the kitchen where Ellen sat reading the <i>Ledger</i>, deep in +the horrors of The Forsaken Inn. "Ellen, I'm ashamed, but I'm really +frightened. I do believe somebody is in that horrid dark room, or in the +cellar, and where <i>is</i> Tom? + +"Bedad, Miss, and you've frightened the heart right out o' me. It might +be a ghost, for there are such things (Heaven help us!), and I've seen +'em in this country and in dear old Ireland, and so has Tom." + +"You've seen ghosts?" + +"Yes, indeed, Miss, but I've never spoke to any, for you've no right to +speak to a ghost, and if you do you will surely die." Tom now came in +and soon satisfied me that there was no living thing in the darkness, so +I sat down and listened to Ellen's experiences with ghosts. + +THE FORMER MRS. WILKES.--"Now this happened in New York city, Miss, in +West 28th Street, and is every word true, for, my dear, I saw it with my +own eyes. I went to bed, about half-past nine it was this night, and I +was lying quietly in bed, looking up to the ceiling; no light on account +of the mosquitoes, and Maud, the little girl I was caring for, a romping +dear of seven or eight, a motherless child, had been tossing about +restless like, and her arm was flung over me. All at once I saw a lady +standing by the side of the bed in her night dress and looking earnestly +at the child beyond me. She then came nearer, took Maud's arm off me, +and gently straightened her in bed, then stroked her face, both +cheeks--fondly, you know--and then stood and looked at the child. I said +not a word, but I wasn't one bit afraid for I thought it was a living +lady. I could tell the color of her eyes and hair and just how she +looked every way. In the morning I described her to Mrs. Wilkes, and +asked, 'Is there any strange lady in the house?' 'No, Ellen. Why?' she +said. Then I said: 'Why, there certainly was a pleasant-looking lady in +my room last night, in her night dress, and she patted Maud as if she +thought a sight of her.' + +"'Why,' said my mistress, 'that is surely the former Mrs. Wilkes!' + +"She said that the older daughter had seen her several times standing +before her glass, fixing her hair and looking at herself, but if she +spoke to her or tried to speak, her mother would take up something and +shake it at her. And once when we were going up-stairs together Alice +screamed, and said that her mother was at the top of the stairs and blew +her cold breath right down on her. The stepmother started to give her +her slipper, but the father pitied her and would not allow her to be +whipped, and said 'I'll go up to bed with you, Alice.'" + +"Did you ever see the lady in white again, Ellen?" + +"Never, Ma'am, nor did I ever see any other ghost in this country that I +was sure was a ghost, but--Ireland, dear old Ireland, oh, that's an +ancient land, and they have both ghosts and fairies and banshees too, +and many's the story I've heard over there, and from my own dear +mother's lips, and she would not tell a lie (Heaven rest her soul!), and +I've seen them myself over there, and so has Tom and his brother too, +Miss. Oh, many's the story I could tell!" + +"Well, Ellen, let me have one of your own--your very best." And I went +for pencil and pad. + +"And are ye going to pin down my story. Well, Miss, if ye take it just +as I say, and then fix it proper to be read, they'll like it, for people +are crazy now to get the true ghost stories of dear old Ireland. O Miss, +when you go over, don't forget my native place. It has a real castle and +a part of it is haunted, and the master doesn't like to live there--only +comes once a year or so, for hunting--and the rabbits there are as thick +as they can be and the river chuck full of fish, but no one can touch +any game, or even take out one fish, or they would be punished." + +"Yes, Ellen it's hard, and all wrong, but we are wandering away from +your ghosts, and you know I am going to take notes. So begin." + +"Well, Miss, I was a sort of companion or maid to a blind lady in my own +town. I slept in a little room just across the landing from hers, so as +to always be within reach of her. I was just going to bed, when she +called for me to come in and see if there was something in the +room--something alive, she thought, that had been hopping, hopping all +around her bed, and frightened her dreadfully, poor thing, for, you +remember, she was stone blind, Miss, which made it worse. So I hurried +in and I shook the curtains, looked behind the bureau and under the bed, +and tried everywhere for whatever might be hopping around, but could +find nothing and heard not a sound. While I was there all was still. +Then I went into my room again, and left the door open, as I thought +Miss Lacy would feel more comfortable about it, and I was hardly in my +bed when she called again and screamed out with fear, for It was hopping +round the bed. She said I must go down-stairs and bring a candle. So I +had to go down-stairs to the pantry all alone and get the candle. Then +I searched as before, but found nothing--not a thing. Well, my dear, I +went into my room and kept my candle lighted this time. The third time +she called me she was standing on her pillow, shivering with fright, and +begged me to bring the light. It was sad, because she was stone blind. +She told me how It went hopping around the room, with its legs tied +like. And after looking once more and finding nothing, she said I'd have +to sleep in the bed with her and bring a chair near the bed and put the +lighted candle on it. For a long time we kept awake, and watched and +listened, but nothing happened, nothing appeared. We kept awake as long +as we could, but at last our eyes grew very heavy, and the lady seemed +to feel more easy. So I snuffed out the candle. Out It hopped and kept a +jumping on one leg like from one side to the other. We were so much +afraid we covered our faces; we dreaded to see It, so we hid our eyes +under the sheet, and she clung on to me all shaking; she felt worse +because she was blind. + +"We fell asleep at daylight, and when I told Monk, the butler, he said +it was a corpse, sure--a corpse whose legs had been tied to keep them +straight and the cords had not been taken off, the feet not being +loosened. Why my own dear mother, that's dead many a year (Heaven bless +her departed spirit!)--she would never tell a word that was not +true--she saw a ghost hopping in that way, tied-like, jumping around a +bed--blue as a blue bag; just after the third day she was buried, and my +mother (the Lord bless her soul!) told me the sons went to her grave and +loosened the cords and she never came back any more. Isn't it awful? +And, bedad, Miss, it's every word true. I can tell you of a young man I +knew who looked into a window at midnight (after he had been playing +cards, Miss, gambling with the other boys) and saw something awful +strange, and was turned by ghosts into a <i>shadow</i>." + +This seemed to be a thrilling theme, such as Hawthorne would have been +able to weave into the weirdest of weird tales, and I said, "Go on." + +"Well, he used to go playing cards about three miles from his home with +a lot of young men, for his mother wouldn't have cards played in her +house, and she thought it was wicked, and begged him not to play. It's a +habit with the young men of Ireland--don't know as it's the same in +other countries--and they play for a goose or a chicken. They go to some +vacant house to get away from their fathers, they're so against it at +home. Why, my brother-in-law used to go often to such a house on the +side of a country road. Each man would in turn provide the candles to +play by, and as this house was said to be haunted, bedad they had it +all to themselves. Well, this last night that ever they played there--it +was Tom's own brother that told me this--just as they were going to deal +the cards, a tall gentleman came out from a room that had been the +kitchen. He walked right up to them--he was dressed in black cloth +clothes, and wore a high black hat--and came right between two of the +men and told them to deal out the cards. They were too frightened even +to speak, so the stranger took the cards himself and dealt around to +each man. And afterward he played with them; then he looked at every man +in turn and walked out of the room. As soon as he cleared out of the +place, the men all went away as quick as ever they could, and didn't +stop to put out the lights. Each man cleared with himself and never +stopped to look behind. And no one cared to play cards in that house +afterward any more. That was Tom's own brother; and now the poor young +man who was going home at midnight saw a light in one of the houses by +the road, so he turned toward it, thinking to light his pipe. Just +before knocking, he looked in at the window. As soon as he peeped in the +light went out on him, and still he could see crowds of people, as thick +as grass, just as you see 'em at a fair--so thick they hadn't room to +stand--and they kept swaying back and forth, courtesying like. The +kitchen was full, and looking through a door he saw a lot more of fine +ladies and gentlemen; they were laughing and having great fun, running +round the table setting out cups and saucers, just as if they were +having a ball. Just then a big side-board fell over with a great crash, +and all the fine people scampered away, and all was dark. So he turned +away on his heel and was so frightened, his mother said, he could hardly +get home from fear, and he had three whole miles to go. Next day he was +thrashing corn in the barn and something upset him and pitched him head +foremost across the flail. He rose, and three times he was pitched like +that across the flail, so he gave up and went home. His mother asked +him: 'Johnny, what is the matter with you? You do look very bad!' So he +up and told her what had happened to him in the barn, and what he saw +the night before. And he took suddenly sick and had to keep his bed for +nine weeks, and when he got up and was walking around, he wasn't himself +any more, and the sister says to the mother: 'Mother, I'm sure that it +isn't Johnny that's there. It's only his shadow, for when I look at him, +it isn't his features or face, but the face of another thing. He used to +be so pleasant and cheerful, but now he looks like quite another man. +Mother,' said she, 'we haven't Johnny at all.' Soon he got a little +stronger and went to the capital town with corn. Several other men went +also to get their corn ground. They were all coming home together a very +cold night, and the men got up and sat on their sacks of corn. The other +horses walked on all right with them, but Johnny's horses wouldn't move, +not one step while he was on top of the load. Well, my dear, he called +for the rest to come and help him--to see if the horses would go for +them. But they would not move one step, though they whipped them and +shouted at them to start on, for Johnny he was as heavy as lead. And he +had to get down. Soon as he got down, the horses seemed glad and went +off on a gallop after the rest of the train. So they all went off +together, and Johnny wandered away into the bogs. His friends supposed, +of course, he was coming on, thought he was walking beside his load; the +snow was falling down, and perhaps they were a little afraid. He was +left behind. They scoured the country for him next day, and, bedad, they +found him, stiff dead, sitting against a fence. There's where they found +him. They brought him on a door to his mother. Oh, it was a sad thing to +see--to see her cry and hear her mourn!" + +"And what more?" I asked. + +"That's all. He was waked and buried, and that's what he got for playing +cards! And that's all as true as ever could be true, for it's myself +knew the old mother, and she told me it her very self, and she cried +many tears for her son." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +DAILY DISTRACTIONS. + + + But the sheep shearing came, and the hay season next, and then the + harvest of small corn ... then the sweating of the apples, and the + turning of the cider mill and the stacking of the firewood, and + netting of the wood-cocks, and the springes to be mended in the + garden and by the hedgerows, where the blackbirds hop to the + molehills in the white October mornings and gray birds come to look + for snails at the time when the sun is rising. It is wonderful how + Time runs away when all these things, and a great many others, come + in to load him down the hill, and prevent him from stopping to look + about. And I, for my part, can never conceive how people who live in + towns and cities, where neither lambs nor birds are (except in some + shop windows), nor growing corn, nor meadow grass, nor even so much + as a stick to cut, or a stile to climb and sit down upon--how these + poor folk get through their lives without being utterly weary of + them, and dying from pure indolence, is a thing God only knows, if + his mercy allows him to think of it. + + LORNA DOONE. + +A farm-house looks on the outside like a quiet place. No men are seen +about, front windows are closely shaded, front door locked. Go round to +the back door; nobody seems to be at home. If by chance you do find, +after long bruising of knuckles, that you have roused an inmate, it is +some withered, sad-faced old dame, who is indifferent and hopelessly +deaf, or a bare-footed, stupid urchin, who stares as if you had dropped +from another planet, and a cool "Dunno" is the sole response to all +inquiries. + +All seems at a dead standstill. In reality everything and everybody is +going at full speed, transpiring and perspiring to such a degree that, +like a swiftly whirling top, it does not appear to move. + +Friends think of me as not living, but simply existing, and marvel that +I can endure such monotony. On the contrary, I live in a constant state +of excitement, hurry, and necessity for immediate action. + +The cows were continually getting out of pasture and into the corn; the +pigs, like the chickens, evinced decided preference for the garden. The +horse would break his halter and dart down the street, or, if in +pasture, would leap the barbed-wire fence, at the risk of laming his +legs for life, and dash into a neighbor's yard where children and babies +were sunning on the grass. + +Rival butchers and bakers would drive up simultaneously from different +directions and plead for patronage and instant attention. + +The vegetables must be gathered and carried to market; every animal was +ravenously hungry at all hours, and didn't hesitate to speak of it. The +magnificent peacock would wander off two miles, choosing the railroad +track for his rambles, and loved to light on Si Evans's barn; then a boy +must be detailed to recover the prize bird, said boy depending on a +reward. His modest-hued consort would seek the deep hedges back of a +distant swamp. + +Friends would come from a distance to surprise and cheer me in my lonely +retreat just at the time that the butter must positively be made, while +the flowers were choking for water, smothered with weeds, "pus'ley," of +course, pre-eminent. Then a book agent would appear, blind, but doubly +persistent, with a five-dollar illustrated volume recounting minutely +the Johnstown horror. And one of my dogs would be apt at this crisis to +pursue and slay a chicken or poison himself with fly-paper. Every +laboring man for miles around would come with an air of great importance +to confidentially warn me against every other man that could be +employed, with the stereotyped phrase in closing: "Well, whatever you +do" (as if I might be left to do anything) "don't hire John Smallpate or +Bill Storer. I've known him, man and boy, for thirty years; you'll do +well not to trust <i>him</i>!" + +Yet these same men who had so villified each other could be seen nightly +lounging in front of the grocery, discussing politics and spitting in +sweet unison. + +The general animosity of my entire family to each other caused constant +interruptions. + +"Sandy," the handsome setter, loathed the pug, and tried to bite his +neck in a fatal way. He also chased the rabbits, trod on young turkeys +so that they were no more, drove the cat out of the barn and up a tree, +barked madly at the cows, enraging those placid animals, and doted on +frightening the horse. + +The cat allowed mice to roam merrily through the grain bins, preferring +robins and sparrows, especially young and happy mothers, to a proper +diet; was fond of watching the chickens with wicked, malicious, greedy, +dangerous eyes, and was always ready to make a sly spring for my +canaries. + +The rabbits (pretty innocent little creatures I had thought them, as I +gazed at their representatives of white canton flannel, solidly stuffed, +with such charming eyes of pink beads) girded all my young trees and +killed them before I dreamed of such mischief, nibbled at every tender +sprout, every swelling bud, were so agile that they could not be +captured, and became such a maddening nuisance that I hired a boy to +take them away. I fully understand the recent excitement of the +Australians over the rabbit scourge which threatened to devastate their +land. + +The relations were strained between my cows; mother and daughter of a +noble line; they always fed at opposite corners of the field, indulging +in serious fights when they met. + +My doves! I am almost ready to say that they were more annoying than +all the rest of my motley collection, picked all seeds out of the ground +faster than they could be put in, so large spaces sowed with rye lay +bare all summer, and ate most of the corn and grain that was intended to +fatten and stimulate my fowls. + +Doves are poetical and pleasing, pigeons ditto--in literature, and at a +safe distance from one's own barn. It's a pretty sight at sunset on a +summer's eve to see them poising, wheeling, swirling, round a neighbor's +barn. Their rainbow hues gleam brightly in the sun as they preen their +feathers or gently "coo-oo, I love oo," on the ridge pole. I always +longed to own some, but now the illusion is past. They have been admired +and petted for ages, consecrated as emblems of innocence and peace and +sanctity, regarded as almost sacred from the earliest antiquity. They +have been idealized and praised from Noah to Anacreon, both inclined to +inebriety! But in reality they are a dirty, destructive, greedy lot, and +though fanciers sell them at high prices, they only command twenty-five +cents per pair when sold for the market! + +The hens lost half their feathers, often an eye, occasionally a life, in +deadly feuds. My spunky little bantam game cock was always challenging +one of my monster roosters and laying him low, so he had to be sent +away. + +John, my eccentric assistant, could abide no possible rival, insulted +every man engaged to help him, occasionally indulging in a free fight +after too frequent visits to the cider barrels of my next neighbor, so +he had to follow the bantam. + +Another distress was the constant calls of natives with the most +undesirable things for me to buy; two or three calls daily for a long +time. Boys with eager, ingenuous faces bringing carrier pigeons--pretty +creatures--and I had been told there was money in pigeons. I paid them +extortionate prices on account of extreme ignorance; and the birds, of +course, flew home as soon as released, to be bought again by some +gullible amateur. I had omitted to secure the names and addresses of +these guileless lads. + +A sandy-haired, lisping child with chronic catarrh offered me a lot of +pet <i>rats</i>! + +"I hear you like pets," she said, "Well, I've got some tame rats, a +father and mother and thirteen little ones, and a mother with four. +They're orful cunning. Hope you'll take 'em." + +A big, red-faced, black-bearded, and determined man drove one day into +the yard with an immense wagon, in which was standing a stupid, vicious +old goat, and almost insisted on leaving it at a most ridiculously high +price. + +"Heard that the woman that had come to live here wanted most every +animal that Noah got into the ark; was sure she'd like a goat." It was +with considerable difficulty that he could be induced to take it away. + +Dogs, dogs, dogs--from mastiff to mongrel, from St. Bernard to toy +poodle--the yard really swarmed with them just before the first of May, +when dog taxes must be paid! + +A crow that could talk, but rather objectionably, was offered me. + +A pert little boy, surrounded by his equally pert mates, said, after +coming uninvited to look over my assortment: "Got most everything, +hain't ye? Got a monkey?" + +Then his satellites all giggled. + +"No, not yet. Will not <i>you</i> come in?" + +Second giggle, less hearty. + +A superannuated clergyman walked three miles and a quarter in a heavy +rain, minus umbrella, to bring me a large and common pitcher, badly +cracked and of no original value; heard I was collecting old china. +Then, after making a long call, drew out a tiny package from his vest +pocket and offered for sale two time-worn cheap rings taken from his +mother's dead hand. They were mere ghosts of rings that had once meant +so much of joy or sorrow, pathetic souvenirs, one would think, to a +loving son. He would also sell me his late father's old sermons for a +good sum! + +This reminded me of Sydney Smith's remark to an old lady who was sorely +afflicted with insomnia: "Have you ever tried one of my sermons?" + +Perhaps I have said enough to prove that life in a bucolic solitude may +be something more varied than is generally--don't let that old peddler +come into the house, say we want nothing, and then tell the ladies I'll +be down directly--and, O <i>Ellen</i>, call Tom! Those ducks are devouring +his new cabbage-plants and one of the calves has got over the stone wall +and--what? + +"He's gone to Dog Corner for the cow-doctor." + +--Yes, more varied than is generally supposed! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE PROSE OF NEW ENGLAND FARM LIFE + + + A life whose parlors have always been closed. + + IK MARVEL. + + + Sunshine is tabooed in the front room of the house. The "damp + dignity" of the best-room has been well described: "Musty smells, + stiffness, angles, absence of sunlight. What is there to talk about + in a room dark as the Domdaniel, except where one crack in a + reluctant shutter reveals a stand of wax flowers under glass, and a + dimly descried hostess who evidently waits only your departure to + extinguish that solitary ray?" + +At a recent auction I obtained twenty-one volumes of State Agricultural +Reports for seventeen cents; and what I read in them of the Advantages +of Rural Pursuits, The Dignity of Labor, The Relation of Agriculture to +Longevity and to Nations, and, above all, of the Golden Egg, seem +decidedly florid, unpractical, misleading, and very little permanent +popularity can be gained by such self-interested buncombe from these +eloquent orators. + +The idealized farmer, as he is depicted by these white-handed +rhetoricians who, like John Paul, "would never lay hand to a plow, +unless said plow should actually pursue him to a second story, and then +lay hands on it only to throw it out of the window," and the phlegmatic, +overworked, horny-handed tillers of the soil are no more alike than +Fenimore Cooper's handsome, romantic, noble, and impressive red man of +the forest and the actual Sioux or Apache, as regarded by the cowboy of +the West. + +It's all work, with no play and no proper pay, for Western competition +now prevents all chance of decent profits. Little can be laid up for old +age, except by the most painful economy and daily scrimping; and how +can the children consent to stay on, starving body and soul? <i>That</i> +explains the 3,318 abandoned farms in Maine at present. And the farmers' +wives! what monotonous, treadmill lives! Constant toil with no wages, no +allowance, no pocket money, no vacations, no pleasure trips to the city +nearest them, little of the pleasures of correspondence; no time to +write, unless a near relative is dead or dying. Some one says that their +only chance for social life is in going to some insane asylum! There +have been four cases of suicide in farmers' families near me within +eighteen months. + +This does not apply to the fortunate farmer who inherited money and is +shrewd enough to keep and increase it. Nor to the market gardener, who +raises vegetables under glass; nor to the owners of large nurseries. +These do make a good living, and are also able to save something. + +In general, it is all one steady rush of work from March to November; +unceasing, uncomplaining activity for the barest support, followed by +three months of hibernation and caring for the cattle. Horace Greeley +said: "If our most energetic farmers would abstract ten hours each per +week from their incessant drudgery and devote them to reading and +reflection in regard to their noble calling, they would live to a better +purpose and bequeath better examples to their children." + +It may have been true long years ago that no shares, factory, bank, or +railroad paid better dividends than the plowshare, but it is the veriest +nonsense now. + +Think of the New England climate in summer. Rufus Choate describes it +eloquently: "Take the climate of New England in summer, hot to-day, cold +to-morrow, mercury at eighty degrees in the shade in the morning, with a +sultry wind southwest. In three hours more a sea turn, wind at east, a +thick fog from the bottom of the ocean, and a fall of forty degrees. Now +so dry as to kill all the beans in New Hampshire, then floods carrying +off all the dams and bridges on the Penobscot and Androscoggin. Snow in +Portsmouth in July, and the next day a man and a yoke of oxen killed by +lightning in Rhode Island. You would think the world was coming to an +end. But we go along. Seed time and harvest never fail. We have the +early and the latter rains; the sixty days of hot corn weather are +pretty sure to be measured out to us; the Indian summer, with its bland +south winds and mitigated sunshine, brings all up, and about the 25th of +November, being Thursday, a grateful people gather about the +Thanksgiving board, with hearts full of gratitude for the blessings that +have been vouchsafed to them." + +Poets love to sing of the sympathy of Nature. I think she is decidedly +at odds with the farming interests of the country. At any rate, her +antipathy to me was something intense and personal. That mysterious +stepmother of ours was really riled by my experiments and determined to +circumvent every agricultural ambition. + +She detailed a bug for every root, worms to build nests on every tree, +others to devour every leaf, insects to attack every flower, drought or +deluge to ruin the crops, grasshoppers to finish everything that was +left. + +Potato bugs swooped down on my fields by tens of thousands, and when +somewhat thinned in ranks by my unceasing war, would be re-enforced from +a neighbor's fields, once actually fording my lakelet to get to my +precious potato patch. The number and variety of devouring pests +connected with each vegetable are alarming. Here are a few connected +closely with the homely cabbage, as given by a noted helminthologist +under the head of "Cut-worms": + +"Granulated," "shagreened," "white," "marked," "greasy," "glassy," +"speckled," "variegated," "wavy," "striped," "harlequin," "imbricated," +"tarnished." The "snout beetle" is also a deadly foe. + +To realize this horror, this worse than Pharaoh plague, you must either +try a season of farming or peruse octavo volumes on Insects injurious to +Vegetation, fully illustrated. + +In those you may gain a faint idea of the "skippers," "stingers," +"soothsayers," "walking sticks or specters," "saw flies and slugs," +"boring caterpillars," "horn-tailed wood wasps," etc., etc., etc., etc., +etc.--a never-ending list. The average absolute loss of the farmers of +this country from such pests is fully one million dollars per annum. + +Gail Hamilton said of her squashes: + +"They appeared above-ground, large-lobed and vigorous. Large and +vigorous appeared the bugs, all gleaming in green and gold, like the +wolf on the fold, and stopped up all the stomata and ate up all the +parenchyma, till my squash-leaves looked as if they had grown for the +sole purpose of illustrating net-veined organizations. A universal bug +does not indicate a special want of skill in any one." + +Not liking to crush the bug between thumb and finger as advised, she +tried drowning them. She says: "The moment they touched the water they +all spread unseen wings and flew away. I should not have been much more +surprised to see Halicarnassus soaring over the ridge pole. I had not +the slightest idea they could fly." + +Then the aphides! Exhausters of strength--vine fretters--plant +destroyers! One aphis, often the progenitor of over five thousand +million aphides in a single season. This seems understated, but I accept +it as the aphidavit of another noted helminthologist. I might have +imagined Nature had a special grudge against me if I had not recalled +Emerson's experience. He says: "With brow bent, with firm intent, I go +musing in the garden walk. I stoop to pick up a weed that is choking the +corn, find there were two; close behind is a third, and I reach out my +arm to a fourth; behind that there are four thousand and one! + +"Rose bugs and wasps appear best when flying. I admired them most when +flying away from my garden." + +Horace Greeley said that "No man who harbors caterpillars has any moral +right to apples." But one sees whole orchards destroyed in this way for +lack of time to attack such a big job. Farmers have been unjustly +attacked by city critics who do not understand the situation. There was +much fine writing last year in regard to the sin and shame of cutting +down the pretty, wild growth of shrubs, vines, and flowers along the +wayside, so picturesque to the summer tourist. The tangle of wild grape, +clematis, and woodbine is certainly pretty, but underneath is sure to be +found a luxuriant growth of thistle, wild carrot, silk weed, mullein, +chickweed, tansy, and plantain, which, if allowed to seed and +disseminate themselves, would soon ruin the best farms. There is a +deadly foe, an army of foes, hiding under these luxuriant festoons and +masses of cheerful flowers. + +Isn't it strange and sad and pitiful, that it is the summer guest who +alone enjoys the delights of summering in the country? There is no time +for rest, for recreation, for flowers, for outdoor pleasures, for the +average farmer and his family. You seldom see any bright faces at the +windows, which are seldom opened--only a glimpse here and there of a +sad, haggard creature, peering out for curosity. Strange would it be to +hear peals of merry laughter; stranger still to see a family enjoying a +meal on the piazza or a game on the grass. As for flowers, they are +valued no more than weeds; the names of the most common are unknown. I +asked in vain a dozen people last summer, what that flower was called, +pointing to the ubiquitous Joe Rye weed or pink motherwort. At last I +asked one man, who affected to know everything-- + +"Oh, yes, I know it." + +"What is it?" I persisted. + +"Well, I know it just as well, but can't just now get the name out." A +pause, then, with great superiority: "I'd rather see a potato field in +full bloom, than all the flowers in the world." + +Perhaps some of Tolstoi's disciples may yet solve the problem of New +England's abandoned farms. He believes that every able-bodied man should +labor with his own hands and in "the sweat of his brow" to produce his +own living direct from the soil. He dignifies agriculture above all +other means of earning a living, and would have artificial employments +given up. "Back to the land," he cries; and back he really goes, daily +working with the peasants. But 'tis a solemn, almost tragical +experience, not much better than the fate of the Siberian exile. Rise at +dawn; work till dark; eat--go to bed too tired to read a paper;--and no +money in it. + +Let these once prosperous farms be given up to Swedish colonies, hard +working and industrious, who can do better here than in their own +country and have plenty of social life among themselves, or let wealthy +men purchase half a dozen of these places to make a park, or two score +for a hunting ground--or let unattached women of middle age occupy them +and support themselves by raising poultry. Men are making handsome +incomes from this business--women can do the same. The language of the +poultry magazines, by the way, is equally sentimental and efflorescent +with that of the speeches at agricultural fairs, sufficiently so to +sicken one who has once accepted it as reliable, as for instance: "The +individual must be very abnormal in his tastes if they can not be +catered to by our feathered tribe." "To their owner they are a thing of +beauty and a joy forever. Their ways are interesting, their language +fascinating, and their lives from the egg to the mature fowl replete +with constant surprises."[1] + +[Footnote 1: This clause is true.] + +"To simply watch them as they pass from stage to stage of development +fills the mind of every sane person with pleasure." One poultry crank +insists that each hen must be so carefully studied that she can be +understood and managed as an individual, and speaks of his hens having +at times an "anxious nervous expression!" + +"Yes, it is where the hens sing all the day long in the barn-yard that +throws off the stiff ways of our modern civilization and makes us feel +that we are home and can rest and play and grow young once more. How +many men and women have regained lost health and spirits in keeping +hens, in the excitement of finding and gathering eggs!" + +"It is not the natural laying season when snows lie deep on field and +hill, when the frost tingles in sparkling beads from every twig, when +the clear streams bear up groups of merry skaters," etc. + +After my pathetic experience with chickens, who after a few days of +downy content grew ill, and gasped until they gave up the ghost; +ducklings, who progressed finely for several weeks, then turned over on +their backs and flopped helplessly unto the end; or, surviving that +critical period, were found in the drinking trough, "drowned, dead, +because they couldn't keep their heads above water"; turkeys who +flourished to a certain age, then grew feeble and phantom-like and faded +out of life, I weary of gallinaceous rhodomontade, and crave "pointers" +for my actual needs. + +I still read "Crankin's" circulars with a thrill of enthusiasm because +his facts are so cheering. For instance, from his latest: "We have some +six thousand ducklings out now, confined in yards with wire netting +eighteen inches high. The first lot went to market May 10th and netted +forty cents per pound. These ducklings were ten weeks old and dressed on +an average eleven pounds per pair. One pair dressed fourteen pounds." +Isn't that better than selling milk at two and a half cents per quart? +And no money can be made on vegetables unless they are raised under +glass in advance of the season. I know, for did I not begin with "pie +plant," with which every market was glutted, at one cent per pound, and +try the entire list, with disgustingly low prices, exposed to depressing +comparison and criticism? When endeavoring to sell, one of the visiting +butchers, in reply to my petition that he would buy some of my +vegetables, said: "Well now, Marm, you see just how it is; I've got +more'n I can sell now, and women keep offering more all the way along. I +tell 'em I can't buy 'em, but I'll <i>haul 'em off for ye</i> if ye want to +get rid of 'em!" So much for market gardening at a distance from city +demands. + +But ducks! Sydney Smith, at the close of his life, said he "had but one +illusion left, and that was the Archbishop of Canterbury." I still +believe in Crankin and duck raising. Let me see: "One pair dressed +fourteen pounds, netted forty cents per pound." I'll order one of +Crankin's "Monarch" incubators and begin a poultry farm anew. + +"<i>Dido et dux</i>," and so do Boston epicures. I'll sell at private sales, +not for hotels! I used to imagine myself supplying one of the large +hotels and saw on the <i>menu</i>: + +"Tame duck and apple sauce (from the famous 'Breezy Meadows' farm)." But +I inquired of one of the proprietors what he would give, and "fifteen +cents per pound for poultry dressed and delivered" gave me a combined +attack of chills and hysterics. + +Think of <i>my</i> chickens, from those prize hens (three dollars each)--<i>my</i> +chickens, fed on eggs hard boiled, milk, Indian meal, cracked corn, +sun-flower seed, oats, buckwheat, the best of bread, selling at fifteen +cents per pound, and I to pay express charges! Is there, is there any +"money in hens?" + +To show how a child would revel in a little rational enjoyment on a +farm, read this dear little poem of James Whitcomb Riley's: + + AT AUNTY'S HOUSE. + + One time when we's at aunty's house-- + 'Way in the country--where + They's ist but woods and pigs and cows, + An' all's outdoors and air! + An orchurd swing; an' churry trees, + An' <i>churries</i> in 'em! Yes, an' these + Here red-head birds steal all they please + An' tech 'em if you dare! + W'y wunst, one time when we wuz there, + <i>We et out on the porch!</i> + + Wite where the cellar door wuz shut + The table wuz; an' I + Let aunty set by me an' cut + My wittles up--an' pie. + Tuz awful funny! I could see + The red heads in the churry tree; + An' bee-hives, where you got to be + So keerful going by; + An' comp'ny there an' all! An' we-- + <i>We et out on the porch!</i> + + An'--I ist et <i>p'surves</i> an' things + 'At ma don't 'low me to-- + An' chickun gizzurds (don't like wings + Like parunts does, do you?) + An' all the time the wind blowed there + An' I could feel it in my hair, + An' ist smell clover ever'where! + An' a old red head flew + Purt' nigh wite over my high chair, + <i>When we et out on the porch!</i> + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +THE PASSING OF THE PEACOCKS. + + + I would rather look at a peacock than eat him. The feathers of an + angel and the voice of a devil. + +The story of this farm would not be complete without a brief rehearsal +of my experiences, exciting, varied, and tragic, resulting from the +purchase of a magnificent pair of peacocks. + +My honest intention on leasing my forty-dollars-a-year paradise was +simply to occupy the quaint old house for a season or two as a relief +from the usual summer wanderings. I would plant nothing but a few hardy +flowers of the old-fashioned kind--an economical and prolonged picnic. +In this way I could easily save in three years sufficient funds to make +a grand <i>tour du monde</i>. + +<i>That was my plan!</i> + +For some weeks I carried out this resolution, until an event occurred, +which changed the entire current of thought, and transformed a quiet, +rural retreat into a scene of frantic activity and gigantic undertaking. + +In the early summer I attended a poultry show at Rooster, Mass., and, in +a moment of impulsive enthusiasm, was so foolish as to pause and admire +and long for a prize peacock, until I was fairly and hopelessly +hypnotized by its brilliant plumage. + +I reasoned: Anybody can keep hens, "me and Crankin" can raise ducks, +geese thrive naturally with me, but a peacock is a rare and glorious +possession. The proud scenes he is associated with in mythology, +history, and art rushed through my mind with whirlwind rapidity as I +stood debating the question. The favorite bird of Juno--she called the +metallic spots on its tail the eyes of Argus--imported by Solomon to +Palestine, essentially regal. Kings have used peacocks as their crests, +have worn crowns of their feathers. Queens and princesses have flirted +gorgeous peacock fans; the pavan, a favorite dance in the days of Louis +le Grand, imitated its stately step. In the days of chivalry the most +solemn oath was taken on the peacock's body, roasted whole and adorned +with its gay feathers, as Shallow swore "by cock and pie." I saw the +fairest of all the fair dames at a grand mediaeval banquet proudly +bearing the bird to the table. The woman who hesitates is lost. I bought +the pair, and ordered them boxed for "Breezy Meadows." + +On the arrival of the royal pair at my 'umble home, all its surroundings +began to lose the charm of rustic simplicity, and appear shabby, +inappropriate, and unendurable. It became evident that the entire place +must be raised, and at once, to the level of those peacocks. + +The house and barn were painted (colonial yellow) without a moment's +delay. An ornamental piazza was added, all the paths were broadened and +graveled, and even terraces were dreamed of, as I recalled the terraces +where Lord Beaconsfield's peacocks used to sun themselves and display +their beauties--Queen Victoria now has a screen made of their feathers. + +My expensive pets felt their degradation in spite of my best efforts and +determined to sever their connection with such a plebeian place. + +Beauty (I ought to have called him Absalom or Alcibiades), as soon as +let out of his traveling box, displayed to an admiring crowd a tail so +long it might be called a "serial," gave one contemptuous glance at the +premises, and departed so rapidly, by running and occasional flights, +that three men and a boy were unable to catch up with him for several +hours. Belle was not allowed her liberty, as we saw more trouble ahead. +A large yard, inclosed top and sides with wire netting, at last +restrained their roving ambition. But they were not happy. Peacocks +disdain a "roost" and seek the top of some tall tree; they are also +rovers by nature and hate confinement. They pined and failed, and seemed +slowly dying; so I had to let them out. Total cost of peacock hunts by +the boys of the village, $11.33. I found that Beauty was happy only when +admiring himself, or deep in mischief. His chief delight was to mount +the stone wall, and utter his raucous note, again and again, as a +carriage passed, often scaring the horses into dangerous antics, and +causing severe, if not profane criticism. Or he would steal slyly into a +neighbor's barn and kill half a dozen chickens at a time. He was awake +every morning by four o'clock, and would announce the glories of the +coming dawn by a series of ear-splitting notes, disturbing not only all +my guests, but the various families within range, until complaints and +petitions were sent in. He became a nuisance--but how could he be +muzzled? + +And he was so gloriously handsome! Visitors from town would come +expressly to see him. School children would troop into my yard on +Saturday afternoons, "to see the peacock spread his tail," which he +often capriciously refused to do. As soon as they departed, somewhat +disappointed in "my great moral show," Beauty would go to a large window +on the ground floor of the barn and parade up and down, displaying his +beauties for his own gratification. At last he fancied he saw a rival in +this brilliant, irridescent reflection and pecked fiercely at the glass, +breaking several panes. + +Utterly selfish, he would keep all dainty bits for himself, leaving the +scraps for his devoted mate, who would wait meekly to eat what he chose +to leave. She made up for this wifely self-abnegation by frequenting the +hen houses. She would watch patiently by the side of a hen on her nest, +and as soon as an egg was deposited, would remove it for her luncheon. +She liked raw eggs, and six were her usual limit. + +There is a deal of something closely akin to human nature in barn-yard +fowls. It was irresistibly ludicrous to see the peacock strutting about +in the sunshine, his tail expanded in fullest glory, making a curious +rattle of triumph as he paraded, while my large white Holland turkey +gobbler, who had been molting severely and was almost denuded as to tail +feathers, would attempt to emulate his display, and would follow him +closely, his wattles swelling and reddening with fancied success, +making all this fuss about what had been a fine array, but now was +reduced to five scrubby, ragged, very dirty remnants of feathers. He +fancied himself equally fine, and was therefore equally happy. + +Next came the molting period. + +Pliny said long ago of the peacock: "When he hath lost his taile, he +hath no delight to come abroad," but I knew nothing of this peculiarity, +supposing that a peacock's tail, once grown, was a permanent ornament. +On the contrary, if a peacock should live one hundred and twenty years +(and his longevity is something phenomenal) he would have one hundred +and seventeen new and interesting tails--enough to start a circulating +library. Yes, Beauty's pride and mine had a sad fall as one by one the +long plumes were dropped in road and field and garden. He should have +been caught and confined, and the feathers, all loose at once, should +have been pulled out at one big pull and saved intact for fans and dust +brushes, and adornment of mirrors and fire-places. Soon every one was +gone, and the mortified creature now hid away in the corn, and behind +shrubbery, disappearing entirely from view, save as hunger necessitated +a brief emerging. + +This tailless absentee was not what I had bought as the champion prize +winner. And Belle, after laying four eggs, refused to set. But I put +them under a turkey, and, to console myself and re-enforce my position +as an owner of peacocks, I began to study peacock lore and literature. I +read once more of the throne of the greatest of all the moguls at Delhi, +India. + +"The under part of the canopy is embroidered with pearls and diamonds, +with a fringe of pearls round about. On the top of the canopy, which is +made like an arch with four panes, stands a peacock with his tail +spread, consisting all of sapphires and other proper-colored stones; +the body is of beaten gold enchased with several jewels, and a great +ruby upon his breast, at which hangs a pearl that weighs fifty carats. +On each side of the peacock stand two nosegays as high as the bird, +consisting of several sorts of flowers, all of beaten gold enameled. +When the king seats himself upon the throne, there is a transparent +jewel with a diamond appendant, of eighty or ninety carats, encompassed +with rubies and emeralds, so hung that it is always in his eye. The +twelve pillars also that support the canopy are set with rows of fair +pearls, round, and of an excellent water, that weigh from six to ten +carats apiece. At the distance of four feet upon each side of the throne +are placed two parasols or umbrellas, the handles whereof are about +eight feet high, covered with diamonds; the parasols themselves are of +crimson velvet, embroidered and stringed with pearls." This is the +famous throne which Tamerlane began and Shah Jahan finished, which is +really reported to have cost a hundred and sixty million five hundred +thousand livres (thirty-two million one hundred thousand dollars). + +I also gloated over the description of that famous London dining-room, +known to the art world as the "Peacock Room," designed by Whistler. +Panels to the right and left represent peacocks with their tails spread +fan-wise, advancing in perspective toward the spectator, one behind the +other, the peacocks in gold and the ground in blue. + +I could not go so extensively into interior decoration, and my mania for +making the outside of the house and the grounds highly decorative had +received a severe lesson in the verdict, overheard by me, as I stood in +the garden, made by a gawky country couple who were out for a Sunday +drive. + +As Warner once said to me, "young love in the country is a very solemn +thing," and this shy, serious pair slowed up as they passed, to see my +place. The piazza was gay with hanging baskets, vines, strings of beads +and bells, lanterns of all hues; there were tables, little and big, and +lounging chairs and a hammock and two canaries. The brightest geraniums +blossomed in small beds through the grass, and several long flower beds +were one brilliant mass of bloom, while giant sun-flowers reared their +golden heads the entire length of the farm. + +It was gay, but I had hoped to please Beauty. + +"What is that?" said the girl, straining her head out of the carriage. + +"Don't know," said the youth, "guess it's a store." + +The girl scrutinized the scene as a whole, and said decisively: + +"No, 'taint, Bill--it's a saloon!" + +That was a cruel blow! I forgot my flowers, walked in slowly and sadly +and carried in two lanterns to store in the shed chamber. I also +resolved to have no more flower beds in front of the house, star shaped +or diamond--they must all be sodded over. + +That opinion of my earnest efforts to effect a renaissance at +Gooseville--to show how a happy farm home should look to the +passer-by--in short, my struggle to "live up to" the peacocks revealed, +as does a lightning flash on a dark night, much that I had not +perceived. I had made as great a mistake as the farmer who abjures +flowers and despises "fixin' up." + +The pendulum of emotion swung as far back, and I almost disliked the +innocent cause of my decorative folly. I began to look over my accounts, +to study my check books, to do some big sums in addition, and it made me +even more depressed. Result of these mental exercises as follows: Rent, +$40 per year; incidental expenses to date, $5,713.85. Was there any good +in this silly investment of mine? Well, if it came to the very worst, I +could kill the couple and have a rare dish. Yet Horace did not think its +flesh equal to an ordinary chicken. He wrote: + + I shall ne'er prevail + To make our men of taste a pullet choose, + And the gay peacock with its train refuse. + For the rare bird at mighty price is sold, + And lo! What wonders from its tail unfold! + But can these whims a higher gusto raise + Unless you eat the plumage that you praise? + Or do its glories when 'tis boiled remain? + No; 'tis the unequaled beauty of its train, + Deludes your eye and charms you to the feast, + For hens and peacocks are alike in taste. + +Then peacocks have been made useful in a medicinal way. The doctors once +prescribed peacock broth for pleurisy, peacocks' tongues for epilepsy, +peacocks' fat for colic, peacocks' galls for weak eyes, peahens' eggs +for gout. + +It is always darkest just before dawn, and only a week from that +humiliating Sunday episode I was called by my gardener to look at the +dearest little brown something that was darting about in the poultry +yard. It was a baby peacock, only one day old. He got out of the nest in +some way, and preferred to take care of himself. How independent, how +captivating he was! As not one other egg had hatched, he was lamentably, +desperately alone, with dangers on every side, "homeless and +orphanless." Something on that Sabbath morning recalled Melchizedec, the +priest without father or mother, of royal descent, and of great length +of days. Earnestly hoping for longevity for this feathered mite of +princely birth, I called him "Melchizedec." + +I caught him and was in his toils. He was a tiny tyrant; I was but a +slave, an attendant, a nurse, a night-watcher. Completely under his +claw! + +No more work, no more leisure, no more music or tennis; my life career, +my sphere, was definitely settled. I was Kizzie's attendant--nothing +more. People have cared for rather odd pets, as the leeches tamed and +trained by Lord Erskine; others have been deeply interested in toads, +crickets, mice, lizards, alligators, tortoises, and monkeys. Wolsey was +on familiar terms with a venerable carp; Clive owned a pet tortoise; Sir +John Lubbock contrived to win the affections of a Syrian wasp; Charles +Dudley Warner devoted an entire article in the Atlantic Monthly to the +praises of his cat Calvin; but did you ever hear of a peacock as a +household pet? + +As it is the correct thing now to lie down all of a summer afternoon, +hidden by trees, and closely watch every movement of a pair of little +birds, or spend hours by a frog pond studying the sluggish life there, +and as mothers are urged by scientific students to record daily the +development of their infants in each apparently unimportant matter, I +think I may be excused for a brief sketch of my charge, for no mother +ever had a child so precocious, so wise, so willful, so affectionate, so +persistent, as Kizzie <i>at the same age</i>. Before he was three days old, +he would follow me like a dog up and down stairs and all over the house, +walk behind me as I strolled about the grounds, and when tired, he would +cry and "peep, weep" for me to sit down. Then he would beg to be taken +on my lap, thence he would proceed to my arm, then my neck, where he +would peck and scream and flutter, determined to nestle there for a nap. +My solicitude increased as he lived on, and I hoped to "raise" him. He +literally demanded every moment of my time, my entire attention during +the day, and, alas! at night also, until I seemed to be living a tragic +farce! + +If put down on carpet or matting, he at once began to pick up everything +he could spy on the floor, and never before did I realize how much could +be found there. I had a dressmaker in the house, and Kizzie was always +going for a deadly danger--here a pin, there a needle, just a step away +a tack or a bit of thread or a bead of jet. + +Outdoors it was even worse. With two bird dogs ready for anything but +birds, the pug that had already devoured all that had come to me of my +expensive importations, a neighbor's cat often stealing over to hunt for +her dinner, a crisis seemed imminent every minute. Even his own father +would destroy him if they met, as the peacock allows no possible rival. +And Kizzie kept so close to my heels that I hardly dared step. If my +days were distracting, the nights were inexpressibly awful. I supposed +he would be glad to go to sleep in a natural way after a busy day. No, +indeed! He would not stay in box or basket, or anywhere but cradled +close in my neck. There he wished to remain, twittering happily, giving +now and then a sweet, little, tremulous trill, indicative of content, +warmth, and drowsiness; if I dared to move ever so little, showing by a +sharp scratch from his claws that he preferred absolute quiet. One +night, when all worn out, I rose and put him in a hat box and covered it +closely, but his piercing cries of distress and anger prevented the +briefest nap, reminding me of the old man who said, "Yes, it's pretty +dangerous livin' anywheres." I was so afraid of hurting him that I +scarcely dared move. Each night we had a prolonged battle, but he never +gave in for one instant until he could roost on my outstretched finger +or just under my chin. Then he would settle down, the conflict over, he +as usual the victor, and the sweet little lullaby would begin. + +One night I rose hastily to close the windows in a sudden shower. Kizzie +wakened promptly, and actually followed me out of the room and +down-stairs. Alas! it was not far from his breakfast hour, for he +preferred his first meal at four o'clock A.M. You see how he influenced +me to rise early and take plenty of exercise. + +I once heard of a wealthy Frenchman, nervous and dyspeptic, who was +ordered by his eccentric physician to buy a Barbary ostrich and imitate +him as well as care for him. And he was quickly cured! + +On the other hand, it is said that animals and birds grow to be like +those who train and pet them. Christopher North (John Wilson) used to +carry a sparrow in his coat pocket. And his friends averred that the +bird grew so large and impressive that it seemed to be changing into an +<i>eagle</i>. + +But Kizzie was the stronger influence. I really grew afraid of him, as +he liked to watch my eyes, and once picked at them, as he always picked +at any shining bit. + +What respect I now feel for a sober, steady-going, successful old hen, +who raises brood after brood of downy darlings without mishaps! Her +instinct is an inspiration. Kizzie liked to perch on my finger and catch +flies for his dinner. How solemn, wise, and bewitching he did look as he +snapped at and swallowed fifteen flies, uttering all the time a +satisfied little note, quite distinct from his musical slumber song! + +How he enjoyed lying on one side, stretched out at full length, to bask +in the sun, a miniature copy of his magnificent father! Very careful was +he of his personal appearance, pruning and preening his pretty feathers +many times each day, paying special attention to his tail--not more than +an inch long--but what a prophecy of the future! As mothers care most +for the most troublesome child, so I grew daily more fond of cute little +Kizzie, more anxious that he should live. + +I could talk all day of his funny ways, of his fondness for me, of his +daily increasing intelligence, of his hair-breadth escapes, etc. + +The old story--the dear gazelle experience came all too soon. + +Completely worn out with my constant vigils, I intrusted him for one +night to a friend who assured me that she was a most quiet sleeper, and +that he could rest safely on her fingers. I was too tired to say no. + +She came to me at daybreak, with poor Kizzie dead in her hands. He died +like Desdemona, smothered with pillows. All I can do in his honor has +been done by this inadequate recital of his charms and his capacity. +After a few days of sincere grief I reflected philosophically that if he +had not passed away I must have gone soon, and naturally felt it +preferable that I should be the survivor. + +A skillful taxidermist has preserved as much of Kizzie as possible for +me, and he now adorns the parlor mantel, a weak, mute reminder of three +weeks of anxiety. + +And his parents-- + +The peahen died suddenly and mysteriously. There was no apparent reason +for her demise, but the autopsy, which revealed a large and irregular +fragment of window glass lodged in her gizzard, proved that she was a +victim of Beauty's vanity. A friend who was present said, as he tenderly +held the glass between thumb and finger: "It is now easy to see through +the cause of her death; under the circumstances, it would be idle to +speak of it as pane-less!" Beauty had never seemed very devoted to her, +but he mourned her long and sincerely. Now that she had gone he +appreciated her meek adoration, her altruistic devotion. + +Another touch like human nature. + +And when, after a decent period of mourning, another spouse was secured +for him he refused to notice her and wandered solitary and sad to a +neighbor's fields. The new madam was not allowed to share the high roost +on the elm. She was obliged to seek a less elevated and airy dormitory. +His voice, always distressingly harsh, was now so awful that it was +fascinating. The notes seemed cracked by grief or illness. At last, +growing feebler, he succumbed to some wasting malady and no longer +strutted about in brilliant pre-eminence or came to the piazza calling +imperiously for dainties, but rested for hours in some quiet corner. The +physician who was called in prescribed for his liver. He showed +symptoms of poisoning, and I began to fear that in his visit to a +neighbor's potato fields he had indulged in Paris green, possibly with +suicidal intent. + +There was something heroic in his way of dying. No moans, no cries; just +a dignified endurance. From the western window of the shed chamber where +he lay he could see the multitude of fowls below, in the yards where he +had so lately reigned supreme. Occasionally, with a heroic effort, he +would get on his legs and gaze wistfully on the lively crowd so +unmindful of his wretchedness, then sink back exhausted, reminding me of +some grand old monarch, statesman, or warrior looking for the last time +on the scenes of his former triumphs. I should have named him Socrates. +At last he was carried to a cool resting place in the deep grass, +covered with pink mosquito netting, and one kind friend after another +fanned him and watched over his last moments. After he was really dead, +and Tom with tears rolling down his face carried him tenderly away, I +woke from my ambitious dream and felt verily guilty of aviscide. + +But for my vainglorious ambition Beauty would doubtless be alive and +resplendent; his consort, modest hued and devoted, at his side, and my +bank account would have a better showing. + +There is a motto as follows, "Let him keep peacock to himself," derived +in this way: + +When George III had partly recovered from one of his attacks, his +ministers got him to read the king's speech, but he ended every sentence +with the word "peacock." + +The minister who drilled him said that "peacock" was an excellent word +for ending a sentence, only kings should not let subjects hear it, but +should whisper it softly. + +The result was a perfect success; the pause at the close of each +sentence had such a fine elocutionary effect. + +In future, when longing to indulge in some new display, yield to another +temptation, let me whisper "peacock" and be saved. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +LOOKING BACK. + + + Then you seriously suppose, doctor, that gardening is good for the + constitution? + + I do. For kings, lords, and commons. Grow your own cabbages. Sow + your own turnips, and if you wish for a gray head, cultivate + carrots. + + THOMAS HOOD. + +Conceit is not encouraged in the country. Your level is decided for you, +and the public opinion is soon reported as something you should know. + +As a witty spinster once remarked: "It's no use to fib about your age in +your native village. Some old woman always had a calf born the same +night you were!" + +Jake Corey was refreshingly frank. He would give me a quizzical look, +shift his quid, and begin: + +"Spent a sight o' money on hens, hain't ye? Wall, by next year I guess +you'll find out whether ye want to quit foolin' with hens or not. Now, +my hens doan't git no condition powder, nor sun-flower seeds, nor no +such nonsense, and I ain't got no bone cutter nor fancy fountains for +'em; but I let 'em scratch for themselves and have their liberty, and +mine look full better'n your'n. I'll give ye one p'int. You could save a +lot by engagin' an old hoss that's got to be killed. I'm allers looking +round in the fall of the year for some old critter just ready to drop. +Wait till cold weather, and then, when he's killed, hang half of him up +in the hen house and see how they'll pick at it. It's the best feed +going for hens, and makes 'em lay right along. Doan't cost nothin' +either." + +I had been asked to give a lecture in a neighboring town, and, to change +the subject, inquired if he thought many would attend. Jake looked +rather blank, took off his cap, scratched his head, and then said: + +"I dunno. Ef you was a Beecher or a Gough you could fill the hall, or +may be ef your more known like, and would talk to 'em free, you might +git 'em, or if you's going to sing or dress up to make 'em larf; but <i>as +'tis</i>, I dunno." After the effort was over I tried to sound him as to my +success. He was unusually reticent, and would only say: "Wall, the only +man I heard speak on't, said 'twas different from anything he ever +heard." This reminded me of a capital story told me by an old family +doctor many years ago. It was that sort of anecdote now out of fashion +with <i>raconteurs</i>--a long preamble, many details, a gradual increase of +interest, and a vivid climax, and when told by a sick bed would +sometimes weary the patient. A man not especially well known had given a +lecture in a New Hampshire town without rousing much enthusiasm in his +audience, and as he rode away on the top of the stage coach next morning +he tried to get some sort of opinion from Jim Barker, the driver. After +pumping in vain for a compliment the gentleman inquired: "Did you hear +nothing about my lecture from any of the people? I should like very much +to get some idea of how it was received." + +"Wall, no, stranger, I can't say as I heerd much. I guess the folks was +purty well pleased. No one seemed to be ag'in it but Square Lothrop." + +"And may I ask what he said?" + +"Wall, I wouldn't mind it, if I'se you, what he said. He says just what +he thinks--right out with it, no matter who's hurt--and he usually gets +the gist on't. But I wouldn't mind what he said, the public was purty +generally pleased." And the long whip lash cracks and Jim shouts, "Get +an, Dandy." + +"Yes," persisted the tortured man; "but I do want very much to know +what Squire Lothrop's opinion was." + +"Now, stranger, I wouldn't think any more about the Square. He's got +good common sense and allers hits the nail on the head, but as I said, +you pleased 'em fust rate." + +"Yes, but I must know what Squire Lothrop did say." + +"Wall, if you will have it, he did say (and he's apt to get the gist +on't) he did say that <i>he</i> thought 'twas <i>awful shaller</i>!" + +Many epigrammatic sayings come back to me, and one is too good to be +omitted, An old woman was fiercely criticising a neighbor and ended in +this way: "Folks that pretend to be somebody, and don't act like nobody, +ain't anybody!" + +Another woman reminded me of Mrs. Partington. She told blood-curdling +tales of the positive reappearance of departed spirits, and when I said, +"Do you really believe all this?" she replied, "Indeed, I do, and yet +I'm not an <i>imaginary</i> woman!" Her dog was provoked into a conflict with +my setters, and she exclaimed: "Why, I never saw him so completely +<i>ennervated</i>." + +Then the dear old lady who said she was a free thinker and wasn't +ashamed of it; guessed she knew as much as the minister 'bout this world +or the next; liked nothing better than to set down Sunday afternoons +after she'd fed her hens and read Ingersoll. "What books of his have +you?" I asked. + +She handed me a small paper-bound volume which did not look like any of +"Bob's" productions. It was a Guide Book through Picturesque Vermont by +Ernest Ingersoll! + +And I must not omit the queer sayings of a simple-hearted hired man on a +friend's farm. + +Oh, for a photo of him as I saw him one cold, rainy morning tending +Jason Kibby's dozen cows. He had on a rubber coat and cap, but his +trouser legs were rolled above the knee and he was barefoot, "Hannibal," +I shouted, "you'll take cold with your feet in that wet grass!" + +"Gueth not, Marm," he lisped back cheerily. "I never cared for shooth +mythelf." + +He was always shouting across the way to inquire if "<i>thith</i> wath hot +enough or cold enough to thute <i>me</i>?" As if I had expressed a strong +desire for phenomenal extremes of temperature. One morning he suddenly +departed. I met him trudging along with three hats jammed on to his head +and a rubber coat under his arm, for 'twas a fine day. + +"Why, Hanny!" I exclaimed, "where are you going in such haste?" + +"Mithter Kibby told me to go to Halifax, and--I'm going!" + +Next, the man who was anxious to go into partnership with me. He would +work my farm at halves, or I could buy his farm, cranberry bog, and +woodland, and he would live right on there and run that place at halves; +urged me to buy twelve or fourteen cows cheap in the fall and start a +milk route, he to be the active partner; then he had a chance to buy a +lot of "essences" cheap, and if I'd purchase a peddling-wagon, he'd put +in his old horse, and we'd go halves on that business, or I could buy up +a lot of calves or young pigs and he'd feed 'em and we'd go halves. + +But I will not take you through my entire picture-gallery, as I have two +good stories to tell you before saying good-by. + +Depressing remarks have reached me about my "lakelet," which at first +was ridiculed by every one. The struggle of evolution from the "spring +hole" was severe and protracted. Experts were summoned, their estimates +of cost ranging from four hundred to one thousand dollars, and no one +thought it worth while to touch it. It was discouraging. Venerable and +enormous turtles hid in its muddy depths and snapped at the legs of the +ducks as they dived, adding a limp to the waddle; frogs croaked there +dismally; mosquitoes made it a camping ground and head center; big black +water snakes often came to drink and lingered by the edge; the ugly horn +pout was the only fish that could live there. Depressing, in contrast +with my rosy dreams! But now the little lake is a charming reality, and +the boat is built and launched. Turtles, pout, lily roots as big as +small trees, and two hundred loads of "alluvial deposit" are no longer +"in it," while carp are promised me by my friend Commissioner Blackford. +The "Tomtoolan"[2] is not a large body of water--one hundred and fifty +feet long, seventy-five feet wide--but it is a delight to me and has +been grossly traduced by ignorant or envious outsiders. The day after +the "Katy-Did" was christened (a flat-bottomed boat, painted prettily +with blue and gold) I invited a lady to try it with me. Flags were +fluttering from stem and stern. We took a gayly colored horn to toot as +we went, and two dippers to bail, if necessary. It was not exactly +"Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm," but we were very jolly and +not a little proud. + +[Footnote 2: Named in honor of the amateur engineers.] + +A neglected knot-hole soon caused the boat to leak badly. We had made +but one circuit, when we were obliged to "hug the shore" and devote our +entire energies to bailing. "Tip her a little more," I cried, and the +next instant we were both rolled into the water. It was an absurd +experience, and after scrambling out, our clothes so heavy we could +scarcely step, we vowed, between hysteric fits of laughter, to keep our +tip-over a profound secret. + +But the next time I went to town, friends began to smile mysteriously, +asked me if I had been out on the lake yet, made sly and jocose +allusions to a sudden change to Baptistic faith, and if I cordially +invited them to join me in a row, would declare a preference for surf +and salt water, or, if pressed, would murmur in the meanest way +something about having a bath-tub at home. + +It is now nearly a year since that little adventure, but it is still a +subject of mirth, even in other towns. A friend calling yesterday told +me the version he had just heard at Gillford, ten miles away! + +"You bet they have comical goings-on at that woman's farm by the +Gooseville depot! She got a regular menagerie, fust off--everything she +see or could hear of. Got sick o' the circus bizness, and went into +potatoes deep. They say she was actually up and outdoors by day-break, +working and worrying over the tater bugs! + +"She's a red-headed, fleshy woman, and some of our folks going by in the +cars would tell of seeing her tramping up and down the long furrows, +with half a dozen boys hired to help her. Soon as she'd killed most of +her own, a million more just traveled over from the field opposite where +they had had their own way and cleaned out most everything. Then, what +the bugs spared, the long rains rotted. So I hear she's giv' up +potatoes. + +"Then she got sot on scooping out a seven by nine mud hole to make a +pond, and had a boat built to match. + +"Well, by darn, she took a stout woman in with her, and, as I heerd it, +that boat just giv' one groan, and sunk right down!" + +As to the potatoes, I might never have escaped from that terrific +thralldom, if a city friend, after hearing my woful experience, had not +inquired quietly: + +"Why have potatoes? It's much cheaper to buy all you need!" + +I had been laboring under a strange spell--supposed I <i>must</i> plant +potatoes; the relief is unspeakable. + +Jennie June once said, "The great art of life is to <i>eliminate</i>." I +admired the condensed wisdom of this, but, like experience, it only +serves to illume the path over which I have passed. + +One little incident occurred this spring which is too funny to withhold. +Among the groceries ordered from Boston was a piece of extra fine +cheese. A connoisseur in cheese had advised me to try it. It recommended +itself so strongly that I placed it carefully under glass, in a place +all by itself. It <i>was</i> strong--strong enough to sew buttons on, strong +as Sampson, strong enough to walk away alone. One warm morning it +seemed to have gained during the night. Its penetrating, permeating +power was something, almost supernatural. I carried it from one place to +another, each time more remote. It would not be lonely if segregrated, +doubtless it had ample social facilities within itself! At last I became +desperate. "Ellen," I exclaimed, "just bring in that cheese and burn it. +It comes high, too high. I can not endure it." She opened the top of the +range and, as the cremation was going on, I continued my comments. "Why, +in all my life, I never knew anything like it; wherever I put it--in +pantry, swing cupboard, on the cellar stairs, in a tin box, on top of +the refrigerator--way out on that--" Just then Tom opened the door and +said: + +"Miss, your fertilizer's come!" + +I have told you of my mistakes, failures, losses, but have you any idea +of my daily delights, my lasting gains? + +From invalidism to health, from mental depression to exuberant spirits, +that is the blessed record of two years of amateur farming. What has +done this? Exercise, actual hard work, digging in the dirt. We are made +of dust, and the closer our companionship with Mother Earth in summer +time the longer we shall keep above ground. Then the freedom from +conventional restraints of dress; no necessity for "crimps," no need of +foreign hirsute adornment, no dresses with tight arm holes and trailing +skirts, no high-heeled slippers with pointed toes, but comfort, clear +comfort, indoors and out. + +Plenty of rocking chairs, lounges that make one sleepy just to look at +them, open fires in every room, and nothing too fine for the sun to +glorify; butter, eggs, cream, vegetables, poultry--simply perfect, and +the rare, ecstatic privilege of eating onions--onions raw, boiled, +baked, and fried at any hour or all hours. I said comfort; it is luxury! + +Dr. Holmes says: "I have seen respectability and amiability grouped over +the air-tight stove, I have seen virtue and intelligence hovering over +the register, but I have never seen true happiness in a family circle +where the faces were not illuminated by the blaze of an open fireplace." +And nature! I could fill pages with glowing descriptions of Days +Outdoors. In my own homely pasture I have found the dainty wild rose, +the little field strawberries so fragrant and spicy, the blue berries +high and low, so desirable for "pie-fodder," and daisies and ferns in +abundance, and, in an adjoining meadow by the brookside, the cardinal +flower and the blue gentian. All these simple pleasures seem better to +me than sitting in heated, crowded rooms listening to interminable +music, or to men or women who never know when to stop, or rushing round +to gain more information on anything and everything from Alaska to +Zululand, and wildly struggling to catch up with "social duties." + +City friends, looking at the other side of the shield, marvel at my +contentment, and regard me as buried alive. But when I go back for a +short time to the old life I am fairly homesick. I miss my daily visit +to the cows and the frolic with the dogs. All that has been unpleasant +fades like a dream. + +I think of the delicious morning hours on the broad vine-covered piazza, +the evenings with their starry splendor or witching moonlight, the +nights of sound sleep and refreshing rest, the all-day picnics, the +jolly drives with friends as charmed with country life as myself, and I +weary of social functions and overpowering intellectual privileges, and +every other advantage of the metropolis, and long to migrate once more +from Gotham to Gooseville. + + "Dear country life of child and man! + For both the best, the strongest, + That with the earliest race began, + And hast outlived the longest, + Their cities perished long ago; + Who the first farmers were we know." + + +THE END. + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Adopting An Abandoned Farm, by Kate Sanborn + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADOPTING AN ABANDONED FARM *** + +***** This file should be named 12021.txt or 12021.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/2/12021/ + +Produced by Steven desJardins and Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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