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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/18664-8.txt b/18664-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..78155ff --- /dev/null +++ b/18664-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5186 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hills of Hingham, by Dallas Lore Sharp + +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: The Hills of Hingham + +Author: Dallas Lore Sharp + +Release Date: June 23, 2006 [EBook #18664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILLS OF HINGHAM *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + + +THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + + +BY + +DALLAS LORE SHARP + + + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS + + + + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + +_Published April 1916_ + + + + +TO THOSE WHO + +"_Enforst to seek some shelter nigh at hand_" + +HAVE FOUND THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + + + + +PREFACE + +The is not exactly the book I thought it was going to be--though I can +say the same of its author for that matter. I had intended this book +to set forth some features of the Earth that make it to be preferred to +Heaven as a place of present abode, and to note in detail the peculiar +attractions of Hingham over Boston, say,--Boston being quite the best +city on the Earth to live in. I had the book started under the title +"And this Our Life" + + . . . exempt from public haunt, + Finds tongues in trees," + +--when, suddenly, war broke out, the gates of Hell swung wide open into +Belgium, and Heaven began to seem the better place. Meanwhile, a +series of lesser local troubles had been brewing--drouth, caterpillars, +rheumatism, increased commutation rates, more college themes,--more +than I could carry back and forth to Hingham,--so that as the writing +went on Boston began to seem, not a better place than Hingham, but a +nearer place, somehow, and more thoroughly sprayed. + +And all this time the book on Life that I thought I was writing was +growing chapter by chapter into a defense of that book--a defense of +Life--my life here by my fireside with my boys and Her, and the garden +and woodlot and hens and bees, and days off and evenings at home and +books to read, yes, and books to write--all of which I had taken for +granted at twenty, and believed in with a beautiful faith at thirty, +when I moved out here into what was then an uninfected forest. + +That was the time to have written the book that I had intended this one +to be--while the adventure in contentment was still an adventure, while +the lure of the land was of fourteen acres yet unexplored, while back +to the soil meant exactly what the seed catalogues picture it, and my +summer in a garden had not yet passed into its frosty fall. Instead, I +have done what no writer ought to do, what none ever did before, unless +Jacob wrote,--taken a fourteen-year-old enthusiasm for my theme, to +find the enthusiasm grown, as Rachel must have grown by the time Jacob +got her, into a philosophy, and like all philosophies, in need of +defense. + +What men live by is an interesting speculative question, but what men +live on, and where they can live,--with children to bring up, and their +own souls to save,--is an intensely practical question which I have +been working at these fourteen years here in the Hills of Hingham. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + II. THE OPEN FIRE + III. THE ICE CROP + IV. SEED CATALOGUES + V. THE DUSTLESS-DUSTER + VI. SPRING PLOUGHING + VII. MERE BEANS + VIII. A PILGRIM FROM DUBUQUE + IX. THE HONEY FLOW + X. A PAIR OF PIGS + XI. LEAFING + XII. THE LITTLE FOXES + XIII. OUR CALENDAR + XIV. THE FIELDS OF FODDER + XV. GOING BACK TO TOWN + XVI. THE CHRISTMAS TREE + + + + +[Illustration: The hills of Hingham] + +I + +THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + + "As Surrey hills to mountains grew + In White of Selborne's loving view" + + +Really there are no hills in Hingham, to speak of, except Bradley Hill +and Peartree Hill and Turkey Hill, and Otis and Planter's and Prospect +Hills, Hingham being more noted for its harbor and plains. Everybody +has heard of Hingham smelts. Mullein Hill is in Hingham, too, but +Mullein Hill is only a wrinkle on the face of Liberty Plain, which +accounts partly for our having it. Almost anybody can have a hill in +Hingham who is content without elevation, a surveyor's term as applied +to hills, and a purely accidental property which is not at all +essential to real hillness, or the sense of height. We have a stump on +Mullein Hill for height. A hill in Hingham is not only possible, but +even practical as compared with a Forest in Arden, Arden being +altogether too far from town; besides + + ". . . there's no clock in the forest" + +and we have the 8.35 train to catch of a winter morning! + + + "A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees" + +sounds more pastoral than apple trees around a house on a hill in +Hingham, and it would be more ideal, too, if New England weather were +not so much better adapted to apples, and if one did not prefer apples, +and if one could raise a family in a sheep-cote. + +We started in the sheep-cote, back yonder when all the world was twenty +or thereabouts, and when every wild-cherry-bush was an olive tree. But +one day the tent caterpillar like a wolf swept down on our fold of +cherry-bushes and we fled Arden, never to get back. We lived for a +time in town and bought olives in bottles, stuffed ones sometimes, then +we got a hill in Hingham, just this side of Arden, still buying our +olives, but not our apples now, nor our peaches, nor our musk melons, +nor our wood for the open fire. We buy commutation tickets, and pay +dearly for the trips back and forth. But we could n't make a living in +Arden. Our hill in Hingham is a compromise. + +Only folk of twenty and close to twenty live in Arden. We are forty +now and no longer poets. When we are really old and our grasshoppers +become a burden, we may go back to town where the insects are an +entirely different species; but for this exceedingly busy present, +between our fading dawn of visions and our coming dusk of dreams, a +hill in Hingham, though a compromise, is an almost strategic position, +Hingham being more or less of an escape from Boston, and the hill, +though not in the Forest of Arden, something of an escape from Hingham, +a quaint old village of elm-cooled streets and gentle neighbors. Not +that we hate Boston, nor that we pass by on the other side in Hingham. +We gladly pick our neighbors up and set them in our motor car and bring +them to the foot of the hill. We people of the hills do not hate +either crowds or neighbors. We are neighbors ourselves and parts of +the city crowds too; and we love to bind up wounds and bring folk to +their inns. But we cannot take them farther, for there are no inns out +here. We leave them in Hingham and journey on alone into a region +where neither thief nor anyone infests the roadsides; where there are +no roads in fact, but only driftways and footpaths through the sparsely +settled hills. + +We leave the crowd on the streets, we leave the kind neighbor at his +front gate, and travel on, not very far, but on alone into a wide quiet +country where we shall have a chance, perhaps, of meeting with +ourselves--the day's great adventure, and far to find; yet this is what +we have come out to the hills for. + +Not for apples nor wood fires have we a hill in Hingham; not for hens +and a bigger house, and leisure, and conveniences, and excitements; not +for ways to earn a living, nor for ways to spend it. Stay in town for +that. There "you can even walk alone without being bored. No long, +uneventful stretches of bleak, wintry landscape, where nothing moves, +not even the train of thought. No benumbed and self-centered trees +holding out pathetic frozen branches for sympathy. Impossible to be +introspective here. Fall into a brown or blue study and you are likely +to be run over. Thought is brought to the surface by mental massage. +No time to dwell upon your beloved self. So many more interesting +things to think about. And the changing scenes unfold more rapidly +than a moving-picture reel." + +This sounds much more interesting than the country. And it is more +interesting, Broadway asking nothing of a country lane for excitement. +And back they go who live on excitement; while some of us take this +same excitement as the best of reasons for double windows and storm +doors and country life the year through. + +You can think in the city, but it is in spite of the city. +Gregariousness and individuality do not abide together; nor is external +excitement the cause or the concomitant of thought. In fact this +"mental massage" of the city is to real thinking about what a +mustard-plaster is to circulation--a counter-irritant. The thinker is +one who finds himself (quite impossible on Broadway!); and then finds +himself _interesting_--more interesting than Broadway--another +impossibility within the city limits. Only in the country can he do +that, in a wide and negative environment of quiet, room, and +isolation--necessary conditions for the enjoyment of one's own mind. +Thought is a country product and comes in to the city for distribution, +as books are gathered and distributed by libraries, but not written in +libraries. It is against the wide, drab background of the country that +thought most naturally reacts, thinking being only the excitement of a +man discovering himself, as he is compelled to do, where bending +horizon and arching sky shift as he shifts in all creation's constant +endeavor to swing around and center on him. Nothing centers on him in +the city, where he thinks by "mental massage"--through the scalp with +laying on of hands, as by benediction or shampoo. + +But for the busy man, say of forty, are the hills of Hingham with their +adventure possible? Why, there is nothing ailing the man of forty +except that he now is neither young nor old, nor rich, the chances are; +nor a dead failure either, but just an average man; yet he is one of +God's people, if the Philistines were (He brought them from Caphtor) +and the Syrians (those He brought from Kir). The man of forty has a +right to so much of the Promised Land as a hill in Hingham. But he is +afraid to possess it because it is so far from work and friends and +lighted streets. He is afraid of the dark and of going off to sit down +upon a stump for converse with himself. He is afraid he won't get his +work done. If his work were planting beans, he would get none planted +surely while on the stump; but so he might be saved the ungracious task +of giving away his surplus beans to bean-ridden friends for the summer. +A man, I believe, can plant too many beans. He might not finish the +freshman themes either. But when was the last freshman theme ever +done? Finish them if he can, he has only baked the freshmen into +sophomores, and so emptied the ovens for another batch of dough. He +shall never put a crust on the last freshman, and not much of a crust +on the last sophomore either, the Almighty refusing to coöperate with +him in the baking. Let him do the best he can, not the most he can, +and quit for Hingham and the hills where he can go out to a stump and +sit down. + +College students also are a part of that world which can be too much +with us, cabbages, too, if we are growing cabbages. We don't do +over-much, but we are over-busy. We want too much. Buy a little hill +in Hingham, and even out here, unless you pray and go apart often to +your stump, your desire will be toward every hill in sight and the +valleys between. + +According to the deed my hill comprises "fourteen acres more or less" +of an ancient glacier, a fourteen-acre heap of unmitigated gravel, +which now these almost fourteen years I have been trying to clear of +stones, picking, picking for a whole Stone Age, and planning daily to +buy the nine-acre ridge adjoining me which is gravelier than mine. By +actual count we dumped five hundred cartloads of stones into the +foundation of a porch when making over the house recently--and still I +am out in the garden picking, picking, living in the Stone Age still, +and planning to prolong the stay by nine acres more that are worse than +these I now have, nine times worse for stones! + +I shall never cease picking stones, I presume, but perhaps I can get +out a permanent injunction against myself, to prevent my buying that +neighboring gravel hill, and so find time to climb my own and sit down +among the beautiful moth-infested oak trees. + +I do sit down, and I thrust my idle hands hard into my pockets to keep +them from the Devil who would have them out at the moths instantly--an +evil job, killing moths, worse than picking stones! + +Nothing is more difficult to find anywhere than time to sit down with +yourself, except the ability to enjoy the time after finding it,--even +here on a hill in Hingham, if the hill is in woods. There are foes to +face in the city and floods to stem out here, but let no one try to +fight several acres of caterpillars. When you see them coming, climb +your stump and wait on the Lord. He is slow; and the caterpillars are +horribly fast. True. Yet I say. To your stump and wait--and learn +how restful a thing it is to sit down by faith. For the town sprayer +is a vain thing. The roof of green is riddled. The rafters overhead +reach out as naked as in December. Ruin looks through. On sweep the +devouring hosts in spite of arsenate of lead and "wilt" disease and +Calasoma beetles. Nothing will avail; nothing but a new woodlot +planted with saplings that the caterpillars do not eat. Sit still my +soul, and know that when these oak trees fall there will come up the +fir tree and the pine tree and the shagbark, distasteful to the worms; +and they shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that +shall not be cut off. + +This is good forestry, and good philosophy--a sure handling of both +worms and soul. + +But how hard to follow! I would so like to help the Lord. Not to do +my own share only; but to shoulder the Almighty's too, saying-- + + "If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well + It were done quickly"; + +and I up and do it. But it does not stay done. I had sprayed, +creosoted, cut, trimmed, cemented, only to see the trees die, until I +was forced to rest upon the stump, when I saw what I had been blind to +before: that the pine trees were tipped with cones, and that there in +the tops were the red squirrels shucking and giving the winged seeds to +the winds to sow; and that even now up the wooded slope below me, where +the first of the old oaks had perished, was climbing a future grove of +seedling pines. + +The forests of Arden are not infested with gypsy moths, nor the woods +of Heaven either, I suppose; but the trees in the hills of Hingham are. +And yet they are the trees of the Lord; the moths are his also, and the +caring for them. I am caring for a few college freshmen and my soul. +I shall go forth to my work until the evening. The Lord can take the +night-shift; for it was He who instituted the twilight, and it is He +who must needs be responsible till the morning. + +So here a-top my stump in the beleaguered woodlot I sit with idle +hands, and no stars falling, and the universe turning all alone! + +To wake up at forty a factory hand! a floor-walker! a banker! a college +professor! a man about town or any other respectably successful, +humdrum, square wooden peg-of-a-thing in a square tight hole! There is +an evil, says the Preacher, which I have seen under the sun--the man of +about forty who has become moderately successful and automatic, but who +has not, and now knows he cannot, set the world on fire. This is a +vanity and it is an evil disease. + +From running the universe at thirty the man of forty finds himself +running with it, paced before, behind, and beside, by other runners and +by the very stars in their courses. He has struck the universal gait, +a strong steady stride that will carry him to the finish, but not among +the medals. This is an evil thing. Forty is a dangerous age. The +wild race of twenty, the staggering step of eighty, are full of peril, +but not so deadly as the even, mechanical going of forty; for youth has +the dash in hand; old age has ceased to worry and is walking in; while +the man of forty is right in the middle of the run, grinding along on +his second wind with the cheering all ahead of him. + +In fact, the man of forty finds himself half-way across the street with +the baby carriage in his hands, and touring cars in front of him, and +limousines behind him, and the hand-of-the-law staying and steadying +him on his perilous course. + +Life may be no busier at forty than at thirty, but it is certainly more +expensive. Work may not be so hard, but the facts of life are a great +deal harder, the hardest, barest of them being the here-and-now of all +things, the dead levelness of forty--an irrigated plain that has no +hill of vision, no valley of dream. But it may have its hill in +Hingham with a bit of meadow down below. + +Mullein Hill is the least of all hills, even with the added stump; but +looking down through the trees I can see the gray road, and an +occasional touring car, like a dream, go by; and off on the Blue Hills +of Milton--higher hills than ours in Hingham--hangs a purple mist that +from our ridge seems the very robe and veil of vision. + +The realities are near enough to me here crawling everywhere, indeed; +but close as I am to the flat earth I can yet look down at things--at +the road and the passing cars; and off at things--the hills and the +distant horizon; and so I can escape for a time that level stare into +the face of things which sees them as _things_ close and real, but +seldom as _life_, far off and whole. + +Perhaps I have never seen life whole; I may need a throne and not a +hill and a stump for that; but here in the wideness of the open skies, +in the sweet quiet, in the hush that often fills these deep woods, I +sometimes see life free, not free from men and things, but +unencumbered, coming to meet me out of the morning and passing on with +me toward the sunset until, at times, the stepping westward, the +uneventful onwardness of life has + + ". . . seemed to be + A kind of heavenly destiny" + +and, even the back-and-forth of it, a divine thing. + +This knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot keep fast hold of it; +yet to know occasionally that you are greater than your rhetoric, or +your acres of stones, or your woods of worms, worms that may destroy +your trees though you spray, is to steady and establish your soul, and +vastly to comfort it! + +To be greater than your possessions, than your accomplishments, than +your desires--greater than you know, than anybody at home knows or will +admit! So great that you can leave your plough in the turret that you +can leave the committees to meet, and the trees to fall, and the sun to +hurry on, while you take your seat upon a stump, assured from many a +dismaying observation that the trees will fall anyhow, that the sun +will hasten on its course, and that the committees, even the +committees, will meet and do business whether you attend or not! + +This is bed-rock fact, the broad and solid bottom for a cheerful +philosophy. To know that they can get on without you (more knowledge +than many ever attain!) is the beginning of wisdom; and to learn that +you can get on without them--at the close of the day, and out here on +your hill in Hingham--this is the end of understanding. + +If I am no more than the shoes I stitch, or the lessons I peg, and the +college can so calmly move on without me, how small I am! Let me hope +that I am useful there, and useful as a citizen-at-large; but I know +that I am chiefly and utterly dispensable at large, everywhere at +large, even in Hingham. But not here on my hilltop. Here I am +indispensable. In the short shift from my classroom, from chair to +hill, from doing to being, I pass from a means into an end, from a part +in the scheme of things to the scheme of things itself. + +Here stands my hill on the highway from dawn to dusk, and just where +the bending walls of the sky center and encircle it. This is not only +a large place, with room and verge enough; it is also a chief place, +where start the north and south and east and west, and the gray crooked +road over which I travel daily. + +I can trace the run of the road from my stump on the hill, off to where +it bends on the edge of night for its returning and rest here. + + "Let me live in a house by the aide of the road," + +sings the poet; but as for me, after traveling all day let me come back +to a house at the end of the road--for in returning and rest shall a +man be saved, in quietness and confidence shall he find strength. +Nowhere shall he find that quietness and confidence in larger measure +than here in the hills. And where shall he return to more rest? + +There are men whose souls are like these hills, simple, strong, quiet +men who can heal and restore; and there are books that help like the +hills, simple elemental, large books; music, and sleep, and prayer, and +play are healing too; but none of these cure and fill one with a +quietness and confidence as deep as that from the hills, even from the +little hills and the small fields and the vast skies of Hingham; a +confidence and joy in the earth, perhaps, rather than in heaven, and +yet in heaven too. + +If it is not also a steadied thinking and a cleared seeing, it is at +least a mental and moral convalescence that one gets--out of the +landscape, out of its largeness, sweetness and reality. I am quickly +conscious on the hills of space all about me--room for myself, room for +the things that crowd and clutter me; and as these arrange and set +themselves in order, I am aware of space within me, of freedom and +wideness there, of things in order, of doors unlocked and windows +opened, through which I look out upon a new young world, new like the +morning, young like the seedling pines on the slope--young and new like +my soul! + +Now I can go back to my classroom. Now I can read themes once more. +Now I can gaze into the round, moon-eyed face of youth and have +faith--as if my chair were a stump, my classroom a wooded hillside +covered with young pines, seedlings of the Lord, and full of sap, and +proof against the worm. + +Yet these are the same youth who yesterday wrote the "Autobiography of +a Fountain Pen" and "The Exhilarations of the Straw-Ride" and the +essays on "The Beauties of Nature." It is I who am not the same. I +have been changed, renewed, having seen from my stump the face of +eternal youth in the freshmen pines marching up the hillside, in the +young brook playing and pursuing through the meadow, in the young winds +over the trees, the young stars in the skies, the young moon riding +along the horizon + + "With the auld moon in her arm"-- + +youth immortal, and so, unburdened by its withered load of age. + +I come down from the hill with a soul resurgent,--strong like the heave +that overreaches the sag of the sea,--and bold in my faith--to a lot of +college students as the hope of the world! + +From the stump in the woodlot I see not only the face of things but the +course of things, that they are moving past me, over me, and round and +round me their fixed center--for the horizon to bend about, for the sky +to arch over, for the highways to start from, for every influence and +interest between Hingham and Heaven to focus on. + + "All things journey sun and moon + Morning noon and afternoon, + Night and all her stars,"-- + +and they all journey about me on my stump in the hilltop. + +We love human nature; we love to get back to it in New York and +Boston,--for a day, for six months in the winter even,--but we need to +get back to the hills at night. We are a conventional, gregarious, +herding folk. Let an American get rich and he builds a grand house in +the city. Let an Englishman get rich and he moves straight into the +country--out to such a spot as Bradley Hill in Hingham. + +There are many of the city's glories and conveniences lacking here on +Mullein Hill, but Mullein Hill has some of the necessities that are +lacking in the city--wide distances and silent places, and woods and +stumps where you can sit down and feel that you are greater than +anything in sight. In the city the buildings are too vast; the people +are too many. You might feel greater than any two or three persons +there, perhaps, but not greater than nearly a million. + +No matter how centered and serene I start from Hingham, a little way +into Boston and I am lost. First I begin to hurry (a thing unnecessary +in Hingham) for everybody else is hurrying; then I must get somewhere; +everybody else is getting somewhere, getting everywhere. For see them +in front of me and behind me, getting there ahead of me and coming +after me to leave no room for me when I shall arrive! But when shall I +and where shall I arrive? And what shall I arrive for? And who am I +that I would arrive? I look around for the encircling horizon, and up +for the overarching sky, and in for the guiding purpose; but instead of +a purpose I am hustled forward by a crowd, and at the bottom of a +street far down beneath such overhanging walls as leave me but a slit +of smoky sky. I am in the hands of a force mightier than I, in the +hands of the police force at the street corners, and am carried across +to the opposite curb through a breaker that rolls in front of me again +at the next crossing. So I move on, by external compulsion, knowing, +as I move, by a kind of mental contagion, feeling by a sort of proxy, +and putting my trust everywhere in advertising and the police. + +Thus I come, it may be, into the Public Library, "where is all the +recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording,"--where +Shakespeare and Old Sleuth and Pansy look all alike and as readable as +the card catalogues, or the boy attendants, or the signs of the Zodiac +in the vestibule floor. + +Who can read all these books? Who wishes to read any of these books? +They are too many--more books in here than men on the street outside! +And how dead they are in here, wedged side by side in this vast +sepulcher of human thought! + +I move among them dully, the stir of the streets coming to me as the +soughing of wind on the desert or the wash of waves on a distant shore. +Here I find a book of my own among the dead. I read its inscription +curiously. I must have written it--when I was alive aeons ago, and far +from here. But why did I? For see the unread, the shelved, the +numbered, the buried books! + +Let me out to the street! Dust we are, not books, and unto dust, good +fertile soil, not paper and ink, we shall return. No more writing for +me--but breathing and eating and jostling with the good earthy people +outside, laughing and loving and dying with them! + +The sweet wind in Copley Square! The sweet smell of gasoline! The +sweet scream of electric horns! + +And how sweet--how fat and alive and friendly the old colored hack +driver, standing there by the stone post! He has a number on his cap; +he is catalogued somewhere, but not in the library. Thank heaven he is +no book, but just a good black human being. I rush up and shake hands +with him. He nearly falls into his cab with astonishment; but I must +get hold of life again, and he looks so real and removed from letters! + +"Uncle!" I whisper, close in his ear, "have ye got it? Quick-- + + "'Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot-- + Dar's steppin' at de doo'! + Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot-- + Dar's creakin' on de floo'!'" + +He makes the passes, and I turn down Boylston Street, a living thing +once more with face toward--the hills of Hingham. + +It is five o'clock, and a winter evening, and all the street pours +forth to meet me--some of them coming with me bound for Hingham, +surely, as all of them are bound for a hill somewhere and a home. + +I love the city at this winter hour. This home-hurrying crowd--its +excitement of escape! its eagerness and expectancy! its camaraderie! +The arc-lights overhead glow and splutter with the joy they see on the +faces beneath them. + +It is nearly half-past five as I turn into Winter Street. Now the very +stores are closing. Work has ceased. Drays and automobiles are gone. +The two-wheeled fruit man is going from his stand at the Subway +entrance. The street is filled from wall to wall with men and women, +young women and young men, fresher, more eager, more excited, more +joyous even than the lesser crowd of shoppers down Boylston Street. +They don't notice me particularly. No one notices any one +particularly, for the lights overhead see us all, and we all understand +as we cross and dodge and lockstep and bump and jostle through this +deep narrow place of closing doors toward home. Then the last rush at +the station, that nightly baptism into human brotherhood as we plunge +into the crowd and are carried through the gates and into our +train--which is speeding far out through the dark before I begin to +come to myself--find myself leaving the others, separating, +individualizing, taking on definite shape and my own being. The train +is grinding in at my station, and I drop out along the track in the +dark alone. + +I gather my bundles and hug them to me, feeling not the bread and +bananas, but only the sense of possession, as I step off down the +track. Here is my automobile. Two miles of back-country road lie +before me. I drive slowly, the stars overhead, but not far away, and +very close about me the deep darkness of the woods--and silence and +space and shapes invisible, and voices inaudible as yet to my +city-dinned ears and staring eyes. But sight returns, and hearing, +till soon my very fingers, feeling far into the dark, begin to see and +hear. + +And now I near the hill: these are my woods; this is my gravel bank; +that my meadow, my wall, my postbox, and up yonder among the trees +shines my light. They are expecting me, She, and the boys, and the +dog, and the blazing fire, the very trees up there, and the watching +stars. + +How the car takes the hill--as if up were down, and wheels were wings, +and just as if the boys and the dog and the dinner and the fire were +all waiting for _it_! As they are, of course, it and me. I open up +the throttle, I jam the shrieking whistle, and rip around the bend in +the middle of the hill,--puppy yelping down to meet me. The noise we +make as the lights flash on, as the big door rolls back, and we come to +our nightly standstill inside the boy-filled barn! They drag me from +the wheel--puppy yanking at my trouser leg; they pounce upon my +bundles; they hustle me toward the house, where, in the lighted doorway +more welcome waits me--and questions, batteries of them, even puppy +joining the attack! + +Who would have believed I had seen and done all this,--had any such +adventurous trip,--lived any such significant day,--catching my regular +8.35 train as I did! + +But we get through the dinner and some of the talk and then the +out-loud reading before the fire; then while she is tucking the +children in bed, I go out to see that all is well about the barn. + +How the night has deepened since my return! No wind stirs. The +hill-crest blazes with the light of the stars. Such an earth and sky! +I lock the barn, and crossing the field, climb the ridge to the stump. +The bare woods are dark with shadow and deep with the silence of the +night. A train rumbles somewhere in the distance, then the silence and +space reach off through the shadows, infinitely far off down the +hillside; and the stars gather in the tops of the trees. + + + + +[Illustration: The open fire] + +II + +THE OPEN FIRE + +It is a January night. + + ". . . . . . . Enclosed + From Chaos and the inroad of Darkness old," + +we sit with our book before the fire. Outside in the night ghostly +shapes pass by, ghostly faces press against the window, and at the +corners of the house ghostly voices pause for parley, muttering thickly +through the swirl and smother of the snow. Inside burns the fire, +kindling into glorious pink and white peonies on the nearest wall and +glowing warm and sweet on her face as she reads. The children are in +bed. She is reading aloud to me: + +"'I wish the good old times would come again,' she said, 'when we were +not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor, but there was +a middle state'--so she was pleased to ramble on--'in which, I am sure, +we were a great deal happier.'" + +Her eyes left the familiar page, wandering far away beyond the fire. + +"Is it so hard to bear up under two thousand five hundred a year?" I +asked. + +The gleam of the fire, or perhaps a fancy out of the far-beyond, +lighted her eyes as she answered, + +"We began on four hundred and fifty a year; and we were perfectly--" + +"Yes, but you forget the parsonage; that was rent free!" + +"Four hundred and fifty with rent free--and we had everything we +could--" + +"You forget again that we had n't even one of our four boys." + +Her gaze rested tenderly upon the little chairs between her and the +fire, just where the boys had left them at the end of their listening +an hour before. + +"If you had allowed me," she went on, "I was going to say how glad we +ought to be that we are not quite so rich as--" + +"We should like to be?" I questioned. + +"'A purchase'"--she was reading again--"'is but a purchase, now that +you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. +Do you not remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, +till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare--and +all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher which you dragged home +late at night from Barker's in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we +eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, +and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the +Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing--' + +"Is n't this exactly our case?" she asked, interrupting herself for no +other purpose than to prolong the passage she was reading. + +"Truly," I replied, trying hard to hide a note of eagerness in my +voice, for I had kept my battery masked these many months, "only Lamb +wanted an old folio, whereas we need a new car. I have driven that old +machine for five years and it was second-hand to begin with." + +I watched for the effect of the shot, but evidently I had not got the +range, for she was saying. + +"Is there a sweeter bit in all of 'Elia' than this, do you think"? + +"'--And when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, +and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out +the relic from his dusty treasures--and when you lugged it home, +wishing it were twice as cumbersome--'" + +She had paused again. To know when to pause! how to make the most of +your author! to draw out the linked sweetness of a passage to its +longest--there reads your loving reader! + +"You see," laying her hand on mine, "old books and old friends are +best, and I should think you had really rather have a nice safe old car +than any new one. Thieves don't take old cars, as you know. And you +can't insure them, that's a comfort! And cars don't skid and collide +just because they are _old_, do they? And you never have to scold the +children about the paint and--and the old thing _does_ go--what do you +think Lamb would say about old cars?" + +"Lamb be hanged on old cars!" and I sent the sparks flying with a fresh +stick. + +"Well, then let's hear the rest of him on 'Old _China_.'" And so she +read, while the fire burned, and outside swept the winter storm. + +I have a weakness for out-loud reading and Lamb, and a peculiar joy in +wood fires when the nights are dark and snowy. My mind is not, after +all, _much_ set on automobiles then; there is such a difference between +a wild January night on Mullein Hill and an automobile show--or any +other show. If St. Bernard of Cluny had been an American and not a +monk, I think Jerusalem the Golden might very likely have been a quiet +little town like Hingham, all black with a winter night and lighted for +the Saint with a single open fire. Anyhow I cannot imagine the +mansions of the Celestial City without fireplaces. I don't know how +the equatorial people do; I have never lived on the equator, and I have +no desire to--nor in any other place where it is too hot for a +fireplace, or where wood is so scarce that one is obliged to substitute +a gas-log. I wish I could build an open hearth into every lowly home +and give every man who loves out-loud reading a copy of Lamb and sticks +enough for a fire. I wish--is it futile to wish that besides the +fireplace and the sticks I might add a great many more winter evenings +to the round of the year? I would leave the days as they are in their +beautiful and endless variety, but the long, shut-in winter evenings + + "When young and old in circle + About the firebrands close--" + +these I would multiply, taking them away from June to give to January, +could I supply the fire and the boys and the books and the reader to go +with them. + +And I often wonder if more men might not supply these things for +themselves? There are January nights for all, and space enough outside +of city and suburb for simple firesides; books enough also; yes, and +readers-aloud if they are given the chance. But the boys are hard to +get. They might even come girls. Well, what is the difference, +anyway? Suppose mine had been dear things with ribbons in their +hair--not these four, but four more? Then all the glowing circle about +the fireplace had been filled, the chain complete, a link of fine gold +for every link of steel! Ah! the cat hath nine lives, as Phisologus +saith; but a man hath as many lives as he hath sons, with two lives +besides for every daughter. So it must always seem to me when I +remember the precious thing that vanished from me before I could even +lay her in her mother's arms. She would have been, I think, a full +head taller than the oldest boy, and wiser than all four of the boys, +being a girl. + +The real needs of life are few, and to be had by most men, even though +they include children and an automobile. Second-hand cars are very +cheap, and the world seems full of orphans--how many orphans now! It +is n't a question of getting the things; the question is, What are the +necessary things? + +First, I say, a fireplace. A man does well to build his fireplace +first instead of the garage. Better than a roof over one's head is a +fire at one's feet; for what is there deadlier than the chill of a +fireless house? The fireplace first, unless indeed he have the chance, +as I had when a boy, to get him a pair of tongs. + +The first piece of household furniture I ever purchased was a pair of +old tongs. I was a lad in my teens. "Five--five--five--five--v-v-v-ve +_will_ you make it ten?" I heard the auctioneer cry as I passed the +front gate. He held a pair of brass-headed hearth tongs above his +head, waving them wildly at the unresponsive bidders. + +"Will _you_ make it ten?" he yelled at me as the last comer. + +"Ten," I answered, a need for fire tongs, that blistering July day, +suddenly overcoming me. + +"And sold for ten cents to the boy in the gate," shouted the +auctioneer. "Will somebody throw in the fireplace to go with them!" + +I took my tongs rather sheepishly, I fear, rather helplessly, and got +back through the gate, for I was on foot and several miles from home. +I trudged on for home carrying those tongs with me all the way, not +knowing why, not wishing to throw them into the briers for they were +very old and full of story, and I--was very young and full of--I cannot +tell, remembering what little _boys_ are made of. And now here they +lean against the hearth, that very pair. I packed them in the bottom +of my trunk when I started for college; I saved them through the years +when our open fire was a "base-burner," and then a gas-radiator in a +city flat. Moved, preserved, "married" these many years, they stand at +last where the boy must have dreamed them standing--that hot July day, +how long, long ago! + +But why should a boy have dreamed such dreams? And what was it in a +married old pair of brass-headed hearth tongs that a boy in his teens +should have bought them at auction and then have carried them to +college with him, rattling about on the bottom of his trunk? For it +was not an over-packed trunk. There were the tongs on the bottom and a +thirty-cent edition of "The Natural History of Selborne" on the +top--that is all. That is all the boy remembers. These two things, at +least, are all that now remain out of the trunkful he started with from +home--the tongs for sentiment, and for friendship the book. + +"Are you listening?" she asks, looking up to see if I have gone to +sleep. + +"Yes, I 'm listening." + +"And dreaming?" + +"Yes, dreaming a little, too,--of you, dear, and the tongs there, and +the boys upstairs, and the storm outside, and the fire, and of this +sweet room,--an old, old dream that I had years and years ago,--all +come true, and more than true." + +She slipped her hand into mine. + +"Shall I go on?" + +"Yes, go on, please, and I will listen--and, if you don't mind, dream a +little, too, perhaps." + +There is something in the fire and the rise and fall of her voice, +something so infinitely soothing in its tones, and in Lamb, and in such +a night as this--so vast and fearful, but so futile in its bitter sweep +about the fire--that while one listens one must really dream too. + + + + +[Illustration: The ice crop] + +III + +THE ICE CROP + +The ice-cart with its weighty tongs never climbs our Hill, yet the +icechest does not lack its clear blue cake of frozen February. We +gather our own ice as we gather our own hay and apples. The small +ice-house under the trees has just been packed with eighteen tons of +"black" ice, sawed and split into even blocks, tier on tier, the +harvest of the curing cold, as loft and cellar are still filled with +crops made in the summer's curing heat. So do the seasons overlap and +run together! So do they complement and multiply each other! Like the +star-dust of Saturn they belt our fourteen-acre planet, not with three +rings, nor four, but with twelve, a ring for every month, a girdle of +twelve shining circles running round the year--the tinkling ice of +February in the goblet of October!--the apples of October red and ripe +on what might have been April's empty platter! + +He who sows the seasons and gathers the months into ice-house and barn +lives not from sunup to sundown, revolving with the hands of the clock, +but, heliocentric, makes a daily circuit clear around the sun--the +smell of mint in the hay-mow, a reminder of noontime passed; the +prospect of winter in the growing garden, a gentle warning of night +coming on. Twelve times one are twelve--by so many times are months +and meanings and values multiplied for him whose fourteen acres bring +forth abundantly--provided that the barns on the place be kept safely +small. + +Big barns are an abomination unto the Lord, and without place on a wise +man's estate. As birds have nests, and foxes dens, so may any man have +a place to lay his head, with a _mansion_ prepared in the sky for his +soul. + +Big barns are as foolish for the ice-man as for others. The barns of +an ice-man must needs be large, yet they are over-large if he can say +to his soul: "Soul, thou hast much ice laid up for many days; eat, +drink, and be merry among the cakes"--and when the autumn comes he +still has a barn full of solid cemented cakes that must be sawed out! +No soul can be merry long on ice--nor on sugar, nor shoes, nor stocks, +nor hay, nor anything of that sort in great quantities. He who builds +great barns for ice, builds a refrigerator for his soul. Ice must +never become a man's only crop; for then winter means nothing but ice; +and the year nothing but winter; for the year's never at the spring for +him, but always at February or when the ice is making and the mercury +is down to zero. + +As I have already intimated, a safe kind of ice-house is one like mine, +that cannot hold more than eighteen tons--a year's supply (shrinkage +and Sunday ice-cream and other extras provided for). Such an ice-house +is not only an ice-house, it is also an act of faith, an avowal of +confidence in the stability of the frame of things, and in their +orderly continuance. Another winter will come, it proclaims, when the +ponds will be pretty sure to freeze. If they don't freeze, and never +do again--well, who has an ice-house big enough in that event? + +My ice-house is one of life's satisfactions; not architecturally, of +course, for there has been no great development yet in ice-house lines, +and this one was home-done; it is a satisfaction morally, being one +thing I have done that is neither more nor less. I have the big-barn +weakness--the desire for ice--for ice to melt--as if I were no wiser +than the ice-man! I builded bigger than I knew when I put the stone +porches about the dwelling-house, consulting in my pride the architect +first instead of the town assessors. I took no counsel of pride in +building the ice-house, nor of fear, nor of my love of ice. I said: "I +will build me a house to carry a year's supply of ice and no more, +however the price of ice may rise, and even with the risk of facing +seven hot and iceless years. I have laid up enough things among the +moths and rust. Ice against the rainy day I will provide, but ice for +my children and my children's children, ice for a possible cosmic +reversal that might twist the equator over the poles, I will not +provide for. Nor will I go into the ice business." + +Nor did I! And I say the building of that ice-house has been an +immense satisfaction to me. I entertain my due share of + + "Gorgons, and hydras and chimaeras dire"; + +but a cataclysm of the proportions mentioned above would as likely as +not bring on another Ice Age, or indeed-- + + ". . . run back and fetch the Age of Gold." + +To have an ice-house, and yourself escape cold storage--that seems to +me the thing. + +I can fill the house in a single day, and so trade a day for a year; or +is it not rather that I crowd a year into a day? Such days are +possible. It is not any day that I can fill the ice-house. Ice-day is +a chosen, dedicated day, one of the year's high festivals, the Day of +First Fruits, the ice crop being the year's earliest harvest. Hay is +made when the sun shines, a condition sometimes slow in coming; but ice +of the right quality and thickness, with roads right, and sky right for +harvesting, requires a conjunction of right conditions so difficult as +to make a good ice-day as rare as a day in June. June! why, June knows +no such glorious weather as that attending the harvest of the ice. + +This year it fell early in February--rather late in the season; so +late, in fact, that, in spite of my faith in winter, I began to grow +anxious--something no one on a hill in Hingham need ever do. Since New +Year's Day unseasonable weather had prevailed: shifty winds, uncertain +skies, rain and snow and sleet--that soft, spongy weather when the ice +soaks and grows soggy. By the middle of January what little ice there +had been in the pond was gone, and the ice-house was still empty. + +Toward the end of the month, however, the skies cleared, the wind +settled steadily into the north, and a great quiet began to deepen over +the fields, a quiet that at night grew so tense you seemed to hear the +close-glittering heavens snapping with the light of the stars. +Everything seemed charged with electric cold; the rich soil of the +garden struck fire like flint beneath your feet; the tall hillside +pines, as stiff as masts of steel, would suddenly crack in the brittle +silence, with a sharp report; and at intervals throughout the taut +boreal night you could hear a hollow rumbling running down the length +of the pond--the ice being split with the wide iron wedge of the cold. + +Down and down for three days slipped the silver column in the +thermometer until at eight o'clock on the fourth day it stood just +above zero. Cold? It was splendid weather! with four inches of ice on +the little pond behind the ridge, glare ice, black as you looked across +it, but like a pane of plate glass as you peered into it at the +stirless bottom below; smooth glare ice untouched by the wing of the +wind or by even the circling runner of the skater-snow. Another day +and night like this and the solid square-edged blocks could come in. + +I looked at the glass late that night and found it still falling. I +went on out beneath the stars. It may have been the tightened +telephone wires overhead, or the frozen ground beneath me ringing with +the distant tread of the coming north wind, yet over these, and with +them, I heard the singing of a voiceless song, no louder than the +winging hum of bees, but vaster--the earth and air responding to a +starry lyre as some Aeolian harper, sweeping through the silvery spaces +of the night, brushed the strings with her robes of jeweled cold. + +The mercury stood at zero by one o'clock. A biting wind had risen and +blew all the next day. Eight inches of ice by this time. One night +more and the crop would be ripe. And it was ripe. + +I was out before the sun, tramping down to the pond with pike and saw, +the team not likely to be along for half an hour yet, the breaking of +the marvelous day all mine. Like apples of gold in baskets of silver +were the snow-covered ridges in the light of the slow-coming dawn. The +wind had fallen, but the chill seemed the more intense, so silently it +took hold. My breath hung about me in little gray clouds, covering my +face, and even my coat, with rime. As the hurt passed from my fingers, +my eyebrows seemed to become detached, my cheeks shrunk, my flesh +suddenly free of cumbering clothes. But in half a minute the rapid red +blood would come beating back, spreading over me and out from me, with +the pain, and then the glow, of life, of perfect life that seemed +itself to feed upon the consuming cold. + +No other living thing was yet abroad, no stir or sound except the +tinkling of tiny bells all about me that were set to swinging as I +moved along. The crusted snow was strewn with them; every twig was +hung, and every pearl-bent grass blade. Then off through the woods +rang the chime of louder bells, sleigh bells; then the shrill squeal of +iron runners over dry snow; then the broken voices of men; and soon +through the winding wood road came the horses, their bay coats white, +as all things were, with the glittering dust of the hoar frost. + +It was beautiful work. The mid-afternoon found us in the thick of a +whirling storm, the grip of the cold relaxed, the woods abloom with the +clinging snow. But the crop was nearly in. High and higher rose the +cold blue cakes within the ice-house doors until they touched the +rafter plate. + +It was hard work. The horses pulled hard; the men swore hard, now and +again, and worked harder than they swore. They were rough, simple men, +crude and elemental like their labor. It was elemental work--filling a +house with ice, three hundred-pound cakes of clean, clear ice, cut from +the pond, skidded into the pungs, and hauled through the woods all +white, and under a sky all gray, with softly-falling snow. They earned +their penny; and I earned my penny, and I got it, though I asked only +the wages of going on from dawn to dark, down the crystal hours of the +day. + + + + +[Illustration: Seed catalogues] + +IV + +SEED CATALOGUES + +"The new number of the 'Atlantic' came to-day," She said, stopping by +the table. "It has your essay in it." + +"Yes?" I replied, only half hearing. + +"You have seen it, then?" + +"No"--still absorbed in my reading. + +"What is it you are so interested in?" she inquired, laying down the +new magazine. + +"A seed catalogue." + +"More seed catalogues! Why, you read nothing else last night." + +"But this is a new one," I replied, "and I declare I never saw turnips +that could touch this improved strain here. I am going to plant a lot +of them this year." + +"How many seed catalogues have you had this spring?" + +"Only six, so far." + +"And you plant your earliest seeds--" + +"In April, the middle of April, though I may be able to get my first +peas in by the last of March. You see peas"--she was backing +away--"this new Antarctic Pea--will stand a lot of cold; but beans--do +come here, and look at these Improved Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans!" +holding out the wonderfully lithographed page toward her. But she +backed still farther away, and, putting her hands behind her, looked at +me instead, and very solemnly. + +I suppose every man comes to know that unaccountable expression in his +wife's eyes soon or late: a sad, baffled expression, detached, remote, +as of things seen darkly, or descried afar off; an expression which +leaves you feeling that you are afar off,--discernible, but infinitely +dwindled. Two minds with but a single thought--so you start; but soon +she finds, or late, that as the heavens are high above the earth, so +are some of your thoughts above her thoughts. She cannot follow. On +the brink she stands and sees you, through the starry spaces, drift +from her ken in your fleet of--seed catalogues. + +I have never been able to explain to her the seed catalogue. She is as +fond of vegetables as I, and neither of us cares much for turnips--nor +for carrots, nor parsnips either, when it comes to that, our two hearts +at the table beating happily as one. Born in the country, she +inherited a love of the garden, but a feminine garden, the garden +_parvus, minor, minimus_--so many cut-worms long, so many cut-worms +wide. I love a garden of size, a garden that one cut-worm cannot sweep +down upon in the night. + +For years I have wanted to be a farmer, but there in the furrow ahead +of me, like a bird on its nest, she has sat with her knitting; and when +I speak of loving long rows to hoe, she smiles and says, "For the +_boys_ to hoe." Her unit of garden measure is a meal--so many beet +seeds for a meal; so many meals for a row, with never two rows of +anything, with hardly a full-length row of anything, and with all the +rows of different lengths, as if gardening were a sort of geometry or a +problem in arithmetic, figuring your vegetable with the meal for a +common divisor--how many times it will go into all your rows without +leaving a remainder! + +Now I go by the seed catalogue, planting, not after the dish, as if my +only vision were a garden peeled and in the pot, but after the Bush., +Peck, Qt., Pt., Lb., Oz., Pkg.,--so many pounds to the acre, instead of +so many seeds to the meal. + +And I have tried to show her that gardening is something of a risk, +attended by chance, and no such exact science as dressmaking; that you +cannot sow seeds as you can sew buttons; that the seed-man has no +machine for putting sure-sprout-humps into each of his minute wares as +the hook-and-eye-man has; that with all wisdom and understanding one +could do no better than to buy (as I am careful to do) out of that +catalogue whose title reads "Honest Seeds"; and that even the Sower in +Holy Writ allowed somewhat for stony places and other inherent hazards +of planting time. + +But she follows only afar off, affirming the primary meaning of that +parable to be plainly set forth in the context, while the secondary +meaning pointeth out the folly of sowing seed anywhere save on good +ground--which seemed to be only about one quarter of the area in the +parable that was planted; and that anyhow, seed catalogues, especially +those in colors, designed as they are to catch the simple-minded and +unwary, need to be looked into by the post-office authorities and if +possible kept from all city people, and from college professors in +particular. + +She is entirely right about the college professors. Her understanding +is based upon years of observation and the patient cooking of uncounted +pots of beans. + +I confess to a weakness for gardening and no sense at all of proportion +in vegetables. I can no more resist a seed catalogue than a toper can +his cup. There is no game, no form of exercise, to compare for a +moment in my mind with having a row of young growing things in a patch +of mellow soil; no possession so sure, so worth while, so interesting +as a piece of land. The smell of it, the feel of it, the call of it, +intoxicate me. The rows are never long enough, nor the hours, nor the +muscles strong enough either, when there is hoeing to do. + +Why should she not take it as a solemn duty to save me from the hoe? +Man is an immoderate animal, especially in the spring when the doors of +his classroom are about to open for him into the wide and greening +fields. There is only one place to live,--here in the hills of +Hingham; and there is nothing better to do here or anywhere, than the +hoeing, or the milking, or the feeding of the hens. + +A professor in the small college of Slimsalaryville tells in a recent +magazine of his long hair and no dress suit, and of his wife's doing +the washing in order that they might have bread and the "Eugenic +Review" on a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. It is a sad +story, in the midst of which he exclaims: "I may even get to the place +where I can _spare time_ (italics mine) to keep chickens or a cow, and +that would help immensely; but I am so constituted that chickens or a +cow would certainly cripple my work." How cripple it? Is n't it his +work to _teach_? Far from it. "Let there be light," he says at the +end of the essay, is his work, and he adds that he has been so busy +with it that he is on the verge of a nervous break-down. Of course he +is. Who would n't be with that job? And of course he has n't a +constitution for chickens and a cow. But neither does he seem to have +constitution enough for the light-giving either, being ready to +collapse from his continuous shining. + +But isn't this the case with many of us? Aren't we overworking--doing +our own simple job of teaching and, besides that, taking upon ourselves +the Lord's work of letting there be light? + +I have come to the conclusion that there might not be any less light +were the Lord allowed to do his own shining, and that probably there +might be quite as good teaching if the teacher stuck humbly to his +desk, and after school kept chickens and a cow. The egg-money and +cream "would help immensely," even the Professor admits, the +Professor's wife fully concurring no doubt. + +Don't we all take ourselves a little seriously--we college professors +and others? As if the Lord could not continue to look after his light, +if we looked after our students! It is only in these last years that I +have learned that I can go forth unto my work and to my labor until the +evening, quitting then, and getting home in time to feed the chickens +and milk the cow. I am a professional man, and I dwell in the midst of +professional men, all of whom are inclined to help the Lord out by +working after dark--all of whom are really in dire constitutional need +of the early roosting chickens and the quiet, ruminating cow. + +To walk humbly with the hens, that's the thing--after the classes are +dismissed and the office closed. To get out of the city, away from +books, and theories, and students, and patients, and clients, and +customers--back to real things, simple, restful, healthful things for +body and soul, homely domestic things that lay eggs at 70 cents per +dozen, and make butter at $2.25 the 5-pound box! As for me, this does +"help immensely," affording me all necessary hair-cuts (I don't want +the "Eugenic Review"), and allowing Her to send the family washing +(except the flannels) to the laundry. + +Instead of crippling normal man's normal work, country living (chickens +and a cow) will prevent his work from crippling him--keeping him a +little from his students and thus saving him from too much teaching; +keeping him from reading the "Eugenic Review" and thus saving him from +too much learning; curing him, in short, of his "constitution" that is +bound to come to some sort of a collapse unless rested and saved by +chickens and a cow. + +"By not too many chickens," she would add; and there is no one to match +her with a chicken--fried, stewed, or turned into pie. + +The hens are no longer mine, the boys having taken them over; but the +gardening I can't give up, nor the seed catalogues. + +The one in my hands was exceptionally radiant, and exceptionally full +of Novelties and Specialties for the New Year, among them being an +extraordinary new pole bean--an Improved Kentucky Wonder. She had +backed away, as I have said, and instead of looking at the page of +beans, looked solemnly at me; then with something sorrowful, something +somewhat Sunday-like in her voice, an echo, I presume, of lessons in +the Catechism, she asked me-- + +"Who makes you plant beans?" + +"My dear," I began, "I--" + +"How many meals of pole beans did we eat last summer?" + +"I--don't--re--" + +"Three--just three," she answered. "And I think you must remember how +many of that row of poles we picked?" + +"Why, yes, I--" + +"Three--just three out of thirty poles! Now, do you think you remember +how many bushels of those beans went utterly unpicked?" + +I was visibly weakening by this time. + +"Three--do you think?" + +"Multiply that three by three-times-three! And now tell me--" + +But this was too much. + +"My dear," I protested, "I recollect exactly. It was--" + +"No, I don't believe you do. I cannot trust you at all with beans. +But I should like to know why you plant ten or twelve kinds of beans +when the only kind we like are limas!" + +"Why--the--catalogue advises--" + +"Yes, the catalogue advises--" + +"You don't seem to understand, my dear, that--" + +"Now, _why_ don't I understand?" + +I paused. This is always a hard question, and peculiarly hard as the +end of a series, and on a topic as difficult as beans. I don't know +beans. There is little or nothing about beans in the history of +philosophy or in poetry. Thoreau says that when he was hoeing his +beans it was not beans that he hoed nor he that hoed beans--which was +the only saying that came to mind at the moment, and under the +circumstances did not seem to help me much. + +"Well," I replied, fumbling among my stock of ready-made reasons, +"I--really--don't--know exactly why you don't understand. Indeed, I +really don't know--that _I_ exactly understand. _Everything_ is full +of things that even I can't understand--how to explain my tendency to +plant all kinds of beans, for instance; or my 'weakness,' as you call +it, for seed catalogues; or--" + +She opened her magazine, and I hastened to get the stool for her feet. +As I adjusted the light for her she said:-- + +"Let me remind you that this is the night of the annual banquet of your +Swampatalk Club; you don't intend to forego that famous roast beef for +the seed catalogues?" + +"I did n't intend to, but I must say that literature like this is +enough to make a man a vegetarian. Look at that page for an +old-fashioned New England Boiled Dinner! Such carrots. Really _they_ +look good enough to eat. I think I 'll plant some of those improved +carrots; and some of these parsnips; and some--" + +"You had better go get ready," she said, "and please put that big stick +on the fire for me," drawing the lamp toward her, as she spoke, so that +all of its green-shaded light fell over her--over the silver in her +hair, with its red rose; over the pink and lacy thing that wrapped her +from her sweet throat to the silver stars on her slippers. + +"I'm not going to that Club!" I said. "I have talked myself for three +hours to-day, attended two conferences, and listened to one address. +There were three different societies for the general improving of +things that met at the University halls to-day with big speakers from +the ends of the earth. To-morrow night I address The First Century +Club in the city after a dinner with the New England Teachers of +English Monthly Luncheon Club--and I would like to know what we came +out here in the woods for, anyhow?" + +"If you are going--" She was speaking calmly. + +"Going where?" I replied, picking up the seed catalogues to make room +for myself on the couch. "_Please_ look at this pumpkin! Think of +what a jack-o'-lantern it would make for the boys! I am going to +plant--" + +"You 'll be cold," she said, rising and drawing a steamer rug up over +me; then laying the open magazine across my shoulders while giving the +pillow a motherly pull, she added, with a sigh of contentment:-- + +"Perhaps, if it had n't been for me, you might have been a great +success with pumpkins or pigs--I don't know." + + + + +[Illustration: The Dustless-Duster] + +V + +THE DUSTLESS-DUSTER + +There are beaters, brooms and Bissell's Sweepers; there are dry-mops, +turkey-wings, whisks, and vacuum-cleaners; there are--but no matter. +Whatever other things there are, and however many of them in the +closet, the whole dust-raising kit is incomplete without the +Dustless-Duster. + +For the Dustless-Duster is final, absolute. What can be added to, or +taken away from, a Dustless-Duster? A broom is only a broom, even a +new broom. Its sphere is limited; its work is partial. Dampened and +held persistently down by the most expert of sweepers, the broom still +leaves something for the Dustless-Duster to do. But the +Dustless-Duster leaves nothing for anything to do. The dusting is done. + +Because there are many who dust, and because they have searched in vain +for a dustless-duster, I should like to say that the Dustless-Duster +can be bought at department stores, at those that have a full line of +departments--at any department store, in fact; for the Dustless-Duster +department is the largest of all the departments, whatever the store. +Ask for it of your jeweler, grocer, milliner. Ask for "The Ideal," +"The Universal," "The Indispensable," of any man with anything to sell +or preach or teach, and you shall have it--the perfect thing which you +have spent life looking for; which you have thought so often to have, +but found as often that you had not. You shall have it. I have it. +One hangs, rather, in the kitchen on the clothes-dryer. + +And one (more than one) hangs in the kitchen closet, and in the cellar, +and in the attic. I have often brought it home, for my search has been +diligent since a certain day, years ago,--a "Commencement Day" at the +Institute. + +I had never attended a Commencement exercise before; I had never been +in an opera house before; and the painted light through the roof of +windows high overhead, the strains of the orchestra from far below me, +the banks of broad-leaved palms, the colors, the odors, the confusion +of flowers and white frocks, were strangely thrilling. Nothing had +ever happened to me in the woods like this: the exaltation, the +depression, the thrill of joy, the throb of pain, the awakening, the +wonder, the purpose, and the longing! It was all a dream--all but the +form and the face of one girl graduate, and the title of her essay, +"The Real and the Ideal." + +I do not know what large and lofty sentiments she uttered; I only +remember the way she looked them. I did not hear the words she read; +but I still feel the absolute fitness of her theme--how real her simple +white frock, her radiant face, her dark hair! And how ideal! + +I had seen perfection. Here was the absolute, the final, the ideal, +the indispensable! And I was fourteen! Now I am past forty; and upon +the kitchen clothes-dryer hangs the Dustless-Duster. + +No, I have not lost the vision. The daughter of that girl, the image +of her mother, slipped into my classroom the other day. Nor have I +faltered in the quest. The search goes on, and must go on; for however +often I get it, only to cast it aside, the indispensable, the ultimate, +must continue to be indispensable and ultimate, until, some day-- + +What matters how many times I have had it, to discover every time that +it is only a piece of cheesecloth, ordinary cheesecloth, dyed black and +stamped with red letters? The search must go on, notwithstanding the +clutter in the kitchen closet. The cellar is crowded with +Dustless-Dusters, too; the garret is stuffed with them. There is +little else besides them anywhere in the house. And this was an empty +house when I moved into it, a few years ago. + +As I moved in, an old man moved out, back to the city whence a few +years before he had come; and he took back with him twelve two-horse +wagon-loads of Dustless-Dusters. He had spent a long life collecting +them, and now, having gathered all there were in the country, he was +going back to the city, in a last pathetic, a last heroic, effort to +find the one Dustless-Duster more. + +It was the old man's twelve two-horse loads that were pathetic. There +were many sorts of things in those twelve loads, of many lands, of many +dates, but all of one stamp. The mark was sometimes hard to find, +corroded sometimes nearly past deciphering, yet never quite gone. The +red letters were indelible on every piece, from the gross of antique +candle-moulds (against the kerosene's giving out) to an ancient +coffin-plate, far oxidized, and engraved "Jones," which, the old man +said, as he pried it off the side of the barn, "might come in handy any +day." + +The old man has since died and been laid to rest. Upon his coffin was +set a new silver plate, engraved simply and truthfully, "Brown." + +We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain, says Holy Writ, +that we can carry nothing out. But it is also certain that we shall +attempt to carry out, or try to find as soon as we are out, a +Dustless-Duster. For we did bring something with us into this world, +losing it temporarily, to be forever losing and finding it; and when we +go into another world, will it not be to carry the thing with us there, +or to continue there our eternal search for it? We are not so certain +of carrying nothing out of this world, but we are certain of leaving +many things behind. + +Among those that I shall leave behind me is The Perfect Automatic +Carpet-Layer. But I did not buy that. She did. It was one of the +first of our perfections. + +We have more now. I knew as I entered the house that night that +something had happened; that the hope of the early dawn had died, for +some cause, with the dusk. The trouble showed in her eyes: mingled +doubt, chagrin, self-accusation, self-defense, defeat--familiar +symptoms. She had seen something, something perfect, and had bought it. + +I knew the look well, and the feelings all too well, and said nothing. +For suppose I had been at home that day and she had been in town? +Still, on my trip into town that morning I ran the risk of meeting the +man who sold me "The Magic Stropless Razor Salve." No, not that man! +I shall never meet him again, for vengeance is mine, saith the _Lord_. +But suppose I had met him? And suppose he had had some other salve, +_Safety_ Razor Salve this time to sell? + +It is for young men to see visions and for old men to dream dreams; but +it is for no man or woman to buy one. + +She had seen a vision, and had bought it--"The Perfect Automatic +Carpet-Layer." + +I kept silence, as I say, which is often a thoughtful thing to do. + +"Are you ill?" she ventured, handing me my tea. + +"No." + +"Tired?" + +"No." + +"I hope you are not very tired, for the Parsonage Committee brought the +new carpet this afternoon, and I have started to put it down. I +thought we would finish it this evening. It won't be any work at all +for you, for I--I--bought you one of these to-day to put it down +with,"--pushing an illustrated circular across the table toward me. + + +ANY CHILD CAN USE IT + +THE PERFECT AUTOMATIC CARPET-LAYER + +No more carpet-laying bills. Do your own laying. No wrinkles. No +crowded corners. No sore knees. No pounded fingers. No broken backs. +Stand up and lay your carpet with the Perfect Automatic. Easy as +sweeping. Smooth as putting paper on the wall. You hold the handle, +and the Perfect Automatic does the rest. Patent Applied For. Price-- + + +--but it was not the price! It was the tool--a weird hybrid tool, part +gun, part rake, part catapult, part curry-comb, fit apparently for +almost any purpose, from the business of blunderbuss to the office of +an apple-picker. Its handle, which any child could hold, was somewhat +shorter and thicker than a hoe-handle, and had a slotted tin barrel, a +sort of intestine, on its ventral side along its entire length. Down +this intestine, their points sticking through the slot, moved the tacks +in single file to a spring-hammer close to the floor. This hammer was +operated by a lever or tongue at the head of the handle, the connection +between the hammer at the distal end and the lever at the proximal end +being effected by means of a steel-wire spinal cord down the dorsal +side of the handle. Over the fist of a hammer spread a jaw of sharp +teeth to take hold of the carpet. The thing could not talk; but it +could do almost anything else, so fearfully and wonderfully was it made. + +As for laying carpets with it, any child could do that. But we did n't +have any children then, and I had quite outgrown my childhood. I tried +to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the +Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down +on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at +the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped +out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the +carpet, the crouching hammer sprang, and-- + +And then I lifted up the Perfect Automatic to see if the tack went +in,--a simple act that any child could do, but which took automatically +and perfectly all the stretch out of the carpet; for the hammer did not +hit the tack; the tack really did not get through the trap; the trap +did not open the slot; the slot--but no matter. We have no carpets +now. The Perfect Automatic stands in the garret with all its original +varnish on. At its feet sits a half-used can of "Beesene, The Prince +of Floor Pastes." + +We have only hard-wood floors now, which we treated, upon the strength +of the label, with this Prince of Pastes, "Beesene"--"guaranteed not to +show wear or dirt or to grow gritty; water-proof, gravel-proof. No rug +will ruck on it, no slipper stick to it. Needs no weighted brush. +Self-shining. The only perfect Floor Wax known. One box will do all +the floors you have." + +Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick +to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy +Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the +attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar. + +I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse +loads. But I am getting them fast. + +Only the other day a tall lean man came to the side door, asking after +my four boys by name, and inquiring when my new book would be off the +stocks, and, incidentally, showing me a patent-applied-for device +called "The Fat Man's Friend." + +"The Friend" was a steel-wire hoop, shaped and jointed like a pair of +calipers, but knobbed at its points with little metal balls. The +instrument was made to open and spring closed about the Fat Man's neck, +and to hold, by means of a clasp on each side, a napkin, or bib, spread +securely over the Fat Man's bosom. + +"Ideal thing, now, is n't it?" said the agent, demonstrating with his +handkerchief. + +"Why--yes"--I hesitated--"for a fat man, perhaps." + +"Just so," he replied, running me over rapidly with a professional eye; +"but you know, Professor, that when a man's forty, or thereabouts, it's +the nature of him to stouten. Once past forty he's liable to pick up +any day. And when he starts, you know as well as I, Professor, when he +starts there's nothing fattens faster than a man of forty. You ought +to have one of these 'Friends' on hand." + +"But fat does n't run in my family," I protested, my helpless, +single-handed condition being plainly manifest in my tone. + +"No matter," he rejoined, "look at me! Six feet three, and thin as a +lath. I 'm what you might call a walking skeleton, ready to disjoint, +as the poet says, and eat all my meals in fear, which I would do if 't +wa'n't for this little 'Friend.' I can't eat without it. I miss it +more when I am eatin' than I miss the victuals. I carry one with me +all the time. Awful handy little thing. Now--" + +"But--" I put in. + +"Certainly," he continued, with the smoothest-running motor I ever +heard, "but here's the point of the whole matter, as you might say. +_This_ thing is up to date, Professor. Now, the old-fashioned way of +tying a knot in the corner of your napkin and anchoring it under your +Adam's apple--_that's_ gone by. Also the stringed bib and safety-pin. +Both those devices were crude--but necessary, of course, Professor--and +inconvenient, and that old-fashioned knot really dangerous; for the +knot, pressing against the Adam's apple, or the apple, as you might +say, trying to swallow the knot--well, if there isn't less apoplexy and +strangulation when this little Friend finds universal application, then +I 'm no Prophet, as the Good Book says." + +"But you see--" I broke in. + +"I do, Professor. It's right here. I understand your objection. But +it is purely verbal and academic, Professor. You are troubled +concerning the name of this indispensable article. But you know, as +well as I--even better with your education, Professor--that there 's +nothing, absolutely nothing in a name. 'What's in a name?' the poet +says. And I 'll agree with you--though, of course, it's +confidential--that 'The Fat Man's Friend' is, as you literary folks +would say, more or less of a _nom de plume_. Isn't it? Besides,--if +you 'll allow me the language, Professor,--it's too delimiting, +restricting, prejudicing. Sets a lean man against it. But between us, +Professor, they 're going to change the name of the next batch. +They're--" + +"Indeed!" I exclaimed; "what's the next batch going to be?" + +"Oh, just the same--fifteen cents each--two for a quarter. You could +n't tell them apart. You might just as well have one of these, and run +no chances getting one of the next lot. They'll be precisely the same; +only, you see, they're going to name the next ones 'Every Bosom's +Friend,' to fit lean and fat, and without distinction of sex. Ideal +thing now, is n't it? Yes, that's right--fifteen cents--two for +twenty-five, Professor?--don't you want another for your wife?" + +No, I did not want another for her. But if _she_ had been at home, and +I had been away, who knows but that all six of us had come off with a +"Friend" apiece? They were a bargain by the half-dozen. + +A bargain? Did anybody ever get a bargain--something worth more than +he paid? Well--you shall, when you bring home a Dustless-Duster. + +And who has not brought it home! Or who is not about to bring it home! +Not all the years that I have searched, not all the loads that I have +collected, count against the conviction that at last I have it--the +perfect thing--until I _reach_ home. But with several of my +perfections I have never yet reached home, or I am waiting an opportune +season to give them to my wife. I have been disappointed; but let no +one try to tell me that there is no such thing as Perfection. Is not +the desire for it the breath of my being? Is not the search for it the +end of my existence? Is not the belief that at last I possess it--in +myself, my children, my breed of hens, my religious creed, my political +party--is not this conviction, I say, all there is of existence? + +It is very easy to see that perfection is not in any of the other +political parties. During a political campaign, not long since, I +wrote to a friend in New Jersey,-- + +"Now, whatever your particular, personal brand of political faith, it +is clearly your moral duty to vote this time the Democratic ticket." + +Whereupon (and he is a thoughtful, God-fearing man, too) he wrote +back,-- + +"As I belong to the only party of real reform, I shall stick to it this +year, as I always have, and vote the straight ticket." + +Is there a serener faith than this human faith in perfection? A surer, +more unshakable belief than this human belief in the present possession +of it? + +There is only one thing deeper in the heart of man than his desire for +completeness, and that is his conviction of being about to attain unto +it. He dreams of completeness by night; works for completeness by day; +buys it of every agent who comes along; votes for it at every election; +accepts it with every sermon; and finds it--momentarily--every time he +finds himself. The desire for it is the sweet spring of all his +satisfactions; the possession of it the bitter fountain of many of his +woes. + +Apply the conviction anywhere, to anything--creeds, wives, hens--and +see how it works out. + +As to _hens_:-- + +There are many breeds of fairly good hens, and I have tried as many +breeds as I have had years of keeping hens, but not until the poultry +show, last winter, did I come upon the perfect hen. I had been working +toward her through the Bantams, Brahmas, and Leghorns, to the Plymouth +Rocks. I had tried the White and the Barred Plymouth Rocks, but they +were not the hen. Last winter I came upon the originator of the Buff +Plymouth Rocks--and here she was! I shall breed nothing henceforth but +Buff Plymouth Rocks. + +In the Buff Rock we have a bird of ideal size, neither too large nor +too small, weighing about three pounds more than the undersized +Leghorn, and about three pounds less than the oversized Brahma; we have +a bird of ideal color, too--a single, soft, even tone, and no such +barnyard daub as the Rhode Island Red; not crow-colored, either, like +the Minorca; nor liable to all the dirt of the White Plymouth Rocks. +Being a beautiful and uniform buff, this perfect Plymouth Rock is +easily bred true to color, as the vari-colored fowls are not. + +Moreover, the Buff Rock is a layer, is _the_ layer, maturing as she +does about four weeks later than the Rhode Island Reds, and so escaping +that fatal early fall laying with its attendant moult and eggless +interim until March! On the other hand, the Buff Rock matures about a +month earlier than the logy, slow-growing breeds, and so gets a good +start before the cold and eggless weather comes. + +And such an egg! There are white eggs and brown eggs, large and small +eggs, but only one ideal egg--the Buff Rock's. It is of a soft lovely +brown, yet whitish enough for a New York market, but brown enough, +however, to meet the exquisite taste of the Boston trade. In fact it +is neither white nor brown, but rather a delicate blend of the two--a +new tone, indeed, a bloom rather, that I must call fresh-laid lavender. + +So, at least, I am told. My pullets are not yet laying, having had a +very late start last spring. But the real question, speaking +professionally, with any breed of fowls is a market question: How do +they dress? How do they eat? + +If the Buff Plymouth Rock is an ideal bird in her feathers, she is even +more so plucked. All white-feathered fowl, in spite of yellow legs, +look cadaverous when picked. All dark-feathered fowl, with their +tendency to green legs and black pin-feathers, look spotted, long dead, +and unsavory. But the Buff Rock, a melody in color, shows that +consonance, that consentaneousness, of flesh to feather that makes the +plucked fowl to the feathered fowl what high noon is to the faint and +far-off dawn--a glow of golden legs and golden neck, mellow, melting as +butter, and all the more so with every unpicked pinfeather. + +Can there be any doubt of the existence of hen-perfection? Any +question of my having attained unto it--with the maturing of this new +breed of hens? + +For all spiritual purposes, that is, for all satisfactions, the ideal +hen is the pullet--the Buff Plymouth Rock pullet. + +Just so the ideal wife. If we could only keep them pullets! + +The trouble we husbands have with our wives begins with our marrying +them. There is seldom any trouble with them before. Our belief in +feminine perfection is as profound and as eternal as youth. And the +perfection is just as real as the faith. Youth is always bringing the +bride home--to hang her on the kitchen clothes-dryer. She turns out to +be ordinary cheese-cloth, dyed a more or less fast black--this +perfection that he had stamped in letters of indelible red! + +The race learns nothing. I learn, but not my children after me. They +learn only after themselves. Already I hear my boys saying that their +wives--! And the oldest of these boys has just turned fourteen! + +Fourteen! the trouble all began at fourteen. No, the trouble began +with Adam, though Eve has been responsible for much of it since. Adam +had all that a man should have wanted in his perfect Garden. +Nevertheless he wanted Eve. Eve in turn had Adam, a perfect man! but +she wanted something more--if only the apple tree in the middle of the +Garden. And we all of us were there in that Garden--with Adam thinking +he was getting perfection in Eve; with Eve incapable of appreciating +perfection in Adam. The trouble is human. + + "Flounder, flounder in the sea, + Prythee quickly come to me! + For my wife, Dame Isabel, + Wants strange things I scarce dare tell." + + +"And what does she want _now_?" asks the flounder. + +"Oh, she wants to _vote_ now," says the fisherman. + +"Go home, and you shall find her with the ballot," sighs the flounder. +"But has n't she Dustless-Dusters enough already?" + +It would seem so. But once having got Adam, who can blame her for +wanting an apple tree besides, or the ballot? + +'T is no use to forbid her. Yes, she has you, but--but Eve had Adam, +too, another perfect man! Don't forbid her, for she will have it +anyhow. It may not turn out to be all that she thinks it is. But did +you turn out to be all that she thought you were? She will have a bite +of this new apple if she has to disobey, and die for it, because such +disobedience and death are in answer to a higher command, and to a +larger life from within. Eve's discovery that Adam was cheese-cloth, +and her reaching out for something better, did not, as Satan promised, +make us as God; but it did make us different from all the other animals +in the Garden, placing us even above the angels,--so far above, as to +bring us, apparently, by a new and divine descent, into Eden. + +The hope of the race is in Eve,--in her making the best she can of +Adam; in her clear understanding of his lame logic,--that her +_im_perfections added to his perfections make the perfect Perfection; +and in her reaching out beyond Adam for something more--for the ballot +now. + +If there is growth, if there is hope, if there is continuance, if there +is immortality for the race and for the soul, it is to be found in this +sure faith in the Ultimate, the Perfect, in this certain disappointment +every time we think we have it; and in this abiding conviction that we +are about to bring it home. But let a man settle down on perfection as +a present possession, and that man is as good as dead already--even +religiously dead, if he has possession of a perfect Salvation. + +Now, "Sister Smith" claimed to possess Perfection--a perfect infallible +book of revelations in her King James Version of the Scriptures, and +she claimed to have lived by it, too, for eighty years. I was fresh +from the theological school, and this was my first "charge." This was +my first meal, too, in this new charge, at the home of one of the +official brethren, with whom Sister Smith lived. + +There was an ominous silence at the table for which I could hardly +account--unless it had to do with the one empty chair. Then Sister +Smith appeared and took the chair. The silence deepened. Then Sister +Smith began to speak and everybody stopped eating. Brother Jones laid +down his knife, Sister Jones dropped her hands into her lap until the +thing should be over. Leaning far forward toward me across the table, +her steady gray eyes boring through me, her long bony finger pointing +beyond me into eternity, Sister Smith began with spaced and measured +words:-- + +"My young Brother--what--do--you--think--of--Jonah?" + +I reached for a doughnut, broke it, slowly, dipped it up and down in +the cup of mustard and tried for time. Not a soul stirred. Not a word +or sound broke the tense silence about the operating-table. + +"What--do--you--think--of--Jonah?" + +"Well, Sister Smith, I--" + +"Never mind. Don't commit yourself. You needn't tell me what you +think of Jonah. +You--are--too--young--to--know--what--you--think--of--Jonah. But I +will tell you what _I_ think of Jonah: if the Scriptures had said that +Jonah swallowed the whale, it would be just as easy to believe as it is +that the whale swallowed Jonah." + +"So it would, Sister Smith," I answered weakly, "just as easy." + +"And now, my young Brother, you preach the Scriptures--the old genuine +inspired Authorized Version, word for word, just as God spoke it!" + +Sister Smith has gone to Heaven, but in spite of her theology. Dear +old soul, she sent me many a loaf of her salt-rising bread after that, +for she had as warm a heart as ever beat its brave way past eighty. + +But she had neither a perfect Book, nor a perfect Creed, nor a perfect +Salvation. She did not need them; nor could she have used them; for +they would have posited a divine command to be perfect--a too difficult +accomplishment for any of us, even for Sister Smith. + +There is no such divine command laid upon us; but only such a divinely +human need springing up within us, and reaching out for everything, in +its deep desire, from dust-cloths dyed black to creeds of every color. + +This is a life of imperfections, a world made of cheese-cloth, merely +dyed black, and stamped in red letters--The Dustless-Duster. Yet a +cheese-cloth world so dyed and stamped is better than a cloth-of-gold +world, for the cloth-of-gold you would not want to dye nor to stamp +with burning letters. + +We have never found it,--this perfect thing,--and perhaps we never +shall. But the desire, the search, the faith, must not fail us, as at +times they seem to do. At times the very tides of the ocean seem to +fail,--when the currents cease to run. Yet when they are at slack +here, they are at flood on the other side of the world, turning already +to pour back-- + + ". . . lo, out of his plenty the sea + Pours fast; full soon the time of the flood-tide shall be--" + +The faith cannot fail us--for long. Full soon the ebb-tide turns, + + "And Belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know" + +that there is perfection; that the desire for it is the breath of life; +that the search for it is the hope of immortality. + +But I know only in part. I see through a glass darkly, and I may be no +nearer it now than when I started, yet the search has carried me far +from that start. And if I never arrive, then, at least, I shall keep +going on, which, in itself maybe the thing--the Perfect Thing that I am +seeking. + + + + +[Illustration: Spring ploughing] + +VI + +SPRING PLOUGHING + + "See-Saw, Margery Daw! + Sold her bed and lay upon straw" + +--the very worst thing, I used to think, that ever happened in Mother +Goose. I might steal a pig, perhaps, like Tom the Piper's Son, but +never would I do such a thing as Margery did; the dreadful picture of +her nose and of that bottle in her hand made me sure of that. And +yet--snore on, Margery!--I sold my _plough_ and bought an automobile! +As if an automobile would carry me + + "To the island-valley of Avilion," + +where I should no longer need the touch of the soil and the slow simple +task to heal me of my grievous wound! + +Speed, distance, change--are these the cure for that old hurt we call +living, the long dull ache of winter, the throbbing bitter-sweet pain +of spring? We seek for something different, something not different +but faster and still faster, to fill our eyes with flying, our ears +with rushing, our skins with scurrying, our diaphragms, which are our +souls, with the thrill of curves, and straight stretches, of lifts, and +drops, and sudden halts--as of elevators, merry-go-rounds, chutes, +scenic railways, aeroplanes, and heavy low-hung cars. + +To go--up or down, or straight away--anyway, but round and round, and +slowly--as if one could speed away from being, or ever travel beyond +one's self! How pathetic to sell all that one has and buy an +automobile! to shift one's grip from the handles of life to the wheel +of change! to forsake the furrow for the highway, the rooted soil for +the flying dust, the here for the there; imagining that somehow a car +is more than a plough, that going is the last word in +living--demountable rims and non-skid tires, the great gift of the God +Mechanic, being the 1916 model of the wings of the soul! + +But women must weep in spite of modern mechanics, and men must plough. +Petroleum, with all of its by-products, cannot be served for bread. I +have tried many substitutes for ploughing; and as for the automobile, I +have driven that thousands of miles, driven it almost daily, summer and +winter; but let the blackbirds return, let the chickweed start in the +garden, then the very stones of the walls cry out--"Plough! plough!" + +It is not the stones I hear, but the entombed voices of earlier +primitive selves far back in my dim past; those, and the call of the +boy I was yesterday, whose landside toes still turn in, perhaps, from +walking in the furrow. When that call comes, no + + "Towered cities please us then + And the busy hum of men," + +or of automobiles. I must plough. It is the April wind that wakes the +call-- + + "Zephirus eek, with his sweetë breeth"-- + +and many hearing it long to "goon on pilgrimages," or to the Maine +woods to fish, or, waiting until the 19th, to leave Boston by boat and +go up and down the shore to see how fared their summer cottages during +the winter storms; some even imagine they have malaria and long for +bitters--as many men as many minds when + + "The time of the singing of birds is come + And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." + +But as for me it is neither bitters, nor cottages, nor trout, nor + + "ferne halwes couth in sondry landës" + +that I long for: but simply for the soil, for the warming, stirring +earth, for my mother. It is back to her breast I would go, back to the +wide sweet fields, to the slow-moving team and the lines about my +shoulder, to the even furrow rolling from the mould-board, to the taste +of the soil, the sight of the sky, the sound of the robins and +bluebirds and blackbirds, and the ringing notes of Highhole over the +sunny fields. + +I hold the plough as my only hold upon the earth, and as I follow +through the fresh and fragrant furrow I am planted with every footstep, +growing, budding, blooming into a spirit of the spring. I can catch +the blackbirds ploughing, I can turn under with my furrow the laughter +of the flowers, the very joy of the skies. But if I so much as turn in +my tracks, the blackbirds scatter; if I shout, Highhole is silent; if I +chase the breeze, it runs away; I might climb into the humming maples, +might fill my hands with arbutus and bloodroot, might run and laugh +aloud with the light; as if with feet I could overtake it, could catch +it in my hands, and in my heart could hold it all--this living earth, +shining sky, flowers, buds, voices, colors, odors--this spring! + +But I can plough--while the blackbirds come close behind me in the +furrow; and I can be the spring. + +I could plough, I mean, when I had a plough. But I sold it for five +dollars and bought a second-hand automobile for fifteen hundred--as +everybody else has. So now I do as everybody else does,--borrow my +neighbor's plough, or still worse, get my neighbor to do my ploughing, +being still blessed with a neighbor so steadfast and simple as to +possess a plough. But I must plough or my children's children will +never live to have children,--they will have motor cars instead. The +man who pulls down his barns and builds a garage is not planning for +posterity. But perhaps it does not matter; for while we are purring +cityward over the sleek and tarry roads, big hairy Finns are following +the plough round and round our ancestral fields, planting children in +the furrows, so that there shall be some one here when we have motored +off to possess the land. + +I see no way but to keep the automobile and buy another plough, not for +my children's sake any more than for my own. There was an old man +living in this house when I bought it who moved back into the city and +took with him, among other things, a big grindstone and two +long-handled hayforks--for crutches, did he think? and to keep a +cutting edge on the scythe of his spirit as he mowed the cobblestones? +When I am old and my children compel me to move back near the asylums +and hospitals, I shall carry into the city with me a plough; and I +shall pray the police to let me go every springtime to the Garden or +the Common and there turn a few furrows as one whom still his mother +comforteth. + +It is only a few furrows that I now turn. A half-day and it is all +over, all the land ploughed that I own,--all that the Lord intended +should be tilled. A half-day--but every fallow field and patch of +stubble within me has been turned up in that time, given over for the +rain and sunshine to mellow and put into tender tilth. + +No other labor, no other contact with the earth is like ploughing. You +may play upon it, travel over it, delve into it, build your house down +on it; but when you strike into the bosom of the fields with your +ploughshare, wounding and healing as your feet follow deep in the long +fresh cut, you feel the throbbing of the heart of life through the +oaken handles as you never felt it before; you are conscious of a +closer union,--dust with dust,--of a more mystical union,--spirit with +spirit,--than any other approach, work, or rite, or ceremony, can give +you. You move, but your feet seem to reach through and beyond the +furrow like the roots of the oak tree; sun and air and soil are yours +as if the blood in your veins were the flow of all sweet saps, oak and +maple and willow, and your breath their bloom of green and garnet and +gold. + +And so, until I get a new plough and a horse to pull it, I shall hire +my neighbor--hire him to drive the horses, while I hold in the plough! +This is what I have come to! _Hiring_ another to skim my cream and +share it! Let me handle both team and plough, a plough that guides +itself, and a deep rich piece of bottom land, and a furrow,--a long +straight furrow that curls and crests like a narrow wave and breaks +evenly into the trough of the wave before. + +But even with the hired plough, I am taking part in the making of +spring; and more: I am planting me again as a tree, a bush, a mat of +chickweed,--lowly, tiny, starry-flowered chickweed,--in the earth, +whence, so long ago it sometimes seems, I was pulled up. + +But the ploughing does more--more than root me as a weed. Ploughing is +walking not by sight. A man believes, trusts, worships something he +cannot see when he ploughs. It is an act of faith. In all time men +have known and _feared_ God; but there must have been a new and higher +consciousness when they began to plough. They hunted and feared God +and remained savage; they ploughed, trusted, and loved God--and became +civilized. + +Nothing more primitive than the plough have we brought with us out of +our civilized past. In the furrow was civilization cradled, and there, +if anywhere, shall it be interred. + +You go forth unto your day's work, if you have land enough, until the +Lord's appointed close; then homeward plod your weary way, leaving the +world to the poets. Not yours + + "The hairy gown, the mossy cell." + +You have no need of them. + +What more + + "Of every star that Heaven doth shew + And every hearb that sips the dew" + +can the poet spell than all day long you have _felt_? Has ever poet +handled more of life than you? Has he ever gone deeper than the bottom +of your furrow, or asked any larger faith than you of your field? Has +he ever found anything sweeter or more satisfying than the wholesome +toilsome round of the plough? + + + + +[Illustration: Mere beans] + +VII + +MERE BEANS + +"God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it; +he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited."--Isaiah. + + +"A farmer," said my neighbor, Joel Moore, with considerable finality, +"has got to get all he can, and keep all he gets, or die." + +"Yes," I replied with a fine platitude; "but he's got to give if he's +going to get." + +"Just so," he answered, his eye a-glitter with wrath as it traveled the +trail of the fox across the dooryard; "just so, and I 'll go halves +with the soil; but I never signed a lease to run this farm on shares +with the varmints." + +"Well," said I, "I 've come out from the city to run my farm on shares +with the whole universe--fox and hawk, dry weather and wet, summer and +winter. I believe there is a great deal more to farming than mere +beans. I 'm going to raise birds and beasts as well. I 'm going to +cultivate everything, from my stone-piles up to the stars." + +He looked me over. I had not been long out from the city. Then he +said, thinking doubtless of my stone-piles:-- + +"Professor, you 've bought a mighty rich piece of land. And it's just +as you say; there's more to farmin' than beans. But, as I see it, +beans are beans anyway you cook 'em; and I think, if I was you, I would +hang on a while yet to my talkin' job in the city." + +It was sound advice. I have a rich farm. I have raised beans that +were beans, and I have raised birds, besides, and beasts,--a perfectly +enormous crop of woodchucks; I have cultivated everything up to the +stars; but I find it necessary to hang on a while yet to my talkin' job +in the city. + +Nevertheless, Joel is fundamentally wrong about the beans, for beans +are not necessarily beans any way you cook them, nor are beans mere +beans any way you grow them--not if I remember Thoreau and my extensive +ministerial experience with bean suppers. + +As for growing mere beans--listen to Thoreau. He is out in his patch +at Walden. + +"When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods +and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an +instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor +I that hoed beans." + +Who was it, do you suppose, that hoed? And, if not beans, what was it +that he hoed? Well, poems for one thing, prose poems. If there is a +more delightful chapter in American literature than that one in Walden +on the bean-patch, I don't know which chapter it is. That patch was +made to yield more than beans. The very stones were made to tinkle +till their music sounded on the sky. + +"As _I_ see it, beans are beans," said Joel. And so they are, as he +sees them. + +Is not the commonplaceness, the humdrumness, the dead-levelness, of +life largely a matter of individual vision, "as I see it"? + +Take farm life, for instance, and how it is typified in my neighbor! +how it is epitomized, too, and really explained in his "beans are +beans"! He raises beans; she cooks beans; they eat beans. Life is +pretty much all beans. If "beans are beans," why, how much more is +life? + +He runs his farm on halves with the soil, and there the sharing stops, +and consequently there the returns stop. He gives to the soil and the +soil gives back, thirty, sixty, an hundredfold. What if he should give +to the skies as well?--to the wild life that dwells with him on his +land?--to the wild flowers that bank his meadow brook?--to the trees +that cover his pasture slopes? Would they, like the soil, give +anything back? + +Off against the sky to the south a succession of his rounded slopes +shoulder their way from the woods out to where the road and the brook +wind through. They cannot be tilled; the soil is too scant and +gravelly; but they are lovely in their gentle forms, and still lovelier +in their clumps of mingled cedars and gray birches, scattered dark and +sharply pointed on the blue of the sky, and diffuse, and soft, and +gleaming white against the hillside's green. I cannot help seeing them +from my windows, cannot help lingering over them--could not, rather; +for recently my neighbor (and there never was a better neighbor) sent a +man over those hills with an axe, and piled the birches into cords of +snowy firewood. + +It was done. I could not help it, but in my grief I went over and +spoke to him about it. He was sorry, and explained the case by +saying,-- + +"Well, if there's one kind of tree I hate more than another, it's a +gray birch." + +We certainly need a rural uplift. We need an urban uplift, too, no +doubt, for I suppose "beans are beans" in Boston, just as they are here +in Hingham. But it does seem the more astonishing that in the country, +where the very environment is poetry, where companionship with living +things is constant, where even the labor of one's hands is coöperation +with the divine forces of nature--the more astonishing, I say, that +under these conditions life should so often be but bare existence, mere +beans. + +There are many causes for this, one of them being an unwillingness to +share largely with the whole of nature. "I 'll go halves with the +soil," said my neighbor; but he did not sign a lease to run his farm on +shares with the "varmints," the fox, which stole his fine rooster, on +this particular occasion. + +But such a contract is absolutely necessary if one is to get out of +farm life--out of any life--its flowers and fragrance, as well as its +pods and beans. And, first, one must be convinced, must acknowledge to +one's self, that the flower and fragrance are needed in life, are as +useful as pods and beans. A row of sweet peas is as necessary on the +farm as a patch of the best wrinkled variety in the garden. + +But to come back to the fox. + +Now, I have lived long enough, and I have had that fox steal roosters +enough, to understand, even feel, my neighbor's wrath perfectly. I +fully sympathize with him. What, then, you ask, of my sympathy for the +fox? + +At times, I must admit, the strain has been very great. More than once +(three times, to be exact) I have fired at that same fox to kill. I +have lost many a rooster, but those I have not lost are many, many +more. Browned to a turn, and garnished with parsley, a rooster is +almost a poem. So was that wild fox, the other morning, almost a poem, +standing on the bare knoll here near the house, his form half-shrouded +in the early mist, his keen ears pricked, his pointed nose turned +toward the yard where the hens were waking up. + +Something primitive, something wild and free and stirring, something +furtive, crafty, cunning--the shadow of the dark primeval forest, at +sight of him, fell across the glaring common-placeness of that whole +tame day. + +I will not ask, Was it worth the rooster? For that is too gross, too +cheap a price to pay for a glimpse of wild life that set the dead +nerves of the cave man in me thrilling with new life. Rather I would +ask, Are such sights and thrills worth the deliberate purpose to have a +woodlot, as well as a beanpatch and a henyard, on the farm? + +Our American farm life needs new and better machinery, better methods, +better buildings, better roads, better schools, better stock; but given +all of these, and farm life must still continue to be earthy, material, +mere beans--only more of them--until the farm is run on shares with all +the universe around, until the farmer learns not only to reap the +sunshine, but also to harvest the snow; learns to get a real and rich +crop out of his landscape, his shy, wild neighbors, his independence +and liberty, his various, difficult, yet strangely poetical, tasks. + +But, if farm life tends constantly to become earthy, so does business +life, and professional life--beans, all of it. + +The farmers educated for mere efficiency, the merchants, the preachers, +doctors, lawyers, educated for mere efficiency, are educated for mere +beans? A great fortune, a great congregation, a great practice, a +great farm crop, are one and all mere beans? Efficiency is not a whole +education, nor meat a whole living, nor the worker the whole man. + +And I said as much to Joel. + +"Beans," I said, "must be raised. Much of life must be spent hoeing +the beans. But I am going to ask myself: 'Is it _mere_ beans that I am +hoeing? And is it the _whole_ of me that is hoeing the beans?'" + +"Well," he replied, "you settle down on that farm of yours as I settled +on mine, and I 'll tell you what answer you 'll get to them questions. +There ain't no po'try about farmin'. God did n't intend there should +be--as I see it." + +"Now, that is n't the way I see it at all. This is God's earth,--and +there could n't be a better one." + +"Of course there could n't, but there was one once." + +"When?" I asked, astonished. + +"In the beginning." + +"You mean the Garden of Eden?" + +"Just that." + +"Why, man, this earth, this farm of yours, is the Garden of Eden." + +"But it says God drove him out of the Garden and, what's more, it says +He made him farm for a livin', don't it?" + +"That's what it says," I replied. + +"Well, then, as I see it, that settles it, don't it? God puts a man on +a farm when he ain't fit for anything else. 'Least, that's the way I +see it. That's how I got here, I s'pose, and I s'pose that's why I +stay here." + +"But," said I, "there's another version of that farm story." + +"Not in the Bible?" he asked, now beginning to edge away, for it was +not often that I could get him so near to books as this. Let me talk +books with Joel Moore and the talk lags. Farming and neighboring are +Joel's strong points, not books. He is a general farmer and a kind of +universal neighbor (that being his specialty); on neighborhood and farm +topics his mind is admirably full and clear. + +"That other version is in the Bible, right along with the one you've +been citing--just before it in Genesis." + +He faced me squarely, a light of confidence in his eye, a ring of +certainty, not to say triumph, in his tones:-- + +"You 're sure of that, Professor?" + +"Reasonably." + +"Well, I 'm not a college man, but I 've read the Bible. Let's go in +and take a look at Holy Writ on farmin',"--leading the way with +alacrity into the house. + +"My father was a great Bible man down in Maine," he went on. "Let me +raise a curtain. This was his," pointing to an immense family Bible, +with hand-wrought clasps, that lay beneath the plush family album, also +clasped, on a frail little table in the middle of the parlor floor. + +The daylight came darkly through the thick muslin draperies at the +window and fell in a faint line across the floor. An oval frame of +hair-flowers hung on the wall opposite me--a somber wreath of +immortelles for the departed--_of_ the departed--black, brown, auburn, +and grizzled-gray, with one touch (a calla lily, I think) of the +reddest hair I ever beheld. In one corner of the room stood a closed +cabinet organ; behind me, a tall base-burner, polished till it seemed +to light the dimmest corners of the room. There was no fire in the +stove; there was no air in the room, only the mingled breath of soot +and the hair-flowers and the plush album and the stuffed blue jay under +the bell-jar on the mantelpiece, and the heavy brass-clasped Bible. +There was no coffin in the room; but Joel took up the Bible and handed +it to me as if we were having a funeral. + +"Read me that other account of Adam's farm," he said; "I can't see +without my specs." + +In spite of a certain restraint of manner and evident uneasiness at the +situation, he had something of boldness, even the condescension of the +victor toward me. He was standing and looking down at me; yet he stood +ill at ease by the table. + +"Sit down, Joel," I said, assuming an authority in his house that I saw +he could not quite feel. + +"I can't; I 've got my overhalls on." + +"Let us do all things decently and in order, Joel," I continued, +touching the great Book reverently. + +"But I never set in this room. My chair's out there in the kitchen." + +I moved over to the window to get what light I could, Joel following me +with furtive, sidelong glances, as if he saw ghosts in the dark corners. + +"We keep this room mostly for funerals," he volunteered, in order to +stir up talk and lay what of the silence and the ghosts he could. + +"I 'll read your story of Adam's farming first," I said, and began: +"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth"--going on +with the account of the dry, rainless world, and with no man to till +the soil; then to the forming of Adam out of the dust, and the planting +of Eden; of the rivers, of God's mistake in trying Adam alone in the +Garden, of the rib made into Eve, of the prohibited tree, the snake, +the wormy apple, the fall, the curse, the thorns--and how, in order to +crown the curse and make it real, God drove the sinful pair forth from +the Garden and condemned them to farm for a living. + +"That's it," Joel muttered with a mourner's groan. "That's Holy Writ +on farmin' as _I_ understand it. Now, where's the other story?" + +"Here it is," I answered, "but we 've got to have some fresh air and +more light on it," rising as I spoke and reaching for the bolt on the +front door. With a single quick jerk I had it back, and throwing +myself forward, swung the door wide to the open sky, while Joel groaned +again, and the big, rusty hinges thrice groaned at the surprise and +shock of it. But the thing was done. + +A flood of warm, sweet sunshine poured over us; a breeze, +wild-rose-and-elder-laden, swept in out of the broad meadow that +stretched from the very doorstep to a distant hill of pines, and +through the air, like a shower in June, fell the notes of soaring, +singing bobolinks. + +Joel stood looking out over his farm with the eyes of a stark stranger. +He had never seen it from the front door before. It was a new prospect. + +"Let's sit here on the millstone step," I said, bringing the Bible out +into the fresh air, "and I 'll read you something you never heard +before," and I read,--laying the emphasis so as to render a new thing +of the old story,--"In the beginning God created the heaven and the +earth, and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon +the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the +waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And +God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the +darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called +night. + +"And the evening and the morning were the first day." + +Starting each new phase of the tale with "And God said," and bringing +it to a close with "And God saw that it was good," I read on through +the seas and dry land, the sun and stars, and all living things, to man +and woman--"male and female created he them"--and in his own likeness, +blessing them and crowning the blessing with saying, "Be fruitful and +multiply and replenish the earth and _subdue_ it,"--farm for a living; +rounding out the whole marvelous story with the sweet refrain: "And God +saw _everything_ that he had made, and behold it was _very_ good. + +"And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." + +"_Thus_, Joel," I concluded, glancing at him as with opened eyes he +looked out for the first time over his new meadow,--"_thus_, according +to my belief, and not as you have been reading it, were the heavens and +the earth finished and all the host of them." + +He took the old book in his lap and sat silent with me for a while on +the step. Then he said:-- + +"Nobody has got to the bottom of that book yet, have they? And it's +true; it's all true. It's just accordin' as you see it. Do ye know +what I'm going to do? I 'm going to buy one of them double-seated red +swings and put it right out here under this sassafras tree, and Hannah +and I are going to set in, and swing in it, and listen a little to them +bobolinks." + + + + +[Illustration: A pilgrim from Dubuque] + +VIII + +A PILGRIM FROM DUBUQUE + +It is a long road from anywhere to Mullein Hill, and only the rural +postman and myself travel it at all frequently. The postman goes by, +if he can, every weekday, somewhere between dawn and dark, the absolute +uncertainty of his passing quite relieving the road of its wooded +loneliness. I go back and forth somewhat regularly; now and then a +neighbor takes this route to the village, and at rarer intervals an +automobile speeds over the "roller coaster road"; but seldom does a +stranger on foot appear so far from the beaten track. One who walks to +Mullein Hill deserves and receives a welcome. + +I may be carting gravel when he comes, as I was the day the Pilgrim +from Dubuque arrived. Swinging the horses into the yard with their +staggering load, I noticed him laboring up the Hill by the road in +front. He stopped in the climb for a breathing spell,--a tall, erect +old man in black, with soft, high-crowned hat, and about him something, +even at the distance, that was--I don't +know--unusual--old-fashioned--Presbyterian. + +Dropping the lines, I went down to greet the stranger, though I saw he +carried a big blue book under his arm. To my knowledge no book-agent +had ever been seen on the Hill. But had I never seen one anywhere I +should have known this man had not come to sell me a book. "More +likely," I thought, "he has come to give me a book. We shall see." +Yet I could not quite make him out, for while he was surely +professional, he was not exactly clerical, in spite of a certain +Scotch-Covenanter-something in his appearance. He had never preached +at men, I knew, as instinctively as I knew he had never persuaded them +with books or stocks or corner-lots in Lhassa. He had a fine, kindly +face, that was singularly clear and simple, in which blent the shadows +and sorrows of years with the serene and mellow light of good thoughts. + +"Is this Mullein Hill?" he began, shifting the big blue copy of the +"Edinburgh Review" from under his arm. + +"You're on Mullein Hill," I replied, "and welcome." + +"Is--are--you Dallas Lore--" + +"Sharp?" I said, finishing for him. "Yes, sir, this is Dallas Lore +Sharp, but these are not his over-alls--not yet; for they have never +been washed and are about three sizes too large for him." + +He looked at me, a little undone, I thought, disappointed, maybe, and a +bit embarrassed at having been betrayed by overalls and rolled-up +sleeves and shovels. He had not expected the overalls, not new ones, +anyhow. And why are new overalls so terribly new and unwashed! Only a +woman, only a man's wife, is fitted to buy his overalls, for she only +is capable of allowing enough for shrinkage. To-day I was in my new +pair, but not of them, not being able to get near enough to them for +that. + +"I am getting old," he went on quickly, his face clearing; "my +perceptions are not so keen, nor my memory so quick as it used to be. +I should have known that 'good writing must have a pre-literary +existence as lived reality; the writing must be only the necessary +accident of its being lived over again in thought'"--quoting verbatim, +though I was slow in discovering it, from an essay of mine, published +years before. + +It was now my turn to allow for shrinkage. Had he learned this passage +for the visit and applied it thus by chance? My face must have showed +my wonder, my incredulity, indeed, for explaining himself he said,-- + +"I am a literary pilgrim, sir--" + +"Who has surely lost his way," I ventured. + +Then with a smile that made no more allowances necessary he assured +me,-- + +"Oh, no, sir! I am quite at home in the hills of Hingham. I have been +out at Concord for a few days, and am now on the main road from Concord +to Dubuque. I am Mr. Kinnier, Dr. Kinnier, of Dubuque, Iowa, +and"--releasing my hand--"let me see"--pausing as we reached the top of +the hill, and looking about in search of something--"Ah, yes [to +himself], there on the horizon they stand, those two village spires, +'those tapering steeples where they look up to worship toward the sky, +and look down to scowl across the street'"--quoting again, word for +word, from another of my essays. Then to me: "They are a little +farther away and a little closer together than I expected to see +them--too close [to himself again] for God to tell from which side of +the street the prayers and praises come, mingling as they must in the +air." + +He said it with such thought-out conviction, such sweet sorrow, and +with such relief that I began now to fear for what he might quote next +and _miss_ from the landscape. The spires were indeed there (may +neither one of them now be struck by lightning!); but what a terrible +memory the man has! Had he come from Dubuque to prove me-- + +The spires, however, seemed to satisfy him; he could steer by them; and +to my great relief, he did not demand a chart to each of the wonders of +Mullein Hill--my thirty-six woodchuck holes, etc., etc., nor ask, as +John Burroughs did, for a sight of the fox that performed in one of my +books somewhat after the manner of modern _literary_ foxes. Literary +foxes! One or another of us watches this Hilltop day and night with a +gun for literary foxes! I want no pilgrims from Dubuque, no +naturalists from Woodchuck Lodge, poking into the landscape or under +the stumps for spires and foxes and boa constrictors and things that +they cannot find outside the book. I had often wondered what I would +do if such visitors ever came. Details, I must confess, might on many +pages be difficult to verify; but for some years now I have faithfully +kept my four boys here in the woods to prove the reality of my main +theme. + +This morning, with heaps of gravel in the yard, the hilltop looked +anything but like the green and fruitful mountain of the book, still +less like a way station between anywhere and _Concord_! And as for +myself--it was no wonder he said to me,-- + +"Now, sir, please go on with your teaming. I ken the lay of the land +about Mullein Hill + + "'Whether the simmer kindly warms + Wi' life and light, + Or winter howls in gusty storms + The lang, dark night.'" + + +But I did not go on with the teaming. Gravel is a thing that will +wait. Here it lies where it was dumped by the glaciers of the Ice Age. +There was no hurry about it; whereas pilgrims and poets from Dubuque +must be stopped as they pass. So we sat down and talked--of books and +men, of poems and places, but mostly of books,--books I had written, +and other books--great books "whose dwelling is the light of setting +suns." Then we walked--over the ridges, down to the meadow and the +stream, and up through the orchard, still talking of books, my strange +visitor, whether the books were prose or poetry, catching up the volume +somewhere with a favorite passage, and going on--reading on--from +memory, line after line, pausing only to repeat some exquisite turn, or +to comment upon some happy thought. + +Not one book was he giving me, but many. The tiny leather-bound copy +of Burns that he drew from his coat pocket he did not give me, however, +but fondly holding it in his hands said:-- + +"It was my mother's. She always read to us out of it. She knew every +line of it by heart as I do. + +"'Some books are lies frae end to end'-- + +but this is no one of them. I have carried it these many years." + +Our walk brought us back to the house and into the cool living-room +where a few sticks were burning on the hearth. Taking one of the +rocking-chairs before the fireplace, the Pilgrim sat for a time looking +into the blaze. Then he began to rock gently back and forth, his eyes +fixed upon the fire, quite forgetful evidently of my presence, and +while he rocked his lips moved as, half audibly, he began to speak with +some one--not with me--with some one invisible to me who had come to +him out of the flame. I listened as he spoke, but it was a language +that I could not understand. + +Then remembering where he was he turned to me and said, his eyes going +back again beyond the fire,-- + +"She often comes to me like this; but I am very lonely since she left +me,--lonely--lonely--and so I came on to Concord to visit Thoreau's +grave." + +And this too was language I could not understand. I watched him in +silence, wondering what was behind his visit to me. + +"Thoreau was a lonely man," he went on, "as most writers are, I think, +but Thoreau was very lonely." + +"Wild," Burroughs had called him; "irritating," I had called him; and +on the table beside the Pilgrim lay even then a letter from Mr. +Burroughs, in which he had taken me to task on behalf of Thoreau. + +"I feel like scolding you a little," ran the letter, "for disparaging +Thoreau for my benefit. Thoreau is nearer the stars than I am. I may +be more human, but he is certainly more divine. His moral and ethical +value I think is much greater, and he has a heroic quality that I +cannot approach." + +There was something queer in this. Why had I not understood Thoreau? +Wild he surely was, and irritating too, because of a certain strain and +self-consciousness. A "counter-irritant" he called himself. Was this +not true? + +As if in answer to my question, as if to explain his coming out to +Mullein Hill, the Pilgrim drew forth a folded sheet of paper from his +pocket and without opening it or looking at it, said:-- + +"I wrote it the other day beside Thoreau's grave. You love your +Thoreau--you will understand." + +And then in a low, thrilling voice, timed as to some solemn chant, he +began, the paper still folded in his hands:-- + + "A lonely wand'rer stands beside the stone + That marks the grave where Thoreau's ashes lie; + An object more revered than monarch's throne, + Or pyramids beneath Egyptian sky. + + "He turned his feet from common ways of men, + And forward went, nor backward looked around; + Sought truth and beauty in the forest glen, + And in each opening flower glory found. + + "He paced the woodland paths in rain and sun; + With joyous thrill he viewed the season's sign; + And in the murmur of the meadow run + With raptured ear he heard a voice divine. + + "Truth was the beacon ray that lured him on. + It lit his path on plain and mountain height, + In wooded glade and on the flow'ry lawn-- + Where'er he strayed, it was his guiding light. + + "Close by the hoary birch and swaying pine + To Nature's voice he bent a willing ear; + And there remote from men he made his shrine, + Her face to see, her many tongues to hear. + + "The robin piped his morning song for him; + The wild crab there exhaled its rathe perfume; + The loon laughed loud and by the river's brim + The water willow waved its verdant plume. + + "For him the squirrels gamboled in the pines, + And through the pane the morning sunbeams glanced; + The zephyrs gently stirred his climbing vines + And on his floor the evening shadows danced. + + "To him the earth was all a fruitful field. + He saw no barren waste, no fallow land; + The swamps and mountain tops would harvests yield; + And Nature's stores he garnered on the strand. + + "There the essential facts of life he found. + The full ripe grain he winnowed from the chaff; + And in the pine tree,--rent by lightning round, + He saw God's hand and read his autograph. + + "Against the fixed and complex ways of life + His earnest, transcendental soul rebelled; + And chose the path that shunned the wasted strife, + Ignored the sham, and simple life upheld. + + "Men met him, looked and passed, but knew him not, + And critics scoffed and deemed him not a seer. + He lives, and scoff and critic are forgot; + We feel his presence and his words we hear. + + "He passed without regret,--oft had his breath + Bequeathed again to earth his mortal clay, + Believing that the darkened night of death + Is but the dawning of eternal day." + +The chanting voice died away and--the woods were still. The deep +waters of Walden darkened in the long shadows of the trees that were +reaching out across the pond. Evening was close at hand. Would the +veery sing again? Or was it the faint, sweet music of the bells of +Lincoln, Acton, and Concord that I heard, humming in the pine needles +outside the window, as if they were the strings of a harp? + +The chanting voice died away and--the room was still; but I seem to +hear that voice every time I open the pages of "The Week" or "Walden." +And the other day, as I stood on the shores of the pond, adding my +stone to the cairn where the cabin used to stand, a woodthrush off in +the trees (trees that have grown great since Thoreau last looked upon +them), began to chant--or was it the Pilgrim from Dubuque?-- + + "Truth was the beacon ray that lured him on. + It lit his path on plain and mountain height, + In wooded glade and on the flow'ry lawn-- + Where'er he strayed, it was his guiding light." + + + + +[Illustration: The Honey Flow] + +IX + +THE HONEY FLOW + +And this our life, exempt from public haunt and those swift currents +that carry the city-dweller resistlessly into the movie show, leaves us +caught in the quiet eddy of little unimportant things,--digging among +the rutabagas, playing the hose at night, casting the broody hens into +the "dungeon," or watching the bees. + +Many hours of my short life I have spent watching the bees,--blissful, +idle hours, saved from the wreck of time, hours fragrant of white +clover and buckwheat and filled with the honey of nothing-to-do; every +minute of them capped, like the comb within the hive, against the +coming winter of my discontent. If, for the good of mankind, I could +write a new Commandment to the Decalogue, it would read: Thou shalt +keep a hive of bees. + +Let one begin early, and there is more health in a hive of bees than in +a hospital; more honey, too, more recreation and joy for the +philosophic mind, though no one will deny that very many persons +prepare themselves both in body and mind for the comforting rest and +change of the hospital with an almost solemn joy. + +But personally I prefer a hive of bees. They are a sure cure, it is +said, for rheumatism, the patient making bare the afflicted part, then +with it stirring up the bees. But it is saner and happier to get the +bees before you get the rheumatism and prevent its coming. No one can +keep bees without being impressed with the wisdom of the ounce of +prevention. + +I cannot think of a better habit to contract than keeping bees. What a +quieting, pastoral turn it gives to life! You can keep them in the +city--on the roof or in the attic--just as you can actually live in the +city, if you have to; but bees, even more than cows, suggest a rural +prospect, old-fashioned gardens, pastures, idyls,--things out of +Virgil, and Theocritus--and out of Spenser too,-- + + "And more, to lulle him in his slumber soft, + A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, + And ever drizling raine upon the loft, + Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne + Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne: + No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes, + As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne + Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes, + Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes" + +that is not the land of the lotus, but of the _melli-lotus_, of lilacs, +red clover, mint, and goldenrod--a land of honey-bee. Show me the +bee-keeper and I will show you a poet; a lover of waters that go softly +like Siloa; with the breath of sage and pennyroyal about him; an +observer of nature, who can handle his bees without veil or gloves. +Only a few men keep bees,--only philosophers, I have found. They are a +different order utterly from hen-men, bee-keeping and chicken-raising +being respectively the poetry and prose of country life, though there +are some things to be said for the hen, deficient as the henyard is in +euphony, rhythm, and tune. + +In fact there is not much to be said for the bee, not much that the +public can understand; for it is neither the bee nor the eagle that is +the true American bird, but the rooster. In one of my neighboring +towns five thousand petitioners recently prayed the mayor that they be +allowed to let their roosters crow. The petition was granted. In all +that town, peradventure, not five bee-keepers could be found, and for +the same reason that so few righteous men were found in Sodom. + +Bee-keeping, like keeping righteous, is exceedingly difficult; it is +one of the fine arts, and no dry-mash-and-green-bone affair as of hens. +Queens are a peculiar people, and their royal households, sometimes an +hundred thousand strong, are as individual as royal houses are liable +to be. + +I have never had two queens alike, never two colonies that behaved the +same, never two seasons that made a repetition of a particular handling +possible. A colony of bees is a perpetual problem; the strain of the +bees, the age and disposition of the queen, the condition of the +colony, the state of the weather, the time of the season, the +little-understood laws of the honey-flow,--these singly, and often all +in combination, make the wisest handling of a colony of bees a question +fresh every summer morning and new every evening. + +For bees should be "handled," that is, bees left to their own devices +may make you a little honey--ten to thirty pounds in the best of +seasons; whereas rightly handled they will as easily make you three +hundred pounds of pure comb honey--food of prophets, and with saleratus +biscuit instead of locusts, a favorite dish with the sons of prophets +here on Mullein Hill. + +Did you ever eat apple-blossom honey? Not often, for it is only rarely +that the colony can be built up to a strength sufficient to store this +earliest flow. But I have sometimes caught it; and then as the season +advances, and flow after flow comes on with the breaking of the great +floral waves, I get other flavors,--pure white clover, wild raspberry, +golden sumac, pearly white clethra, buckwheat, black as axle grease, +and last of all, the heavy, rich yellow of the goldenrod. These, by +careful watching, I get pure and true to flavor like so many fruit +extracts at the soda fountains. + +Then sometimes the honey for a whole season will be adulterated, not by +anything that I have done, but by the season's peculiar conditions, or +by purely local conditions,--conditions that may not prevail in the +next town at all. + +One year it began in the end of July. The white clover flow was over +and the bees were beginning to work upon the earliest blossoms of the +dwarf sumac. Sitting in front of the hives soon after the renewed +activity commenced, I noticed a peculiarly rank odor on the air, and +saw that the bees in vast numbers were rising and making for a pasture +somewhere over the sprout-land that lay to the north of the hives. Yet +I felt sure there was nothing in blossom in that direction within range +of my bees (they will fly off two miles for food); nothing but dense +hardwood undergrowth from stumps cut some few years before. + +Marking their line of flight I started into the low jungle to find +them. I was half a mile in when I caught the busy hum of wings. I +looked but could see nothing,--not a flower of any sort, nothing but +oak, maple, birch, and young pine saplings just a little higher than my +head. But the air was full of bees; yet not of swarming bees, for that +is a different and unmistakable hum. Then I found myself in the thick +of a copse of witch-hazel up and down the stems of which the bees were +wildly buzzing. There was no dew left on the bushes, so it was not +that they were after; on looking more closely I saw that they were +crawling down the stems to the little burrs containing the seed of last +fall's flowering. Holding to the top of the burr with their hind legs +they seemed to drink head down from out of the base of the burr. + +Picking one of these, I found a hole at its base, and inside, instead +of seeds, a hollow filled with plant lice or aphides, that the bees +were milking. Here were big black ants, too, and yellow wasps drinking +from the same pail. + +But a bee's tongue, delicate as it is, would crush a fragile plant +louse. I picked another burr, squeezing it gently, when there issued +from the hole at the base a drop of crystal-clear liquid, held in the +thinnest of envelopes, which I tasted and found sweet. In burr after +burr I found these sacks or cysts of sweets secreted by the aphides for +the bees to puncture and drain. The largest of them would fill a bee +at a draught. Some of the burrs contained big fat grubs of a beetle +unknown to me,--the creature that had eaten the seeds, bored the hole +at the base, and left the burr cleaned and garnished for the aphides. +These in turn invited the bees, and the bees, carrying this "honey-dew" +home, mixed it with the pure nectar of the flowers and spoiled the crop. + +Can you put stoppers into these millions of honey-dew jugs? Can you +command your bees to avoid these dire bushes and drink only of the +wells at the bottoms of the white-clover tubes? Hardly that, but you +can clip the wing of your queen and make her obedient; you can command +the colony not to swarm, not to waste its strength in drones, and you +can tell it where and how to put this affected honey so that the pure +crop is not spoiled; you can order the going out and coming in of those +many thousands so that every one is a faithful, wise, and efficient +servant, gathering the fragrance and sweet of the summer from every +bank whereon the clover and the wild mints blow. + +Small things these for a man with anything to do? Small indeed, but +demanding large love and insight, patience, foresight, and knowledge. +It does not follow that a man who can handle a colony of bees can rule +his spirit or take a city, but the virtues absolutely necessary to the +bee-keeper are those required for the guiding of nations; and there +should be a bee-plank incorporated into every party platform, promising +that president, cabinet, and every member of congress along with the +philosophers shall keep bees. + + + + +[Illustration: A pair of pigs] + +X + +A PAIR OF PIGS + +I dropped down beside Her on the back steps and took a handful of her +peas to pod. She set the colander between us, emptied half of her task +into my hat, and said:-- + +"It is ten o'clock. I thought you had to be at your desk at eight this +morning? And you are hot and tired. What is it you have been doing?" + +"Getting ready for the _pigs_," I replied, laying marked and steady +emphasis on the plural. + +"You are putting the pods among the peas and the peas with the +pods"--and so I was. "Then we are going to have another pig," she went +on. + +"No, not _a_ pig this time; I think I 'll get a pair. You see while +you are feeding one you can just as well be feeding--" + +"A lot of them," she said with calm conviction. + +"You 're right!" I exclaimed, a little eagerly. "Besides two pigs do +better than--" + +"Well, then," very gravely and never pausing for an instant in her +shelling, "let's fence in the fourteen acres and have a nice little +piggery of Mullein Hill." + +The pods popped and split in her nimble fingers as if she knew a secret +spring in their backs. I can beat her picking peas, but in shelling +peas she seems to have more fingers than I have; they quite confuse me +at times as they twinkle at their task. + +So they did now. I had spent several weeks working up my brief for two +pigs; but was utterly unprepared for a whole piggery. The suddenness +of it, the sweep and compass of it, left me powerless to pod the peas +for a moment. + +I ought to have been at my writing, but it was too late to mention that +now; besides here was my hat still full of peas. I could not +ungallantly dump them back into her empty pan and quit. There was +nothing for it but to pod on and stop with one pig. But my heart was +set on a pair of pigs. College had just closed (we were having our +17th of June peas) and the joy of the farm was upon me. I had a cow +and a heifer, eighty-six hens, three kinds of bantams, ten hives of +bees, and two ducks. I was planning to build a pigeon coop, and had +long talked of turning the nine-acre ridge of sprout land joining my +farm into a milch goat pasture, selling the milk at one dollar a quart +to Boston babies; I had thought somewhat of Belgian hares and black +foxes as a side-line; and in addition to these my heart was set on a +pair of pigs. + +"Why won't one pig do?" she would ask. And I tried to explain; but +there are things that cannot be explained to the feminine mind, things +perfectly clear to a man that you cannot make a woman see. + +Pigs, I told her, naturally go by pairs, like twins and scissors and +tongs. They do better together, as scissors do. Nobody ever bought a +_scissor_. Certainly not. Pigs need the comfort of one another's +society, and the diversion of one another to take up their minds in the +pen; hens I explained were not the only broody creatures, for all +animals show the tendency, and does not the Preacher say, "Two are +better than one: if two lie together then have they heat: but how can +one be warm alone"? + +I was sure, I told her, that the Preacher had pigs in mind, for judging +by the number of pig-prohibitions throughout Hebrew literature, they +must have had pigs _constantly_ in mind. This observation of the early +Hebrew poet and preacher is confirmed, I added, by all the modern +agricultural journals, as well as by all our knowing neighbors. Even +the Flannigans (an Irish family down the road),--even the Flannigans, I +pointed out, always have two pigs, for all their eight children and his +job tending gate at the railroad crossing. They have a goat, too. If +a man with that sort of job can have eight children and a goat and two +pigs, why can't a college professor have a few of the essential, +elementary things, I 'd like to know? + +"Do you call your four boys a few?" she asked. + +"I don't call my four Flannigan's eight," I replied, "nor my one pig +his two. Flannigan has the finest pigs on the road. He has a +wonderful way with a pair of pigs--something he inherited, I suppose, +for I imagine there have been pigs in the Flannigan family ever since--" + +"They were kings in Ireland," she put in sweetly. + +"Flannigan says," I continued, "that I ought to have two pigs: 'For +shure, a pair o' pags is double wan pag,' says Flannigan--good clear +logic it strikes me, and quite convincing." + +She picked up the colander of shelled peas with a sigh. "We shall want +the new potatoes and fresh salmon to go with these," her mind not on +pigs at all, but on the dinner. "Can't you dig me a few?" + +"I might dig up a few fresh salmon," I replied, "but not any new +potatoes, for they have just got through the ground." + +"But if I wanted you to, could n't you?" + +"I don't see how I could if there are n't any to dig." + +"But won't you go look--dig up a few hills--you can't tell until you +look. You said you did n't leave the key outside in the door yesterday +when we went to town, but you did. And as for a lot of pigs--" + +"I don't want a lot of pigs," I protested. + +"But you do, though. You want a lot of everything. Here you 've +planted five hundred cabbages for winter just as if we were a +sauerkraut factory--and the probabilities are we shall go to town this +winter--" + +"Go where!" I cried. + +"And as for pigs, your head is as full of pigs as Deerfoot Farm or the +Chicago stockyards-- + + _Mullein Hill Sausages + Made of Little Pigs_ + +that's really your dream"--spelling out the advertisement with pea-pods +on the porch floor. + +"Now, don't you think it best to save some things for your +children,--this sausage business, say,--and you go on with your humble +themes and books?" + +She looked up at me patiently, sweetly inscrutable as she added:-- + +"You need a pig, Dallas, one pig, I am quite sure; but two pigs are +nothing short of the pig business, and that is not what we are living +here on Mullein Hill for." + +She went in with her peas and left me with my pigs--or perhaps they +were her thoughts; leaving thoughts around being a habit of hers. + +What did she mean by my needing a pig? She was quite sure I needed +_one_ pig. Is it my own peculiar, personal need? That can hardly be, +for I am not different from other men. There may be in all men, deep +down and unperceived, except by their wives, perhaps, traits and +tendencies that call for the keeping of a pig. I think this must be +so, for while she has always said we need the cow or the chickens or +the parsley, she has never spoken so of the pig, it being referred to +invariably as mine, until put into the cellar in a barrel. + +The pig as my property, or rather as my peculiar privilege, is utterly +unrelated in her mind to _salt_ pork. And she is right about that. No +man needs a pig to put in a barrel. Everybody knows that it costs less +to buy your pig in the barrel. And there is little that is edifying +about a barrel of salt pork. I always try to fill my mind with +cheerful thoughts before descending into the dark of the cellar to fish +a cold, white lump of the late pig out of the pickle. + +Not in the uncertain hope of his becoming pork, but for the certain +present joy of his _being_ pork, does a man need a pig. In all his +other possessions man is always to be blest. In the pig he has a +constant, present reward: because the pig _is_ and there is no question +as to what he shall be. He is pork and shall be salt pork, not spirit, +to our deep relief. + +Instead of spirit the pig is clothed upon with lard, a fatty, opaque, +snow-white substance, that boils and grows limpid clear and flames with +heat; and while not so volatile and spirit-like as butter, nevertheless +it is one of earth's pure essences, perfected, sublimated, not after +the soul with suffering, but after the flesh with corn and solid +comfort--the most abundant of one's possessions, yet except to the pig +the most difficult of all one's goods to bestow. + +The pig has no soul. I am not so sure of the flower in the crannied +wall, not so sure of the very stones in the wall, so long have they +been, so long shall be; but the pig--no one ever plucked up a pig from +his sty to say,-- + + "I hold you here squeal and all, in my hand, + Little pig--but _if_ I could understand + What you are, squeal and all, and all in all"-- + +No poet or philosopher ever did that. But they have kept pigs. Here +is Matthew Arnold writing to his mother about _Literature and Dogma_ +and poems and--"The two pigs are grown very large and handsome, and +Peter Wood advises us to fatten them and kill our own bacon. We +consume a great deal of bacon, and Flu complains that it is dear and +not good, so there is much to be said for killing our own; but she does +not seem to like the idea." + +"Very large and handsome "--this from the author of + + "The evening comes, the fields are still!" + +And here is his wife, again, not caring to have them killed, finding, +doubtless, a better use for them in the pen, seeing that Matthew often +went out there to scratch them. + +Poets, I say, have kept pigs, for a change, I think, from their poetry. +For a big snoring pig is not a poem, whatever may be said of a little +roast pig; and what an escape from books and people and parlors (in +this country) is the feeding and littering and scratching of him! You +put on your old clothes for him. He takes you out behind the barn; +there shut away from the prying gaze of the world, and the stern eye, +conscience, you deliberately fill him, stuff him, fatten him, till he +grunts, then you scratch him to keep him grunting, yourself reveling in +the sight of the flesh indulged, as you dare not indulge any other +flesh. You would love to feed the whole family that way; only it would +not be good for them. You cannot feed even the dog or the horse or the +hens so. One meal a day for the dog; a limited ration of timothy for +the horse, and _scratch_-feed, for the hens--feed to compel them to +scratch for fear they will run to flesh instead of eggs; and the +children's wedge of pie you sharpen though the point of it pierces your +soul; and the potato you leave off of her plate; and you forgo +your--you get _you_ a medicine ball, I should say, in order to keep +down the fat lest it overlie and smother the soul. + +Compelled to deny and subject the body, what do I then but get me a pig +and feed _it_, and scratch it, and bed it in order to see it fatten and +to hear it snore? The flesh cries out for indulgence; but the spirit +demands virtue; and a pig, being the virtue of indulgence, satisfies +the flesh and is winked at by the soul. + +If a pig is the spirit's concession to the flesh, no less is he at +times a gift to the spirit. There are times in life when one needs +just such companionship as the pig's, and just such shelter as one +finds within his pen. After a day in the classroom discoursing on the +fourth dimension of things in general, I am prone to feel somewhat +removed, at sea somewhat. + +Then I go down and spread my arms along the fence and come to anchor +with the pig. + + + + +[Illustration: Leafing] + +XI + +LEAFING + +Poets, I said, have kept pigs for an escape from their poetry. But +keeping pigs is not all prose. I put my old clothes on to feed him, it +is true; he takes me out behind the barn; but he also takes me one day +in the year out into the woods--a whole day in the woods--with rake and +sacks and hay-rig, and the four boys, to gather him leaves for bedding. + +Leafing Day is one of the days in red on the Mullein Hill Calendar; and +of all our days in the woods surely none of them is fresher, more +fragrant, more joyous, and fuller of poetry than the day we go to rake +and sack and bring home the leaves for the pig. + +You never went after leaves for the pigs? Perhaps you never even had a +pig. But a pig is worth having, if only to see the comfort he takes in +the big bed of dry leaves you give him in the sunny corner of his pen. +And, if leafing had no other reward, the thought of the snoozing, +snoring pig buried to his winking snout in the bed, would give joy and +zest enough to the labor. + +But leafing like every other humble labor of our life here in the Hills +of Hingham has its own reward,--and when you can say that of any labor +you are speaking of its poetry. + +We jolt across the bumpy field, strike into the back wood-road, and +turn off upon an old stumpy track over which cordwood was carted years +ago. Here in the hollow at the foot of a high wooded hill the winds +have whirled the oak and maple leaves into drifts almost knee-deep. + +We are off the main road, far into the heart of the woods. We straddle +stumps, bend down saplings, stop while the horse takes a bite of sweet +birch, tack and tip and tumble and back through the tight squeezes +between the trees; and finally, after a prodigious amount of "whoa"-ing +and "oh"-ing and squealing and screeching, we land right side up and so +headed that we can start the load out toward the open road. + +You can yell all you want to when you go leafing, yell at every stump +you hit, yell every time a limb knocks off your hat or catches you +under the chin, yell when the horse stops suddenly to browse on the +twigs, and stands you meekly on your head in the bottom of the rig. +You can screech and howl and yell like the wild Indian that you are; +you can dive and wrestle in the piles of leaves, and cut all the crazy +capers you know; for this is a Saturday; these are the wild woods and +the noisy leaves; and who is there looking on besides the mocking jays +and the crows? + +The leaves pile up. The wind blows keen among the tall, naked trees; +the dull clouds hang low above the ridge; and through the cold gray of +the maple swamp below peers the ghostly face of Winter. + +You start up the ridge with your rake, and draw down another pile, +thinking, as you work, of the pig. The thought is pleasing. The warm +glow all over your body strikes in to your heart. You rake away as if +it were your own bed you were gathering--as really it is. He that +rakes for his pig rakes also for himself. A merciful man is merciful +to his beast, and he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket +of down over his own winter bed. + +Is it to warm my feet on winter nights that I pull on my boots at ten +o'clock and go my round at the barn? Yet it does warm my feet, through +and through, to look into the stalls and see the cow chewing her cud, +and the horse cleaning up his supper hay, standing to his fetlocks in +his golden bed of new rye-straw; and then, going to the pig's pen, to +hear him snoring louder than the north wind, somewhere in the depths of +his leaf-bed, far out of sight. It warms my feet, it also warms my +heart. + +So the leaves pile up. How good a thing it is to have a pig to work +for! What zest and purpose it lends to one's raking and piling and +storing! If I could get nothing else to spend myself on, I should +surely get me a pig. Then, when I went to walk in the woods, I should +be obliged occasionally to carry a rake and a bag with me, much better +things to take into the woods than empty hands, and sure to scratch +into light a number of objects that would never come within the range +of opera-glass or gun or walking-stick. To see things through a +twenty-four-toothed rake is to see them very close, as through a +microscope magnifying twenty-four diameters. + +And so, as the leaves pile up, we keep a sharp lookout for what the +rake uncovers; here under a rotten stump a hatful of acorns, probably +gathered by the white-footed wood-mouse. For the stump "gives" at the +touch of the rake, and a light kick topples it down hill, spilling out +a big nest of feathers and three dainty little creatures that scurry +into the leaf-piles like streaks of daylight. They are the +white-footed mice, long-tailed, big-eared, and as clean and +high-bred-looking as greyhounds. + +Combing down the steep hillside with our rakes, we dislodge a large +stone, exposing a black patch of fibrous roots and leaf-mould, in which +something moves and disappears. Scooping up a double handful of the +mould, we capture a little red-backed salamander. + +Listen! Something piping! Above the rustle of the leaves we, too, +hear a "fine, plaintive" sound--no, a shrill and ringing little racket, +rather, about the bigness of a penny whistle. + +Dropping the rake, we cautiously follow up the call (it seems to speak +out of every tree-trunk!) and find the piper clinging to a twig, no +salamander at all, but a tiny wood-frog. Pickering's hyla, his little +bagpipe blown almost to bursting as he tries to rally the scattered +summer by his tiny, mighty "skirl." Take him nose and toes, he is +surely as much as an inch long; not very large to pipe against this +north wind that has been turned loose in the bare woods. + +We go back to our raking. Above us, among the stones of the slope, +hang bunches of Christmas fern; around the foot of the trees we uncover +trailing clusters of gray-green partridge vine, glowing with crimson +berries; we rake up the prince's-pine, pipsissewa, creeping-Jennie, and +wintergreen red with ripe berries--a whole bouquet of evergreens, +exquisite, fairy-like forms that later shall gladden our Christmas +table. + +But how they gladden and cheer the October woods! Summer dead? Hope +all gone? Life vanished away? See here, under this big pine, a whole +garden of arbutus, green and budded, almost ready to bloom! The snows +shall come before their sweet eyes open; but open they will at the very +first touch of spring. We will gather a few, and let them wake up in +saucers of clean water in our sunny south windows. + +Leaves for the pig, and arbutus for us! We make a clean sweep down the +hillside "jumping" a rabbit from its form under a brush-pile, +discovering where a partridge roosts in a low-spreading hemlock; coming +upon a snail cemetery in a hollow hickory stump; turning up a +yellow-jackets' nest built two thirds underground; tracing the tunnel +of a bobtailed mouse in its purposeless windings in the leaf-mould, +digging into a woodchuck's-- + +"But come, boys, get after those bags! It is leaves in the hay-rig we +want, not woodchucks at the bottom of woodchuck-holes." + +Two small boys catch up a bag, and hold it open, while two more stuff +in the crackling leaves. Then I come along with my big feet, and pack +the leaves in tight, and on to the rig goes the bulging bag. + +Exciting? If you can't believe it exciting, hop up on the load, and +let us jog you home. Swish! bang! thump! tip! turn! joggle! jolt! +Hold on to your ribs. Pull in your popping eyes. Look out for the +stump! Isn't it fun to go leafing? Is n't it fun to do anything that +your heart does with you?--even though you do it for a pig! + +Just watch the pig as we shake out the bags of leaves. See him caper, +spin on his toes, shake himself, and curl his tail. That curl is his +laugh. We double up and weep when we laugh hard; but the pig can't +weep, and he can't double himself up; so he doubles up his tail. There +is where his laugh comes off, curling and kinking in little spasms of +pure pig joy. + +"Boosh! Boosh!" he snorts, and darts around the pen like a whirlwind, +scattering the leaves in forty ways, to stop short--the shortest +stop!--and fall to rooting for acorns. + +He was once a long-tusked boar of the forest, this snow-white, +sawed-off, pug-nose little porker of mine--ages and ages ago. But he +still remembers the smell of the forest leaves; he still knows the +taste of the acorn-mast; he is still wild pig somewhere deep down +within him. + +And we were once long-haired, strong-limbed savages who roamed the +forest for him--ages and ages ago. And we, too, like him, remember the +smell of the fallen leaves, and the taste of the forest fruits, and of +pig, _roast_ pig. And if the pig in his heart is still a wild boar, no +less are we at times wild savages in our hearts. + +Anyhow, for one day in the fall I want to go leafing. I want to give +my pig a taste of acorns, and a big pile of leaves to dive so deep into +that he cannot see his pen. No, I do not live in a pen; I do not want +to; but surely I might, if once in a while I did not go leafing, did +not escape now and then from my little penned-in, daily round into the +wide, sweet woods, my ancestral home. + + + + +[Illustration: The little foxes] + +XII + +THE LITTLE FOXES + +I was picking strawberries down by the woods when some one called out +from the road:-- + +"Say, ain't they a litter of young foxes somewheres here in the ridges?" + +I recognized the man as one of the chronic fox-hunters of the region, +and answered:-- + +"I 'm sure of it, by the way an old she-fox has pestered my chickens +lately." + +"Well, she won't pester them no more. She 's been trapped and killed. +Any man that would kill a she-fox this time o' year and let her pups +starve to death, he ain't no better than a brute, he ain't. I 've +hunted two days for 'em; and I 'll hunt till I find 'em." And he +disappeared into the woods, on my side of the road, upon a quest so +utterly futile, apparently, and so entirely counter to the notion I had +had of the man, that I stopped my picking and followed him up the +ridge, just to see which way a man would go to find a den of suckling +foxes in all the miles and miles of swamp and ledgy woodland that +spread in every direction about him. I did not see which way he went, +for by the time I reached the crest he had gone on and out of hearing +through the thick sprout-land. I sat down, however, upon a stump to +think about him, this man of the shoeshop, working his careful way up +and down the bushy slopes, around the granite ledges, across the bogs +and up-grown pastures, into the matted green-brier patches, hour after +hour searching for a hole in the ground a foot wide, for a den of +little foxes that were whimpering and starving because their mother did +not return. + +He found them--two miles away in the next town, on the edge of an open +field, near a public road, and directly across from a schoolhouse! I +don't know how he found them. But patience and knowledge and love, and +a wild, primitive instinct that making shoes had never taken out of his +primitive nature, helped him largely in his hunt. He took them, nursed +them back to strength on a bottle, fed them milk and rice until they +could forage for themselves, turned them loose in the woods, and then, +that fall, he shot them one after the other as often as he had a +holiday from the shop, or a moonlight night upon which he could hunt. + +But he did not kill all of them. Seven foxes were shot at my lower +bars last winter. It is now strawberry time again, and again an old +she-fox lies in wait for every hen that flies over the chicken-yard +fence--which means another litter of young foxes somewhere here in the +ridges. The line continues, even at the hands of the man with the gun. +For strangely coupled with the desire to kill is the instinct to save, +in human nature and in all nature--to preserve a remnant, that no line +perish forever from the earth. As the unthinkable ages of geology come +and go, animal and vegetable forms arise, change, and disappear; but +life persists, lines lead on, and in some form many of the ancient +families breathe our air and still find a home on this small and +smaller-growing globe of ours. + +And it may continue so for ages yet, with our help and permission. + +Wild life is changing more rapidly to-day than ever before, is being +swept faster and faster toward the brink of the world; but it is +cheering to look out of my window, as I write, and see the brown +thrasher getting food for her young out of the lawn, to hear the +scratch of squirrels' feet across the porch, to catch a faint and not +unpleasant odor of skunk through the open window as the breeze blows in +from the woods, and to find, as I found in hoeing my melons early this +morning, the pointed prints of a fox making in a confident and knowing +line toward the chicken-yard. + +I have lived some forty years upon the earth (how the old hickory +outside my window mocks me!), and I have seen some startling changes in +wild animal life. Even I can recall a great flock of snowy herons, or +egrets, that wandered up from the South one year and stayed a while on +the Maurice River marshes, just as, in earlier times, it is recorded +that along the Delaware "the white cranes did whiten the river-bank +like a great snow-drift." To-day the snowy herons have all but +vanished from the remotest glades of the South; and my friend Finley, +on the trail of the Western plume-hunters, searched in vain for a +single pair of the exquisite birds in the vast tule lakes of Oregon, +where, only a few weeks before his trip, thousands of pairs had nested. +He found heaps of rotting carcasses stripped of their fatally lovely +plumes; he found nests with eggs and dead young, but no live birds; the +family of snowy herons, the whole race, apparently, had been suddenly +swept off the world, annihilated, and was no more. + +A few men with guns--for money--had done it. And the wild areas of the +world, especially of our part of the world, have grown so limited now +that a few men could easily, quickly destroy, blot out from the book of +life, almost any of our bird and animal families. "Thou madest him to +have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things +under his feet"--literally, and he must go softly now lest the very +fowl of the air and fish of the sea be destroyed forever. Within my +memory the passenger pigeon, by some cataclysm perhaps, has apparently +become extinct; and the ivory-billed woodpecker probably, this latter +by the hand of man, for I knew the man who believed that he had killed +the last pair of these noble birds reported from the Florida forests. +So we thought it had fared also with the snowy heron, but recently we +have had word from the wardens of the Audubon Society that a remnant +has escaped; a few pairs of the birds have been discovered along the +Gulf coast--so hardly can Nature forgo her own! So far away does the +mother of life hide her child, and so cunningly! + +With our immediate and intelligent help, this family of birds, from +these few pairs can be saved and spread again over the savannas of the +South and the wide tule lakes in the distant Northwest. + +The mother-principle, the dominant instinct in all life, is not failing +in our time. As Nature grows less capable (and surely she does!) of +mothering her own, then man must turn mother, as he has in the Audubon +Society; as he did in the case of the fellow from the shoe-shop who +saved the little foxes. And there is this to hearten him, that, while +extinction of the larger forms of animal life seems inevitable in the +future, a little help and constant help now will save even the largest +of our animals for a long time to come. + +The way animal life hangs on against almost insuperable odds, and the +power in man's hands to further or destroy it, is quite past belief +until one has watched carefully the wild creatures of a thickly settled +region. + +The case of the Indian will apply to all our other aborigines. It is +somewhat amazing to be told, as we are on good authority, that there +are probably more live Indians on the reservations to-day than there +were all told over all of North America when the white men first came +here. Certainly they have been persecuted, but they have also been +given protection--pens! + +Wild life, too, will thrive, in spite of inevitable persecution and +repression, if given only a measure of protection. + +Year by year the cities spread, the woods and wild places narrow, yet +life holds on. The fox trots free across my small farm, and helps +himself successfully from the poultry of my careful raising. + +Nature--man-nature--has been hard on the little brute--to save him! +His face has grown long from much experience, and deep-lined with +wisdom. He seems a normal part of civilization; he literally passes in +and out of the city gates, roams at large through my town, and dens +within the limits of my farm. Enduring, determined, resourceful, +quick-witted, soft-footed, he holds out against a pack of enemies that +keep continually at his heels, and runs in his race the race of all +life, winning for all life, with our help, a long lease yet upon the +earth. + +For here is Reynard sitting upon a knoll in the road, watching me tear +down upon him in a thirty-horse-power motor-car. He steps into the +bushes to let me pass, then comes back to the road and trots upon his +four adequate legs back to the farm to see if I left the gate of the +henyard open. + +There is no sight of Nature more heartening to me than this glimpse of +the fox; no thought of Nature more reassuring than the thought of the +way Reynard holds his own--of the long-drawn, dogged fight that Nature +will put up when cornered and finally driven to bay. The globe is too +small for her eternally to hold out against man; but with the help of +man, and then in spite of man, she will fight so good a fight that not +for years yet need another animal form perish from the earth. + +If I am assuming too much authority, it is because, here in the +remoteness of my small woods where I can see at night the lights of the +distant city, I have personally taken a heartless hand in this +determined attempt to exterminate the fox. No, I do not raise fancy +chickens in order to feed him. On the contrary, much as I love to see +him, I keep a double-barreled gun against his coming. He knows it, and +comes just the same. At least the gun does not keep him away. My +neighbors have dogs, but they do not keep him away. Guns, dogs, traps, +poison--nothing can keep the foxes away. + +It must have been about four o'clock the other morning when one of my +children tiptoed into my room and whispered, "Father, there's the old +fox walking around Pigeon-Henny's coop behind the barn." + +I got up and hurried with the little fellow into his room, and sure +enough, there in the fog of the dim morning I could make out the form +of a fox moving slowly around the small coop. + +The old hen was clucking in terror to her chicks, her cries having +awakened the small boys. + +I got myself down into the basement, seized my gun, and, gliding out +through the cellar door, crept stealthily into the barn. + +The back window was open. The thick, wet fog came pouring in like +smoke. I moved up boldly through the heavy smother and looked down +into the field. There was the blur of the small coop, but where was +the fox? + +Pushing the muzzle of my double-barreled gun out across the +window-sill, I waited. + +Yes, there, through a rift in the fog, stood the fox! What a shot! +The old rascal cocked his ears toward the house. All was still. +Quickly under the wire of the coop went his paw, the old hen fluttering +and crying in fresh terror. + +Carefully, noiselessly, I swung the muzzle of the gun around on the +window-sill until the bead drew dead upon the thief. The cow in her +stall beside me did not stir. I knew that four small boys in the +bedroom window had their eyes riveted upon that fox waiting for me to +fire. It was a nervous situation, so early in the morning, in the +cold, white fog, and without anything much but slippers on. Usually, +of course, I shot in boots. + +But there stood the fox clawing out my young chickens, and, steadying +the gun as best I could on the moving window-sill, I fired. + +That the fox jumped is not to be wondered at. I jumped myself as both +barrels went off together. A gun is a sudden thing any time of day, +but so early in the morning, and when everything was wrapped in silence +and the ocean fog, the double explosion was extremely startling. + +I should have fired only one barrel, for the fox, after jumping, turned +around and looked all over the end of the barn to see if the shooting +were going to happen again. I wished then that I had saved the other +barrel. + +All I could do was to shout at him, which made him run off. + +The boys wanted to know if I thought I had killed the hen. On going +out later I found that I had not even hit the coop--not so bad a shot, +after all, taking into account the size of the coop and the thick, +distorting qualities of the weather. + +There is no particular credit to the fox in this, nor do I come in for +any particular credit this time; but the little drama does illustrate +the chances in the game of life, chances that sometimes, usually +indeed, are in favor of the fox. + +He not only got away, but he also got away with eleven out of the +twelve young chicks in that brood. He had dug a hole under the wire of +the coop, then, by waiting his chance, or by frightening the chicks +out, had eaten all of them but one. + +That he escaped this time was sheer luck; that he got his breakfast +before escaping was due to his cunning. And I have seen so many +instances of his cunning that, with my two scientific eyes wide open, I +could believe him almost as wise as he was thought to be in the olden +days of fable and folk-lore. How cool and collected he can be, too! + +One day last autumn I was climbing the steep ridge behind the +mowing-field when I heard a fox-hound yelping over in the hollow +beyond. Getting cautiously to the top of the ridge, I saw the hound +off below me on the side of the parallel ridge across the valley. He +was beating slowly along through the bare sprout-land, and evidently +having a hard time holding the trail. Now and then he would throw his +head up into the air and howl, a long, doleful howl, as if in protest, +begging the fox to stop its fooling and play fair. + +The hound was walking, not running, and at a gait almost as deliberate +as his howl. Round and round in one place he would go, off this way, +off that, then back, until, catching the scent again, or in despair of +ever hitting it (I don't know which), he would stand stock-still and +howl. + +That the hound was tired I felt sure; but that he was on the trail of a +fox I could not believe; and I was watching him curiously when +something stirred on the top of the ridge almost beside me. + +Without turning so much as my head, I saw the fox, a beautiful +creature, going slowly round and round in a circle--in a figure eight, +rather--among the bushes; then straight off it went and back; off again +in another direction and back; then in and out, round and round, +utterly without hurry, until, taking a long leap down the steep +hillside, the wily creature was off at an easy trot. + +The hound did know what he was about. Across the valley, up the ridge, +he worked his sure way, while I held my breath at his accuracy. +Striking the woven circle at the top of the ridge, he began to weave in +and out, back and forth, sniffling and whimpering like a tired child, +beating gradually out into a wider and wider circle, and giving the fox +all the rest it could want, before taking up the lead again and +following on down the trail. + +The hound knew what he was about; but so did the fox: the latter, +moreover, taking the initiative, inventing the trick, leading the run, +and so in the end not only escaping the hound, but also vastly widening +the distance between their respective wits and abilities. + +I recently witnessed a very interesting instance of this superiority of +the fox. One of the best hunters in my neighborhood, a man widely +known for the quality of his hounds, sold a dog, Gingles, an +extraordinarily fine animal, to a hunter in a near-by town. The new +owner brought his dog down here to try him out. + +The hound was sent into the woods and was off in a moment on a warm +trail. But it was not long before the baying ceased, and shortly +after, back came the dog. The new owner was disappointed; but the next +day he returned and started the dog again, only to have the same thing +happen, the dog returning in a little while with a sheepish air of +having been fooled. Over and over the trial was made, when, finally, +the dog was taken back to its trainer as worthless. + +Then both men came out with the dog, the trainer starting him on the +trail and following on after him as fast as he could break his way +through the woods. Suddenly, as in the trials before, the baying +ceased, but before the baffled dog had had time to grow discouraged, +the men came up to find him beating distractedly about in a small, +freshly burned area among the bushes, his nose full of strong ashes, +the trail hopelessly lost. With the help of the men the fox was +dislodged, and the dog carried him on in a course that was to his new +owner's entire satisfaction. + +The fox jumped into the ashes to save himself. Just so have the swifts +left the hollow trees and taken to my chimney, the phoebe to my pigpen, +the swallow to my barn loft, the vireo to my lilac bush, the screech +owls to my apple trees, the red squirrel for its nest to my ice-house, +and the flat-nosed adder to the sandy knoll by my beehives. I have +taken over from its wild inhabitants fourteen acres in Hingham; but, +beginning with the fox, the largest of my wild creatures, and counting +only what we commonly call "animals" (beasts, birds, and reptiles), +there are dwelling with me, being fruitful and multiplying, here on +this small plot of cultivated earth this June day, some seventy species +of wild things--thirty-six in feathers, fourteen in furs (not reckoning +in the muskrat on the other side of the road), twelve in scales, four +in shells, nine in skins (frogs, newts, salamanders)--seventy-five in +all. + +Here is a multiple life going serenely and abundantly on in an +environment whose utter change from the primeval is hardly exaggerated +by phoebe's shift for a nest from a mossy ledge in the heart of the +ancient woods to a joist close up against the hot roof of my pigpen +behind the barn. From this very joist, however, she has already +brought off two broods since March, one of four and one of five. + +As long as pigpens endure, and that shall be as long as the human race +endures, why should not the line of phoebes also endure? The case of +the fox is not quite the same, for he needs more room than a pigpen; +but as long as the domestic hen endures, if we will but give the fox +half the chance we give to phoebe, he too shall endure. + +I had climbed the footpath from the meadow late one autumn evening, and +stood leaning back upon a short hay-fork, looking into the calm +moonlight that lay over the frosted field, and listening to the hounds +baying in the swamp far away to the west of me. You have heard at +night the passing of a train beyond the mountains; the creak of +thole-pins round a distant curve in the river; the closing of a barn +door somewhere down the valley. The far-off cry of the hounds was +another such friendly and human voice calling across the vast of the +night. + +How clear their cries and bell-like! How mellow in the distance, +ringing on the rim of the moonlit sky, round the sides of a swinging +silver bell! Their clanging tongues beat all in unison, the sound +rising and falling through the rolling woodland and spreading like a +curling wave as the pack broke into the open over the level meadows. + +I caught myself picking out the individual voices as they spoke, for an +instant, singly and unmistakable, under the wild excitement of the +drive, then all together, a fiercer, faster chorus as the chase swept +unhindered across the meadows. + +What was that? A twig that broke, some brittle oak leaf that cracked +in the path behind me! I held my breath as a soft sound of padded feet +came up the path, as something stopped, breathed, came on--as into the +moonlight, beyond the circle of shadow in which I stood, walked the fox. + +The dogs were now very near and coming as swift as their eager legs +could carry them. But I was standing still, so still that the fox did +not recognize me as anything more than a stump. + +No, I was more than a stump; that much he saw immediately. But how +much more than a stump? + +The dogs were coming. But what was I? The fox was curious, +interested, and after trying to make me out from a distance, crept +gingerly up and sniffed at my shoes! + +But my shoes had been soaked for an hour in the dew of the meadow and +seemed to tell him little. So he backed off, and sat down upon his +tail in the edge of the pine-tree shadow to watch me. He might have +outwatched me, though I kept amazingly still, but the hounds were +crashing through the underbrush below, and he must needs be off. +Getting carefully up, he trotted first this side of me, then that, for +a better view, then down the path up which he had just come, and into +the very throat of the panting clamor, when, leaping lightly aside over +a pile of brush and stones, he vanished as the dogs broke madly about +me. + +Cool? It was iced! And it was a revelation to me of what may be the +mind of Nature. I have never seen anything in the woods, never had a +glimpse into the heart of Nature, that has given me so much confidence +in the possibility of a permanent alliance between human life and wild +life, in the long endurance yet of our vastly various animal forms in +the midst of spreading farms and dooryards, as this deliberate dodge of +the fox. + +At heart Nature is always just as cool and deliberate, capable always +of taking every advantage. She is not yet past the panic, and probably +never will be; but no one can watch the change of age-long habits in +the wild animals, their ready adaptability, their amazing +resourcefulness, with any very real fears for what civilization may yet +have in store for them so long as our superior wit is for, instead of +against, them. + +I have found myself present, more than once, at an emergency when only +my helping hand could have saved; but the circumstances have seldom +been due to other than natural causes--very rarely man-made. On the +contrary, man-made conditions out of doors--the multiplicity of fences, +gardens, fields, crops, trees, for the primeval uniformity of forest or +prairie--are all in favor of greater variety and more abundance of wild +life (except for the larger forms), because all of this means more +kinds of foods, more sorts of places for lairs and nests, more paths +and short cuts and chances for escape--all things that help preserve +life. + +One morning, about two weeks ago, I was down by the brook along the +road, when I heard a pack of hounds that had been hunting in the woods +all night, bearing down in my direction. + +It was a dripping dawn, everything soaked in dew, the leaf edges +beaded, the grass blades bent with wet, so that instead of creeping +into the bushes to wait for the hunt to drive by, I hurried up the road +to the steep gravel bank, climbed it and sat down, well out of sight, +but where I could see a long stretch of the road. + +On came the chase. I kept my eyes down the road at the spot where the +trout brook turns at the foot of the slope, for here the fox, if on the +meadow side of the brook, would be pretty sure to cross--and there he +stood! + +I had hardly got my eyes upon the spot, when out through a tangle of +wild grapevine he wound, stopped, glanced up and down, then dug his +heels into the dirt, and flew up the road below me and was gone. + +He was a big fellow, but very tired, his coat full of water, his big +brush heavy and dragging with the dripping dew. He was running a race +burdened with a weight of fur almost equal to the weight of a full suit +of water-soaked clothes upon a human runner; and he struck the open +road as if glad to escape from the wallow of wet grass and thicket that +had clogged his long course. + +On came the dogs, very close upon him; and I turned again to the bend +in the brook to see them strike the road, when, flash, below me on the +road, with a rush of feet, a popping of dew-laid dust, the fox!--back +into the very jaws of the hounds!--Instead he broke into the tangle of +grapevines out of which he had first come, just as the pack broke into +the road from _behind_ the mass of thick, ropy vines. + +Those dogs hit the plain trail in the road with a burst of noise and +speed that carried them through the cut below me in a howling gale, a +whirlwind of dust, and down the hill and on. + +Not one of the dogs came back. Their speed had carried them on beyond +the point where the fox had turned in his tracks and doubled his trail, +on so far that though I waited several minutes, not one of the dogs had +discovered the trick to come back on the right lead. + +If I had had a _gun_! Yes, but I did not. But if I _had_ had a gun, +it might have made no particular difference. Yet it is the gun that +makes the difference--all the difference between much or little wild +life--life that our groves and fields may have at our hands now, as +once the forests and prairies had it directly from the hands of the +Lord. + + + + +[Illustration: Our calendar] + +XIII + +OUR CALENDAR + +There are four red-lettered calendars about the house: one with the +Sundays in red; one with Sundays and the legal holidays in red; one with +the Thursdays in red,--Thursday being publication day for the periodical +sending out the calendar,--and one, our own calendar, with several sorts +of days in red--all the high festival days here on Mullein Hill, the last +to be added being the Pup's birthday which falls on September 15. + +Pup's Christian name is Jersey,--because he came to us from that dear +land by express when he was about the size of two pounds of sugar,--an +explanation that in no manner accounts for all we went through in naming +him. The christening hung fire from week to week, everybody calling him +anything, until New Year's. It had to stop here. Returning from the +city New Year's day I found, posted on the stand of my table-lamp, the +cognomen done in red, this declaration:-- + +January 1, 1915 + +No person can call Jersey any other name but JERSEY. If anybody calls +him any other name but Jersey, exceeding five times a day he will have to +clean out his coop two times a day. + + +This was as plain as if it had been written on the wall. Somebody at +last had spoken, and not as the scribes, either. + +We shall celebrate Jersey's first birthday September 15, and already on +the calendar the day is red--red, with the deep deep red of our six +hearts! He is just a dog, a little roughish-haired mixed +Scotch-and-Irish terrier, not big enough yet to wrestle with a woodchuck, +but able to shake our affections as he shakes a rat. And that is because +I am more than half through with my fourscore years and this is my first +dog! And the boys--this is their first dog, too, every stray and tramp +dog that they have brought home, having wandered off again. + +One can hardly imagine what that means exactly. Of course, we have had +other things, chickens and pigs and calves, rabbits, turtles, bantams, +the woods and fields, books and kindling--and I have had Her and the four +boys,--the family that is,--till at times, I will say, I have not felt +the need of anything more. But none of these things is a dog, not even +the boys. A dog is one of man's primal needs. "We want a dog!" had been +a kind of family cry until Babe's last birthday. + +Some six months before that birthday Babe came to me and said:-- + +"Father, will you guess what I want for my birthday?" + +"A new pair of skates with a key fore and aft," I replied. + +"Skates in August!" he shouted in derision. "Try again." + +"A fast-flyer sled with automatic steering-gear and an electric +self-starter and stopper." + +"No. Now, Father,"--and the little face in its Dutch-cut frame sobered +seriously,--"it's something with four legs." + +"A duck," I suggested. + +"That has only two." + +"An armadillo, then." + +"No." + +"A donkey." + +"No." + +"An elephant?" + +"No." + +"An alligator?" + +"No." + +"A h-i-p hip, p-o, po, hippo, p-o-t pot, hippopot, a hippopota, m-u-s +mus--hippopotamus, _that's_ what it is!" + +This had always made him laugh, being the way, as I had told him, that I +learned to spell when I went to school; but to-day there was something +deep and solemn in his heart, and he turned away from my lightness with +close-sealed lips, while his eyes, winking hard, seemed suspiciously +open. I was half inclined to call him back and guess again. But had not +every one of the four boys been making me guess at that four-legged thing +since they could talk about birthdays? And were not the conditions of +our living as unfit now for four-legged things as ever? Besides, they +already had the cow and the pig and a hundred two-legged hens. More live +stock was simply out of the question at present. + +The next day Babe snuggled down beside me at the fire. + +"Father," he said, "have you guessed yet?" + +"Guessed what?" I asked. + +"What I want for my birthday?" + +"A nice little chair to sit before the fire in?" + +"Horrors! a chair! why, I said a four-legged thing." + +"Well, how many legs has a chair?" + +"Father," he said, "has a rocking-chair four legs?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then it must have four feet, hasn't it?" + +"Cert--why--I--don't--know exactly about that," I stammered. "But if you +want a rocking-chair for your birthday, you shall have it, feet or fins, +four legs or two, though I must confess that I don't exactly know, +according to legs, just where a rocking-chair does belong." + +"I don't want any chair, nor anything else with wooden legs." + +"What kind of legs, then?" + +"Bone ones." + +"Why! why! I don't know any bone-legged things." + +"Bones with hair on them." + +"Oh, you want a Teddybear--_you_, and coming eight! Well! Well! But +Teddybears have wire legs, I think, instead of bone." + +The set look settled once more on his little, square face and the talk +ceased. But the fight was on. Day after day, week after week, he had me +guessing--through all the living quadrupeds--through all the fossil +forms--through many that the Lord did not make, but might have made, had +Adam only known enough Greek and Latin to give them names. Gently, +persistently, he kept me guessing as the far-off day drew near, though +long since my only question had been--What breed? August came finally, +and a few days before the 24th we started by automobile for New Jersey. + +We were speeding along the road for Princeton when all four boys leaned +forward from the back seat, and Babe, close in my ear, said:-- + +"Shall I have any birthday down here, Father?" + +"Certainly." + +"Have you guessed _what_ yet?" + +I blew the horn fiercely, opened up the throttle till the words were +snatched from his teeth by the swirling dust behind and conversation was +made impossible. Two days later, the birthday found us at Uncle Joe's. + +Babe was playing with Trouble, the little Scotch-Irish terrier, when +Uncle Joe and I came into the yard. With Trouble in his arms Babe looked +up and asked:-- + +"Uncle Joe, could you guess what four-legged thing I want for my +birthday?" + +"You want a dog," said Uncle Joe, and I caught up the dear child in my +arms and kept back his cries with kisses. + +"And you shall have one, too, if you will give me three or four weeks to +get him for you. Trouble here is the daddy of--goodness! I suppose he +is--of I don't know how many little puppies--but a good many--and I am +giving you one of them right now, for this birthday, only, you will wait +till their mother weans them, of course?" + +"Yes, yes, of course!" + +And so it happened that several weeks later a tiny black-and-tan puppy +with nothing much of a tail came through from New Jersey to Hingham to +hearts that had waited for him very, very long. + +Pup's birthday makes the seventh red-letter day of that kind on the +calendar. These are only the beginning of such days, our own peculiar +days when we keep tryst with ourselves, because in one way or another +these days celebrate some trial or triumph, some deep experience of the +soul. + +There is Melon Day, for example,--a movable feast-day in August, if +indeed it come so early, when we pick the first watermelon. That, you +ask, a deep emotional experience, an affair of the soul? + +This is Massachusetts, dear reader, and I hail from the melon fields of +Jersey. Even there a watermelon, to him who is spiritually minded, who, +walking through a field of the radiant orbs (always buy an elongated +ellipsoid for a real melon), hears them singing as they shine--even to +the Jerseyman, I say, the taste of the season's first melon is of +something out of Eden before the fall. But here in Massachusetts, Ah, +the cold I fight, the drought I fight, the worms I fight, the blight I +fight, the striped bugs I fight, the will-to-die in the very vines +themselves I fight, until at last (once it was the 7th of August!) the +heart inside of one of the green rinds is red with ripeness, and ready to +split at the sight of a knife, answering to the thump with a far-off, +muffled thud,--the family, I say, when that melon is brought in crisp and +cool from the dewy field, is prompt at breakfast, and puts a fervor into +the doxology that morning deeper far than is usual for the mere manna and +quail gathered daily at the grocer's. + +We have been (once) to the circus, but that day is not in red. That is +everybody's day, while the red-letter days on our +calendar--Storm-Door-and-Double-Window Day, for instance; or the day +close to Christmas when we begin, "Marley was dead, to begin with"; or +the Day of the First Snow--these days are peculiarly, privately our own, +and these are red. + + + + +[Illustration: The Fields of Fodder] + +XIV + +THE FIELDS OF FODDER + +It is doubtless due to early associations, to the large part played by +cornfields in my boyhood, that I cannot come upon one now in these New +England farms without a touch of homesickness. It was always the +autumn more than the spring that appealed to me as a child; and there +was something connected with the husking and the shocking of the corn +that took deeper hold upon my imagination than any other single event +of the farm year, a kind of festive joy, something solemnly beautiful +and significant, that to this day makes a field of corn in the shock +not so much the substance of earth's bounty as the symbol of earth's +life, or rather of life--here on the earth as one could wish it to +be--lived to the end, and rich in corn, with its fodder garnered and +set in order over a broad field. + +Perhaps I have added touches to this picture since the days when I was +a boy, but so far back as when I used to hunt out the deeply fluted +cornstalks to turn into fiddles, it was minor notes I played--the notes +of the wind coming over the field of corn-butts and stirring the loose +blades as it moved among the silent shocks. I have more than a memory +of mere corn, of heavy-eared stalks cut and shocked to shed the winter +rain: that, and more, as of the sober end of something, the fulfillment +of some solemn compact between us--between me and the fields and skies. + +Is this too much for a boy to feel? Not if he is father to the man! I +have heard my own small boys, with grave faces, announce that this is +the 21st of June, the longest day of the year--as if the shadows were +already lengthening, even across their morning way. + +If my spirit should return to earth as a flower, it would come a +four-o'clock, or a yellow evening primrose, for only the long afternoon +shadows or falling twilight would waken and spread my petals. No, I +would return an aster or a witch-hazel bush, opening after the corn is +cut, the crops gathered, and the yellow leaves begin to come sighing to +the ground. + +At that word "sighing" many trusting readers will lay this essay down. +They have had more than enough of this brand of pathos from their youth +up. + + "The 'sobbing wind,' the 'weeping rain,'-- + 'Tis time to give the lie + To these old superstitious twain-- + That poets sing and sigh. + + "Taste the sweet drops,--no tang of brine, + Feel them--they do not burn; + The daisy-buds, whereon they shine, + Laugh, and to blossoms turn"-- + +that is, in June they do; but do they in October? There are no daisies +to laugh in October. A few late asters fringe the roadsides; an +occasional bee hums loudly in among them; but there is no sound of +laughter, and no shine of raindrops in the broken hoary seed-stalks +that strew the way. If the daisy-buds _laugh_,--as surely they do in +June,--why should not the wind sob and the rain weep--as surely they +do--in October? There are days of shadow with the days of sunshine; +the seasons have their moods, as we have ours, and why should one be +accused of more sentiment than sense, and of bad rhetoric, too, in +yielding to the spirit of the empty woods till the slow, slanting rain +of October weeps, and the soughing wind comes sobbing through the trees? + +Fall rain, fall steadily, heavily, drearily. Beat off the fading +leaves and flatten them into shapeless patterns on the soaking floor. +Fall and slant and flatten, and, if you will, weep. Blow wind, through +the creaking branches, blow about the whispering corners; parley there +outside my window; whirl and drive the brown leaves into hiding, and if +I am sad, sigh with me and sob. + +May one not indulge in gentle melancholy these closing days of autumn, +and invite the weather in, without being taken to task for it? One +should no more wish to escape from the sobering influence of the +October days than from the joy of the June days, or the thrill in the +wide wonder of the stars. + + + "If winds have wailed and skies wept tears, + To poet's vision dim, + 'T was that his own sobs filled his ears, + His weeping blinded him"-- + +of course! And blessed is the man who finds winds that will wail with +him, and skies that love him enough to weep in sympathy. It saves his +friends and next of kin a great deal of perfunctory weeping. + +There is no month in all the twelve as lovely and loved as October. A +single, glorious June day is close to the full measure of our capacity +for joy; but the heart can hold a month of melancholy and still ache +for more. So it happens that June is only a memory of individual days, +while October is nothing less than a season, a mood, a spirit, a soul, +beautiful, pensive, fugitive. So much is already gone, so many things +seem past, that all the gold of gathered crops and glory on the wooded +hillsides only gild and paint the shadow that sleeps within the very +sunshine of October. + +In June the day itself was the great event. It is not so in October. +Then its coming and going were attended with ceremony and splendor, the +dawn with invisible choirs, the sunset with all the pageantry and pomp +of a regal fête. Now the day has lessened, and breaks tardily and +without a dawn, and with a blend of shadow quickly fades into the +night. The warp of dusk runs through even its sunlit fabric from +daybreak to dark. + +It is this shadow, this wash of haze upon the flaming landscape, this +screen of mist through which the sunlight sifts, that veils the face of +the fields and softens, almost to sadness, the October mood of things. + +For it is the inner mood of things that has changed as well as the +outward face of things. The very heart of the hills feels it. The +hush that fell with the first frost has hardly been broken. The +blackened grass, the blasted vine, have not grown green again. No new +buds are swelling, as after a late frost in spring. Instead, the old +leaves on the limbs rattle and waver down; the cornfield is only an +area of stubs and long lines of yellow shocks; and in the corners of +the meadow fence stand clumps of flower-stalks,--joe-pye-weed, boneset, +goldenrod,--bare and already bleaching; and deep within their matted +shade, where the brook bends about an elder bush, a single amber +pendant of the jewel-weed, to which a bumble-bee comes droning on wings +so loud that a little hyla near us stops his pipe to listen! + +There are other sounds, now that the shrill cry of the hyla is +stilled--the cawing of crows beyond the wood, the scratching of a +beetle in the crisp leaves, the cheep of a prying chickadee, the tiny +chirrup of a cricket in the grass--remnants of sounds from the summer, +and echoes as of single strings left vibrating after the concert is +over and the empty hall is closed. + +But how sweet is the silence! To be so far removed from sounds that +one can hear a single cricket and the creeping of a beetle in the +leaves! Life allows so little margin of silence nowadays. One cannot +sit down in quiet and listen to the small voices; one is obliged to +stand up--in a telephone booth, a pitiful, two-by-two oasis of silence +in life's desert of confusion and din. If October brought one nothing +else but this sweet refuge from noises it would be enough. For the +silence of October, with its peculiar qualities, is pure balm. There +is none of the oppressive stillness that precedes a severe storm, none +of the ominous hush that falls before the first frost, none of the +death-like lack of sound in a bleak snow-buried swamp or pasture, none +of the awesome majesty of quiet in the movement of the midnight stars, +none of the fearful dumbness of the desert, that muteness without bound +or break, eternal--none of these qualities in the sweet silence of +October. I have listened to all of these, and found them answering to +mute tongues within my own soul, deep unto deep; but such moods are +rare--moods that can meet death, that can sweep through the heavens +with the constellations, and that can hold converse with the dumb, +stirless desert; whereas the need for the healing and restoration found +in the serene silence of October is frequent. + +There are voices here, however, many of them; but all subdued, single, +pure, as when the chorus stops, and some rare singer carries the air +on, and up, and far away till it is only soul. + +The joyous confusion and happy tumult of summer are gone; the mating +and singing and fighting are over; the growing and working and +watch-care done; the running even of the sap has ceased; the grip of +the little twigs has relaxed, and the leaves, for very weight of peace, +float off into the air, and all the wood, with empty hands, lies in the +after-summer sun, and dreams. + +With empty hands in the same warm sun I lie and dream. The sounds of +summer have died away; but the roar of coming winter has not yet broken +over the barriers of the north. Above my head stretches a fanlike +branch of witch-hazel, its yellow leaves falling, its tiny, twisted +flowers just curling into bloom. The snow will fall before its yellow +straps have burned crisp and brown. But let it fall. It must melt +again; for as long as these pale embers glow the icy hands of winter +shall slip and lose their hold on the outdoor world. + +And so I dream. The woods are at my back, the level meadow and wide +fields of corn-fodder stretch away in front of me to a flaming ridge of +oak and hickory. The sun is behind me over the woods, and the lazy air +glances with every gauzy wing and flashing insect form that skims the +sleepy meadow. But there is an unusual play of light over the grass, a +glinting of threads that enmesh the air as if the slow-swinging wind +were weaving gossamer of blown silk from the steeple-bush spindles +through the slanting reeds of the sun. + +It is not the wind that weaves; it is a multitude of small spiders. +Here is one close to my face, out at the tip of a slender grass-stem, +holding on with its fore legs and kicking out backward with its hind +legs a tiny skein of web off into the air. The threads stream and sway +and lengthen, gather and fill and billow, and tug at their anchorage +till, caught in the dip of some wayward current, they lift the little +aeronaut from his hangar and bear him away through the sky. + +Long before we dreamed of flight, this little voyager was coasting the +clouds. I can follow him far across the meadow in the cobweb basket as +his filmy balloon floats shimmering over the meadow sea. + +Who taught him navigation? By what compass is he steering? And where +will he come to port? Perhaps his anchor will catch in a hard-hack on +the other side of the pasture; or perhaps some wild air-current will +sweep him over the woodtops, over the Blue Hills, and bear him a +hundred miles away. No matter. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and +there is no port where the wind never blows. + +Yet no such ship would dare put to sea except in this soft and sunny +weather. The autumn seeds are sailing too--the pitching parachutes of +thistle and fall dandelion and wild lettuce, like fleets of tiny yachts +under sail--a breeze from a cut-over ridge in the woods blowing almost +cottony with the soft down of the tall lettuce that has come up thick +in the clearing. + +As I watch the strowing of the winds, my melancholy slips away. One +cannot lie here in the warm but unquickening sun, and see this sower +crossing meadow and cornfield without a vision of waking life, of +fields again all green where now stands the fodder, of woods all full +of song as soon as this sowing and the sleeping of the seeds are done. +The autumn wind goeth forth to sow, and with the most lavish of hands. +He wings his seeds, and weights his seeds, he burrs them, rounds them, +and angles them; they fly and fall, they sink and swim, they stick and +shoot, they pass the millstones of the robins' gizzards for the sake of +a chance to grow. They even lie in wait for me, plucking me by the +coat-sleeve, fastening upon my trousers' leg and holding on until I +have walked with them into my very garden. The cows are forced to +carry them, the squirrel to hide them, the streams to whirl them on +their foaming drift into places where no bird or squirrel or wayward +breeze would go. Not a corner within the horizon but will get its +needed seed, not a nook anywhere, from the wind-swept fodder-field to +the deepest, darkest swamp, but will come to life and flower again with +the coming spring. + +The leaves are falling, the birds are leaving, most of them having +already gone. Soon I shall hear the bugle notes of the last guard as +the Canada geese go over, headed swift and straight for the South. And +yonder stands the fodder, brown and dry, the slanting shocks securely +tied against the beating rains. How can one be melancholy when one +knows the meaning of the fodder, when one is able to find in it his +faith in the seasons, and see in it the beauty and the wisdom which has +been built into the round of the year? + +To him who lacks this faith and understanding let me give a serene +October day in the woods. Go alone, lie down upon a bank where you can +get a large view of earth and sky. "One seems to get nearer to nature +in the early spring days," says Mr. Burroughs. I think not, not if by +nearer you mean closer to the heart and meaning of things. "All +screens are removed, the earth everywhere speaks directly to you; she +is not hidden by verdure and foliage." That is true; yet for most of +us her lips are still dumb with the silence of winter. One cannot come +close to bare, cold earth. There is only one flat, faded expression on +the face of the fields in March; whereas in October there is a settled +peace and sweetness over all the face of Nature, a fullness and a +non-withholding in her heart that makes communication natural and +understanding easy. + +The sap is sinking in the trees, the great tides of life have turned, +but so slowly do they run these soft and fragrant days that they seem +almost still, as at flood. A blue jay is gathering acorns overhead, +letting one drop now and then to roll out of sight and be planted under +the mat of leaves. Troops of migrating warblers flit into and through +the trees, talking quietly among themselves as they search for food, +moving all the while--and to a fixed goal, the far-off South. +Bob-white whistles from the fodder-field; the odor of ripened fox +grapes is brought with a puff of wind from across the pasture; the +smell of mint, of pennyroyal, and of sweet fern crisping in the sun. +These are not the odors of death; but the fragrance of life's very +essence, of life ripened and perfected and fit for storing till another +harvest comes. And these flitting warblers, what are they but another +sign of promise, another proof of the wisdom which is at the heart of +things? And all this glory of hickory and oak, of sumac and creeper, +of burning berries on dogwood and ilex and elder--this sunset of the +seasons--but the preparation for another dawn? + +If one would be folded to the breast of Nature, if one would be pressed +to her beating heart, if one would feel the mother in the soul of +things, let these October days find him in the hills, or where the +river makes into some vast salt marsh, or underneath some ancient tree +with fields of corn in shock and browning pasture slopes that reach and +round themselves along the rim of the sky. + +The sun circles warm above me; and up against the snowy piles of cloud +a broad-winged hawk in lesser circles wheels and flings its piercing +cry far down to me; a fat, dozy woodchuck sticks his head out and eyes +me kindly from his burrow; and close over me, as if I too had grown and +blossomed there, bends a rank, purple-flowered ironweed. We understand +each other; we are children of the same mother, nourished at the same +abundant breast, the weed and I, and the woodchuck, and the wheeling +hawk, and the piled-up clouds, and the shouldering slopes against the +sky--I am brother to them all. And this is home, this earth and +sky--these fruitful fields, and wooded hills, and marshes of reed and +river flowing out to meet the sea. I can ask for no fairer home, none +larger, none of more abundant or more golden corn. If aught is +wanting, if just a tinge of shadow mingles with the rowan-scented haze, +it is the early-falling twilight, the thought of my days, how short +they are, how few of them find me with the freedom of these October +fields, and how soon they must fade into November. + +No, the thought of November does not disturb me. There is one glory of +the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; +for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also are the +months and seasons. And if I watch closely I shall see that not only +are the birds leaving, but the muskrats are building their winter +lodges, the frogs are bedding, the buds putting on their thick, furry +coats--life everywhere preparing for the cold. I need to take the same +precaution,--even in my heart. I will take a day out of October, a day +when the woods are aflame with color, when the winds are so slow that +the spiders are ballooning, and lying where I can see them ascending +and the parachute seeds go drifting by, I will watch until my eyes are +opened to see larger and plainer things go by--the days with the round +of labor until the evening; the seasons with their joyous waking, their +eager living; their abundant fruiting, and then their sleeping--for +they must needs sleep. First the blade, then the ear, after that the +full corn in the ear, and after that the field of fodder. If so with +the corn and the seasons, why not so with life? And what of it all +could be fairer or more desirable than its October?--to lie and look +out over a sunlit meadow to a field of fodder cut and shocked against +the winter with my own hands! + + + + +[Illustration: Going back to town] + +XV + +GOING BACK TO TOWN + +"Labor Day, and school lunches begin to-morrow," She said, carefully +drying one of the "Home Comforts" that had been growing dusty on an +upper shelf since the middle of June. + +She set the three tin lunch-boxes (two for the four boys and one for +me) on the back of the stove and stood looking a moment at them. + +"Are you getting tired of spreading us bread and butter?" I asked. + +She made no reply. + +"If you don't put us up our comforts this year, how are we going to +dispose of all that strawberry jam and currant jelly?" + +"I am not tired of putting up lunches," she answered. "I was just +wondering if this year we ought not to go back to town. Four miles +each way for the boys to school, and twenty each way for you. Are n't +we paying a pretty high price for the hens and the pleasures of being +snowed in?" + +"An enormous price," I affirmed solemnly. + +"And we 've paid it now these dozen winters running. Let's go into +Boston and take that suite of wedge-shaped rooms we looked at last fall +in Hotel Huntington, at the intersection of the Avenue and the railroad +tracks. The boys can count freight cars until they are exhausted, and +watch engines from their windows night and day." + +"It isn't a light matter," she went on. "And we can't settle it by +making it a joke. You need to be near your work; I need to be nearer +human beings; the children need much more rest and freedom than these +long miles to school and these many chores allow them." + +"You 're entirely right, my dear, and this time we 'll do it. Our good +neighbor here will take the cow; I 'll give the cabbages away, and send +for 'Honest Wash' Curtis to come for the hens." + +"But look at all this wild-grape jelly!" she exclaimed, turning to an +array of forty-four little garnet jars which she had just covered with +hot paraffin against the coming winter. + +"And the thirteen bushels of potatoes," I broke in. "And the +apples--there are going to be eight or ten barrels of prime Baldwins +this year. And--" + +But it never comes to an end--it never has yet, for as soon as we +determine to do it, we feel that we can or not, just as we please. +Simply deciding that we will move in yields us such an instant and +actual city sojourn that we seem already to have been and are now +gladly getting back to the country again. + +So here we have stayed summer and winter, knowing that we ought to go +back nearer my work so that I can do more of it; and nearer the center +of social life so we can get more of it--life being pretty much lost +that is not spent in working, or going, or talking! Here we have +stayed even through the winters, exempt from public benefits, blessing +ourselves, every time it snows on Saturday, that we are here and not +there for our week ends, here within the "tumultuous privacy" of the +storm and our own roaring fireplace, with our own apples and popcorn +and books and selves; and when it snows on Monday wishing the weather +would always temper itself and time itself to the peculiar needs of +Mullein Hill--its length of back country road and automobile. + +For an automobile is not a snow-plough, however much gasoline you give +it. Time was when I rode a snow-plough and enjoyed it, as my Neighbor +Jonas rides and enjoys his, feeling that he is plenty fast enough, as +indeed he is, his sense of safety on the way, the absolute certainty +(so far as there can be human certainty) of his arriving sometime, +being compensation enough for the loss of those sensations of speed +induced across one's diaphragm and over one's epidermis by the +automobile. + +Speeding is a disease of the hair follicles, I think, and the great +hallucination of haste under which we move and try to have a being is +seated in the muscles of the diaphragm. Have I not found myself +rushing for a hundred places by automobile that I never should have +started for at all by hayrick or snow-plough, and thus had saved myself +that time wholly? Space is Time's tail and we can't catch it. The +most we can catch, with the speediest car, is a sight of its tip going +around the corner ahead. + +Speed is contagious, and I fear that I have it. I moved away here into +Hingham to escape it, but life in the Hingham hills is not far enough +away to save a man from all that passes along the road. The wind, too, +bloweth where it listeth, and when there is infection on it, you can't +escape by hiding in Hingham--not entirely. And once the sporulating +speed germs get into your system, it is as if Anopheles had bitten you, +their multiplying and bursting into the blood occurring regularly, +accompanied by a chill at two cylinders and followed by a fever for +four; a chill at four and a fever for six--eight--twelve, just like +malaria! + +We all have it, all but Neighbor Jonas. He has instead a "stavin'" +good mare by the name of Bill. Bill is speedy. She sprang, years ago, +from fast stock, as you would know if you held the cultivator behind +her. When she comes to harrow the garden, Jonas must needs come with +her to say "Whoa!" all the way, and otherwise admonish and exhort her +into remembering that the cultivator is not a trotting-sulky, and that +a row of beets is not a half-mile track. But the hard highways hurt +Bill's feet, so that Jonas nowadays takes every automobile's dust, and +none too sweetly either. + +"Jonas," I said, as Bill was cooling off at the end of a row, "why +don't you get an automobile?" + +"I take the eggs down to the store every two weeks and get a shave; but +I don't need a car much, havin' Bill," he replied, smashing a vicious +greenhead on Bill's withers that was keeping her mixed up with the +traces and the teeth of the harrow. "Besides, they 're skittish, +nervous things compared with a hoss. What I 'd like is something +neither one nor t'other--a sort of cross between an auto and Bill." + +"Why not get a Ford car, then," I asked, "with a cultivator attachment? +It would n't step on as many hills in the row as Bill does, and I think +it would beat Bill on the road." + +There was a cluck, a jump, and we were off down another row, with Jonas +saying:-- + +"Not yet. Bill is still fast enough for me." + +And for me, too; yet there is no denying that conditions have changed, +that a multitude of new ills have been introduced into the social +organism by the automobile, and except in the deep drifts of winter, +the Ford car comes nearer curing those ills than any other anti-toxin +yet discovered. + +But here are the drifts still; and here is the old question of going +back to the city to escape them. I shall sometimes wish we had gone +back as I start out on a snowy, blowy morning; but never at night as I +turn back--there is that difference between going to the city and going +home. I often think the trip in is worth while for the sake of the +trip out, such joy is it to pull in from the black, soughing woods to +the cheer of the house, stamping the powdery snow off your boots and +greatcoat to the sweet din of welcomes that drown the howling of the +wind outside. + +Once last winter I had to walk from the station. The snow was deep and +falling steadily when I left the house in the morning, with increasing +wind and thickening storm all day, so that my afternoon train out was +delayed and dropped me at the station long after dark. The roads were +blocked, the snow was knee-deep, the driving wind was horizontal, and +the whirling ice particles like sharp sand, stinging, blinding as I +bent to the road. + +I went forward leaning, the drag in my feet overcome by the pull of the +level wind on my slant body. Once through the long stretch of woods I +tried to cut across the fields. Here I lost my bearings, stumbled into +a ditch, and for a moment got utterly confused with the black of the +night, the bite of the cold, and the smothering hand of the wind on my +mouth. + +Then I sat down where I was to pull myself together. There might be +danger in such a situation, but I was not really cold--not cool enough. +I had been forcing the fight foolishly, head-on, by a frontal attack +instead of on the enemy's flank. + +Here in the meadow I was exposed to the full force of the sweeping +gale, and here I realized for the first time that this was the great +storm of the winter, one of the supreme passages of the year, and one +of the glorious physical fights of a lifetime. + +On a prairie, or in the treeless barrens and tundras of the vast, +frozen North, a fight like this could have but one end. What must the +wild polar night be like! What the will, the thrill of men like Scott +and Peary who have fought these forces to a standstill at the very +poles! Their craft, their cunning, their daring, their imagination! +The sway, the drive, the divine madness of such a purpose! A living +atom creeping across the ice-cap over the top of the world! A human +mote, so smothered in the Arctic dark and storm, so wide of the utmost +shore of men, by a trail so far and filled and faint that only God can +follow! + +It is not what a man does, but what he lives through doing it. Life +may be safer, easier, longer, and fuller of possessions in one place +than another. But possessions do not measure life, nor years, nor +ease, nor safety. Life in the Hingham hills in winter is wretchedly +remote at times, but nothing happens to me all day long in Boston to be +compared for a moment with this experience here in the night and snow. +I never feel the largeness of the sky there, nor the wideness of the +world, nor the loveliness of night, nor the fearful majesty of such a +winter storm. + +As the far-flung lines swept down upon me and bore me back into the +drift, I knew somewhat the fierce delight of berg and floe and that +primordial dark about the poles, and springing from my trench, I flung +myself single-handed and exultant against the double fronts of night +and storm, mightier than they, till weak, but victorious, I dragged +myself to the door of a neighboring farmhouse, the voice of the storm a +mighty song within my soul. + +This happened, as I say, _once_ last winter, and of course she said we +simply ought _not_ to live in such a place in winter; and of course, if +anything exactly like that should occur every winter night, I should +have to move into the city whether I liked city storms or not. One's +life is, to be sure, a consideration, but fortunately for life all the +winter days out here are not so magnificently ordered as this, except +at dawn each morning, and at dusk, and at midnight when the skies are +set with stars. + +But there is a largeness to the quality of country life, a freshness +and splendor as constant as the horizon and a very part of it. + +Take a day anywhere in the year: that day in March--the day of the +first frogs, when spring and winter meet; or that day in the fall--the +day of the first frost, when autumn and winter meet; or that day in +August--the day of the full-blown goldenrod, when summer and autumn +meet--_these_, together with the days of June, and more especially that +particular day in June when you can't tell earth from heaven, when +everything is life and love and song, and the very turtles of the pond +are moved from their lily-pads to wander the upland slopes to lay--the +day when spring and summer meet! + +Or if these seem rare days, try again anywhere in the calendar from the +rainy day in February when the thaw begins to Indian summer and the day +of floating thistledown, and the cruising fleets of wild lettuce and +silky-sailed fireweed on the golden air. The big soft clouds are +sailing their wider sea; the sweet sunshine, the lesser winds, the +chickadees and kinglets linger with you in your sheltered hollow +against the hill--you and they for yet a little slumber, a little sleep +before there breaks upon you the wrath of the North. + +But is this sweet, slumberous, half-melancholy day any nearer perfect +than that day when + + "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky + Arrives the snow"-- + +or the blizzard? + +But going back to town, as she intimated, concerns the children quite +as much as me. They travel eight miles a day to get to school, part of +it on foot and part of it by street car--and were absent one day last +year when the telephone wires were down and we thought there would be +no school because of the snow. They might not have missed that one day +had we been in the city, and I must think of that when it comes time to +go back. There is room for them in the city to improve in spelling and +penmanship too, vastly to improve. But they could n't have half so +much fun there as here, nor half so many things to do, simple, +healthful, homely, interesting things to do, as good for them as books +and food and sleep--these last things to be had here, too, in great +abundance. + +What could take the place of the cow and hens in the city? The hens +are Mansie's (he is the oldest) and the cow is mine. But night after +night last winter I would climb the Hill to see the barn lighted, and +in the shadowy stall two little human figures--one squat on an upturned +bucket milking, his milk-pail, too large to be held between his knees, +lodged perilously under the cow upon a half-peck measure; the other +little human figure quietly holding the cow's tail. + +No head is turned; not a squeeze is missed--this is _business_ here in +the stall,--but as the car stops behind the scene, Babe calls-- + +"Hello, Father!" + +"Hello, Babe!" + +"Three teats done," calls Mansie, his head down, butting into the old +cow's flank. "You go right in, we 'll be there. She has n't kicked +but once!" + +Perhaps that is n't a good thing for those two little boys to +do--watering, feeding, brushing, milking the cow on a winter night in +order to save me--and loving to! Perhaps that is n't a good thing for +me to see them doing, as I get home from the city on a winter night! + +But I am a sentimentalist and not proof at all against two little boys +milking, who are liable to fall into the pail. + +Meantime the two middlers had shoveled out the road down to the +mail-box on the street so that I ran up on bare earth, the very wheels +of the car conscious of the love behind the shovels, of the speed and +energy it took to get the long job done before I should arrive. + +"How did she come up?" calls Beebum as he opens the house door for me, +his cheeks still glowing with the cold and exercise. + +"Did we give you wide enough swing at the bend?" cries Bitsie, seizing +the bag of bananas. + +"Oh, we sailed up--took that curve like a bird--didn't need +chains--just like a boulevard right into the barn!" + +"It's a fearful night out, is n't it?" she says, taking both of my +hands in hers, a touch of awe, a note of thankfulness in her voice. + +"Bad night in Boston!" I exclaim. "Trains late, cars stalled--streets +blocked with snow. I 'm mighty glad to be out here a night like this." + +"Woof! Woof!"--And Babe and Pup are at the kitchen door with the pail +of milk, shaking themselves free from snow. + +"Where is Mansie?" his mother asks. + +"He just ran down to have a last look at his chickens." + +We sit down to dinner, but Mansie does n't come. The wind whistles +outside, the snow sweeps up against the windows,--the night grows +wilder and fiercer. + +"Why doesn't Mansie come?" his mother asks, looking at me. + +"Oh, he can't shut the hen-house doors, for the snow. He 'll be here +in a moment." + +The meal goes on. + +"Will you go out and see what is the matter with the child?" she asks, +the look of anxiety changing to one of alarm on her face. + +As I am rising there is a racket in the cellar and the child soon comes +blinking into the lighted dining-room, his hair dusty with snow, his +cheeks blazing, his eyes afire. He slips into his place with just a +hint of apology about him and reaches for his cup of fresh, warm milk. + +He is twelve years old. + +"What does this mean, Mansie?" she says. + +"Nothing." + +"You are late for dinner. And who knows what had happened to you out +there in the trees a night like this. What were you doing?" + +"Shutting up the chickens." + +"But you did shut them up early in the afternoon." + +"Yes, mother." + +"Well?" + +"It's awful cold, mother!" + +"Yes?" + +"They might freeze!" + +"Yes?" + +"Specially those little ones." + +"Yes, I know, but what took you so long?" + +"I did n't want 'em to freeze." + +"Yes?" + +"So I took a little one and put it on the roost in between two big +hens--a little one and a big one, a little one and a big one, to keep +the little ones warm; and it took a lot of time." + +"Will you have another cup of warm milk?" she asks, pouring him more +from the pitcher, doing very well with her lips and eyes, it seemed to +me, considering how she ran the cup over. + +Shall I take them back to the city for the winter--away from their +chickens, and cow and dog and pig and work-bench and haymow and +fireside, and the open air and their wild neighbors and the wilder +nights that I remember as a child? + + "There it a pleasure in the pathless woods, + There is a rapture on the lonely shore, + There is society where none intrudes, + By the deep sea--and music in its roar." + +Once they have known all of this I can take them into town and not +spoil the poet in them. + +"Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better +than games. Keep him in the open air. Above all, you must guard him +against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. The great God has called +me. Take comfort in that I die in peace with the world and myself and +not afraid"--from the last letter of Captain Scott to his wife, as he +lay watching the approach of death in the Antarctic cold. His own end +was nigh, but the infant son, in whose life he should never take a +father's part, what should be his last word for him? + +"Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better +than games. Keep him in the open air." + +Those are solemn words, and they carry a message of deep significance. +I have watched my own boys; I recall my own boyhood; and I believe the +words are true. So thoroughly do I believe in the physical and moral +value of the outdoors for children, the open fields and woods, that +before my children were all born I brought them here into the country. +Here they shall grow as the weeds and flowers grow, and in the same +fields with them; here they shall play as the young foxes and +woodchucks play, and on the same bushy hillsides with them--summer and +winter. + +Games are natural and good. It is a stick of a boy who won't be "it." +But there are better things than games, more lasting, more developing, +more educating. Kittens and puppies and children play; but children +should have, and may have, other and better things to do than puppies +and kittens can do; for they are not going to grow up into dogs and +cats. + +Once awaken a love for the woods in the heart of a child, and something +has passed into him that the evil days, when they come, shall have to +reckon with. Let me take my children into the country to live, if I +can. Or if I cannot, then let me take them on holidays, or, if it must +be, on Sunday mornings with me, for a tramp. + +I bless those Sunday-morning tramps to the Tumbling Dam Woods, to +Sheppard's Mills, to Cubby Hollow, to Cohansey Creek Meadows, that I +was taken upon as a lad of twelve. We would start out early, and deep +in the woods, or by some pond or stream, or out upon the wide meadows, +we would wait, and watch the ways of wild things--the little marsh +wrens bubbling in the calamus and cattails, the young minks at play, +the big pond turtles on their sunning logs--these and more, a multitude +more. Here we would eat our crackers and the wild berries or buds that +we could find, and with the sunset turn back toward home. + +We saw this and that, single deep impressions, that I shall always +remember. But better than any single sight, any sweet sound or smell, +was the sense of companionship with my human guide, and the sense that +I loved + + "not man the less, but nature more, + From these our interviews." + +If we _do_ move into town this winter, it won't be because the boys +wish to go. + + + + +[Illustration: The Christmas tree] + +XVI + +THE CHRISTMAS TREE + +We shall not go back to town before Christmas, any way. They have a +big Christmas tree on the Common, but the boys declare they had rather +have their own Christmas tree, no matter how small; rather go into the +woods and mark it weeks ahead, as we always do, and then go bring it +home the day before, than to look at the tallest spruce that the Mayor +could fetch out of the forests of Maine and set up on the Common. +Where do such simple-minded children live, and in such primitive +conditions that they can carry an axe into the woods these days and cut +their own Christmas tree? Here on the Hills of Hingham, almost twenty +miles from Boston. + +I hope it snows this Christmas as it did last. How it snowed! All day +we waited a lull in the gale, for our tree was still uncut, still out +in the Shanty-Field Woods. But all day long it blew, and all day long +the dry drifts swirled and eddied into the deep hollows and piled +themselves across the ridge road into bluffs and headlands that had to +be cut and tunneled through. As the afternoon wore on, the storm +steadied. The wind came gloriously through the tall woods, driving the +mingled snow and shadow till the field and the very barn were blotted +out. + +"We _must_ go!" was the cry. "We'll have no Christmas tree!" + +"But this is impossible. We could never carry it home through all +this, even if we could find it." + +"But we 've marked it!" + +"You mean you have devoted it, hallowed it, you little Aztecs! Do you +think the tree will mind?" + +"Why--yes. Wouldn't you mind, father, if you were a tree and marked +for Christmas and nobody came for you?" + +"Perhaps I would--yes, I think you 're right. It is too bad. But we +'ll have to wait." + +We waited and waited, and for once they went to bed on Christmas Eve +with their tree uncut. They had hardly gone, however, when I took the +axe and the lantern (for safety) and started up the ridge for the +devoted tree. I found it; got it on my shoulder; and long after nine +o'clock--as snowy and as weary an old Chris as ever descended a +chimney--came dragging in the tree. + +We got to bed late that night--as all parents ought on the night before +Christmas; but Old Chris himself, soundest of sleepers, never slept +sounder! And what a Christmas Day we had. What a tree it was! Who +got it? How? No, old Chris did n't bring it--not when two of the boys +came floundering in from a walk that afternoon saying they had tracked +me from the cellar door clear out to the tree-stump--where they found +my axe! + +I hope it snows. Christmas ought to have snow; as it ought to have +holly and candles and stockings and mistletoe and a tree. I wonder if +England will send us mistletoe this year? Perhaps we shall have to use +our home-grown; but then, mistletoe is mistletoe, and one is n't asking +one's self what kind of mistletoe hangs overhead when one chances to +get under the chandelier. They tell me there are going to be no toys +this year, none of old Chris's kind but only weird, fierce, +Fourth-of-July things from Japan. "Christmas comes but once a year," +my elders used to say to me--a strange, hard saying; yet not so strange +and hard as the feeling that somehow, this year, Christmas may not come +at all. I never felt that way before. It will never do; and I shall +hang up my stocking. Of course they will have a tree at church for the +children, as they did last year, but will the choir sing this year, +"While shepherds watched their flock by night" and "Hark! the herald +angels sing"? + +I have grown suddenly old. The child that used to be in me is with the +ghost of Christmas Past, and I am partner now with Scrooge, taking old +Marley's place. The choir may sing; but-- + + "The lonely mountains o'er + And the resounding shore + A voice of weeping heard and loud lament!" + + +I cannot hear the angels, nor see, for the flames of burning cities, +their shining ranks descend the sky. + + "No war, or battle's sound, + Was heard the world around; + The idle spear and shield were high uphung" + +on that first Christmas Eve. What has happened since then--since I was +a child?--since last Christmas, when I still believed in Christmas, and +sang with the choir, "Noel! Noel!"? + +But I am confusing sentiment and faith. If I cannot sing peace on +earth, I still believe in it; if I cannot hear the angels, I know that +the Christ was born, and that Christmas is coming. It will not be a +very merry Christmas; but it shall be a most significant, most solemn, +most holy Christmas. + +The Yule logs, as the Yule-tide songs, will be fewer this year. Many a +window, bright with candles a year ago, will be darkened. There will +be no goose at the Cratchits', for both Bob and Master Cratchit have +gone to the front. But Tiny Tim is left, and the Christ Child is left, +and my child is left, and yours--even your dear dreamchild "upon the +tedious shores of Lethe" that always comes back at Christmas. It takes +only one little child to make Christmas--one little child, and the +angels who companion him, and the shepherds who come to see him, and +the Wise Men who worship him and bring him gifts. + +We can have Christmas, for unto us again, as truly as in Bethlehem of +Judea, a child is born on whose shoulders shall be the government and +whose name is the Prince of Peace. + +Christ is reborn with every child, and Christmas is his festival. +Come, let us keep it for his sake; for the children's sake; for the +sake of the little child that we must become before we can enter into +the Kingdom of Heaven. It is neither kings nor kaisers, but a little +child that shall lead us finally. And long after the round-lipped +cannons have ceased to roar, we shall hear the Christmas song of the +Angels. + + "But see! the Virgin blest + Hath laid her Babe to rest--" + +Come, softly, swiftly, dress up the tree, hang high the largest +stockings; bring out the toys--softly! + +I hope it snows. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hills of Hingham, by Dallas Lore Sharp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILLS OF HINGHAM *** + +***** This file should be named 18664-8.txt or 18664-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/6/18664/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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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: The Hills of Hingham + +Author: Dallas Lore Sharp + +Release Date: June 23, 2006 [EBook #18664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILLS OF HINGHAM *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +THE HILLS OF HINGHAM +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +DALLAS LORE SHARP +</H2> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +BOSTON AND NEW YORK +<BR> +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY +<BR> +The Riverside Press Cambridge +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP +<BR> +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED +<BR><BR> +<I>Published April 1916</I> +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +TO THOSE WHO +<BR> +"<I>Enforst to seek some shelter nigh at hand</I>" +<BR> +HAVE FOUND THE HILLS OF HINGHAM +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +PREFACE +</H3> + +<P> +The is not exactly the book I thought it was going to be—though I can +say the same of its author for that matter. I had intended this book +to set forth some features of the Earth that make it to be preferred to +Heaven as a place of present abode, and to note in detail the peculiar +attractions of Hingham over Boston, say,—Boston being quite the best +city on the Earth to live in. I had the book started under the title +"And this Our Life" +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +. . . exempt from public haunt,<BR> +Finds tongues in trees,"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +—when, suddenly, war broke out, the gates of Hell swung wide open into +Belgium, and Heaven began to seem the better place. Meanwhile, a +series of lesser local troubles had been brewing—drouth, caterpillars, +rheumatism, increased commutation rates, more college themes,—more +than I could carry back and forth to Hingham,—so that as the writing +went on Boston began to seem, not a better place than Hingham, but a +nearer place, somehow, and more thoroughly sprayed. +</P> + +<P> +And all this time the book on Life that I thought I was writing was +growing chapter by chapter into a defense of that book—a defense of +Life—my life here by my fireside with my boys and Her, and the garden +and woodlot and hens and bees, and days off and evenings at home and +books to read, yes, and books to write—all of which I had taken for +granted at twenty, and believed in with a beautiful faith at thirty, +when I moved out here into what was then an uninfected forest. +</P> + +<P> +That was the time to have written the book that I had intended this one +to be—while the adventure in contentment was still an adventure, while +the lure of the land was of fourteen acres yet unexplored, while back +to the soil meant exactly what the seed catalogues picture it, and my +summer in a garden had not yet passed into its frosty fall. Instead, I +have done what no writer ought to do, what none ever did before, unless +Jacob wrote,—taken a fourteen-year-old enthusiasm for my theme, to +find the enthusiasm grown, as Rachel must have grown by the time Jacob +got her, into a philosophy, and like all philosophies, in need of +defense. +</P> + +<P> +What men live by is an interesting speculative question, but what men +live on, and where they can live,—with children to bring up, and their +own souls to save,—is an intensely practical question which I have +been working at these fourteen years here in the Hills of Hingham. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<CENTER> + +<TABLE WIDTH="80%"> +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">I. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap01">THE HILLS OF HINGHAM</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">II. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap02">THE OPEN FIRE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">III. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap03">THE ICE CROP</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap04">SEED CATALOGUES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">V. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap05">THE DUSTLESS-DUSTER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap06">SPRING PLOUGHING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap07">MERE BEANS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">VIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap08">A PILGRIM FROM DUBUQUE</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">IX. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap09">THE HONEY FLOW</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">X. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap10">A PAIR OF PIGS</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap11">LEAFING</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap12">THE LITTLE FOXES</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIII. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap13">OUR CALENDAR</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XIV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap14">THE FIELDS OF FODDER</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XV. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap15">GOING BACK TO TOWN</A></TD> +</TR> + +<TR> +<TD ALIGN="right" VALIGN="top">XVI. </TD> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<A HREF="#chap16">THE CHRISTMAS TREE</A></TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-001.jpg" ALT="The hills of Hingham" BORDER="2" WIDTH="339" HEIGHT="148"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +I +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HILLS OF HINGHAM +</H3> + +<CENTER> +<P CLASS="poem"> +"As Surrey hills to mountains grew<BR> +In White of Selborne's loving view"<BR> +</P> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<P> +Really there are no hills in Hingham, to speak of, except Bradley Hill +and Peartree Hill and Turkey Hill, and Otis and Planter's and Prospect +Hills, Hingham being more noted for its harbor and plains. Everybody +has heard of Hingham smelts. Mullein Hill is in Hingham, too, but +Mullein Hill is only a wrinkle on the face of Liberty Plain, which +accounts partly for our having it. Almost anybody can have a hill in +Hingham who is content without elevation, a surveyor's term as applied +to hills, and a purely accidental property which is not at all +essential to real hillness, or the sense of height. We have a stump on +Mullein Hill for height. A hill in Hingham is not only possible, but +even practical as compared with a Forest in Arden, Arden being +altogether too far from town; besides +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +". . . there's no clock in the forest"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and we have the 8.35 train to catch of a winter morning! +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +sounds more pastoral than apple trees around a house on a hill in +Hingham, and it would be more ideal, too, if New England weather were +not so much better adapted to apples, and if one did not prefer apples, +and if one could raise a family in a sheep-cote. +</P> + +<P> +We started in the sheep-cote, back yonder when all the world was twenty +or thereabouts, and when every wild-cherry-bush was an olive tree. But +one day the tent caterpillar like a wolf swept down on our fold of +cherry-bushes and we fled Arden, never to get back. We lived for a +time in town and bought olives in bottles, stuffed ones sometimes, then +we got a hill in Hingham, just this side of Arden, still buying our +olives, but not our apples now, nor our peaches, nor our musk melons, +nor our wood for the open fire. We buy commutation tickets, and pay +dearly for the trips back and forth. But we could n't make a living in +Arden. Our hill in Hingham is a compromise. +</P> + +<P> +Only folk of twenty and close to twenty live in Arden. We are forty +now and no longer poets. When we are really old and our grasshoppers +become a burden, we may go back to town where the insects are an +entirely different species; but for this exceedingly busy present, +between our fading dawn of visions and our coming dusk of dreams, a +hill in Hingham, though a compromise, is an almost strategic position, +Hingham being more or less of an escape from Boston, and the hill, +though not in the Forest of Arden, something of an escape from Hingham, +a quaint old village of elm-cooled streets and gentle neighbors. Not +that we hate Boston, nor that we pass by on the other side in Hingham. +We gladly pick our neighbors up and set them in our motor car and bring +them to the foot of the hill. We people of the hills do not hate +either crowds or neighbors. We are neighbors ourselves and parts of +the city crowds too; and we love to bind up wounds and bring folk to +their inns. But we cannot take them farther, for there are no inns out +here. We leave them in Hingham and journey on alone into a region +where neither thief nor anyone infests the roadsides; where there are +no roads in fact, but only driftways and footpaths through the sparsely +settled hills. +</P> + +<P> +We leave the crowd on the streets, we leave the kind neighbor at his +front gate, and travel on, not very far, but on alone into a wide quiet +country where we shall have a chance, perhaps, of meeting with +ourselves—the day's great adventure, and far to find; yet this is what +we have come out to the hills for. +</P> + +<P> +Not for apples nor wood fires have we a hill in Hingham; not for hens +and a bigger house, and leisure, and conveniences, and excitements; not +for ways to earn a living, nor for ways to spend it. Stay in town for +that. There "you can even walk alone without being bored. No long, +uneventful stretches of bleak, wintry landscape, where nothing moves, +not even the train of thought. No benumbed and self-centered trees +holding out pathetic frozen branches for sympathy. Impossible to be +introspective here. Fall into a brown or blue study and you are likely +to be run over. Thought is brought to the surface by mental massage. +No time to dwell upon your beloved self. So many more interesting +things to think about. And the changing scenes unfold more rapidly +than a moving-picture reel." +</P> + +<P> +This sounds much more interesting than the country. And it is more +interesting, Broadway asking nothing of a country lane for excitement. +And back they go who live on excitement; while some of us take this +same excitement as the best of reasons for double windows and storm +doors and country life the year through. +</P> + +<P> +You can think in the city, but it is in spite of the city. +Gregariousness and individuality do not abide together; nor is external +excitement the cause or the concomitant of thought. In fact this +"mental massage" of the city is to real thinking about what a +mustard-plaster is to circulation—a counter-irritant. The thinker is +one who finds himself (quite impossible on Broadway!); and then finds +himself <I>interesting</I>—more interesting than Broadway—another +impossibility within the city limits. Only in the country can he do +that, in a wide and negative environment of quiet, room, and +isolation—necessary conditions for the enjoyment of one's own mind. +Thought is a country product and comes in to the city for distribution, +as books are gathered and distributed by libraries, but not written in +libraries. It is against the wide, drab background of the country that +thought most naturally reacts, thinking being only the excitement of a +man discovering himself, as he is compelled to do, where bending +horizon and arching sky shift as he shifts in all creation's constant +endeavor to swing around and center on him. Nothing centers on him in +the city, where he thinks by "mental massage"—through the scalp with +laying on of hands, as by benediction or shampoo. +</P> + +<P> +But for the busy man, say of forty, are the hills of Hingham with their +adventure possible? Why, there is nothing ailing the man of forty +except that he now is neither young nor old, nor rich, the chances are; +nor a dead failure either, but just an average man; yet he is one of +God's people, if the Philistines were (He brought them from Caphtor) +and the Syrians (those He brought from Kir). The man of forty has a +right to so much of the Promised Land as a hill in Hingham. But he is +afraid to possess it because it is so far from work and friends and +lighted streets. He is afraid of the dark and of going off to sit down +upon a stump for converse with himself. He is afraid he won't get his +work done. If his work were planting beans, he would get none planted +surely while on the stump; but so he might be saved the ungracious task +of giving away his surplus beans to bean-ridden friends for the summer. +A man, I believe, can plant too many beans. He might not finish the +freshman themes either. But when was the last freshman theme ever +done? Finish them if he can, he has only baked the freshmen into +sophomores, and so emptied the ovens for another batch of dough. He +shall never put a crust on the last freshman, and not much of a crust +on the last sophomore either, the Almighty refusing to coöperate with +him in the baking. Let him do the best he can, not the most he can, +and quit for Hingham and the hills where he can go out to a stump and +sit down. +</P> + +<P> +College students also are a part of that world which can be too much +with us, cabbages, too, if we are growing cabbages. We don't do +over-much, but we are over-busy. We want too much. Buy a little hill +in Hingham, and even out here, unless you pray and go apart often to +your stump, your desire will be toward every hill in sight and the +valleys between. +</P> + +<P> +According to the deed my hill comprises "fourteen acres more or less" +of an ancient glacier, a fourteen-acre heap of unmitigated gravel, +which now these almost fourteen years I have been trying to clear of +stones, picking, picking for a whole Stone Age, and planning daily to +buy the nine-acre ridge adjoining me which is gravelier than mine. By +actual count we dumped five hundred cartloads of stones into the +foundation of a porch when making over the house recently—and still I +am out in the garden picking, picking, living in the Stone Age still, +and planning to prolong the stay by nine acres more that are worse than +these I now have, nine times worse for stones! +</P> + +<P> +I shall never cease picking stones, I presume, but perhaps I can get +out a permanent injunction against myself, to prevent my buying that +neighboring gravel hill, and so find time to climb my own and sit down +among the beautiful moth-infested oak trees. +</P> + +<P> +I do sit down, and I thrust my idle hands hard into my pockets to keep +them from the Devil who would have them out at the moths instantly—an +evil job, killing moths, worse than picking stones! +</P> + +<P> +Nothing is more difficult to find anywhere than time to sit down with +yourself, except the ability to enjoy the time after finding it,—even +here on a hill in Hingham, if the hill is in woods. There are foes to +face in the city and floods to stem out here, but let no one try to +fight several acres of caterpillars. When you see them coming, climb +your stump and wait on the Lord. He is slow; and the caterpillars are +horribly fast. True. Yet I say. To your stump and wait—and learn +how restful a thing it is to sit down by faith. For the town sprayer +is a vain thing. The roof of green is riddled. The rafters overhead +reach out as naked as in December. Ruin looks through. On sweep the +devouring hosts in spite of arsenate of lead and "wilt" disease and +Calasoma beetles. Nothing will avail; nothing but a new woodlot +planted with saplings that the caterpillars do not eat. Sit still my +soul, and know that when these oak trees fall there will come up the +fir tree and the pine tree and the shagbark, distasteful to the worms; +and they shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that +shall not be cut off. +</P> + +<P> +This is good forestry, and good philosophy—a sure handling of both +worms and soul. +</P> + +<P> +But how hard to follow! I would so like to help the Lord. Not to do +my own share only; but to shoulder the Almighty's too, saying— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well<BR> +It were done quickly";<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and I up and do it. But it does not stay done. I had sprayed, +creosoted, cut, trimmed, cemented, only to see the trees die, until I +was forced to rest upon the stump, when I saw what I had been blind to +before: that the pine trees were tipped with cones, and that there in +the tops were the red squirrels shucking and giving the winged seeds to +the winds to sow; and that even now up the wooded slope below me, where +the first of the old oaks had perished, was climbing a future grove of +seedling pines. +</P> + +<P> +The forests of Arden are not infested with gypsy moths, nor the woods +of Heaven either, I suppose; but the trees in the hills of Hingham are. +And yet they are the trees of the Lord; the moths are his also, and the +caring for them. I am caring for a few college freshmen and my soul. +I shall go forth to my work until the evening. The Lord can take the +night-shift; for it was He who instituted the twilight, and it is He +who must needs be responsible till the morning. +</P> + +<P> +So here a-top my stump in the beleaguered woodlot I sit with idle +hands, and no stars falling, and the universe turning all alone! +</P> + +<P> +To wake up at forty a factory hand! a floor-walker! a banker! a college +professor! a man about town or any other respectably successful, +humdrum, square wooden peg-of-a-thing in a square tight hole! There is +an evil, says the Preacher, which I have seen under the sun—the man of +about forty who has become moderately successful and automatic, but who +has not, and now knows he cannot, set the world on fire. This is a +vanity and it is an evil disease. +</P> + +<P> +From running the universe at thirty the man of forty finds himself +running with it, paced before, behind, and beside, by other runners and +by the very stars in their courses. He has struck the universal gait, +a strong steady stride that will carry him to the finish, but not among +the medals. This is an evil thing. Forty is a dangerous age. The +wild race of twenty, the staggering step of eighty, are full of peril, +but not so deadly as the even, mechanical going of forty; for youth has +the dash in hand; old age has ceased to worry and is walking in; while +the man of forty is right in the middle of the run, grinding along on +his second wind with the cheering all ahead of him. +</P> + +<P> +In fact, the man of forty finds himself half-way across the street with +the baby carriage in his hands, and touring cars in front of him, and +limousines behind him, and the hand-of-the-law staying and steadying +him on his perilous course. +</P> + +<P> +Life may be no busier at forty than at thirty, but it is certainly more +expensive. Work may not be so hard, but the facts of life are a great +deal harder, the hardest, barest of them being the here-and-now of all +things, the dead levelness of forty—an irrigated plain that has no +hill of vision, no valley of dream. But it may have its hill in +Hingham with a bit of meadow down below. +</P> + +<P> +Mullein Hill is the least of all hills, even with the added stump; but +looking down through the trees I can see the gray road, and an +occasional touring car, like a dream, go by; and off on the Blue Hills +of Milton—higher hills than ours in Hingham—hangs a purple mist that +from our ridge seems the very robe and veil of vision. +</P> + +<P> +The realities are near enough to me here crawling everywhere, indeed; +but close as I am to the flat earth I can yet look down at things—at +the road and the passing cars; and off at things—the hills and the +distant horizon; and so I can escape for a time that level stare into +the face of things which sees them as <I>things</I> close and real, but +seldom as <I>life</I>, far off and whole. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps I have never seen life whole; I may need a throne and not a +hill and a stump for that; but here in the wideness of the open skies, +in the sweet quiet, in the hush that often fills these deep woods, I +sometimes see life free, not free from men and things, but +unencumbered, coming to meet me out of the morning and passing on with +me toward the sunset until, at times, the stepping westward, the +uneventful onwardness of life has +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + ". . . seemed to be<BR> +A kind of heavenly destiny"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and, even the back-and-forth of it, a divine thing. +</P> + +<P> +This knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot keep fast hold of it; +yet to know occasionally that you are greater than your rhetoric, or +your acres of stones, or your woods of worms, worms that may destroy +your trees though you spray, is to steady and establish your soul, and +vastly to comfort it! +</P> + +<P> +To be greater than your possessions, than your accomplishments, than +your desires—greater than you know, than anybody at home knows or will +admit! So great that you can leave your plough in the turret that you +can leave the committees to meet, and the trees to fall, and the sun to +hurry on, while you take your seat upon a stump, assured from many a +dismaying observation that the trees will fall anyhow, that the sun +will hasten on its course, and that the committees, even the +committees, will meet and do business whether you attend or not! +</P> + +<P> +This is bed-rock fact, the broad and solid bottom for a cheerful +philosophy. To know that they can get on without you (more knowledge +than many ever attain!) is the beginning of wisdom; and to learn that +you can get on without them—at the close of the day, and out here on +your hill in Hingham—this is the end of understanding. +</P> + +<P> +If I am no more than the shoes I stitch, or the lessons I peg, and the +college can so calmly move on without me, how small I am! Let me hope +that I am useful there, and useful as a citizen-at-large; but I know +that I am chiefly and utterly dispensable at large, everywhere at +large, even in Hingham. But not here on my hilltop. Here I am +indispensable. In the short shift from my classroom, from chair to +hill, from doing to being, I pass from a means into an end, from a part +in the scheme of things to the scheme of things itself. +</P> + +<P> +Here stands my hill on the highway from dawn to dusk, and just where +the bending walls of the sky center and encircle it. This is not only +a large place, with room and verge enough; it is also a chief place, +where start the north and south and east and west, and the gray crooked +road over which I travel daily. +</P> + +<P> +I can trace the run of the road from my stump on the hill, off to where +it bends on the edge of night for its returning and rest here. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Let me live in a house by the aide of the road,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +sings the poet; but as for me, after traveling all day let me come back +to a house at the end of the road—for in returning and rest shall a +man be saved, in quietness and confidence shall he find strength. +Nowhere shall he find that quietness and confidence in larger measure +than here in the hills. And where shall he return to more rest? +</P> + +<P> +There are men whose souls are like these hills, simple, strong, quiet +men who can heal and restore; and there are books that help like the +hills, simple elemental, large books; music, and sleep, and prayer, and +play are healing too; but none of these cure and fill one with a +quietness and confidence as deep as that from the hills, even from the +little hills and the small fields and the vast skies of Hingham; a +confidence and joy in the earth, perhaps, rather than in heaven, and +yet in heaven too. +</P> + +<P> +If it is not also a steadied thinking and a cleared seeing, it is at +least a mental and moral convalescence that one gets—out of the +landscape, out of its largeness, sweetness and reality. I am quickly +conscious on the hills of space all about me—room for myself, room for +the things that crowd and clutter me; and as these arrange and set +themselves in order, I am aware of space within me, of freedom and +wideness there, of things in order, of doors unlocked and windows +opened, through which I look out upon a new young world, new like the +morning, young like the seedling pines on the slope—young and new like +my soul! +</P> + +<P> +Now I can go back to my classroom. Now I can read themes once more. +Now I can gaze into the round, moon-eyed face of youth and have +faith—as if my chair were a stump, my classroom a wooded hillside +covered with young pines, seedlings of the Lord, and full of sap, and +proof against the worm. +</P> + +<P> +Yet these are the same youth who yesterday wrote the "Autobiography of +a Fountain Pen" and "The Exhilarations of the Straw-Ride" and the +essays on "The Beauties of Nature." It is I who am not the same. I +have been changed, renewed, having seen from my stump the face of +eternal youth in the freshmen pines marching up the hillside, in the +young brook playing and pursuing through the meadow, in the young winds +over the trees, the young stars in the skies, the young moon riding +along the horizon +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"With the auld moon in her arm"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +youth immortal, and so, unburdened by its withered load of age. +</P> + +<P> +I come down from the hill with a soul resurgent,—strong like the heave +that overreaches the sag of the sea,—and bold in my faith—to a lot of +college students as the hope of the world! +</P> + +<P> +From the stump in the woodlot I see not only the face of things but the +course of things, that they are moving past me, over me, and round and +round me their fixed center—for the horizon to bend about, for the sky +to arch over, for the highways to start from, for every influence and +interest between Hingham and Heaven to focus on. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"All things journey sun and moon<BR> +Morning noon and afternoon,<BR> +Night and all her stars,"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and they all journey about me on my stump in the hilltop. +</P> + +<P> +We love human nature; we love to get back to it in New York and +Boston,—for a day, for six months in the winter even,—but we need to +get back to the hills at night. We are a conventional, gregarious, +herding folk. Let an American get rich and he builds a grand house in +the city. Let an Englishman get rich and he moves straight into the +country—out to such a spot as Bradley Hill in Hingham. +</P> + +<P> +There are many of the city's glories and conveniences lacking here on +Mullein Hill, but Mullein Hill has some of the necessities that are +lacking in the city—wide distances and silent places, and woods and +stumps where you can sit down and feel that you are greater than +anything in sight. In the city the buildings are too vast; the people +are too many. You might feel greater than any two or three persons +there, perhaps, but not greater than nearly a million. +</P> + +<P> +No matter how centered and serene I start from Hingham, a little way +into Boston and I am lost. First I begin to hurry (a thing unnecessary +in Hingham) for everybody else is hurrying; then I must get somewhere; +everybody else is getting somewhere, getting everywhere. For see them +in front of me and behind me, getting there ahead of me and coming +after me to leave no room for me when I shall arrive! But when shall I +and where shall I arrive? And what shall I arrive for? And who am I +that I would arrive? I look around for the encircling horizon, and up +for the overarching sky, and in for the guiding purpose; but instead of +a purpose I am hustled forward by a crowd, and at the bottom of a +street far down beneath such overhanging walls as leave me but a slit +of smoky sky. I am in the hands of a force mightier than I, in the +hands of the police force at the street corners, and am carried across +to the opposite curb through a breaker that rolls in front of me again +at the next crossing. So I move on, by external compulsion, knowing, +as I move, by a kind of mental contagion, feeling by a sort of proxy, +and putting my trust everywhere in advertising and the police. +</P> + +<P> +Thus I come, it may be, into the Public Library, "where is all the +recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording,"—where +Shakespeare and Old Sleuth and Pansy look all alike and as readable as +the card catalogues, or the boy attendants, or the signs of the Zodiac +in the vestibule floor. +</P> + +<P> +Who can read all these books? Who wishes to read any of these books? +They are too many—more books in here than men on the street outside! +And how dead they are in here, wedged side by side in this vast +sepulcher of human thought! +</P> + +<P> +I move among them dully, the stir of the streets coming to me as the +soughing of wind on the desert or the wash of waves on a distant shore. +Here I find a book of my own among the dead. I read its inscription +curiously. I must have written it—when I was alive aeons ago, and far +from here. But why did I? For see the unread, the shelved, the +numbered, the buried books! +</P> + +<P> +Let me out to the street! Dust we are, not books, and unto dust, good +fertile soil, not paper and ink, we shall return. No more writing for +me—but breathing and eating and jostling with the good earthy people +outside, laughing and loving and dying with them! +</P> + +<P> +The sweet wind in Copley Square! The sweet smell of gasoline! The +sweet scream of electric horns! +</P> + +<P> +And how sweet—how fat and alive and friendly the old colored hack +driver, standing there by the stone post! He has a number on his cap; +he is catalogued somewhere, but not in the library. Thank heaven he is +no book, but just a good black human being. I rush up and shake hands +with him. He nearly falls into his cab with astonishment; but I must +get hold of life again, and he looks so real and removed from letters! +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle!" I whisper, close in his ear, "have ye got it? Quick— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot--<BR> +Dar's steppin' at de doo'!<BR> +Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot--<BR> +Dar's creakin' on de floo'!'"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +He makes the passes, and I turn down Boylston Street, a living thing +once more with face toward—the hills of Hingham. +</P> + +<P> +It is five o'clock, and a winter evening, and all the street pours +forth to meet me—some of them coming with me bound for Hingham, +surely, as all of them are bound for a hill somewhere and a home. +</P> + +<P> +I love the city at this winter hour. This home-hurrying crowd—its +excitement of escape! its eagerness and expectancy! its camaraderie! +The arc-lights overhead glow and splutter with the joy they see on the +faces beneath them. +</P> + +<P> +It is nearly half-past five as I turn into Winter Street. Now the very +stores are closing. Work has ceased. Drays and automobiles are gone. +The two-wheeled fruit man is going from his stand at the Subway +entrance. The street is filled from wall to wall with men and women, +young women and young men, fresher, more eager, more excited, more +joyous even than the lesser crowd of shoppers down Boylston Street. +They don't notice me particularly. No one notices any one +particularly, for the lights overhead see us all, and we all understand +as we cross and dodge and lockstep and bump and jostle through this +deep narrow place of closing doors toward home. Then the last rush at +the station, that nightly baptism into human brotherhood as we plunge +into the crowd and are carried through the gates and into our +train—which is speeding far out through the dark before I begin to +come to myself—find myself leaving the others, separating, +individualizing, taking on definite shape and my own being. The train +is grinding in at my station, and I drop out along the track in the +dark alone. +</P> + +<P> +I gather my bundles and hug them to me, feeling not the bread and +bananas, but only the sense of possession, as I step off down the +track. Here is my automobile. Two miles of back-country road lie +before me. I drive slowly, the stars overhead, but not far away, and +very close about me the deep darkness of the woods—and silence and +space and shapes invisible, and voices inaudible as yet to my +city-dinned ears and staring eyes. But sight returns, and hearing, +till soon my very fingers, feeling far into the dark, begin to see and +hear. +</P> + +<P> +And now I near the hill: these are my woods; this is my gravel bank; +that my meadow, my wall, my postbox, and up yonder among the trees +shines my light. They are expecting me, She, and the boys, and the +dog, and the blazing fire, the very trees up there, and the watching +stars. +</P> + +<P> +How the car takes the hill—as if up were down, and wheels were wings, +and just as if the boys and the dog and the dinner and the fire were +all waiting for <I>it</I>! As they are, of course, it and me. I open up +the throttle, I jam the shrieking whistle, and rip around the bend in +the middle of the hill,—puppy yelping down to meet me. The noise we +make as the lights flash on, as the big door rolls back, and we come to +our nightly standstill inside the boy-filled barn! They drag me from +the wheel—puppy yanking at my trouser leg; they pounce upon my +bundles; they hustle me toward the house, where, in the lighted doorway +more welcome waits me—and questions, batteries of them, even puppy +joining the attack! +</P> + +<P> +Who would have believed I had seen and done all this,—had any such +adventurous trip,—lived any such significant day,—catching my regular +8.35 train as I did! +</P> + +<P> +But we get through the dinner and some of the talk and then the +out-loud reading before the fire; then while she is tucking the +children in bed, I go out to see that all is well about the barn. +</P> + +<P> +How the night has deepened since my return! No wind stirs. The +hill-crest blazes with the light of the stars. Such an earth and sky! +I lock the barn, and crossing the field, climb the ridge to the stump. +The bare woods are dark with shadow and deep with the silence of the +night. A train rumbles somewhere in the distance, then the silence and +space reach off through the shadows, infinitely far off down the +hillside; and the stars gather in the tops of the trees. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-026.jpg" ALT="The open fire" BORDER="2" WIDTH="331" HEIGHT="237"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +II +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE OPEN FIRE +</H3> + +<P> +It is a January night. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +". . . . . . . Enclosed<BR> +From Chaos and the inroad of Darkness old,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +we sit with our book before the fire. Outside in the night ghostly +shapes pass by, ghostly faces press against the window, and at the +corners of the house ghostly voices pause for parley, muttering thickly +through the swirl and smother of the snow. Inside burns the fire, +kindling into glorious pink and white peonies on the nearest wall and +glowing warm and sweet on her face as she reads. The children are in +bed. She is reading aloud to me: +</P> + +<P> +"'I wish the good old times would come again,' she said, 'when we were +not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor, but there was +a middle state'—so she was pleased to ramble on—'in which, I am sure, +we were a great deal happier.'" +</P> + +<P> +Her eyes left the familiar page, wandering far away beyond the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Is it so hard to bear up under two thousand five hundred a year?" I +asked. +</P> + +<P> +The gleam of the fire, or perhaps a fancy out of the far-beyond, +lighted her eyes as she answered, +</P> + +<P> +"We began on four hundred and fifty a year; and we were perfectly—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, but you forget the parsonage; that was rent free!" +</P> + +<P> +"Four hundred and fifty with rent free—and we had everything we +could—" +</P> + +<P> +"You forget again that we had n't even one of our four boys." +</P> + +<P> +Her gaze rested tenderly upon the little chairs between her and the +fire, just where the boys had left them at the end of their listening +an hour before. +</P> + +<P> +"If you had allowed me," she went on, "I was going to say how glad we +ought to be that we are not quite so rich as—" +</P> + +<P> +"We should like to be?" I questioned. +</P> + +<P> +"'A purchase'"—she was reading again—"'is but a purchase, now that +you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. +Do you not remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, +till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare—and +all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher which you dragged home +late at night from Barker's in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we +eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, +and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the +Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing—' +</P> + +<P> +"Is n't this exactly our case?" she asked, interrupting herself for no +other purpose than to prolong the passage she was reading. +</P> + +<P> +"Truly," I replied, trying hard to hide a note of eagerness in my +voice, for I had kept my battery masked these many months, "only Lamb +wanted an old folio, whereas we need a new car. I have driven that old +machine for five years and it was second-hand to begin with." +</P> + +<P> +I watched for the effect of the shot, but evidently I had not got the +range, for she was saying. +</P> + +<P> +"Is there a sweeter bit in all of 'Elia' than this, do you think"? +</P> + +<P> +"'—And when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, +and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out +the relic from his dusty treasures—and when you lugged it home, +wishing it were twice as cumbersome—'" +</P> + +<P> +She had paused again. To know when to pause! how to make the most of +your author! to draw out the linked sweetness of a passage to its +longest—there reads your loving reader! +</P> + +<P> +"You see," laying her hand on mine, "old books and old friends are +best, and I should think you had really rather have a nice safe old car +than any new one. Thieves don't take old cars, as you know. And you +can't insure them, that's a comfort! And cars don't skid and collide +just because they are <I>old</I>, do they? And you never have to scold the +children about the paint and—and the old thing <I>does</I> go—what do you +think Lamb would say about old cars?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lamb be hanged on old cars!" and I sent the sparks flying with a fresh +stick. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then let's hear the rest of him on 'Old <I>China</I>.'" And so she +read, while the fire burned, and outside swept the winter storm. +</P> + +<P> +I have a weakness for out-loud reading and Lamb, and a peculiar joy in +wood fires when the nights are dark and snowy. My mind is not, after +all, <I>much</I> set on automobiles then; there is such a difference between +a wild January night on Mullein Hill and an automobile show—or any +other show. If St. Bernard of Cluny had been an American and not a +monk, I think Jerusalem the Golden might very likely have been a quiet +little town like Hingham, all black with a winter night and lighted for +the Saint with a single open fire. Anyhow I cannot imagine the +mansions of the Celestial City without fireplaces. I don't know how +the equatorial people do; I have never lived on the equator, and I have +no desire to—nor in any other place where it is too hot for a +fireplace, or where wood is so scarce that one is obliged to substitute +a gas-log. I wish I could build an open hearth into every lowly home +and give every man who loves out-loud reading a copy of Lamb and sticks +enough for a fire. I wish—is it futile to wish that besides the +fireplace and the sticks I might add a great many more winter evenings +to the round of the year? I would leave the days as they are in their +beautiful and endless variety, but the long, shut-in winter evenings +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"When young and old in circle<BR> +About the firebrands close--"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +these I would multiply, taking them away from June to give to January, +could I supply the fire and the boys and the books and the reader to go +with them. +</P> + +<P> +And I often wonder if more men might not supply these things for +themselves? There are January nights for all, and space enough outside +of city and suburb for simple firesides; books enough also; yes, and +readers-aloud if they are given the chance. But the boys are hard to +get. They might even come girls. Well, what is the difference, +anyway? Suppose mine had been dear things with ribbons in their +hair—not these four, but four more? Then all the glowing circle about +the fireplace had been filled, the chain complete, a link of fine gold +for every link of steel! Ah! the cat hath nine lives, as Phisologus +saith; but a man hath as many lives as he hath sons, with two lives +besides for every daughter. So it must always seem to me when I +remember the precious thing that vanished from me before I could even +lay her in her mother's arms. She would have been, I think, a full +head taller than the oldest boy, and wiser than all four of the boys, +being a girl. +</P> + +<P> +The real needs of life are few, and to be had by most men, even though +they include children and an automobile. Second-hand cars are very +cheap, and the world seems full of orphans—how many orphans now! It +is n't a question of getting the things; the question is, What are the +necessary things? +</P> + +<P> +First, I say, a fireplace. A man does well to build his fireplace +first instead of the garage. Better than a roof over one's head is a +fire at one's feet; for what is there deadlier than the chill of a +fireless house? The fireplace first, unless indeed he have the chance, +as I had when a boy, to get him a pair of tongs. +</P> + +<P> +The first piece of household furniture I ever purchased was a pair of +old tongs. I was a lad in my teens. "Five—five—five—five—v-v-v-ve +<I>will</I> you make it ten?" I heard the auctioneer cry as I passed the +front gate. He held a pair of brass-headed hearth tongs above his +head, waving them wildly at the unresponsive bidders. +</P> + +<P> +"Will <I>you</I> make it ten?" he yelled at me as the last comer. +</P> + +<P> +"Ten," I answered, a need for fire tongs, that blistering July day, +suddenly overcoming me. +</P> + +<P> +"And sold for ten cents to the boy in the gate," shouted the +auctioneer. "Will somebody throw in the fireplace to go with them!" +</P> + +<P> +I took my tongs rather sheepishly, I fear, rather helplessly, and got +back through the gate, for I was on foot and several miles from home. +I trudged on for home carrying those tongs with me all the way, not +knowing why, not wishing to throw them into the briers for they were +very old and full of story, and I—was very young and full of—I cannot +tell, remembering what little <I>boys</I> are made of. And now here they +lean against the hearth, that very pair. I packed them in the bottom +of my trunk when I started for college; I saved them through the years +when our open fire was a "base-burner," and then a gas-radiator in a +city flat. Moved, preserved, "married" these many years, they stand at +last where the boy must have dreamed them standing—that hot July day, +how long, long ago! +</P> + +<P> +But why should a boy have dreamed such dreams? And what was it in a +married old pair of brass-headed hearth tongs that a boy in his teens +should have bought them at auction and then have carried them to +college with him, rattling about on the bottom of his trunk? For it +was not an over-packed trunk. There were the tongs on the bottom and a +thirty-cent edition of "The Natural History of Selborne" on the +top—that is all. That is all the boy remembers. These two things, at +least, are all that now remain out of the trunkful he started with from +home—the tongs for sentiment, and for friendship the book. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you listening?" she asks, looking up to see if I have gone to +sleep. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I 'm listening." +</P> + +<P> +"And dreaming?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dreaming a little, too,—of you, dear, and the tongs there, and +the boys upstairs, and the storm outside, and the fire, and of this +sweet room,—an old, old dream that I had years and years ago,—all +come true, and more than true." +</P> + +<P> +She slipped her hand into mine. +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I go on?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, go on, please, and I will listen—and, if you don't mind, dream a +little, too, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +There is something in the fire and the rise and fall of her voice, +something so infinitely soothing in its tones, and in Lamb, and in such +a night as this—so vast and fearful, but so futile in its bitter sweep +about the fire—that while one listens one must really dream too. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-036.jpg" ALT="The ice crop" BORDER="2" WIDTH="331" HEIGHT="237"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +III +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE ICE CROP +</H3> + +<P> +The ice-cart with its weighty tongs never climbs our Hill, yet the +icechest does not lack its clear blue cake of frozen February. We +gather our own ice as we gather our own hay and apples. The small +ice-house under the trees has just been packed with eighteen tons of +"black" ice, sawed and split into even blocks, tier on tier, the +harvest of the curing cold, as loft and cellar are still filled with +crops made in the summer's curing heat. So do the seasons overlap and +run together! So do they complement and multiply each other! Like the +star-dust of Saturn they belt our fourteen-acre planet, not with three +rings, nor four, but with twelve, a ring for every month, a girdle of +twelve shining circles running round the year—the tinkling ice of +February in the goblet of October!—the apples of October red and ripe +on what might have been April's empty platter! +</P> + +<P> +He who sows the seasons and gathers the months into ice-house and barn +lives not from sunup to sundown, revolving with the hands of the clock, +but, heliocentric, makes a daily circuit clear around the sun—the +smell of mint in the hay-mow, a reminder of noontime passed; the +prospect of winter in the growing garden, a gentle warning of night +coming on. Twelve times one are twelve—by so many times are months +and meanings and values multiplied for him whose fourteen acres bring +forth abundantly—provided that the barns on the place be kept safely +small. +</P> + +<P> +Big barns are an abomination unto the Lord, and without place on a wise +man's estate. As birds have nests, and foxes dens, so may any man have +a place to lay his head, with a <I>mansion</I> prepared in the sky for his +soul. +</P> + +<P> +Big barns are as foolish for the ice-man as for others. The barns of +an ice-man must needs be large, yet they are over-large if he can say +to his soul: "Soul, thou hast much ice laid up for many days; eat, +drink, and be merry among the cakes"—and when the autumn comes he +still has a barn full of solid cemented cakes that must be sawed out! +No soul can be merry long on ice—nor on sugar, nor shoes, nor stocks, +nor hay, nor anything of that sort in great quantities. He who builds +great barns for ice, builds a refrigerator for his soul. Ice must +never become a man's only crop; for then winter means nothing but ice; +and the year nothing but winter; for the year's never at the spring for +him, but always at February or when the ice is making and the mercury +is down to zero. +</P> + +<P> +As I have already intimated, a safe kind of ice-house is one like mine, +that cannot hold more than eighteen tons—a year's supply (shrinkage +and Sunday ice-cream and other extras provided for). Such an ice-house +is not only an ice-house, it is also an act of faith, an avowal of +confidence in the stability of the frame of things, and in their +orderly continuance. Another winter will come, it proclaims, when the +ponds will be pretty sure to freeze. If they don't freeze, and never +do again—well, who has an ice-house big enough in that event? +</P> + +<P> +My ice-house is one of life's satisfactions; not architecturally, of +course, for there has been no great development yet in ice-house lines, +and this one was home-done; it is a satisfaction morally, being one +thing I have done that is neither more nor less. I have the big-barn +weakness—the desire for ice—for ice to melt—as if I were no wiser +than the ice-man! I builded bigger than I knew when I put the stone +porches about the dwelling-house, consulting in my pride the architect +first instead of the town assessors. I took no counsel of pride in +building the ice-house, nor of fear, nor of my love of ice. I said: "I +will build me a house to carry a year's supply of ice and no more, +however the price of ice may rise, and even with the risk of facing +seven hot and iceless years. I have laid up enough things among the +moths and rust. Ice against the rainy day I will provide, but ice for +my children and my children's children, ice for a possible cosmic +reversal that might twist the equator over the poles, I will not +provide for. Nor will I go into the ice business." +</P> + +<P> +Nor did I! And I say the building of that ice-house has been an +immense satisfaction to me. I entertain my due share of +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Gorgons, and hydras and chimaeras dire";<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +but a cataclysm of the proportions mentioned above would as likely as +not bring on another Ice Age, or indeed— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +". . . run back and fetch the Age of Gold."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +To have an ice-house, and yourself escape cold storage—that seems to +me the thing. +</P> + +<P> +I can fill the house in a single day, and so trade a day for a year; or +is it not rather that I crowd a year into a day? Such days are +possible. It is not any day that I can fill the ice-house. Ice-day is +a chosen, dedicated day, one of the year's high festivals, the Day of +First Fruits, the ice crop being the year's earliest harvest. Hay is +made when the sun shines, a condition sometimes slow in coming; but ice +of the right quality and thickness, with roads right, and sky right for +harvesting, requires a conjunction of right conditions so difficult as +to make a good ice-day as rare as a day in June. June! why, June knows +no such glorious weather as that attending the harvest of the ice. +</P> + +<P> +This year it fell early in February—rather late in the season; so +late, in fact, that, in spite of my faith in winter, I began to grow +anxious—something no one on a hill in Hingham need ever do. Since New +Year's Day unseasonable weather had prevailed: shifty winds, uncertain +skies, rain and snow and sleet—that soft, spongy weather when the ice +soaks and grows soggy. By the middle of January what little ice there +had been in the pond was gone, and the ice-house was still empty. +</P> + +<P> +Toward the end of the month, however, the skies cleared, the wind +settled steadily into the north, and a great quiet began to deepen over +the fields, a quiet that at night grew so tense you seemed to hear the +close-glittering heavens snapping with the light of the stars. +Everything seemed charged with electric cold; the rich soil of the +garden struck fire like flint beneath your feet; the tall hillside +pines, as stiff as masts of steel, would suddenly crack in the brittle +silence, with a sharp report; and at intervals throughout the taut +boreal night you could hear a hollow rumbling running down the length +of the pond—the ice being split with the wide iron wedge of the cold. +</P> + +<P> +Down and down for three days slipped the silver column in the +thermometer until at eight o'clock on the fourth day it stood just +above zero. Cold? It was splendid weather! with four inches of ice on +the little pond behind the ridge, glare ice, black as you looked across +it, but like a pane of plate glass as you peered into it at the +stirless bottom below; smooth glare ice untouched by the wing of the +wind or by even the circling runner of the skater-snow. Another day +and night like this and the solid square-edged blocks could come in. +</P> + +<P> +I looked at the glass late that night and found it still falling. I +went on out beneath the stars. It may have been the tightened +telephone wires overhead, or the frozen ground beneath me ringing with +the distant tread of the coming north wind, yet over these, and with +them, I heard the singing of a voiceless song, no louder than the +winging hum of bees, but vaster—the earth and air responding to a +starry lyre as some Aeolian harper, sweeping through the silvery spaces +of the night, brushed the strings with her robes of jeweled cold. +</P> + +<P> +The mercury stood at zero by one o'clock. A biting wind had risen and +blew all the next day. Eight inches of ice by this time. One night +more and the crop would be ripe. And it was ripe. +</P> + +<P> +I was out before the sun, tramping down to the pond with pike and saw, +the team not likely to be along for half an hour yet, the breaking of +the marvelous day all mine. Like apples of gold in baskets of silver +were the snow-covered ridges in the light of the slow-coming dawn. The +wind had fallen, but the chill seemed the more intense, so silently it +took hold. My breath hung about me in little gray clouds, covering my +face, and even my coat, with rime. As the hurt passed from my fingers, +my eyebrows seemed to become detached, my cheeks shrunk, my flesh +suddenly free of cumbering clothes. But in half a minute the rapid red +blood would come beating back, spreading over me and out from me, with +the pain, and then the glow, of life, of perfect life that seemed +itself to feed upon the consuming cold. +</P> + +<P> +No other living thing was yet abroad, no stir or sound except the +tinkling of tiny bells all about me that were set to swinging as I +moved along. The crusted snow was strewn with them; every twig was +hung, and every pearl-bent grass blade. Then off through the woods +rang the chime of louder bells, sleigh bells; then the shrill squeal of +iron runners over dry snow; then the broken voices of men; and soon +through the winding wood road came the horses, their bay coats white, +as all things were, with the glittering dust of the hoar frost. +</P> + +<P> +It was beautiful work. The mid-afternoon found us in the thick of a +whirling storm, the grip of the cold relaxed, the woods abloom with the +clinging snow. But the crop was nearly in. High and higher rose the +cold blue cakes within the ice-house doors until they touched the +rafter plate. +</P> + +<P> +It was hard work. The horses pulled hard; the men swore hard, now and +again, and worked harder than they swore. They were rough, simple men, +crude and elemental like their labor. It was elemental work—filling a +house with ice, three hundred-pound cakes of clean, clear ice, cut from +the pond, skidded into the pungs, and hauled through the woods all +white, and under a sky all gray, with softly-falling snow. They earned +their penny; and I earned my penny, and I got it, though I asked only +the wages of going on from dawn to dark, down the crystal hours of the +day. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-046.jpg" ALT="Seed catalogues" BORDER="2" WIDTH="361" HEIGHT="183"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SEED CATALOGUES +</H3> + +<P> +"The new number of the 'Atlantic' came to-day," She said, stopping by +the table. "It has your essay in it." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" I replied, only half hearing. +</P> + +<P> +"You have seen it, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"No"—still absorbed in my reading. +</P> + +<P> +"What is it you are so interested in?" she inquired, laying down the +new magazine. +</P> + +<P> +"A seed catalogue." +</P> + +<P> +"More seed catalogues! Why, you read nothing else last night." +</P> + +<P> +"But this is a new one," I replied, "and I declare I never saw turnips +that could touch this improved strain here. I am going to plant a lot +of them this year." +</P> + +<P> +"How many seed catalogues have you had this spring?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only six, so far." +</P> + +<P> +"And you plant your earliest seeds—" +</P> + +<P> +"In April, the middle of April, though I may be able to get my first +peas in by the last of March. You see peas"—she was backing +away—"this new Antarctic Pea—will stand a lot of cold; but beans—do +come here, and look at these Improved Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans!" +holding out the wonderfully lithographed page toward her. But she +backed still farther away, and, putting her hands behind her, looked at +me instead, and very solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +I suppose every man comes to know that unaccountable expression in his +wife's eyes soon or late: a sad, baffled expression, detached, remote, +as of things seen darkly, or descried afar off; an expression which +leaves you feeling that you are afar off,—discernible, but infinitely +dwindled. Two minds with but a single thought—so you start; but soon +she finds, or late, that as the heavens are high above the earth, so +are some of your thoughts above her thoughts. She cannot follow. On +the brink she stands and sees you, through the starry spaces, drift +from her ken in your fleet of—seed catalogues. +</P> + +<P> +I have never been able to explain to her the seed catalogue. She is as +fond of vegetables as I, and neither of us cares much for turnips—nor +for carrots, nor parsnips either, when it comes to that, our two hearts +at the table beating happily as one. Born in the country, she +inherited a love of the garden, but a feminine garden, the garden +<I>parvus, minor, minimus</I>—so many cut-worms long, so many cut-worms +wide. I love a garden of size, a garden that one cut-worm cannot sweep +down upon in the night. +</P> + +<P> +For years I have wanted to be a farmer, but there in the furrow ahead +of me, like a bird on its nest, she has sat with her knitting; and when +I speak of loving long rows to hoe, she smiles and says, "For the +<I>boys</I> to hoe." Her unit of garden measure is a meal—so many beet +seeds for a meal; so many meals for a row, with never two rows of +anything, with hardly a full-length row of anything, and with all the +rows of different lengths, as if gardening were a sort of geometry or a +problem in arithmetic, figuring your vegetable with the meal for a +common divisor—how many times it will go into all your rows without +leaving a remainder! +</P> + +<P> +Now I go by the seed catalogue, planting, not after the dish, as if my +only vision were a garden peeled and in the pot, but after the Bush., +Peck, Qt., Pt., Lb., Oz., Pkg.,—so many pounds to the acre, instead of +so many seeds to the meal. +</P> + +<P> +And I have tried to show her that gardening is something of a risk, +attended by chance, and no such exact science as dressmaking; that you +cannot sow seeds as you can sew buttons; that the seed-man has no +machine for putting sure-sprout-humps into each of his minute wares as +the hook-and-eye-man has; that with all wisdom and understanding one +could do no better than to buy (as I am careful to do) out of that +catalogue whose title reads "Honest Seeds"; and that even the Sower in +Holy Writ allowed somewhat for stony places and other inherent hazards +of planting time. +</P> + +<P> +But she follows only afar off, affirming the primary meaning of that +parable to be plainly set forth in the context, while the secondary +meaning pointeth out the folly of sowing seed anywhere save on good +ground—which seemed to be only about one quarter of the area in the +parable that was planted; and that anyhow, seed catalogues, especially +those in colors, designed as they are to catch the simple-minded and +unwary, need to be looked into by the post-office authorities and if +possible kept from all city people, and from college professors in +particular. +</P> + +<P> +She is entirely right about the college professors. Her understanding +is based upon years of observation and the patient cooking of uncounted +pots of beans. +</P> + +<P> +I confess to a weakness for gardening and no sense at all of proportion +in vegetables. I can no more resist a seed catalogue than a toper can +his cup. There is no game, no form of exercise, to compare for a +moment in my mind with having a row of young growing things in a patch +of mellow soil; no possession so sure, so worth while, so interesting +as a piece of land. The smell of it, the feel of it, the call of it, +intoxicate me. The rows are never long enough, nor the hours, nor the +muscles strong enough either, when there is hoeing to do. +</P> + +<P> +Why should she not take it as a solemn duty to save me from the hoe? +Man is an immoderate animal, especially in the spring when the doors of +his classroom are about to open for him into the wide and greening +fields. There is only one place to live,—here in the hills of +Hingham; and there is nothing better to do here or anywhere, than the +hoeing, or the milking, or the feeding of the hens. +</P> + +<P> +A professor in the small college of Slimsalaryville tells in a recent +magazine of his long hair and no dress suit, and of his wife's doing +the washing in order that they might have bread and the "Eugenic +Review" on a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. It is a sad +story, in the midst of which he exclaims: "I may even get to the place +where I can <I>spare time</I> (italics mine) to keep chickens or a cow, and +that would help immensely; but I am so constituted that chickens or a +cow would certainly cripple my work." How cripple it? Is n't it his +work to <I>teach</I>? Far from it. "Let there be light," he says at the +end of the essay, is his work, and he adds that he has been so busy +with it that he is on the verge of a nervous break-down. Of course he +is. Who would n't be with that job? And of course he has n't a +constitution for chickens and a cow. But neither does he seem to have +constitution enough for the light-giving either, being ready to +collapse from his continuous shining. +</P> + +<P> +But isn't this the case with many of us? Aren't we overworking—doing +our own simple job of teaching and, besides that, taking upon ourselves +the Lord's work of letting there be light? +</P> + +<P> +I have come to the conclusion that there might not be any less light +were the Lord allowed to do his own shining, and that probably there +might be quite as good teaching if the teacher stuck humbly to his +desk, and after school kept chickens and a cow. The egg-money and +cream "would help immensely," even the Professor admits, the +Professor's wife fully concurring no doubt. +</P> + +<P> +Don't we all take ourselves a little seriously—we college professors +and others? As if the Lord could not continue to look after his light, +if we looked after our students! It is only in these last years that I +have learned that I can go forth unto my work and to my labor until the +evening, quitting then, and getting home in time to feed the chickens +and milk the cow. I am a professional man, and I dwell in the midst of +professional men, all of whom are inclined to help the Lord out by +working after dark—all of whom are really in dire constitutional need +of the early roosting chickens and the quiet, ruminating cow. +</P> + +<P> +To walk humbly with the hens, that's the thing—after the classes are +dismissed and the office closed. To get out of the city, away from +books, and theories, and students, and patients, and clients, and +customers—back to real things, simple, restful, healthful things for +body and soul, homely domestic things that lay eggs at 70 cents per +dozen, and make butter at $2.25 the 5-pound box! As for me, this does +"help immensely," affording me all necessary hair-cuts (I don't want +the "Eugenic Review"), and allowing Her to send the family washing +(except the flannels) to the laundry. +</P> + +<P> +Instead of crippling normal man's normal work, country living (chickens +and a cow) will prevent his work from crippling him—keeping him a +little from his students and thus saving him from too much teaching; +keeping him from reading the "Eugenic Review" and thus saving him from +too much learning; curing him, in short, of his "constitution" that is +bound to come to some sort of a collapse unless rested and saved by +chickens and a cow. +</P> + +<P> +"By not too many chickens," she would add; and there is no one to match +her with a chicken—fried, stewed, or turned into pie. +</P> + +<P> +The hens are no longer mine, the boys having taken them over; but the +gardening I can't give up, nor the seed catalogues. +</P> + +<P> +The one in my hands was exceptionally radiant, and exceptionally full +of Novelties and Specialties for the New Year, among them being an +extraordinary new pole bean—an Improved Kentucky Wonder. She had +backed away, as I have said, and instead of looking at the page of +beans, looked solemnly at me; then with something sorrowful, something +somewhat Sunday-like in her voice, an echo, I presume, of lessons in +the Catechism, she asked me— +</P> + +<P> +"Who makes you plant beans?" +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," I began, "I—" +</P> + +<P> +"How many meals of pole beans did we eat last summer?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—don't—re—" +</P> + +<P> +"Three—just three," she answered. "And I think you must remember how +many of that row of poles we picked?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, I—" +</P> + +<P> +"Three—just three out of thirty poles! Now, do you think you remember +how many bushels of those beans went utterly unpicked?" +</P> + +<P> +I was visibly weakening by this time. +</P> + +<P> +"Three—do you think?" +</P> + +<P> +"Multiply that three by three-times-three! And now tell me—" +</P> + +<P> +But this was too much. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear," I protested, "I recollect exactly. It was—" +</P> + +<P> +"No, I don't believe you do. I cannot trust you at all with beans. +But I should like to know why you plant ten or twelve kinds of beans +when the only kind we like are limas!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why—the—catalogue advises—" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, the catalogue advises—" +</P> + +<P> +"You don't seem to understand, my dear, that—" +</P> + +<P> +"Now, <I>why</I> don't I understand?" +</P> + +<P> +I paused. This is always a hard question, and peculiarly hard as the +end of a series, and on a topic as difficult as beans. I don't know +beans. There is little or nothing about beans in the history of +philosophy or in poetry. Thoreau says that when he was hoeing his +beans it was not beans that he hoed nor he that hoed beans—which was +the only saying that came to mind at the moment, and under the +circumstances did not seem to help me much. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," I replied, fumbling among my stock of ready-made reasons, +"I—really—don't—know exactly why you don't understand. Indeed, I +really don't know—that <I>I</I> exactly understand. <I>Everything</I> is full +of things that even I can't understand—how to explain my tendency to +plant all kinds of beans, for instance; or my 'weakness,' as you call +it, for seed catalogues; or—" +</P> + +<P> +She opened her magazine, and I hastened to get the stool for her feet. +As I adjusted the light for her she said:— +</P> + +<P> +"Let me remind you that this is the night of the annual banquet of your +Swampatalk Club; you don't intend to forego that famous roast beef for +the seed catalogues?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did n't intend to, but I must say that literature like this is +enough to make a man a vegetarian. Look at that page for an +old-fashioned New England Boiled Dinner! Such carrots. Really <I>they</I> +look good enough to eat. I think I 'll plant some of those improved +carrots; and some of these parsnips; and some—" +</P> + +<P> +"You had better go get ready," she said, "and please put that big stick +on the fire for me," drawing the lamp toward her, as she spoke, so that +all of its green-shaded light fell over her—over the silver in her +hair, with its red rose; over the pink and lacy thing that wrapped her +from her sweet throat to the silver stars on her slippers. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not going to that Club!" I said. "I have talked myself for three +hours to-day, attended two conferences, and listened to one address. +There were three different societies for the general improving of +things that met at the University halls to-day with big speakers from +the ends of the earth. To-morrow night I address The First Century +Club in the city after a dinner with the New England Teachers of +English Monthly Luncheon Club—and I would like to know what we came +out here in the woods for, anyhow?" +</P> + +<P> +"If you are going—" She was speaking calmly. +</P> + +<P> +"Going where?" I replied, picking up the seed catalogues to make room +for myself on the couch. "<I>Please</I> look at this pumpkin! Think of +what a jack-o'-lantern it would make for the boys! I am going to +plant—" +</P> + +<P> +"You 'll be cold," she said, rising and drawing a steamer rug up over +me; then laying the open magazine across my shoulders while giving the +pillow a motherly pull, she added, with a sigh of contentment:— +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps, if it had n't been for me, you might have been a great +success with pumpkins or pigs—I don't know." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-059.jpg" ALT="The Dustless-Duster" BORDER="2" WIDTH="360" HEIGHT="277"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +V +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE DUSTLESS-DUSTER +</H3> + +<P> +There are beaters, brooms and Bissell's Sweepers; there are dry-mops, +turkey-wings, whisks, and vacuum-cleaners; there are—but no matter. +Whatever other things there are, and however many of them in the +closet, the whole dust-raising kit is incomplete without the +Dustless-Duster. +</P> + +<P> +For the Dustless-Duster is final, absolute. What can be added to, or +taken away from, a Dustless-Duster? A broom is only a broom, even a +new broom. Its sphere is limited; its work is partial. Dampened and +held persistently down by the most expert of sweepers, the broom still +leaves something for the Dustless-Duster to do. But the +Dustless-Duster leaves nothing for anything to do. The dusting is done. +</P> + +<P> +Because there are many who dust, and because they have searched in vain +for a dustless-duster, I should like to say that the Dustless-Duster +can be bought at department stores, at those that have a full line of +departments—at any department store, in fact; for the Dustless-Duster +department is the largest of all the departments, whatever the store. +Ask for it of your jeweler, grocer, milliner. Ask for "The Ideal," +"The Universal," "The Indispensable," of any man with anything to sell +or preach or teach, and you shall have it—the perfect thing which you +have spent life looking for; which you have thought so often to have, +but found as often that you had not. You shall have it. I have it. +One hangs, rather, in the kitchen on the clothes-dryer. +</P> + +<P> +And one (more than one) hangs in the kitchen closet, and in the cellar, +and in the attic. I have often brought it home, for my search has been +diligent since a certain day, years ago,—a "Commencement Day" at the +Institute. +</P> + +<P> +I had never attended a Commencement exercise before; I had never been +in an opera house before; and the painted light through the roof of +windows high overhead, the strains of the orchestra from far below me, +the banks of broad-leaved palms, the colors, the odors, the confusion +of flowers and white frocks, were strangely thrilling. Nothing had +ever happened to me in the woods like this: the exaltation, the +depression, the thrill of joy, the throb of pain, the awakening, the +wonder, the purpose, and the longing! It was all a dream—all but the +form and the face of one girl graduate, and the title of her essay, +"The Real and the Ideal." +</P> + +<P> +I do not know what large and lofty sentiments she uttered; I only +remember the way she looked them. I did not hear the words she read; +but I still feel the absolute fitness of her theme—how real her simple +white frock, her radiant face, her dark hair! And how ideal! +</P> + +<P> +I had seen perfection. Here was the absolute, the final, the ideal, +the indispensable! And I was fourteen! Now I am past forty; and upon +the kitchen clothes-dryer hangs the Dustless-Duster. +</P> + +<P> +No, I have not lost the vision. The daughter of that girl, the image +of her mother, slipped into my classroom the other day. Nor have I +faltered in the quest. The search goes on, and must go on; for however +often I get it, only to cast it aside, the indispensable, the ultimate, +must continue to be indispensable and ultimate, until, some day— +</P> + +<P> +What matters how many times I have had it, to discover every time that +it is only a piece of cheesecloth, ordinary cheesecloth, dyed black and +stamped with red letters? The search must go on, notwithstanding the +clutter in the kitchen closet. The cellar is crowded with +Dustless-Dusters, too; the garret is stuffed with them. There is +little else besides them anywhere in the house. And this was an empty +house when I moved into it, a few years ago. +</P> + +<P> +As I moved in, an old man moved out, back to the city whence a few +years before he had come; and he took back with him twelve two-horse +wagon-loads of Dustless-Dusters. He had spent a long life collecting +them, and now, having gathered all there were in the country, he was +going back to the city, in a last pathetic, a last heroic, effort to +find the one Dustless-Duster more. +</P> + +<P> +It was the old man's twelve two-horse loads that were pathetic. There +were many sorts of things in those twelve loads, of many lands, of many +dates, but all of one stamp. The mark was sometimes hard to find, +corroded sometimes nearly past deciphering, yet never quite gone. The +red letters were indelible on every piece, from the gross of antique +candle-moulds (against the kerosene's giving out) to an ancient +coffin-plate, far oxidized, and engraved "Jones," which, the old man +said, as he pried it off the side of the barn, "might come in handy any +day." +</P> + +<P> +The old man has since died and been laid to rest. Upon his coffin was +set a new silver plate, engraved simply and truthfully, "Brown." +</P> + +<P> +We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain, says Holy Writ, +that we can carry nothing out. But it is also certain that we shall +attempt to carry out, or try to find as soon as we are out, a +Dustless-Duster. For we did bring something with us into this world, +losing it temporarily, to be forever losing and finding it; and when we +go into another world, will it not be to carry the thing with us there, +or to continue there our eternal search for it? We are not so certain +of carrying nothing out of this world, but we are certain of leaving +many things behind. +</P> + +<P> +Among those that I shall leave behind me is The Perfect Automatic +Carpet-Layer. But I did not buy that. She did. It was one of the +first of our perfections. +</P> + +<P> +We have more now. I knew as I entered the house that night that +something had happened; that the hope of the early dawn had died, for +some cause, with the dusk. The trouble showed in her eyes: mingled +doubt, chagrin, self-accusation, self-defense, defeat—familiar +symptoms. She had seen something, something perfect, and had bought it. +</P> + +<P> +I knew the look well, and the feelings all too well, and said nothing. +For suppose I had been at home that day and she had been in town? +Still, on my trip into town that morning I ran the risk of meeting the +man who sold me "The Magic Stropless Razor Salve." No, not that man! +I shall never meet him again, for vengeance is mine, saith the <I>Lord</I>. +But suppose I had met him? And suppose he had had some other salve, +<I>Safety</I> Razor Salve this time to sell? +</P> + +<P> +It is for young men to see visions and for old men to dream dreams; but +it is for no man or woman to buy one. +</P> + +<P> +She had seen a vision, and had bought it—"The Perfect Automatic +Carpet-Layer." +</P> + +<P> +I kept silence, as I say, which is often a thoughtful thing to do. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you ill?" she ventured, handing me my tea. +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"Tired?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"I hope you are not very tired, for the Parsonage Committee brought the +new carpet this afternoon, and I have started to put it down. I +thought we would finish it this evening. It won't be any work at all +for you, for I—I—bought you one of these to-day to put it down +with,"—pushing an illustrated circular across the table toward me. +</P> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +ANY CHILD CAN USE IT +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE PERFECT AUTOMATIC CARPET-LAYER +</H3> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +No more carpet-laying bills. Do your own laying. No wrinkles. No +crowded corners. No sore knees. No pounded fingers. No broken backs. +Stand up and lay your carpet with the Perfect Automatic. Easy as +sweeping. Smooth as putting paper on the wall. You hold the handle, +and the Perfect Automatic does the rest. Patent Applied For. Price— +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +—but it was not the price! It was the tool—a weird hybrid tool, part +gun, part rake, part catapult, part curry-comb, fit apparently for +almost any purpose, from the business of blunderbuss to the office of +an apple-picker. Its handle, which any child could hold, was somewhat +shorter and thicker than a hoe-handle, and had a slotted tin barrel, a +sort of intestine, on its ventral side along its entire length. Down +this intestine, their points sticking through the slot, moved the tacks +in single file to a spring-hammer close to the floor. This hammer was +operated by a lever or tongue at the head of the handle, the connection +between the hammer at the distal end and the lever at the proximal end +being effected by means of a steel-wire spinal cord down the dorsal +side of the handle. Over the fist of a hammer spread a jaw of sharp +teeth to take hold of the carpet. The thing could not talk; but it +could do almost anything else, so fearfully and wonderfully was it made. +</P> + +<P> +As for laying carpets with it, any child could do that. But we did n't +have any children then, and I had quite outgrown my childhood. I tried +to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the +Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down +on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at +the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped +out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the +carpet, the crouching hammer sprang, and— +</P> + +<P> +And then I lifted up the Perfect Automatic to see if the tack went +in,—a simple act that any child could do, but which took automatically +and perfectly all the stretch out of the carpet; for the hammer did not +hit the tack; the tack really did not get through the trap; the trap +did not open the slot; the slot—but no matter. We have no carpets +now. The Perfect Automatic stands in the garret with all its original +varnish on. At its feet sits a half-used can of "Beesene, The Prince +of Floor Pastes." +</P> + +<P> +We have only hard-wood floors now, which we treated, upon the strength +of the label, with this Prince of Pastes, "Beesene"—"guaranteed not to +show wear or dirt or to grow gritty; water-proof, gravel-proof. No rug +will ruck on it, no slipper stick to it. Needs no weighted brush. +Self-shining. The only perfect Floor Wax known. One box will do all +the floors you have." +</P> + +<P> +Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick +to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy +Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the +attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar. +</P> + +<P> +I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse +loads. But I am getting them fast. +</P> + +<P> +Only the other day a tall lean man came to the side door, asking after +my four boys by name, and inquiring when my new book would be off the +stocks, and, incidentally, showing me a patent-applied-for device +called "The Fat Man's Friend." +</P> + +<P> +"The Friend" was a steel-wire hoop, shaped and jointed like a pair of +calipers, but knobbed at its points with little metal balls. The +instrument was made to open and spring closed about the Fat Man's neck, +and to hold, by means of a clasp on each side, a napkin, or bib, spread +securely over the Fat Man's bosom. +</P> + +<P> +"Ideal thing, now, is n't it?" said the agent, demonstrating with his +handkerchief. +</P> + +<P> +"Why—yes"—I hesitated—"for a fat man, perhaps." +</P> + +<P> +"Just so," he replied, running me over rapidly with a professional eye; +"but you know, Professor, that when a man's forty, or thereabouts, it's +the nature of him to stouten. Once past forty he's liable to pick up +any day. And when he starts, you know as well as I, Professor, when he +starts there's nothing fattens faster than a man of forty. You ought +to have one of these 'Friends' on hand." +</P> + +<P> +"But fat does n't run in my family," I protested, my helpless, +single-handed condition being plainly manifest in my tone. +</P> + +<P> +"No matter," he rejoined, "look at me! Six feet three, and thin as a +lath. I 'm what you might call a walking skeleton, ready to disjoint, +as the poet says, and eat all my meals in fear, which I would do if 't +wa'n't for this little 'Friend.' I can't eat without it. I miss it +more when I am eatin' than I miss the victuals. I carry one with me +all the time. Awful handy little thing. Now—" +</P> + +<P> +"But—" I put in. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly," he continued, with the smoothest-running motor I ever +heard, "but here's the point of the whole matter, as you might say. +<I>This</I> thing is up to date, Professor. Now, the old-fashioned way of +tying a knot in the corner of your napkin and anchoring it under your +Adam's apple—<I>that's</I> gone by. Also the stringed bib and safety-pin. +Both those devices were crude—but necessary, of course, Professor—and +inconvenient, and that old-fashioned knot really dangerous; for the +knot, pressing against the Adam's apple, or the apple, as you might +say, trying to swallow the knot—well, if there isn't less apoplexy and +strangulation when this little Friend finds universal application, then +I 'm no Prophet, as the Good Book says." +</P> + +<P> +"But you see—" I broke in. +</P> + +<P> +"I do, Professor. It's right here. I understand your objection. But +it is purely verbal and academic, Professor. You are troubled +concerning the name of this indispensable article. But you know, as +well as I—even better with your education, Professor—that there 's +nothing, absolutely nothing in a name. 'What's in a name?' the poet +says. And I 'll agree with you—though, of course, it's +confidential—that 'The Fat Man's Friend' is, as you literary folks +would say, more or less of a <I>nom de plume</I>. Isn't it? Besides,—if +you 'll allow me the language, Professor,—it's too delimiting, +restricting, prejudicing. Sets a lean man against it. But between us, +Professor, they 're going to change the name of the next batch. +They're—" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed!" I exclaimed; "what's the next batch going to be?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, just the same—fifteen cents each—two for a quarter. You could +n't tell them apart. You might just as well have one of these, and run +no chances getting one of the next lot. They'll be precisely the same; +only, you see, they're going to name the next ones 'Every Bosom's +Friend,' to fit lean and fat, and without distinction of sex. Ideal +thing now, is n't it? Yes, that's right—fifteen cents—two for +twenty-five, Professor?—don't you want another for your wife?" +</P> + +<P> +No, I did not want another for her. But if <I>she</I> had been at home, and +I had been away, who knows but that all six of us had come off with a +"Friend" apiece? They were a bargain by the half-dozen. +</P> + +<P> +A bargain? Did anybody ever get a bargain—something worth more than +he paid? Well—you shall, when you bring home a Dustless-Duster. +</P> + +<P> +And who has not brought it home! Or who is not about to bring it home! +Not all the years that I have searched, not all the loads that I have +collected, count against the conviction that at last I have it—the +perfect thing—until I <I>reach</I> home. But with several of my +perfections I have never yet reached home, or I am waiting an opportune +season to give them to my wife. I have been disappointed; but let no +one try to tell me that there is no such thing as Perfection. Is not +the desire for it the breath of my being? Is not the search for it the +end of my existence? Is not the belief that at last I possess it—in +myself, my children, my breed of hens, my religious creed, my political +party—is not this conviction, I say, all there is of existence? +</P> + +<P> +It is very easy to see that perfection is not in any of the other +political parties. During a political campaign, not long since, I +wrote to a friend in New Jersey,— +</P> + +<P> +"Now, whatever your particular, personal brand of political faith, it +is clearly your moral duty to vote this time the Democratic ticket." +</P> + +<P> +Whereupon (and he is a thoughtful, God-fearing man, too) he wrote +back,— +</P> + +<P> +"As I belong to the only party of real reform, I shall stick to it this +year, as I always have, and vote the straight ticket." +</P> + +<P> +Is there a serener faith than this human faith in perfection? A surer, +more unshakable belief than this human belief in the present possession +of it? +</P> + +<P> +There is only one thing deeper in the heart of man than his desire for +completeness, and that is his conviction of being about to attain unto +it. He dreams of completeness by night; works for completeness by day; +buys it of every agent who comes along; votes for it at every election; +accepts it with every sermon; and finds it—momentarily—every time he +finds himself. The desire for it is the sweet spring of all his +satisfactions; the possession of it the bitter fountain of many of his +woes. +</P> + +<P> +Apply the conviction anywhere, to anything—creeds, wives, hens—and +see how it works out. +</P> + +<P> +As to <I>hens</I>:— +</P> + +<P> +There are many breeds of fairly good hens, and I have tried as many +breeds as I have had years of keeping hens, but not until the poultry +show, last winter, did I come upon the perfect hen. I had been working +toward her through the Bantams, Brahmas, and Leghorns, to the Plymouth +Rocks. I had tried the White and the Barred Plymouth Rocks, but they +were not the hen. Last winter I came upon the originator of the Buff +Plymouth Rocks—and here she was! I shall breed nothing henceforth but +Buff Plymouth Rocks. +</P> + +<P> +In the Buff Rock we have a bird of ideal size, neither too large nor +too small, weighing about three pounds more than the undersized +Leghorn, and about three pounds less than the oversized Brahma; we have +a bird of ideal color, too—a single, soft, even tone, and no such +barnyard daub as the Rhode Island Red; not crow-colored, either, like +the Minorca; nor liable to all the dirt of the White Plymouth Rocks. +Being a beautiful and uniform buff, this perfect Plymouth Rock is +easily bred true to color, as the vari-colored fowls are not. +</P> + +<P> +Moreover, the Buff Rock is a layer, is <I>the</I> layer, maturing as she +does about four weeks later than the Rhode Island Reds, and so escaping +that fatal early fall laying with its attendant moult and eggless +interim until March! On the other hand, the Buff Rock matures about a +month earlier than the logy, slow-growing breeds, and so gets a good +start before the cold and eggless weather comes. +</P> + +<P> +And such an egg! There are white eggs and brown eggs, large and small +eggs, but only one ideal egg—the Buff Rock's. It is of a soft lovely +brown, yet whitish enough for a New York market, but brown enough, +however, to meet the exquisite taste of the Boston trade. In fact it +is neither white nor brown, but rather a delicate blend of the two—a +new tone, indeed, a bloom rather, that I must call fresh-laid lavender. +</P> + +<P> +So, at least, I am told. My pullets are not yet laying, having had a +very late start last spring. But the real question, speaking +professionally, with any breed of fowls is a market question: How do +they dress? How do they eat? +</P> + +<P> +If the Buff Plymouth Rock is an ideal bird in her feathers, she is even +more so plucked. All white-feathered fowl, in spite of yellow legs, +look cadaverous when picked. All dark-feathered fowl, with their +tendency to green legs and black pin-feathers, look spotted, long dead, +and unsavory. But the Buff Rock, a melody in color, shows that +consonance, that consentaneousness, of flesh to feather that makes the +plucked fowl to the feathered fowl what high noon is to the faint and +far-off dawn—a glow of golden legs and golden neck, mellow, melting as +butter, and all the more so with every unpicked pinfeather. +</P> + +<P> +Can there be any doubt of the existence of hen-perfection? Any +question of my having attained unto it—with the maturing of this new +breed of hens? +</P> + +<P> +For all spiritual purposes, that is, for all satisfactions, the ideal +hen is the pullet—the Buff Plymouth Rock pullet. +</P> + +<P> +Just so the ideal wife. If we could only keep them pullets! +</P> + +<P> +The trouble we husbands have with our wives begins with our marrying +them. There is seldom any trouble with them before. Our belief in +feminine perfection is as profound and as eternal as youth. And the +perfection is just as real as the faith. Youth is always bringing the +bride home—to hang her on the kitchen clothes-dryer. She turns out to +be ordinary cheese-cloth, dyed a more or less fast black—this +perfection that he had stamped in letters of indelible red! +</P> + +<P> +The race learns nothing. I learn, but not my children after me. They +learn only after themselves. Already I hear my boys saying that their +wives—! And the oldest of these boys has just turned fourteen! +</P> + +<P> +Fourteen! the trouble all began at fourteen. No, the trouble began +with Adam, though Eve has been responsible for much of it since. Adam +had all that a man should have wanted in his perfect Garden. +Nevertheless he wanted Eve. Eve in turn had Adam, a perfect man! but +she wanted something more—if only the apple tree in the middle of the +Garden. And we all of us were there in that Garden—with Adam thinking +he was getting perfection in Eve; with Eve incapable of appreciating +perfection in Adam. The trouble is human. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Flounder, flounder in the sea,<BR> +Prythee quickly come to me!<BR> +For my wife, Dame Isabel,<BR> +Wants strange things I scarce dare tell."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +"And what does she want <I>now</I>?" asks the flounder. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, she wants to <I>vote</I> now," says the fisherman. +</P> + +<P> +"Go home, and you shall find her with the ballot," sighs the flounder. +"But has n't she Dustless-Dusters enough already?" +</P> + +<P> +It would seem so. But once having got Adam, who can blame her for +wanting an apple tree besides, or the ballot? +</P> + +<P> +'T is no use to forbid her. Yes, she has you, but—but Eve had Adam, +too, another perfect man! Don't forbid her, for she will have it +anyhow. It may not turn out to be all that she thinks it is. But did +you turn out to be all that she thought you were? She will have a bite +of this new apple if she has to disobey, and die for it, because such +disobedience and death are in answer to a higher command, and to a +larger life from within. Eve's discovery that Adam was cheese-cloth, +and her reaching out for something better, did not, as Satan promised, +make us as God; but it did make us different from all the other animals +in the Garden, placing us even above the angels,—so far above, as to +bring us, apparently, by a new and divine descent, into Eden. +</P> + +<P> +The hope of the race is in Eve,—in her making the best she can of +Adam; in her clear understanding of his lame logic,—that her +<I>im</I>perfections added to his perfections make the perfect Perfection; +and in her reaching out beyond Adam for something more—for the ballot +now. +</P> + +<P> +If there is growth, if there is hope, if there is continuance, if there +is immortality for the race and for the soul, it is to be found in this +sure faith in the Ultimate, the Perfect, in this certain disappointment +every time we think we have it; and in this abiding conviction that we +are about to bring it home. But let a man settle down on perfection as +a present possession, and that man is as good as dead already—even +religiously dead, if he has possession of a perfect Salvation. +</P> + +<P> +Now, "Sister Smith" claimed to possess Perfection—a perfect infallible +book of revelations in her King James Version of the Scriptures, and +she claimed to have lived by it, too, for eighty years. I was fresh +from the theological school, and this was my first "charge." This was +my first meal, too, in this new charge, at the home of one of the +official brethren, with whom Sister Smith lived. +</P> + +<P> +There was an ominous silence at the table for which I could hardly +account—unless it had to do with the one empty chair. Then Sister +Smith appeared and took the chair. The silence deepened. Then Sister +Smith began to speak and everybody stopped eating. Brother Jones laid +down his knife, Sister Jones dropped her hands into her lap until the +thing should be over. Leaning far forward toward me across the table, +her steady gray eyes boring through me, her long bony finger pointing +beyond me into eternity, Sister Smith began with spaced and measured +words:— +</P> + +<P> +"My young Brother—what—do—you—think—of—Jonah?" +</P> + +<P> +I reached for a doughnut, broke it, slowly, dipped it up and down in +the cup of mustard and tried for time. Not a soul stirred. Not a word +or sound broke the tense silence about the operating-table. +</P> + +<P> +"What—do—you—think—of—Jonah?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Sister Smith, I—" +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind. Don't commit yourself. You needn't tell me what you +think of Jonah. +You—are—too—young—to—know—what—you—think—of—Jonah. But I +will tell you what <I>I</I> think of Jonah: if the Scriptures had said that +Jonah swallowed the whale, it would be just as easy to believe as it is +that the whale swallowed Jonah." +</P> + +<P> +"So it would, Sister Smith," I answered weakly, "just as easy." +</P> + +<P> +"And now, my young Brother, you preach the Scriptures—the old genuine +inspired Authorized Version, word for word, just as God spoke it!" +</P> + +<P> +Sister Smith has gone to Heaven, but in spite of her theology. Dear +old soul, she sent me many a loaf of her salt-rising bread after that, +for she had as warm a heart as ever beat its brave way past eighty. +</P> + +<P> +But she had neither a perfect Book, nor a perfect Creed, nor a perfect +Salvation. She did not need them; nor could she have used them; for +they would have posited a divine command to be perfect—a too difficult +accomplishment for any of us, even for Sister Smith. +</P> + +<P> +There is no such divine command laid upon us; but only such a divinely +human need springing up within us, and reaching out for everything, in +its deep desire, from dust-cloths dyed black to creeds of every color. +</P> + +<P> +This is a life of imperfections, a world made of cheese-cloth, merely +dyed black, and stamped in red letters—The Dustless-Duster. Yet a +cheese-cloth world so dyed and stamped is better than a cloth-of-gold +world, for the cloth-of-gold you would not want to dye nor to stamp +with burning letters. +</P> + +<P> +We have never found it,—this perfect thing,—and perhaps we never +shall. But the desire, the search, the faith, must not fail us, as at +times they seem to do. At times the very tides of the ocean seem to +fail,—when the currents cease to run. Yet when they are at slack +here, they are at flood on the other side of the world, turning already +to pour back— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + ". . . lo, out of his plenty the sea<BR> +Pours fast; full soon the time of the flood-tide shall be--"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +The faith cannot fail us—for long. Full soon the ebb-tide turns, +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"And Belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +that there is perfection; that the desire for it is the breath of life; +that the search for it is the hope of immortality. +</P> + +<P> +But I know only in part. I see through a glass darkly, and I may be no +nearer it now than when I started, yet the search has carried me far +from that start. And if I never arrive, then, at least, I shall keep +going on, which, in itself maybe the thing—the Perfect Thing that I am +seeking. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-084.jpg" ALT="Spring ploughing" BORDER="2" WIDTH="371" HEIGHT="143"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +SPRING PLOUGHING +</H3> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +"See-Saw, Margery Daw!<BR> +Sold her bed and lay upon straw"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +—the very worst thing, I used to think, that ever happened in Mother +Goose. I might steal a pig, perhaps, like Tom the Piper's Son, but +never would I do such a thing as Margery did; the dreadful picture of +her nose and of that bottle in her hand made me sure of that. And +yet—snore on, Margery!—I sold my <I>plough</I> and bought an automobile! +As if an automobile would carry me +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"To the island-valley of Avilion,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +where I should no longer need the touch of the soil and the slow simple +task to heal me of my grievous wound! +</P> + +<P> +Speed, distance, change—are these the cure for that old hurt we call +living, the long dull ache of winter, the throbbing bitter-sweet pain +of spring? We seek for something different, something not different +but faster and still faster, to fill our eyes with flying, our ears +with rushing, our skins with scurrying, our diaphragms, which are our +souls, with the thrill of curves, and straight stretches, of lifts, and +drops, and sudden halts—as of elevators, merry-go-rounds, chutes, +scenic railways, aeroplanes, and heavy low-hung cars. +</P> + +<P> +To go—up or down, or straight away—anyway, but round and round, and +slowly—as if one could speed away from being, or ever travel beyond +one's self! How pathetic to sell all that one has and buy an +automobile! to shift one's grip from the handles of life to the wheel +of change! to forsake the furrow for the highway, the rooted soil for +the flying dust, the here for the there; imagining that somehow a car +is more than a plough, that going is the last word in +living—demountable rims and non-skid tires, the great gift of the God +Mechanic, being the 1916 model of the wings of the soul! +</P> + +<P> +But women must weep in spite of modern mechanics, and men must plough. +Petroleum, with all of its by-products, cannot be served for bread. I +have tried many substitutes for ploughing; and as for the automobile, I +have driven that thousands of miles, driven it almost daily, summer and +winter; but let the blackbirds return, let the chickweed start in the +garden, then the very stones of the walls cry out—"Plough! plough!" +</P> + +<P> +It is not the stones I hear, but the entombed voices of earlier +primitive selves far back in my dim past; those, and the call of the +boy I was yesterday, whose landside toes still turn in, perhaps, from +walking in the furrow. When that call comes, no +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Towered cities please us then<BR> +And the busy hum of men,"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +or of automobiles. I must plough. It is the April wind that wakes the +call— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Zephirus eek, with his sweetë breeth"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and many hearing it long to "goon on pilgrimages," or to the Maine +woods to fish, or, waiting until the 19th, to leave Boston by boat and +go up and down the shore to see how fared their summer cottages during +the winter storms; some even imagine they have malaria and long for +bitters—as many men as many minds when +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The time of the singing of birds is come<BR> +And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +But as for me it is neither bitters, nor cottages, nor trout, nor +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"ferne halwes couth in sondry landës"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +that I long for: but simply for the soil, for the warming, stirring +earth, for my mother. It is back to her breast I would go, back to the +wide sweet fields, to the slow-moving team and the lines about my +shoulder, to the even furrow rolling from the mould-board, to the taste +of the soil, the sight of the sky, the sound of the robins and +bluebirds and blackbirds, and the ringing notes of Highhole over the +sunny fields. +</P> + +<P> +I hold the plough as my only hold upon the earth, and as I follow +through the fresh and fragrant furrow I am planted with every footstep, +growing, budding, blooming into a spirit of the spring. I can catch +the blackbirds ploughing, I can turn under with my furrow the laughter +of the flowers, the very joy of the skies. But if I so much as turn in +my tracks, the blackbirds scatter; if I shout, Highhole is silent; if I +chase the breeze, it runs away; I might climb into the humming maples, +might fill my hands with arbutus and bloodroot, might run and laugh +aloud with the light; as if with feet I could overtake it, could catch +it in my hands, and in my heart could hold it all—this living earth, +shining sky, flowers, buds, voices, colors, odors—this spring! +</P> + +<P> +But I can plough—while the blackbirds come close behind me in the +furrow; and I can be the spring. +</P> + +<P> +I could plough, I mean, when I had a plough. But I sold it for five +dollars and bought a second-hand automobile for fifteen hundred—as +everybody else has. So now I do as everybody else does,—borrow my +neighbor's plough, or still worse, get my neighbor to do my ploughing, +being still blessed with a neighbor so steadfast and simple as to +possess a plough. But I must plough or my children's children will +never live to have children,—they will have motor cars instead. The +man who pulls down his barns and builds a garage is not planning for +posterity. But perhaps it does not matter; for while we are purring +cityward over the sleek and tarry roads, big hairy Finns are following +the plough round and round our ancestral fields, planting children in +the furrows, so that there shall be some one here when we have motored +off to possess the land. +</P> + +<P> +I see no way but to keep the automobile and buy another plough, not for +my children's sake any more than for my own. There was an old man +living in this house when I bought it who moved back into the city and +took with him, among other things, a big grindstone and two +long-handled hayforks—for crutches, did he think? and to keep a +cutting edge on the scythe of his spirit as he mowed the cobblestones? +When I am old and my children compel me to move back near the asylums +and hospitals, I shall carry into the city with me a plough; and I +shall pray the police to let me go every springtime to the Garden or +the Common and there turn a few furrows as one whom still his mother +comforteth. +</P> + +<P> +It is only a few furrows that I now turn. A half-day and it is all +over, all the land ploughed that I own,—all that the Lord intended +should be tilled. A half-day—but every fallow field and patch of +stubble within me has been turned up in that time, given over for the +rain and sunshine to mellow and put into tender tilth. +</P> + +<P> +No other labor, no other contact with the earth is like ploughing. You +may play upon it, travel over it, delve into it, build your house down +on it; but when you strike into the bosom of the fields with your +ploughshare, wounding and healing as your feet follow deep in the long +fresh cut, you feel the throbbing of the heart of life through the +oaken handles as you never felt it before; you are conscious of a +closer union,—dust with dust,—of a more mystical union,—spirit with +spirit,—than any other approach, work, or rite, or ceremony, can give +you. You move, but your feet seem to reach through and beyond the +furrow like the roots of the oak tree; sun and air and soil are yours +as if the blood in your veins were the flow of all sweet saps, oak and +maple and willow, and your breath their bloom of green and garnet and +gold. +</P> + +<P> +And so, until I get a new plough and a horse to pull it, I shall hire +my neighbor—hire him to drive the horses, while I hold in the plough! +This is what I have come to! <I>Hiring</I> another to skim my cream and +share it! Let me handle both team and plough, a plough that guides +itself, and a deep rich piece of bottom land, and a furrow,—a long +straight furrow that curls and crests like a narrow wave and breaks +evenly into the trough of the wave before. +</P> + +<P> +But even with the hired plough, I am taking part in the making of +spring; and more: I am planting me again as a tree, a bush, a mat of +chickweed,—lowly, tiny, starry-flowered chickweed,—in the earth, +whence, so long ago it sometimes seems, I was pulled up. +</P> + +<P> +But the ploughing does more—more than root me as a weed. Ploughing is +walking not by sight. A man believes, trusts, worships something he +cannot see when he ploughs. It is an act of faith. In all time men +have known and <I>feared</I> God; but there must have been a new and higher +consciousness when they began to plough. They hunted and feared God +and remained savage; they ploughed, trusted, and loved God—and became +civilized. +</P> + +<P> +Nothing more primitive than the plough have we brought with us out of +our civilized past. In the furrow was civilization cradled, and there, +if anywhere, shall it be interred. +</P> + +<P> +You go forth unto your day's work, if you have land enough, until the +Lord's appointed close; then homeward plod your weary way, leaving the +world to the poets. Not yours +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The hairy gown, the mossy cell."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +You have no need of them. +</P> + +<P> +What more +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Of every star that Heaven doth shew<BR> +And every hearb that sips the dew"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +can the poet spell than all day long you have <I>felt</I>? Has ever poet +handled more of life than you? Has he ever gone deeper than the bottom +of your furrow, or asked any larger faith than you of your field? Has +he ever found anything sweeter or more satisfying than the wholesome +toilsome round of the plough? +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-093.jpg" ALT="Mere beans" BORDER="2" WIDTH="282" HEIGHT="245"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +MERE BEANS +</H3> + + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it; +he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited."—Isaiah. +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +"A farmer," said my neighbor, Joel Moore, with considerable finality, +"has got to get all he can, and keep all he gets, or die." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," I replied with a fine platitude; "but he's got to give if he's +going to get." +</P> + +<P> +"Just so," he answered, his eye a-glitter with wrath as it traveled the +trail of the fox across the dooryard; "just so, and I 'll go halves +with the soil; but I never signed a lease to run this farm on shares +with the varmints." +</P> + +<P> +"Well," said I, "I 've come out from the city to run my farm on shares +with the whole universe—fox and hawk, dry weather and wet, summer and +winter. I believe there is a great deal more to farming than mere +beans. I 'm going to raise birds and beasts as well. I 'm going to +cultivate everything, from my stone-piles up to the stars." +</P> + +<P> +He looked me over. I had not been long out from the city. Then he +said, thinking doubtless of my stone-piles:— +</P> + +<P> +"Professor, you 've bought a mighty rich piece of land. And it's just +as you say; there's more to farmin' than beans. But, as I see it, +beans are beans anyway you cook 'em; and I think, if I was you, I would +hang on a while yet to my talkin' job in the city." +</P> + +<P> +It was sound advice. I have a rich farm. I have raised beans that +were beans, and I have raised birds, besides, and beasts,—a perfectly +enormous crop of woodchucks; I have cultivated everything up to the +stars; but I find it necessary to hang on a while yet to my talkin' job +in the city. +</P> + +<P> +Nevertheless, Joel is fundamentally wrong about the beans, for beans +are not necessarily beans any way you cook them, nor are beans mere +beans any way you grow them—not if I remember Thoreau and my extensive +ministerial experience with bean suppers. +</P> + +<P> +As for growing mere beans—listen to Thoreau. He is out in his patch +at Walden. +</P> + +<P> +"When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods +and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an +instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor +I that hoed beans." +</P> + +<P> +Who was it, do you suppose, that hoed? And, if not beans, what was it +that he hoed? Well, poems for one thing, prose poems. If there is a +more delightful chapter in American literature than that one in Walden +on the bean-patch, I don't know which chapter it is. That patch was +made to yield more than beans. The very stones were made to tinkle +till their music sounded on the sky. +</P> + +<P> +"As <I>I</I> see it, beans are beans," said Joel. And so they are, as he +sees them. +</P> + +<P> +Is not the commonplaceness, the humdrumness, the dead-levelness, of +life largely a matter of individual vision, "as I see it"? +</P> + +<P> +Take farm life, for instance, and how it is typified in my neighbor! +how it is epitomized, too, and really explained in his "beans are +beans"! He raises beans; she cooks beans; they eat beans. Life is +pretty much all beans. If "beans are beans," why, how much more is +life? +</P> + +<P> +He runs his farm on halves with the soil, and there the sharing stops, +and consequently there the returns stop. He gives to the soil and the +soil gives back, thirty, sixty, an hundredfold. What if he should give +to the skies as well?—to the wild life that dwells with him on his +land?—to the wild flowers that bank his meadow brook?—to the trees +that cover his pasture slopes? Would they, like the soil, give +anything back? +</P> + +<P> +Off against the sky to the south a succession of his rounded slopes +shoulder their way from the woods out to where the road and the brook +wind through. They cannot be tilled; the soil is too scant and +gravelly; but they are lovely in their gentle forms, and still lovelier +in their clumps of mingled cedars and gray birches, scattered dark and +sharply pointed on the blue of the sky, and diffuse, and soft, and +gleaming white against the hillside's green. I cannot help seeing them +from my windows, cannot help lingering over them—could not, rather; +for recently my neighbor (and there never was a better neighbor) sent a +man over those hills with an axe, and piled the birches into cords of +snowy firewood. +</P> + +<P> +It was done. I could not help it, but in my grief I went over and +spoke to him about it. He was sorry, and explained the case by +saying,— +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if there's one kind of tree I hate more than another, it's a +gray birch." +</P> + +<P> +We certainly need a rural uplift. We need an urban uplift, too, no +doubt, for I suppose "beans are beans" in Boston, just as they are here +in Hingham. But it does seem the more astonishing that in the country, +where the very environment is poetry, where companionship with living +things is constant, where even the labor of one's hands is coöperation +with the divine forces of nature—the more astonishing, I say, that +under these conditions life should so often be but bare existence, mere +beans. +</P> + +<P> +There are many causes for this, one of them being an unwillingness to +share largely with the whole of nature. "I 'll go halves with the +soil," said my neighbor; but he did not sign a lease to run his farm on +shares with the "varmints," the fox, which stole his fine rooster, on +this particular occasion. +</P> + +<P> +But such a contract is absolutely necessary if one is to get out of +farm life—out of any life—its flowers and fragrance, as well as its +pods and beans. And, first, one must be convinced, must acknowledge to +one's self, that the flower and fragrance are needed in life, are as +useful as pods and beans. A row of sweet peas is as necessary on the +farm as a patch of the best wrinkled variety in the garden. +</P> + +<P> +But to come back to the fox. +</P> + +<P> +Now, I have lived long enough, and I have had that fox steal roosters +enough, to understand, even feel, my neighbor's wrath perfectly. I +fully sympathize with him. What, then, you ask, of my sympathy for the +fox? +</P> + +<P> +At times, I must admit, the strain has been very great. More than once +(three times, to be exact) I have fired at that same fox to kill. I +have lost many a rooster, but those I have not lost are many, many +more. Browned to a turn, and garnished with parsley, a rooster is +almost a poem. So was that wild fox, the other morning, almost a poem, +standing on the bare knoll here near the house, his form half-shrouded +in the early mist, his keen ears pricked, his pointed nose turned +toward the yard where the hens were waking up. +</P> + +<P> +Something primitive, something wild and free and stirring, something +furtive, crafty, cunning—the shadow of the dark primeval forest, at +sight of him, fell across the glaring common-placeness of that whole +tame day. +</P> + +<P> +I will not ask, Was it worth the rooster? For that is too gross, too +cheap a price to pay for a glimpse of wild life that set the dead +nerves of the cave man in me thrilling with new life. Rather I would +ask, Are such sights and thrills worth the deliberate purpose to have a +woodlot, as well as a beanpatch and a henyard, on the farm? +</P> + +<P> +Our American farm life needs new and better machinery, better methods, +better buildings, better roads, better schools, better stock; but given +all of these, and farm life must still continue to be earthy, material, +mere beans—only more of them—until the farm is run on shares with all +the universe around, until the farmer learns not only to reap the +sunshine, but also to harvest the snow; learns to get a real and rich +crop out of his landscape, his shy, wild neighbors, his independence +and liberty, his various, difficult, yet strangely poetical, tasks. +</P> + +<P> +But, if farm life tends constantly to become earthy, so does business +life, and professional life—beans, all of it. +</P> + +<P> +The farmers educated for mere efficiency, the merchants, the preachers, +doctors, lawyers, educated for mere efficiency, are educated for mere +beans? A great fortune, a great congregation, a great practice, a +great farm crop, are one and all mere beans? Efficiency is not a whole +education, nor meat a whole living, nor the worker the whole man. +</P> + +<P> +And I said as much to Joel. +</P> + +<P> +"Beans," I said, "must be raised. Much of life must be spent hoeing +the beans. But I am going to ask myself: 'Is it <I>mere</I> beans that I am +hoeing? And is it the <I>whole</I> of me that is hoeing the beans?'" +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he replied, "you settle down on that farm of yours as I settled +on mine, and I 'll tell you what answer you 'll get to them questions. +There ain't no po'try about farmin'. God did n't intend there should +be—as I see it." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, that is n't the way I see it at all. This is God's earth,—and +there could n't be a better one." +</P> + +<P> +"Of course there could n't, but there was one once." +</P> + +<P> +"When?" I asked, astonished. +</P> + +<P> +"In the beginning." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean the Garden of Eden?" +</P> + +<P> +"Just that." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, man, this earth, this farm of yours, is the Garden of Eden." +</P> + +<P> +"But it says God drove him out of the Garden and, what's more, it says +He made him farm for a livin', don't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's what it says," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, as I see it, that settles it, don't it? God puts a man on +a farm when he ain't fit for anything else. 'Least, that's the way I +see it. That's how I got here, I s'pose, and I s'pose that's why I +stay here." +</P> + +<P> +"But," said I, "there's another version of that farm story." +</P> + +<P> +"Not in the Bible?" he asked, now beginning to edge away, for it was +not often that I could get him so near to books as this. Let me talk +books with Joel Moore and the talk lags. Farming and neighboring are +Joel's strong points, not books. He is a general farmer and a kind of +universal neighbor (that being his specialty); on neighborhood and farm +topics his mind is admirably full and clear. +</P> + +<P> +"That other version is in the Bible, right along with the one you've +been citing—just before it in Genesis." +</P> + +<P> +He faced me squarely, a light of confidence in his eye, a ring of +certainty, not to say triumph, in his tones:— +</P> + +<P> +"You 're sure of that, Professor?" +</P> + +<P> +"Reasonably." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I 'm not a college man, but I 've read the Bible. Let's go in +and take a look at Holy Writ on farmin',"—leading the way with +alacrity into the house. +</P> + +<P> +"My father was a great Bible man down in Maine," he went on. "Let me +raise a curtain. This was his," pointing to an immense family Bible, +with hand-wrought clasps, that lay beneath the plush family album, also +clasped, on a frail little table in the middle of the parlor floor. +</P> + +<P> +The daylight came darkly through the thick muslin draperies at the +window and fell in a faint line across the floor. An oval frame of +hair-flowers hung on the wall opposite me—a somber wreath of +immortelles for the departed—<I>of</I> the departed—black, brown, auburn, +and grizzled-gray, with one touch (a calla lily, I think) of the +reddest hair I ever beheld. In one corner of the room stood a closed +cabinet organ; behind me, a tall base-burner, polished till it seemed +to light the dimmest corners of the room. There was no fire in the +stove; there was no air in the room, only the mingled breath of soot +and the hair-flowers and the plush album and the stuffed blue jay under +the bell-jar on the mantelpiece, and the heavy brass-clasped Bible. +There was no coffin in the room; but Joel took up the Bible and handed +it to me as if we were having a funeral. +</P> + +<P> +"Read me that other account of Adam's farm," he said; "I can't see +without my specs." +</P> + +<P> +In spite of a certain restraint of manner and evident uneasiness at the +situation, he had something of boldness, even the condescension of the +victor toward me. He was standing and looking down at me; yet he stood +ill at ease by the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down, Joel," I said, assuming an authority in his house that I saw +he could not quite feel. +</P> + +<P> +"I can't; I 've got my overhalls on." +</P> + +<P> +"Let us do all things decently and in order, Joel," I continued, +touching the great Book reverently. +</P> + +<P> +"But I never set in this room. My chair's out there in the kitchen." +</P> + +<P> +I moved over to the window to get what light I could, Joel following me +with furtive, sidelong glances, as if he saw ghosts in the dark corners. +</P> + +<P> +"We keep this room mostly for funerals," he volunteered, in order to +stir up talk and lay what of the silence and the ghosts he could. +</P> + +<P> +"I 'll read your story of Adam's farming first," I said, and began: +"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth"—going on +with the account of the dry, rainless world, and with no man to till +the soil; then to the forming of Adam out of the dust, and the planting +of Eden; of the rivers, of God's mistake in trying Adam alone in the +Garden, of the rib made into Eve, of the prohibited tree, the snake, +the wormy apple, the fall, the curse, the thorns—and how, in order to +crown the curse and make it real, God drove the sinful pair forth from +the Garden and condemned them to farm for a living. +</P> + +<P> +"That's it," Joel muttered with a mourner's groan. "That's Holy Writ +on farmin' as <I>I</I> understand it. Now, where's the other story?" +</P> + +<P> +"Here it is," I answered, "but we 've got to have some fresh air and +more light on it," rising as I spoke and reaching for the bolt on the +front door. With a single quick jerk I had it back, and throwing +myself forward, swung the door wide to the open sky, while Joel groaned +again, and the big, rusty hinges thrice groaned at the surprise and +shock of it. But the thing was done. +</P> + +<P> +A flood of warm, sweet sunshine poured over us; a breeze, +wild-rose-and-elder-laden, swept in out of the broad meadow that +stretched from the very doorstep to a distant hill of pines, and +through the air, like a shower in June, fell the notes of soaring, +singing bobolinks. +</P> + +<P> +Joel stood looking out over his farm with the eyes of a stark stranger. +He had never seen it from the front door before. It was a new prospect. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's sit here on the millstone step," I said, bringing the Bible out +into the fresh air, "and I 'll read you something you never heard +before," and I read,—laying the emphasis so as to render a new thing +of the old story,—"In the beginning God created the heaven and the +earth, and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon +the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the +waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And +God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the +darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called +night. +</P> + +<P> +"And the evening and the morning were the first day." +</P> + +<P> +Starting each new phase of the tale with "And God said," and bringing +it to a close with "And God saw that it was good," I read on through +the seas and dry land, the sun and stars, and all living things, to man +and woman—"male and female created he them"—and in his own likeness, +blessing them and crowning the blessing with saying, "Be fruitful and +multiply and replenish the earth and <I>subdue</I> it,"—farm for a living; +rounding out the whole marvelous story with the sweet refrain: "And God +saw <I>everything</I> that he had made, and behold it was <I>very</I> good. +</P> + +<P> +"And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." +</P> + +<P> +"<I>Thus</I>, Joel," I concluded, glancing at him as with opened eyes he +looked out for the first time over his new meadow,—"<I>thus</I>, according +to my belief, and not as you have been reading it, were the heavens and +the earth finished and all the host of them." +</P> + +<P> +He took the old book in his lap and sat silent with me for a while on +the step. Then he said:— +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody has got to the bottom of that book yet, have they? And it's +true; it's all true. It's just accordin' as you see it. Do ye know +what I'm going to do? I 'm going to buy one of them double-seated red +swings and put it right out here under this sassafras tree, and Hannah +and I are going to set in, and swing in it, and listen a little to them +bobolinks." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-109.jpg" ALT="A pilgrim from Dubuque" BORDER="2" WIDTH="336" HEIGHT="264"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A PILGRIM FROM DUBUQUE +</H3> + +<P> +It is a long road from anywhere to Mullein Hill, and only the rural +postman and myself travel it at all frequently. The postman goes by, +if he can, every weekday, somewhere between dawn and dark, the absolute +uncertainty of his passing quite relieving the road of its wooded +loneliness. I go back and forth somewhat regularly; now and then a +neighbor takes this route to the village, and at rarer intervals an +automobile speeds over the "roller coaster road"; but seldom does a +stranger on foot appear so far from the beaten track. One who walks to +Mullein Hill deserves and receives a welcome. +</P> + +<P> +I may be carting gravel when he comes, as I was the day the Pilgrim +from Dubuque arrived. Swinging the horses into the yard with their +staggering load, I noticed him laboring up the Hill by the road in +front. He stopped in the climb for a breathing spell,—a tall, erect +old man in black, with soft, high-crowned hat, and about him something, +even at the distance, that was—I don't +know—unusual—old-fashioned—Presbyterian. +</P> + +<P> +Dropping the lines, I went down to greet the stranger, though I saw he +carried a big blue book under his arm. To my knowledge no book-agent +had ever been seen on the Hill. But had I never seen one anywhere I +should have known this man had not come to sell me a book. "More +likely," I thought, "he has come to give me a book. We shall see." +Yet I could not quite make him out, for while he was surely +professional, he was not exactly clerical, in spite of a certain +Scotch-Covenanter-something in his appearance. He had never preached +at men, I knew, as instinctively as I knew he had never persuaded them +with books or stocks or corner-lots in Lhassa. He had a fine, kindly +face, that was singularly clear and simple, in which blent the shadows +and sorrows of years with the serene and mellow light of good thoughts. +</P> + +<P> +"Is this Mullein Hill?" he began, shifting the big blue copy of the +"Edinburgh Review" from under his arm. +</P> + +<P> +"You're on Mullein Hill," I replied, "and welcome." +</P> + +<P> +"Is—are—you Dallas Lore—" +</P> + +<P> +"Sharp?" I said, finishing for him. "Yes, sir, this is Dallas Lore +Sharp, but these are not his over-alls—not yet; for they have never +been washed and are about three sizes too large for him." +</P> + +<P> +He looked at me, a little undone, I thought, disappointed, maybe, and a +bit embarrassed at having been betrayed by overalls and rolled-up +sleeves and shovels. He had not expected the overalls, not new ones, +anyhow. And why are new overalls so terribly new and unwashed! Only a +woman, only a man's wife, is fitted to buy his overalls, for she only +is capable of allowing enough for shrinkage. To-day I was in my new +pair, but not of them, not being able to get near enough to them for +that. +</P> + +<P> +"I am getting old," he went on quickly, his face clearing; "my +perceptions are not so keen, nor my memory so quick as it used to be. +I should have known that 'good writing must have a pre-literary +existence as lived reality; the writing must be only the necessary +accident of its being lived over again in thought'"—quoting verbatim, +though I was slow in discovering it, from an essay of mine, published +years before. +</P> + +<P> +It was now my turn to allow for shrinkage. Had he learned this passage +for the visit and applied it thus by chance? My face must have showed +my wonder, my incredulity, indeed, for explaining himself he said,— +</P> + +<P> +"I am a literary pilgrim, sir—" +</P> + +<P> +"Who has surely lost his way," I ventured. +</P> + +<P> +Then with a smile that made no more allowances necessary he assured +me,— +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, no, sir! I am quite at home in the hills of Hingham. I have been +out at Concord for a few days, and am now on the main road from Concord +to Dubuque. I am Mr. Kinnier, Dr. Kinnier, of Dubuque, Iowa, +and"—releasing my hand—"let me see"—pausing as we reached the top of +the hill, and looking about in search of something—"Ah, yes [to +himself], there on the horizon they stand, those two village spires, +'those tapering steeples where they look up to worship toward the sky, +and look down to scowl across the street'"—quoting again, word for +word, from another of my essays. Then to me: "They are a little +farther away and a little closer together than I expected to see +them—too close [to himself again] for God to tell from which side of +the street the prayers and praises come, mingling as they must in the +air." +</P> + +<P> +He said it with such thought-out conviction, such sweet sorrow, and +with such relief that I began now to fear for what he might quote next +and <I>miss</I> from the landscape. The spires were indeed there (may +neither one of them now be struck by lightning!); but what a terrible +memory the man has! Had he come from Dubuque to prove me— +</P> + +<P> +The spires, however, seemed to satisfy him; he could steer by them; and +to my great relief, he did not demand a chart to each of the wonders of +Mullein Hill—my thirty-six woodchuck holes, etc., etc., nor ask, as +John Burroughs did, for a sight of the fox that performed in one of my +books somewhat after the manner of modern <I>literary</I> foxes. Literary +foxes! One or another of us watches this Hilltop day and night with a +gun for literary foxes! I want no pilgrims from Dubuque, no +naturalists from Woodchuck Lodge, poking into the landscape or under +the stumps for spires and foxes and boa constrictors and things that +they cannot find outside the book. I had often wondered what I would +do if such visitors ever came. Details, I must confess, might on many +pages be difficult to verify; but for some years now I have faithfully +kept my four boys here in the woods to prove the reality of my main +theme. +</P> + +<P> +This morning, with heaps of gravel in the yard, the hilltop looked +anything but like the green and fruitful mountain of the book, still +less like a way station between anywhere and <I>Concord</I>! And as for +myself—it was no wonder he said to me,— +</P> + +<P> +"Now, sir, please go on with your teaming. I ken the lay of the land +about Mullein Hill +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Whether the simmer kindly warms<BR> + Wi' life and light,<BR> +Or winter howls in gusty storms<BR> + The lang, dark night.'"<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +But I did not go on with the teaming. Gravel is a thing that will +wait. Here it lies where it was dumped by the glaciers of the Ice Age. +There was no hurry about it; whereas pilgrims and poets from Dubuque +must be stopped as they pass. So we sat down and talked—of books and +men, of poems and places, but mostly of books,—books I had written, +and other books—great books "whose dwelling is the light of setting +suns." Then we walked—over the ridges, down to the meadow and the +stream, and up through the orchard, still talking of books, my strange +visitor, whether the books were prose or poetry, catching up the volume +somewhere with a favorite passage, and going on—reading on—from +memory, line after line, pausing only to repeat some exquisite turn, or +to comment upon some happy thought. +</P> + +<P> +Not one book was he giving me, but many. The tiny leather-bound copy +of Burns that he drew from his coat pocket he did not give me, however, +but fondly holding it in his hands said:— +</P> + +<P> +"It was my mother's. She always read to us out of it. She knew every +line of it by heart as I do. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"'Some books are lies frae end to end'— +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +but this is no one of them. I have carried it these many years." +</P> + +<P> +Our walk brought us back to the house and into the cool living-room +where a few sticks were burning on the hearth. Taking one of the +rocking-chairs before the fireplace, the Pilgrim sat for a time looking +into the blaze. Then he began to rock gently back and forth, his eyes +fixed upon the fire, quite forgetful evidently of my presence, and +while he rocked his lips moved as, half audibly, he began to speak with +some one—not with me—with some one invisible to me who had come to +him out of the flame. I listened as he spoke, but it was a language +that I could not understand. +</P> + +<P> +Then remembering where he was he turned to me and said, his eyes going +back again beyond the fire,— +</P> + +<P> +"She often comes to me like this; but I am very lonely since she left +me,—lonely—lonely—and so I came on to Concord to visit Thoreau's +grave." +</P> + +<P> +And this too was language I could not understand. I watched him in +silence, wondering what was behind his visit to me. +</P> + +<P> +"Thoreau was a lonely man," he went on, "as most writers are, I think, +but Thoreau was very lonely." +</P> + +<P> +"Wild," Burroughs had called him; "irritating," I had called him; and +on the table beside the Pilgrim lay even then a letter from Mr. +Burroughs, in which he had taken me to task on behalf of Thoreau. +</P> + +<P> +"I feel like scolding you a little," ran the letter, "for disparaging +Thoreau for my benefit. Thoreau is nearer the stars than I am. I may +be more human, but he is certainly more divine. His moral and ethical +value I think is much greater, and he has a heroic quality that I +cannot approach." +</P> + +<P> +There was something queer in this. Why had I not understood Thoreau? +Wild he surely was, and irritating too, because of a certain strain and +self-consciousness. A "counter-irritant" he called himself. Was this +not true? +</P> + +<P> +As if in answer to my question, as if to explain his coming out to +Mullein Hill, the Pilgrim drew forth a folded sheet of paper from his +pocket and without opening it or looking at it, said:— +</P> + +<P> +"I wrote it the other day beside Thoreau's grave. You love your +Thoreau—you will understand." +</P> + +<P> +And then in a low, thrilling voice, timed as to some solemn chant, he +began, the paper still folded in his hands:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"A lonely wand'rer stands beside the stone<BR> +That marks the grave where Thoreau's ashes lie;<BR> +An object more revered than monarch's throne,<BR> +Or pyramids beneath Egyptian sky.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"He turned his feet from common ways of men,<BR> +And forward went, nor backward looked around;<BR> +Sought truth and beauty in the forest glen,<BR> +And in each opening flower glory found.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"He paced the woodland paths in rain and sun;<BR> +With joyous thrill he viewed the season's sign;<BR> +And in the murmur of the meadow run<BR> +With raptured ear he heard a voice divine.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Truth was the beacon ray that lured him on.<BR> +It lit his path on plain and mountain height,<BR> +In wooded glade and on the flow'ry lawn--<BR> +Where'er he strayed, it was his guiding light.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Close by the hoary birch and swaying pine<BR> +To Nature's voice he bent a willing ear;<BR> +And there remote from men he made his shrine,<BR> +Her face to see, her many tongues to hear.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The robin piped his morning song for him;<BR> +The wild crab there exhaled its rathe perfume;<BR> +The loon laughed loud and by the river's brim<BR> +The water willow waved its verdant plume.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"For him the squirrels gamboled in the pines,<BR> +And through the pane the morning sunbeams glanced;<BR> +The zephyrs gently stirred his climbing vines<BR> +And on his floor the evening shadows danced.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"To him the earth was all a fruitful field.<BR> +He saw no barren waste, no fallow land;<BR> +The swamps and mountain tops would harvests yield;<BR> +And Nature's stores he garnered on the strand.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"There the essential facts of life he found.<BR> +The full ripe grain he winnowed from the chaff;<BR> +And in the pine tree,--rent by lightning round,<BR> +He saw God's hand and read his autograph.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Against the fixed and complex ways of life<BR> +His earnest, transcendental soul rebelled;<BR> +And chose the path that shunned the wasted strife,<BR> +Ignored the sham, and simple life upheld.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Men met him, looked and passed, but knew him not,<BR> +And critics scoffed and deemed him not a seer.<BR> +He lives, and scoff and critic are forgot;<BR> +We feel his presence and his words we hear.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"He passed without regret,--oft had his breath<BR> +Bequeathed again to earth his mortal clay,<BR> +Believing that the darkened night of death<BR> +Is but the dawning of eternal day."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +The chanting voice died away and—the woods were still. The deep +waters of Walden darkened in the long shadows of the trees that were +reaching out across the pond. Evening was close at hand. Would the +veery sing again? Or was it the faint, sweet music of the bells of +Lincoln, Acton, and Concord that I heard, humming in the pine needles +outside the window, as if they were the strings of a harp? +</P> + +<P> +The chanting voice died away and—the room was still; but I seem to +hear that voice every time I open the pages of "The Week" or "Walden." +And the other day, as I stood on the shores of the pond, adding my +stone to the cairn where the cabin used to stand, a woodthrush off in +the trees (trees that have grown great since Thoreau last looked upon +them), began to chant—or was it the Pilgrim from Dubuque?— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Truth was the beacon ray that lured him on.<BR> +It lit his path on plain and mountain height,<BR> +In wooded glade and on the flow'ry lawn--<BR> +Where'er he strayed, it was his guiding light."<BR> +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-121.jpg" ALT="The Honey Flow" BORDER="2" WIDTH="347" HEIGHT="172"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +IX +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE HONEY FLOW +</H3> + +<P> +And this our life, exempt from public haunt and those swift currents +that carry the city-dweller resistlessly into the movie show, leaves us +caught in the quiet eddy of little unimportant things,—digging among +the rutabagas, playing the hose at night, casting the broody hens into +the "dungeon," or watching the bees. +</P> + +<P> +Many hours of my short life I have spent watching the bees,—blissful, +idle hours, saved from the wreck of time, hours fragrant of white +clover and buckwheat and filled with the honey of nothing-to-do; every +minute of them capped, like the comb within the hive, against the +coming winter of my discontent. If, for the good of mankind, I could +write a new Commandment to the Decalogue, it would read: Thou shalt +keep a hive of bees. +</P> + +<P> +Let one begin early, and there is more health in a hive of bees than in +a hospital; more honey, too, more recreation and joy for the +philosophic mind, though no one will deny that very many persons +prepare themselves both in body and mind for the comforting rest and +change of the hospital with an almost solemn joy. +</P> + +<P> +But personally I prefer a hive of bees. They are a sure cure, it is +said, for rheumatism, the patient making bare the afflicted part, then +with it stirring up the bees. But it is saner and happier to get the +bees before you get the rheumatism and prevent its coming. No one can +keep bees without being impressed with the wisdom of the ounce of +prevention. +</P> + +<P> +I cannot think of a better habit to contract than keeping bees. What a +quieting, pastoral turn it gives to life! You can keep them in the +city—on the roof or in the attic—just as you can actually live in the +city, if you have to; but bees, even more than cows, suggest a rural +prospect, old-fashioned gardens, pastures, idyls,—things out of +Virgil, and Theocritus—and out of Spenser too,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "And more, to lulle him in his slumber soft,<BR> +A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe,<BR> +And ever drizling raine upon the loft,<BR> +Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne<BR> +Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne:<BR> +No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes,<BR> +As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne<BR> +Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes,<BR> +Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +that is not the land of the lotus, but of the <I>melli-lotus</I>, of lilacs, +red clover, mint, and goldenrod—a land of honey-bee. Show me the +bee-keeper and I will show you a poet; a lover of waters that go softly +like Siloa; with the breath of sage and pennyroyal about him; an +observer of nature, who can handle his bees without veil or gloves. +Only a few men keep bees,—only philosophers, I have found. They are a +different order utterly from hen-men, bee-keeping and chicken-raising +being respectively the poetry and prose of country life, though there +are some things to be said for the hen, deficient as the henyard is in +euphony, rhythm, and tune. +</P> + +<P> +In fact there is not much to be said for the bee, not much that the +public can understand; for it is neither the bee nor the eagle that is +the true American bird, but the rooster. In one of my neighboring +towns five thousand petitioners recently prayed the mayor that they be +allowed to let their roosters crow. The petition was granted. In all +that town, peradventure, not five bee-keepers could be found, and for +the same reason that so few righteous men were found in Sodom. +</P> + +<P> +Bee-keeping, like keeping righteous, is exceedingly difficult; it is +one of the fine arts, and no dry-mash-and-green-bone affair as of hens. +Queens are a peculiar people, and their royal households, sometimes an +hundred thousand strong, are as individual as royal houses are liable +to be. +</P> + +<P> +I have never had two queens alike, never two colonies that behaved the +same, never two seasons that made a repetition of a particular handling +possible. A colony of bees is a perpetual problem; the strain of the +bees, the age and disposition of the queen, the condition of the +colony, the state of the weather, the time of the season, the +little-understood laws of the honey-flow,—these singly, and often all +in combination, make the wisest handling of a colony of bees a question +fresh every summer morning and new every evening. +</P> + +<P> +For bees should be "handled," that is, bees left to their own devices +may make you a little honey—ten to thirty pounds in the best of +seasons; whereas rightly handled they will as easily make you three +hundred pounds of pure comb honey—food of prophets, and with saleratus +biscuit instead of locusts, a favorite dish with the sons of prophets +here on Mullein Hill. +</P> + +<P> +Did you ever eat apple-blossom honey? Not often, for it is only rarely +that the colony can be built up to a strength sufficient to store this +earliest flow. But I have sometimes caught it; and then as the season +advances, and flow after flow comes on with the breaking of the great +floral waves, I get other flavors,—pure white clover, wild raspberry, +golden sumac, pearly white clethra, buckwheat, black as axle grease, +and last of all, the heavy, rich yellow of the goldenrod. These, by +careful watching, I get pure and true to flavor like so many fruit +extracts at the soda fountains. +</P> + +<P> +Then sometimes the honey for a whole season will be adulterated, not by +anything that I have done, but by the season's peculiar conditions, or +by purely local conditions,—conditions that may not prevail in the +next town at all. +</P> + +<P> +One year it began in the end of July. The white clover flow was over +and the bees were beginning to work upon the earliest blossoms of the +dwarf sumac. Sitting in front of the hives soon after the renewed +activity commenced, I noticed a peculiarly rank odor on the air, and +saw that the bees in vast numbers were rising and making for a pasture +somewhere over the sprout-land that lay to the north of the hives. Yet +I felt sure there was nothing in blossom in that direction within range +of my bees (they will fly off two miles for food); nothing but dense +hardwood undergrowth from stumps cut some few years before. +</P> + +<P> +Marking their line of flight I started into the low jungle to find +them. I was half a mile in when I caught the busy hum of wings. I +looked but could see nothing,—not a flower of any sort, nothing but +oak, maple, birch, and young pine saplings just a little higher than my +head. But the air was full of bees; yet not of swarming bees, for that +is a different and unmistakable hum. Then I found myself in the thick +of a copse of witch-hazel up and down the stems of which the bees were +wildly buzzing. There was no dew left on the bushes, so it was not +that they were after; on looking more closely I saw that they were +crawling down the stems to the little burrs containing the seed of last +fall's flowering. Holding to the top of the burr with their hind legs +they seemed to drink head down from out of the base of the burr. +</P> + +<P> +Picking one of these, I found a hole at its base, and inside, instead +of seeds, a hollow filled with plant lice or aphides, that the bees +were milking. Here were big black ants, too, and yellow wasps drinking +from the same pail. +</P> + +<P> +But a bee's tongue, delicate as it is, would crush a fragile plant +louse. I picked another burr, squeezing it gently, when there issued +from the hole at the base a drop of crystal-clear liquid, held in the +thinnest of envelopes, which I tasted and found sweet. In burr after +burr I found these sacks or cysts of sweets secreted by the aphides for +the bees to puncture and drain. The largest of them would fill a bee +at a draught. Some of the burrs contained big fat grubs of a beetle +unknown to me,—the creature that had eaten the seeds, bored the hole +at the base, and left the burr cleaned and garnished for the aphides. +These in turn invited the bees, and the bees, carrying this "honey-dew" +home, mixed it with the pure nectar of the flowers and spoiled the crop. +</P> + +<P> +Can you put stoppers into these millions of honey-dew jugs? Can you +command your bees to avoid these dire bushes and drink only of the +wells at the bottoms of the white-clover tubes? Hardly that, but you +can clip the wing of your queen and make her obedient; you can command +the colony not to swarm, not to waste its strength in drones, and you +can tell it where and how to put this affected honey so that the pure +crop is not spoiled; you can order the going out and coming in of those +many thousands so that every one is a faithful, wise, and efficient +servant, gathering the fragrance and sweet of the summer from every +bank whereon the clover and the wild mints blow. +</P> + +<P> +Small things these for a man with anything to do? Small indeed, but +demanding large love and insight, patience, foresight, and knowledge. +It does not follow that a man who can handle a colony of bees can rule +his spirit or take a city, but the virtues absolutely necessary to the +bee-keeper are those required for the guiding of nations; and there +should be a bee-plank incorporated into every party platform, promising +that president, cabinet, and every member of congress along with the +philosophers shall keep bees. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-130.jpg" ALT="A pair of pigs" BORDER="2" WIDTH="307" HEIGHT="175"> +</CENTER> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +X +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +A PAIR OF PIGS +</H3> + +<P> +I dropped down beside Her on the back steps and took a handful of her +peas to pod. She set the colander between us, emptied half of her task +into my hat, and said:— +</P> + +<P> +"It is ten o'clock. I thought you had to be at your desk at eight this +morning? And you are hot and tired. What is it you have been doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Getting ready for the <I>pigs</I>," I replied, laying marked and steady +emphasis on the plural. +</P> + +<P> +"You are putting the pods among the peas and the peas with the +pods"—and so I was. "Then we are going to have another pig," she went +on. +</P> + +<P> +"No, not <I>a</I> pig this time; I think I 'll get a pair. You see while +you are feeding one you can just as well be feeding—" +</P> + +<P> +"A lot of them," she said with calm conviction. +</P> + +<P> +"You 're right!" I exclaimed, a little eagerly. "Besides two pigs do +better than—" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then," very gravely and never pausing for an instant in her +shelling, "let's fence in the fourteen acres and have a nice little +piggery of Mullein Hill." +</P> + +<P> +The pods popped and split in her nimble fingers as if she knew a secret +spring in their backs. I can beat her picking peas, but in shelling +peas she seems to have more fingers than I have; they quite confuse me +at times as they twinkle at their task. +</P> + +<P> +So they did now. I had spent several weeks working up my brief for two +pigs; but was utterly unprepared for a whole piggery. The suddenness +of it, the sweep and compass of it, left me powerless to pod the peas +for a moment. +</P> + +<P> +I ought to have been at my writing, but it was too late to mention that +now; besides here was my hat still full of peas. I could not +ungallantly dump them back into her empty pan and quit. There was +nothing for it but to pod on and stop with one pig. But my heart was +set on a pair of pigs. College had just closed (we were having our +17th of June peas) and the joy of the farm was upon me. I had a cow +and a heifer, eighty-six hens, three kinds of bantams, ten hives of +bees, and two ducks. I was planning to build a pigeon coop, and had +long talked of turning the nine-acre ridge of sprout land joining my +farm into a milch goat pasture, selling the milk at one dollar a quart +to Boston babies; I had thought somewhat of Belgian hares and black +foxes as a side-line; and in addition to these my heart was set on a +pair of pigs. +</P> + +<P> +"Why won't one pig do?" she would ask. And I tried to explain; but +there are things that cannot be explained to the feminine mind, things +perfectly clear to a man that you cannot make a woman see. +</P> + +<P> +Pigs, I told her, naturally go by pairs, like twins and scissors and +tongs. They do better together, as scissors do. Nobody ever bought a +<I>scissor</I>. Certainly not. Pigs need the comfort of one another's +society, and the diversion of one another to take up their minds in the +pen; hens I explained were not the only broody creatures, for all +animals show the tendency, and does not the Preacher say, "Two are +better than one: if two lie together then have they heat: but how can +one be warm alone"? +</P> + +<P> +I was sure, I told her, that the Preacher had pigs in mind, for judging +by the number of pig-prohibitions throughout Hebrew literature, they +must have had pigs <I>constantly</I> in mind. This observation of the early +Hebrew poet and preacher is confirmed, I added, by all the modern +agricultural journals, as well as by all our knowing neighbors. Even +the Flannigans (an Irish family down the road),—even the Flannigans, I +pointed out, always have two pigs, for all their eight children and his +job tending gate at the railroad crossing. They have a goat, too. If +a man with that sort of job can have eight children and a goat and two +pigs, why can't a college professor have a few of the essential, +elementary things, I 'd like to know? +</P> + +<P> +"Do you call your four boys a few?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't call my four Flannigan's eight," I replied, "nor my one pig +his two. Flannigan has the finest pigs on the road. He has a +wonderful way with a pair of pigs—something he inherited, I suppose, +for I imagine there have been pigs in the Flannigan family ever since—" +</P> + +<P> +"They were kings in Ireland," she put in sweetly. +</P> + +<P> +"Flannigan says," I continued, "that I ought to have two pigs: 'For +shure, a pair o' pags is double wan pag,' says Flannigan—good clear +logic it strikes me, and quite convincing." +</P> + +<P> +She picked up the colander of shelled peas with a sigh. "We shall want +the new potatoes and fresh salmon to go with these," her mind not on +pigs at all, but on the dinner. "Can't you dig me a few?" +</P> + +<P> +"I might dig up a few fresh salmon," I replied, "but not any new +potatoes, for they have just got through the ground." +</P> + +<P> +"But if I wanted you to, could n't you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't see how I could if there are n't any to dig." +</P> + +<P> +"But won't you go look—dig up a few hills—you can't tell until you +look. You said you did n't leave the key outside in the door yesterday +when we went to town, but you did. And as for a lot of pigs—" +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want a lot of pigs," I protested. +</P> + +<P> +"But you do, though. You want a lot of everything. Here you 've +planted five hundred cabbages for winter just as if we were a +sauerkraut factory—and the probabilities are we shall go to town this +winter—" +</P> + +<P> +"Go where!" I cried. +</P> + +<P> +"And as for pigs, your head is as full of pigs as Deerfoot Farm or the +Chicago stockyards— +</P> + +<CENTER> +<P CLASS="noindent"> +<I>Mullein Hill Sausages<BR> +Made of Little Pigs</I><BR> +</P> +</CENTER> + +<P> +that's really your dream"—spelling out the advertisement with pea-pods +on the porch floor. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, don't you think it best to save some things for your +children,—this sausage business, say,—and you go on with your humble +themes and books?" +</P> + +<P> +She looked up at me patiently, sweetly inscrutable as she added:— +</P> + +<P> +"You need a pig, Dallas, one pig, I am quite sure; but two pigs are +nothing short of the pig business, and that is not what we are living +here on Mullein Hill for." +</P> + +<P> +She went in with her peas and left me with my pigs—or perhaps they +were her thoughts; leaving thoughts around being a habit of hers. +</P> + +<P> +What did she mean by my needing a pig? She was quite sure I needed +<I>one</I> pig. Is it my own peculiar, personal need? That can hardly be, +for I am not different from other men. There may be in all men, deep +down and unperceived, except by their wives, perhaps, traits and +tendencies that call for the keeping of a pig. I think this must be +so, for while she has always said we need the cow or the chickens or +the parsley, she has never spoken so of the pig, it being referred to +invariably as mine, until put into the cellar in a barrel. +</P> + +<P> +The pig as my property, or rather as my peculiar privilege, is utterly +unrelated in her mind to <I>salt</I> pork. And she is right about that. No +man needs a pig to put in a barrel. Everybody knows that it costs less +to buy your pig in the barrel. And there is little that is edifying +about a barrel of salt pork. I always try to fill my mind with +cheerful thoughts before descending into the dark of the cellar to fish +a cold, white lump of the late pig out of the pickle. +</P> + +<P> +Not in the uncertain hope of his becoming pork, but for the certain +present joy of his <I>being</I> pork, does a man need a pig. In all his +other possessions man is always to be blest. In the pig he has a +constant, present reward: because the pig <I>is</I> and there is no question +as to what he shall be. He is pork and shall be salt pork, not spirit, +to our deep relief. +</P> + +<P> +Instead of spirit the pig is clothed upon with lard, a fatty, opaque, +snow-white substance, that boils and grows limpid clear and flames with +heat; and while not so volatile and spirit-like as butter, nevertheless +it is one of earth's pure essences, perfected, sublimated, not after +the soul with suffering, but after the flesh with corn and solid +comfort—the most abundant of one's possessions, yet except to the pig +the most difficult of all one's goods to bestow. +</P> + +<P> +The pig has no soul. I am not so sure of the flower in the crannied +wall, not so sure of the very stones in the wall, so long have they +been, so long shall be; but the pig—no one ever plucked up a pig from +his sty to say,— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"I hold you here squeal and all, in my hand,<BR> +Little pig--but _if_ I could understand<BR> +What you are, squeal and all, and all in all"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +No poet or philosopher ever did that. But they have kept pigs. Here +is Matthew Arnold writing to his mother about <I>Literature and Dogma</I> +and poems and—"The two pigs are grown very large and handsome, and +Peter Wood advises us to fatten them and kill our own bacon. We +consume a great deal of bacon, and Flu complains that it is dear and +not good, so there is much to be said for killing our own; but she does +not seem to like the idea." +</P> + +<P> +"Very large and handsome "—this from the author of +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The evening comes, the fields are still!"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +And here is his wife, again, not caring to have them killed, finding, +doubtless, a better use for them in the pen, seeing that Matthew often +went out there to scratch them. +</P> + +<P> +Poets, I say, have kept pigs, for a change, I think, from their poetry. +For a big snoring pig is not a poem, whatever may be said of a little +roast pig; and what an escape from books and people and parlors (in +this country) is the feeding and littering and scratching of him! You +put on your old clothes for him. He takes you out behind the barn; +there shut away from the prying gaze of the world, and the stern eye, +conscience, you deliberately fill him, stuff him, fatten him, till he +grunts, then you scratch him to keep him grunting, yourself reveling in +the sight of the flesh indulged, as you dare not indulge any other +flesh. You would love to feed the whole family that way; only it would +not be good for them. You cannot feed even the dog or the horse or the +hens so. One meal a day for the dog; a limited ration of timothy for +the horse, and <I>scratch</I>-feed, for the hens—feed to compel them to +scratch for fear they will run to flesh instead of eggs; and the +children's wedge of pie you sharpen though the point of it pierces your +soul; and the potato you leave off of her plate; and you forgo +your—you get <I>you</I> a medicine ball, I should say, in order to keep +down the fat lest it overlie and smother the soul. +</P> + +<P> +Compelled to deny and subject the body, what do I then but get me a pig +and feed <I>it</I>, and scratch it, and bed it in order to see it fatten and +to hear it snore? The flesh cries out for indulgence; but the spirit +demands virtue; and a pig, being the virtue of indulgence, satisfies +the flesh and is winked at by the soul. +</P> + +<P> +If a pig is the spirit's concession to the flesh, no less is he at +times a gift to the spirit. There are times in life when one needs +just such companionship as the pig's, and just such shelter as one +finds within his pen. After a day in the classroom discoursing on the +fourth dimension of things in general, I am prone to feel somewhat +removed, at sea somewhat. +</P> + +<P> +Then I go down and spread my arms along the fence and come to anchor +with the pig. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-141.jpg" ALT="Leafing" BORDER="2" WIDTH="326" HEIGHT="215"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +LEAFING +</H3> + +<P> +Poets, I said, have kept pigs for an escape from their poetry. But +keeping pigs is not all prose. I put my old clothes on to feed him, it +is true; he takes me out behind the barn; but he also takes me one day +in the year out into the woods—a whole day in the woods—with rake and +sacks and hay-rig, and the four boys, to gather him leaves for bedding. +</P> + +<P> +Leafing Day is one of the days in red on the Mullein Hill Calendar; and +of all our days in the woods surely none of them is fresher, more +fragrant, more joyous, and fuller of poetry than the day we go to rake +and sack and bring home the leaves for the pig. +</P> + +<P> +You never went after leaves for the pigs? Perhaps you never even had a +pig. But a pig is worth having, if only to see the comfort he takes in +the big bed of dry leaves you give him in the sunny corner of his pen. +And, if leafing had no other reward, the thought of the snoozing, +snoring pig buried to his winking snout in the bed, would give joy and +zest enough to the labor. +</P> + +<P> +But leafing like every other humble labor of our life here in the Hills +of Hingham has its own reward,—and when you can say that of any labor +you are speaking of its poetry. +</P> + +<P> +We jolt across the bumpy field, strike into the back wood-road, and +turn off upon an old stumpy track over which cordwood was carted years +ago. Here in the hollow at the foot of a high wooded hill the winds +have whirled the oak and maple leaves into drifts almost knee-deep. +</P> + +<P> +We are off the main road, far into the heart of the woods. We straddle +stumps, bend down saplings, stop while the horse takes a bite of sweet +birch, tack and tip and tumble and back through the tight squeezes +between the trees; and finally, after a prodigious amount of "whoa"-ing +and "oh"-ing and squealing and screeching, we land right side up and so +headed that we can start the load out toward the open road. +</P> + +<P> +You can yell all you want to when you go leafing, yell at every stump +you hit, yell every time a limb knocks off your hat or catches you +under the chin, yell when the horse stops suddenly to browse on the +twigs, and stands you meekly on your head in the bottom of the rig. +You can screech and howl and yell like the wild Indian that you are; +you can dive and wrestle in the piles of leaves, and cut all the crazy +capers you know; for this is a Saturday; these are the wild woods and +the noisy leaves; and who is there looking on besides the mocking jays +and the crows? +</P> + +<P> +The leaves pile up. The wind blows keen among the tall, naked trees; +the dull clouds hang low above the ridge; and through the cold gray of +the maple swamp below peers the ghostly face of Winter. +</P> + +<P> +You start up the ridge with your rake, and draw down another pile, +thinking, as you work, of the pig. The thought is pleasing. The warm +glow all over your body strikes in to your heart. You rake away as if +it were your own bed you were gathering—as really it is. He that +rakes for his pig rakes also for himself. A merciful man is merciful +to his beast, and he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket +of down over his own winter bed. +</P> + +<P> +Is it to warm my feet on winter nights that I pull on my boots at ten +o'clock and go my round at the barn? Yet it does warm my feet, through +and through, to look into the stalls and see the cow chewing her cud, +and the horse cleaning up his supper hay, standing to his fetlocks in +his golden bed of new rye-straw; and then, going to the pig's pen, to +hear him snoring louder than the north wind, somewhere in the depths of +his leaf-bed, far out of sight. It warms my feet, it also warms my +heart. +</P> + +<P> +So the leaves pile up. How good a thing it is to have a pig to work +for! What zest and purpose it lends to one's raking and piling and +storing! If I could get nothing else to spend myself on, I should +surely get me a pig. Then, when I went to walk in the woods, I should +be obliged occasionally to carry a rake and a bag with me, much better +things to take into the woods than empty hands, and sure to scratch +into light a number of objects that would never come within the range +of opera-glass or gun or walking-stick. To see things through a +twenty-four-toothed rake is to see them very close, as through a +microscope magnifying twenty-four diameters. +</P> + +<P> +And so, as the leaves pile up, we keep a sharp lookout for what the +rake uncovers; here under a rotten stump a hatful of acorns, probably +gathered by the white-footed wood-mouse. For the stump "gives" at the +touch of the rake, and a light kick topples it down hill, spilling out +a big nest of feathers and three dainty little creatures that scurry +into the leaf-piles like streaks of daylight. They are the +white-footed mice, long-tailed, big-eared, and as clean and +high-bred-looking as greyhounds. +</P> + +<P> +Combing down the steep hillside with our rakes, we dislodge a large +stone, exposing a black patch of fibrous roots and leaf-mould, in which +something moves and disappears. Scooping up a double handful of the +mould, we capture a little red-backed salamander. +</P> + +<P> +Listen! Something piping! Above the rustle of the leaves we, too, +hear a "fine, plaintive" sound—no, a shrill and ringing little racket, +rather, about the bigness of a penny whistle. +</P> + +<P> +Dropping the rake, we cautiously follow up the call (it seems to speak +out of every tree-trunk!) and find the piper clinging to a twig, no +salamander at all, but a tiny wood-frog. Pickering's hyla, his little +bagpipe blown almost to bursting as he tries to rally the scattered +summer by his tiny, mighty "skirl." Take him nose and toes, he is +surely as much as an inch long; not very large to pipe against this +north wind that has been turned loose in the bare woods. +</P> + +<P> +We go back to our raking. Above us, among the stones of the slope, +hang bunches of Christmas fern; around the foot of the trees we uncover +trailing clusters of gray-green partridge vine, glowing with crimson +berries; we rake up the prince's-pine, pipsissewa, creeping-Jennie, and +wintergreen red with ripe berries—a whole bouquet of evergreens, +exquisite, fairy-like forms that later shall gladden our Christmas +table. +</P> + +<P> +But how they gladden and cheer the October woods! Summer dead? Hope +all gone? Life vanished away? See here, under this big pine, a whole +garden of arbutus, green and budded, almost ready to bloom! The snows +shall come before their sweet eyes open; but open they will at the very +first touch of spring. We will gather a few, and let them wake up in +saucers of clean water in our sunny south windows. +</P> + +<P> +Leaves for the pig, and arbutus for us! We make a clean sweep down the +hillside "jumping" a rabbit from its form under a brush-pile, +discovering where a partridge roosts in a low-spreading hemlock; coming +upon a snail cemetery in a hollow hickory stump; turning up a +yellow-jackets' nest built two thirds underground; tracing the tunnel +of a bobtailed mouse in its purposeless windings in the leaf-mould, +digging into a woodchuck's— +</P> + +<P> +"But come, boys, get after those bags! It is leaves in the hay-rig we +want, not woodchucks at the bottom of woodchuck-holes." +</P> + +<P> +Two small boys catch up a bag, and hold it open, while two more stuff +in the crackling leaves. Then I come along with my big feet, and pack +the leaves in tight, and on to the rig goes the bulging bag. +</P> + +<P> +Exciting? If you can't believe it exciting, hop up on the load, and +let us jog you home. Swish! bang! thump! tip! turn! joggle! jolt! +Hold on to your ribs. Pull in your popping eyes. Look out for the +stump! Isn't it fun to go leafing? Is n't it fun to do anything that +your heart does with you?—even though you do it for a pig! +</P> + +<P> +Just watch the pig as we shake out the bags of leaves. See him caper, +spin on his toes, shake himself, and curl his tail. That curl is his +laugh. We double up and weep when we laugh hard; but the pig can't +weep, and he can't double himself up; so he doubles up his tail. There +is where his laugh comes off, curling and kinking in little spasms of +pure pig joy. +</P> + +<P> +"Boosh! Boosh!" he snorts, and darts around the pen like a whirlwind, +scattering the leaves in forty ways, to stop short—the shortest +stop!—and fall to rooting for acorns. +</P> + +<P> +He was once a long-tusked boar of the forest, this snow-white, +sawed-off, pug-nose little porker of mine—ages and ages ago. But he +still remembers the smell of the forest leaves; he still knows the +taste of the acorn-mast; he is still wild pig somewhere deep down +within him. +</P> + +<P> +And we were once long-haired, strong-limbed savages who roamed the +forest for him—ages and ages ago. And we, too, like him, remember the +smell of the fallen leaves, and the taste of the forest fruits, and of +pig, <I>roast</I> pig. And if the pig in his heart is still a wild boar, no +less are we at times wild savages in our hearts. +</P> + +<P> +Anyhow, for one day in the fall I want to go leafing. I want to give +my pig a taste of acorns, and a big pile of leaves to dive so deep into +that he cannot see his pen. No, I do not live in a pen; I do not want +to; but surely I might, if once in a while I did not go leafing, did +not escape now and then from my little penned-in, daily round into the +wide, sweet woods, my ancestral home. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-150.jpg" ALT="The little foxes" BORDER="2" WIDTH="248" HEIGHT="178"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE LITTLE FOXES +</H3> + +<P> +I was picking strawberries down by the woods when some one called out +from the road:— +</P> + +<P> +"Say, ain't they a litter of young foxes somewheres here in the ridges?" +</P> + +<P> +I recognized the man as one of the chronic fox-hunters of the region, +and answered:— +</P> + +<P> +"I 'm sure of it, by the way an old she-fox has pestered my chickens +lately." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, she won't pester them no more. She 's been trapped and killed. +Any man that would kill a she-fox this time o' year and let her pups +starve to death, he ain't no better than a brute, he ain't. I 've +hunted two days for 'em; and I 'll hunt till I find 'em." And he +disappeared into the woods, on my side of the road, upon a quest so +utterly futile, apparently, and so entirely counter to the notion I had +had of the man, that I stopped my picking and followed him up the +ridge, just to see which way a man would go to find a den of suckling +foxes in all the miles and miles of swamp and ledgy woodland that +spread in every direction about him. I did not see which way he went, +for by the time I reached the crest he had gone on and out of hearing +through the thick sprout-land. I sat down, however, upon a stump to +think about him, this man of the shoeshop, working his careful way up +and down the bushy slopes, around the granite ledges, across the bogs +and up-grown pastures, into the matted green-brier patches, hour after +hour searching for a hole in the ground a foot wide, for a den of +little foxes that were whimpering and starving because their mother did +not return. +</P> + +<P> +He found them—two miles away in the next town, on the edge of an open +field, near a public road, and directly across from a schoolhouse! I +don't know how he found them. But patience and knowledge and love, and +a wild, primitive instinct that making shoes had never taken out of his +primitive nature, helped him largely in his hunt. He took them, nursed +them back to strength on a bottle, fed them milk and rice until they +could forage for themselves, turned them loose in the woods, and then, +that fall, he shot them one after the other as often as he had a +holiday from the shop, or a moonlight night upon which he could hunt. +</P> + +<P> +But he did not kill all of them. Seven foxes were shot at my lower +bars last winter. It is now strawberry time again, and again an old +she-fox lies in wait for every hen that flies over the chicken-yard +fence—which means another litter of young foxes somewhere here in the +ridges. The line continues, even at the hands of the man with the gun. +For strangely coupled with the desire to kill is the instinct to save, +in human nature and in all nature—to preserve a remnant, that no line +perish forever from the earth. As the unthinkable ages of geology come +and go, animal and vegetable forms arise, change, and disappear; but +life persists, lines lead on, and in some form many of the ancient +families breathe our air and still find a home on this small and +smaller-growing globe of ours. +</P> + +<P> +And it may continue so for ages yet, with our help and permission. +</P> + +<P> +Wild life is changing more rapidly to-day than ever before, is being +swept faster and faster toward the brink of the world; but it is +cheering to look out of my window, as I write, and see the brown +thrasher getting food for her young out of the lawn, to hear the +scratch of squirrels' feet across the porch, to catch a faint and not +unpleasant odor of skunk through the open window as the breeze blows in +from the woods, and to find, as I found in hoeing my melons early this +morning, the pointed prints of a fox making in a confident and knowing +line toward the chicken-yard. +</P> + +<P> +I have lived some forty years upon the earth (how the old hickory +outside my window mocks me!), and I have seen some startling changes in +wild animal life. Even I can recall a great flock of snowy herons, or +egrets, that wandered up from the South one year and stayed a while on +the Maurice River marshes, just as, in earlier times, it is recorded +that along the Delaware "the white cranes did whiten the river-bank +like a great snow-drift." To-day the snowy herons have all but +vanished from the remotest glades of the South; and my friend Finley, +on the trail of the Western plume-hunters, searched in vain for a +single pair of the exquisite birds in the vast tule lakes of Oregon, +where, only a few weeks before his trip, thousands of pairs had nested. +He found heaps of rotting carcasses stripped of their fatally lovely +plumes; he found nests with eggs and dead young, but no live birds; the +family of snowy herons, the whole race, apparently, had been suddenly +swept off the world, annihilated, and was no more. +</P> + +<P> +A few men with guns—for money—had done it. And the wild areas of the +world, especially of our part of the world, have grown so limited now +that a few men could easily, quickly destroy, blot out from the book of +life, almost any of our bird and animal families. "Thou madest him to +have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things +under his feet"—literally, and he must go softly now lest the very +fowl of the air and fish of the sea be destroyed forever. Within my +memory the passenger pigeon, by some cataclysm perhaps, has apparently +become extinct; and the ivory-billed woodpecker probably, this latter +by the hand of man, for I knew the man who believed that he had killed +the last pair of these noble birds reported from the Florida forests. +So we thought it had fared also with the snowy heron, but recently we +have had word from the wardens of the Audubon Society that a remnant +has escaped; a few pairs of the birds have been discovered along the +Gulf coast—so hardly can Nature forgo her own! So far away does the +mother of life hide her child, and so cunningly! +</P> + +<P> +With our immediate and intelligent help, this family of birds, from +these few pairs can be saved and spread again over the savannas of the +South and the wide tule lakes in the distant Northwest. +</P> + +<P> +The mother-principle, the dominant instinct in all life, is not failing +in our time. As Nature grows less capable (and surely she does!) of +mothering her own, then man must turn mother, as he has in the Audubon +Society; as he did in the case of the fellow from the shoe-shop who +saved the little foxes. And there is this to hearten him, that, while +extinction of the larger forms of animal life seems inevitable in the +future, a little help and constant help now will save even the largest +of our animals for a long time to come. +</P> + +<P> +The way animal life hangs on against almost insuperable odds, and the +power in man's hands to further or destroy it, is quite past belief +until one has watched carefully the wild creatures of a thickly settled +region. +</P> + +<P> +The case of the Indian will apply to all our other aborigines. It is +somewhat amazing to be told, as we are on good authority, that there +are probably more live Indians on the reservations to-day than there +were all told over all of North America when the white men first came +here. Certainly they have been persecuted, but they have also been +given protection—pens! +</P> + +<P> +Wild life, too, will thrive, in spite of inevitable persecution and +repression, if given only a measure of protection. +</P> + +<P> +Year by year the cities spread, the woods and wild places narrow, yet +life holds on. The fox trots free across my small farm, and helps +himself successfully from the poultry of my careful raising. +</P> + +<P> +Nature—man-nature—has been hard on the little brute—to save him! +His face has grown long from much experience, and deep-lined with +wisdom. He seems a normal part of civilization; he literally passes in +and out of the city gates, roams at large through my town, and dens +within the limits of my farm. Enduring, determined, resourceful, +quick-witted, soft-footed, he holds out against a pack of enemies that +keep continually at his heels, and runs in his race the race of all +life, winning for all life, with our help, a long lease yet upon the +earth. +</P> + +<P> +For here is Reynard sitting upon a knoll in the road, watching me tear +down upon him in a thirty-horse-power motor-car. He steps into the +bushes to let me pass, then comes back to the road and trots upon his +four adequate legs back to the farm to see if I left the gate of the +henyard open. +</P> + +<P> +There is no sight of Nature more heartening to me than this glimpse of +the fox; no thought of Nature more reassuring than the thought of the +way Reynard holds his own—of the long-drawn, dogged fight that Nature +will put up when cornered and finally driven to bay. The globe is too +small for her eternally to hold out against man; but with the help of +man, and then in spite of man, she will fight so good a fight that not +for years yet need another animal form perish from the earth. +</P> + +<P> +If I am assuming too much authority, it is because, here in the +remoteness of my small woods where I can see at night the lights of the +distant city, I have personally taken a heartless hand in this +determined attempt to exterminate the fox. No, I do not raise fancy +chickens in order to feed him. On the contrary, much as I love to see +him, I keep a double-barreled gun against his coming. He knows it, and +comes just the same. At least the gun does not keep him away. My +neighbors have dogs, but they do not keep him away. Guns, dogs, traps, +poison—nothing can keep the foxes away. +</P> + +<P> +It must have been about four o'clock the other morning when one of my +children tiptoed into my room and whispered, "Father, there's the old +fox walking around Pigeon-Henny's coop behind the barn." +</P> + +<P> +I got up and hurried with the little fellow into his room, and sure +enough, there in the fog of the dim morning I could make out the form +of a fox moving slowly around the small coop. +</P> + +<P> +The old hen was clucking in terror to her chicks, her cries having +awakened the small boys. +</P> + +<P> +I got myself down into the basement, seized my gun, and, gliding out +through the cellar door, crept stealthily into the barn. +</P> + +<P> +The back window was open. The thick, wet fog came pouring in like +smoke. I moved up boldly through the heavy smother and looked down +into the field. There was the blur of the small coop, but where was +the fox? +</P> + +<P> +Pushing the muzzle of my double-barreled gun out across the +window-sill, I waited. +</P> + +<P> +Yes, there, through a rift in the fog, stood the fox! What a shot! +The old rascal cocked his ears toward the house. All was still. +Quickly under the wire of the coop went his paw, the old hen fluttering +and crying in fresh terror. +</P> + +<P> +Carefully, noiselessly, I swung the muzzle of the gun around on the +window-sill until the bead drew dead upon the thief. The cow in her +stall beside me did not stir. I knew that four small boys in the +bedroom window had their eyes riveted upon that fox waiting for me to +fire. It was a nervous situation, so early in the morning, in the +cold, white fog, and without anything much but slippers on. Usually, +of course, I shot in boots. +</P> + +<P> +But there stood the fox clawing out my young chickens, and, steadying +the gun as best I could on the moving window-sill, I fired. +</P> + +<P> +That the fox jumped is not to be wondered at. I jumped myself as both +barrels went off together. A gun is a sudden thing any time of day, +but so early in the morning, and when everything was wrapped in silence +and the ocean fog, the double explosion was extremely startling. +</P> + +<P> +I should have fired only one barrel, for the fox, after jumping, turned +around and looked all over the end of the barn to see if the shooting +were going to happen again. I wished then that I had saved the other +barrel. +</P> + +<P> +All I could do was to shout at him, which made him run off. +</P> + +<P> +The boys wanted to know if I thought I had killed the hen. On going +out later I found that I had not even hit the coop—not so bad a shot, +after all, taking into account the size of the coop and the thick, +distorting qualities of the weather. +</P> + +<P> +There is no particular credit to the fox in this, nor do I come in for +any particular credit this time; but the little drama does illustrate +the chances in the game of life, chances that sometimes, usually +indeed, are in favor of the fox. +</P> + +<P> +He not only got away, but he also got away with eleven out of the +twelve young chicks in that brood. He had dug a hole under the wire of +the coop, then, by waiting his chance, or by frightening the chicks +out, had eaten all of them but one. +</P> + +<P> +That he escaped this time was sheer luck; that he got his breakfast +before escaping was due to his cunning. And I have seen so many +instances of his cunning that, with my two scientific eyes wide open, I +could believe him almost as wise as he was thought to be in the olden +days of fable and folk-lore. How cool and collected he can be, too! +</P> + +<P> +One day last autumn I was climbing the steep ridge behind the +mowing-field when I heard a fox-hound yelping over in the hollow +beyond. Getting cautiously to the top of the ridge, I saw the hound +off below me on the side of the parallel ridge across the valley. He +was beating slowly along through the bare sprout-land, and evidently +having a hard time holding the trail. Now and then he would throw his +head up into the air and howl, a long, doleful howl, as if in protest, +begging the fox to stop its fooling and play fair. +</P> + +<P> +The hound was walking, not running, and at a gait almost as deliberate +as his howl. Round and round in one place he would go, off this way, +off that, then back, until, catching the scent again, or in despair of +ever hitting it (I don't know which), he would stand stock-still and +howl. +</P> + +<P> +That the hound was tired I felt sure; but that he was on the trail of a +fox I could not believe; and I was watching him curiously when +something stirred on the top of the ridge almost beside me. +</P> + +<P> +Without turning so much as my head, I saw the fox, a beautiful +creature, going slowly round and round in a circle—in a figure eight, +rather—among the bushes; then straight off it went and back; off again +in another direction and back; then in and out, round and round, +utterly without hurry, until, taking a long leap down the steep +hillside, the wily creature was off at an easy trot. +</P> + +<P> +The hound did know what he was about. Across the valley, up the ridge, +he worked his sure way, while I held my breath at his accuracy. +Striking the woven circle at the top of the ridge, he began to weave in +and out, back and forth, sniffling and whimpering like a tired child, +beating gradually out into a wider and wider circle, and giving the fox +all the rest it could want, before taking up the lead again and +following on down the trail. +</P> + +<P> +The hound knew what he was about; but so did the fox: the latter, +moreover, taking the initiative, inventing the trick, leading the run, +and so in the end not only escaping the hound, but also vastly widening +the distance between their respective wits and abilities. +</P> + +<P> +I recently witnessed a very interesting instance of this superiority of +the fox. One of the best hunters in my neighborhood, a man widely +known for the quality of his hounds, sold a dog, Gingles, an +extraordinarily fine animal, to a hunter in a near-by town. The new +owner brought his dog down here to try him out. +</P> + +<P> +The hound was sent into the woods and was off in a moment on a warm +trail. But it was not long before the baying ceased, and shortly +after, back came the dog. The new owner was disappointed; but the next +day he returned and started the dog again, only to have the same thing +happen, the dog returning in a little while with a sheepish air of +having been fooled. Over and over the trial was made, when, finally, +the dog was taken back to its trainer as worthless. +</P> + +<P> +Then both men came out with the dog, the trainer starting him on the +trail and following on after him as fast as he could break his way +through the woods. Suddenly, as in the trials before, the baying +ceased, but before the baffled dog had had time to grow discouraged, +the men came up to find him beating distractedly about in a small, +freshly burned area among the bushes, his nose full of strong ashes, +the trail hopelessly lost. With the help of the men the fox was +dislodged, and the dog carried him on in a course that was to his new +owner's entire satisfaction. +</P> + +<P> +The fox jumped into the ashes to save himself. Just so have the swifts +left the hollow trees and taken to my chimney, the phoebe to my pigpen, +the swallow to my barn loft, the vireo to my lilac bush, the screech +owls to my apple trees, the red squirrel for its nest to my ice-house, +and the flat-nosed adder to the sandy knoll by my beehives. I have +taken over from its wild inhabitants fourteen acres in Hingham; but, +beginning with the fox, the largest of my wild creatures, and counting +only what we commonly call "animals" (beasts, birds, and reptiles), +there are dwelling with me, being fruitful and multiplying, here on +this small plot of cultivated earth this June day, some seventy species +of wild things—thirty-six in feathers, fourteen in furs (not reckoning +in the muskrat on the other side of the road), twelve in scales, four +in shells, nine in skins (frogs, newts, salamanders)—seventy-five in +all. +</P> + +<P> +Here is a multiple life going serenely and abundantly on in an +environment whose utter change from the primeval is hardly exaggerated +by phoebe's shift for a nest from a mossy ledge in the heart of the +ancient woods to a joist close up against the hot roof of my pigpen +behind the barn. From this very joist, however, she has already +brought off two broods since March, one of four and one of five. +</P> + +<P> +As long as pigpens endure, and that shall be as long as the human race +endures, why should not the line of phoebes also endure? The case of +the fox is not quite the same, for he needs more room than a pigpen; +but as long as the domestic hen endures, if we will but give the fox +half the chance we give to phoebe, he too shall endure. +</P> + +<P> +I had climbed the footpath from the meadow late one autumn evening, and +stood leaning back upon a short hay-fork, looking into the calm +moonlight that lay over the frosted field, and listening to the hounds +baying in the swamp far away to the west of me. You have heard at +night the passing of a train beyond the mountains; the creak of +thole-pins round a distant curve in the river; the closing of a barn +door somewhere down the valley. The far-off cry of the hounds was +another such friendly and human voice calling across the vast of the +night. +</P> + +<P> +How clear their cries and bell-like! How mellow in the distance, +ringing on the rim of the moonlit sky, round the sides of a swinging +silver bell! Their clanging tongues beat all in unison, the sound +rising and falling through the rolling woodland and spreading like a +curling wave as the pack broke into the open over the level meadows. +</P> + +<P> +I caught myself picking out the individual voices as they spoke, for an +instant, singly and unmistakable, under the wild excitement of the +drive, then all together, a fiercer, faster chorus as the chase swept +unhindered across the meadows. +</P> + +<P> +What was that? A twig that broke, some brittle oak leaf that cracked +in the path behind me! I held my breath as a soft sound of padded feet +came up the path, as something stopped, breathed, came on—as into the +moonlight, beyond the circle of shadow in which I stood, walked the fox. +</P> + +<P> +The dogs were now very near and coming as swift as their eager legs +could carry them. But I was standing still, so still that the fox did +not recognize me as anything more than a stump. +</P> + +<P> +No, I was more than a stump; that much he saw immediately. But how +much more than a stump? +</P> + +<P> +The dogs were coming. But what was I? The fox was curious, +interested, and after trying to make me out from a distance, crept +gingerly up and sniffed at my shoes! +</P> + +<P> +But my shoes had been soaked for an hour in the dew of the meadow and +seemed to tell him little. So he backed off, and sat down upon his +tail in the edge of the pine-tree shadow to watch me. He might have +outwatched me, though I kept amazingly still, but the hounds were +crashing through the underbrush below, and he must needs be off. +Getting carefully up, he trotted first this side of me, then that, for +a better view, then down the path up which he had just come, and into +the very throat of the panting clamor, when, leaping lightly aside over +a pile of brush and stones, he vanished as the dogs broke madly about +me. +</P> + +<P> +Cool? It was iced! And it was a revelation to me of what may be the +mind of Nature. I have never seen anything in the woods, never had a +glimpse into the heart of Nature, that has given me so much confidence +in the possibility of a permanent alliance between human life and wild +life, in the long endurance yet of our vastly various animal forms in +the midst of spreading farms and dooryards, as this deliberate dodge of +the fox. +</P> + +<P> +At heart Nature is always just as cool and deliberate, capable always +of taking every advantage. She is not yet past the panic, and probably +never will be; but no one can watch the change of age-long habits in +the wild animals, their ready adaptability, their amazing +resourcefulness, with any very real fears for what civilization may yet +have in store for them so long as our superior wit is for, instead of +against, them. +</P> + +<P> +I have found myself present, more than once, at an emergency when only +my helping hand could have saved; but the circumstances have seldom +been due to other than natural causes—very rarely man-made. On the +contrary, man-made conditions out of doors—the multiplicity of fences, +gardens, fields, crops, trees, for the primeval uniformity of forest or +prairie—are all in favor of greater variety and more abundance of wild +life (except for the larger forms), because all of this means more +kinds of foods, more sorts of places for lairs and nests, more paths +and short cuts and chances for escape—all things that help preserve +life. +</P> + +<P> +One morning, about two weeks ago, I was down by the brook along the +road, when I heard a pack of hounds that had been hunting in the woods +all night, bearing down in my direction. +</P> + +<P> +It was a dripping dawn, everything soaked in dew, the leaf edges +beaded, the grass blades bent with wet, so that instead of creeping +into the bushes to wait for the hunt to drive by, I hurried up the road +to the steep gravel bank, climbed it and sat down, well out of sight, +but where I could see a long stretch of the road. +</P> + +<P> +On came the chase. I kept my eyes down the road at the spot where the +trout brook turns at the foot of the slope, for here the fox, if on the +meadow side of the brook, would be pretty sure to cross—and there he +stood! +</P> + +<P> +I had hardly got my eyes upon the spot, when out through a tangle of +wild grapevine he wound, stopped, glanced up and down, then dug his +heels into the dirt, and flew up the road below me and was gone. +</P> + +<P> +He was a big fellow, but very tired, his coat full of water, his big +brush heavy and dragging with the dripping dew. He was running a race +burdened with a weight of fur almost equal to the weight of a full suit +of water-soaked clothes upon a human runner; and he struck the open +road as if glad to escape from the wallow of wet grass and thicket that +had clogged his long course. +</P> + +<P> +On came the dogs, very close upon him; and I turned again to the bend +in the brook to see them strike the road, when, flash, below me on the +road, with a rush of feet, a popping of dew-laid dust, the fox!—back +into the very jaws of the hounds!—Instead he broke into the tangle of +grapevines out of which he had first come, just as the pack broke into +the road from <I>behind</I> the mass of thick, ropy vines. +</P> + +<P> +Those dogs hit the plain trail in the road with a burst of noise and +speed that carried them through the cut below me in a howling gale, a +whirlwind of dust, and down the hill and on. +</P> + +<P> +Not one of the dogs came back. Their speed had carried them on beyond +the point where the fox had turned in his tracks and doubled his trail, +on so far that though I waited several minutes, not one of the dogs had +discovered the trick to come back on the right lead. +</P> + +<P> +If I had had a <I>gun</I>! Yes, but I did not. But if I <I>had</I> had a gun, +it might have made no particular difference. Yet it is the gun that +makes the difference—all the difference between much or little wild +life—life that our groves and fields may have at our hands now, as +once the forests and prairies had it directly from the hands of the +Lord. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-172.jpg" ALT="Our calendar" BORDER="2" WIDTH="355" HEIGHT="156"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIII +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +OUR CALENDAR +</H3> + +<P> +There are four red-lettered calendars about the house: one with the +Sundays in red; one with Sundays and the legal holidays in red; one +with the Thursdays in red,—Thursday being publication day for the +periodical sending out the calendar,—and one, our own calendar, with +several sorts of days in red—all the high festival days here on +Mullein Hill, the last to be added being the Pup's birthday which falls +on September 15. +</P> + +<P> +Pup's Christian name is Jersey,—because he came to us from that dear +land by express when he was about the size of two pounds of sugar,—an +explanation that in no manner accounts for all we went through in +naming him. The christening hung fire from week to week, everybody +calling him anything, until New Year's. It had to stop here. +Returning from the city New Year's day I found, posted on the stand of +my table-lamp, the cognomen done in red, this declaration:— +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +January 1, 1915 +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +No person can call Jersey any other name but JERSEY. If anybody calls +him any other name but Jersey, exceeding five times a day he will have +to clean out his coop two times a day. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This was as plain as if it had been written on the wall. Somebody at +last had spoken, and not as the scribes, either. +</P> + +<P> +We shall celebrate Jersey's first birthday September 15, and already on +the calendar the day is red—red, with the deep deep red of our six +hearts! He is just a dog, a little roughish-haired mixed +Scotch-and-Irish terrier, not big enough yet to wrestle with a +woodchuck, but able to shake our affections as he shakes a rat. And +that is because I am more than half through with my fourscore years and +this is my first dog! And the boys—this is their first dog, too, +every stray and tramp dog that they have brought home, having wandered +off again. +</P> + +<P> +One can hardly imagine what that means exactly. Of course, we have had +other things, chickens and pigs and calves, rabbits, turtles, bantams, +the woods and fields, books and kindling—and I have had Her and the +four boys,—the family that is,—till at times, I will say, I have not +felt the need of anything more. But none of these things is a dog, not +even the boys. A dog is one of man's primal needs. "We want a dog!" +had been a kind of family cry until Babe's last birthday. +</P> + +<P> +Some six months before that birthday Babe came to me and said:— +</P> + +<P> +"Father, will you guess what I want for my birthday?" +</P> + +<P> +"A new pair of skates with a key fore and aft," I replied. +</P> + +<P> +"Skates in August!" he shouted in derision. "Try again." +</P> + +<P> +"A fast-flyer sled with automatic steering-gear and an electric +self-starter and stopper." +</P> + +<P> +"No. Now, Father,"—and the little face in its Dutch-cut frame sobered +seriously,—"it's something with four legs." +</P> + +<P> +"A duck," I suggested. +</P> + +<P> +"That has only two." +</P> + +<P> +"An armadillo, then." +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"A donkey." +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"An elephant?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"An alligator?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"A h-i-p hip, p-o, po, hippo, p-o-t pot, hippopot, a hippopota, m-u-s +mus—hippopotamus, <I>that's</I> what it is!" +</P> + +<P> +This had always made him laugh, being the way, as I had told him, that +I learned to spell when I went to school; but to-day there was +something deep and solemn in his heart, and he turned away from my +lightness with close-sealed lips, while his eyes, winking hard, seemed +suspiciously open. I was half inclined to call him back and guess +again. But had not every one of the four boys been making me guess at +that four-legged thing since they could talk about birthdays? And were +not the conditions of our living as unfit now for four-legged things as +ever? Besides, they already had the cow and the pig and a hundred +two-legged hens. More live stock was simply out of the question at +present. +</P> + +<P> +The next day Babe snuggled down beside me at the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"Father," he said, "have you guessed yet?" +</P> + +<P> +"Guessed what?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +"What I want for my birthday?" +</P> + +<P> +"A nice little chair to sit before the fire in?" +</P> + +<P> +"Horrors! a chair! why, I said a four-legged thing." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, how many legs has a chair?" +</P> + +<P> +"Father," he said, "has a rocking-chair four legs?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly." +</P> + +<P> +"Then it must have four feet, hasn't it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Cert—why—I—don't—know exactly about that," I stammered. "But if +you want a rocking-chair for your birthday, you shall have it, feet or +fins, four legs or two, though I must confess that I don't exactly +know, according to legs, just where a rocking-chair does belong." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any chair, nor anything else with wooden legs." +</P> + +<P> +"What kind of legs, then?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bone ones." +</P> + +<P> +"Why! why! I don't know any bone-legged things." +</P> + +<P> +"Bones with hair on them." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, you want a Teddybear—<I>you</I>, and coming eight! Well! Well! But +Teddybears have wire legs, I think, instead of bone." +</P> + +<P> +The set look settled once more on his little, square face and the talk +ceased. But the fight was on. Day after day, week after week, he had +me guessing—through all the living quadrupeds—through all the fossil +forms—through many that the Lord did not make, but might have made, +had Adam only known enough Greek and Latin to give them names. Gently, +persistently, he kept me guessing as the far-off day drew near, though +long since my only question had been—What breed? August came finally, +and a few days before the 24th we started by automobile for New Jersey. +</P> + +<P> +We were speeding along the road for Princeton when all four boys leaned +forward from the back seat, and Babe, close in my ear, said:— +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I have any birthday down here, Father?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly." +</P> + +<P> +"Have you guessed <I>what</I> yet?" +</P> + +<P> +I blew the horn fiercely, opened up the throttle till the words were +snatched from his teeth by the swirling dust behind and conversation +was made impossible. Two days later, the birthday found us at Uncle +Joe's. +</P> + +<P> +Babe was playing with Trouble, the little Scotch-Irish terrier, when +Uncle Joe and I came into the yard. With Trouble in his arms Babe +looked up and asked:— +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Joe, could you guess what four-legged thing I want for my +birthday?" +</P> + +<P> +"You want a dog," said Uncle Joe, and I caught up the dear child in my +arms and kept back his cries with kisses. +</P> + +<P> +"And you shall have one, too, if you will give me three or four weeks +to get him for you. Trouble here is the daddy of—goodness! I suppose +he is—of I don't know how many little puppies—but a good many—and I +am giving you one of them right now, for this birthday, only, you will +wait till their mother weans them, of course?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes, of course!" +</P> + +<P> +And so it happened that several weeks later a tiny black-and-tan puppy +with nothing much of a tail came through from New Jersey to Hingham to +hearts that had waited for him very, very long. +</P> + +<P> +Pup's birthday makes the seventh red-letter day of that kind on the +calendar. These are only the beginning of such days, our own peculiar +days when we keep tryst with ourselves, because in one way or another +these days celebrate some trial or triumph, some deep experience of the +soul. +</P> + +<P> +There is Melon Day, for example,—a movable feast-day in August, if +indeed it come so early, when we pick the first watermelon. That, you +ask, a deep emotional experience, an affair of the soul? +</P> + +<P> +This is Massachusetts, dear reader, and I hail from the melon fields of +Jersey. Even there a watermelon, to him who is spiritually minded, +who, walking through a field of the radiant orbs (always buy an +elongated ellipsoid for a real melon), hears them singing as they +shine—even to the Jerseyman, I say, the taste of the season's first +melon is of something out of Eden before the fall. But here in +Massachusetts, Ah, the cold I fight, the drought I fight, the worms I +fight, the blight I fight, the striped bugs I fight, the will-to-die in +the very vines themselves I fight, until at last (once it was the 7th +of August!) the heart inside of one of the green rinds is red with +ripeness, and ready to split at the sight of a knife, answering to the +thump with a far-off, muffled thud,—the family, I say, when that melon +is brought in crisp and cool from the dewy field, is prompt at +breakfast, and puts a fervor into the doxology that morning deeper far +than is usual for the mere manna and quail gathered daily at the +grocer's. +</P> + +<P> +We have been (once) to the circus, but that day is not in red. That is +everybody's day, while the red-letter days on our +calendar—Storm-Door-and-Double-Window Day, for instance; or the day +close to Christmas when we begin, "Marley was dead, to begin with"; or +the Day of the First Snow—these days are peculiarly, privately our +own, and these are red. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-181.jpg" ALT="The Fields of Fodder" BORDER="2" WIDTH="374" HEIGHT="172"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XIV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE FIELDS OF FODDER +</H3> + +<P> +It is doubtless due to early associations, to the large part played by +cornfields in my boyhood, that I cannot come upon one now in these New +England farms without a touch of homesickness. It was always the +autumn more than the spring that appealed to me as a child; and there +was something connected with the husking and the shocking of the corn +that took deeper hold upon my imagination than any other single event +of the farm year, a kind of festive joy, something solemnly beautiful +and significant, that to this day makes a field of corn in the shock +not so much the substance of earth's bounty as the symbol of earth's +life, or rather of life—here on the earth as one could wish it to +be—lived to the end, and rich in corn, with its fodder garnered and +set in order over a broad field. +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps I have added touches to this picture since the days when I was +a boy, but so far back as when I used to hunt out the deeply fluted +cornstalks to turn into fiddles, it was minor notes I played—the notes +of the wind coming over the field of corn-butts and stirring the loose +blades as it moved among the silent shocks. I have more than a memory +of mere corn, of heavy-eared stalks cut and shocked to shed the winter +rain: that, and more, as of the sober end of something, the fulfillment +of some solemn compact between us—between me and the fields and skies. +</P> + +<P> +Is this too much for a boy to feel? Not if he is father to the man! I +have heard my own small boys, with grave faces, announce that this is +the 21st of June, the longest day of the year—as if the shadows were +already lengthening, even across their morning way. +</P> + +<P> +If my spirit should return to earth as a flower, it would come a +four-o'clock, or a yellow evening primrose, for only the long afternoon +shadows or falling twilight would waken and spread my petals. No, I +would return an aster or a witch-hazel bush, opening after the corn is +cut, the crops gathered, and the yellow leaves begin to come sighing to +the ground. +</P> + +<P> +At that word "sighing" many trusting readers will lay this essay down. +They have had more than enough of this brand of pathos from their youth +up. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The 'sobbing wind,' the 'weeping rain,'--<BR> + 'Tis time to give the lie<BR> +To these old superstitious twain--<BR> + That poets sing and sigh.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Taste the sweet drops,--no tang of brine,<BR> + Feel them--they do not burn;<BR> +The daisy-buds, whereon they shine,<BR> + Laugh, and to blossoms turn"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +that is, in June they do; but do they in October? There are no daisies +to laugh in October. A few late asters fringe the roadsides; an +occasional bee hums loudly in among them; but there is no sound of +laughter, and no shine of raindrops in the broken hoary seed-stalks +that strew the way. If the daisy-buds <I>laugh</I>,—as surely they do in +June,—why should not the wind sob and the rain weep—as surely they +do—in October? There are days of shadow with the days of sunshine; +the seasons have their moods, as we have ours, and why should one be +accused of more sentiment than sense, and of bad rhetoric, too, in +yielding to the spirit of the empty woods till the slow, slanting rain +of October weeps, and the soughing wind comes sobbing through the trees? +</P> + +<P> +Fall rain, fall steadily, heavily, drearily. Beat off the fading +leaves and flatten them into shapeless patterns on the soaking floor. +Fall and slant and flatten, and, if you will, weep. Blow wind, through +the creaking branches, blow about the whispering corners; parley there +outside my window; whirl and drive the brown leaves into hiding, and if +I am sad, sigh with me and sob. +</P> + +<P> +May one not indulge in gentle melancholy these closing days of autumn, +and invite the weather in, without being taken to task for it? One +should no more wish to escape from the sobering influence of the +October days than from the joy of the June days, or the thrill in the +wide wonder of the stars. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"If winds have wailed and skies wept tears,<BR> + To poet's vision dim,<BR> +'T was that his own sobs filled his ears,<BR> + His weeping blinded him"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +of course! And blessed is the man who finds winds that will wail with +him, and skies that love him enough to weep in sympathy. It saves his +friends and next of kin a great deal of perfunctory weeping. +</P> + +<P> +There is no month in all the twelve as lovely and loved as October. A +single, glorious June day is close to the full measure of our capacity +for joy; but the heart can hold a month of melancholy and still ache +for more. So it happens that June is only a memory of individual days, +while October is nothing less than a season, a mood, a spirit, a soul, +beautiful, pensive, fugitive. So much is already gone, so many things +seem past, that all the gold of gathered crops and glory on the wooded +hillsides only gild and paint the shadow that sleeps within the very +sunshine of October. +</P> + +<P> +In June the day itself was the great event. It is not so in October. +Then its coming and going were attended with ceremony and splendor, the +dawn with invisible choirs, the sunset with all the pageantry and pomp +of a regal fête. Now the day has lessened, and breaks tardily and +without a dawn, and with a blend of shadow quickly fades into the +night. The warp of dusk runs through even its sunlit fabric from +daybreak to dark. +</P> + +<P> +It is this shadow, this wash of haze upon the flaming landscape, this +screen of mist through which the sunlight sifts, that veils the face of +the fields and softens, almost to sadness, the October mood of things. +</P> + +<P> +For it is the inner mood of things that has changed as well as the +outward face of things. The very heart of the hills feels it. The +hush that fell with the first frost has hardly been broken. The +blackened grass, the blasted vine, have not grown green again. No new +buds are swelling, as after a late frost in spring. Instead, the old +leaves on the limbs rattle and waver down; the cornfield is only an +area of stubs and long lines of yellow shocks; and in the corners of +the meadow fence stand clumps of flower-stalks,—joe-pye-weed, boneset, +goldenrod,—bare and already bleaching; and deep within their matted +shade, where the brook bends about an elder bush, a single amber +pendant of the jewel-weed, to which a bumble-bee comes droning on wings +so loud that a little hyla near us stops his pipe to listen! +</P> + +<P> +There are other sounds, now that the shrill cry of the hyla is +stilled—the cawing of crows beyond the wood, the scratching of a +beetle in the crisp leaves, the cheep of a prying chickadee, the tiny +chirrup of a cricket in the grass—remnants of sounds from the summer, +and echoes as of single strings left vibrating after the concert is +over and the empty hall is closed. +</P> + +<P> +But how sweet is the silence! To be so far removed from sounds that +one can hear a single cricket and the creeping of a beetle in the +leaves! Life allows so little margin of silence nowadays. One cannot +sit down in quiet and listen to the small voices; one is obliged to +stand up—in a telephone booth, a pitiful, two-by-two oasis of silence +in life's desert of confusion and din. If October brought one nothing +else but this sweet refuge from noises it would be enough. For the +silence of October, with its peculiar qualities, is pure balm. There +is none of the oppressive stillness that precedes a severe storm, none +of the ominous hush that falls before the first frost, none of the +death-like lack of sound in a bleak snow-buried swamp or pasture, none +of the awesome majesty of quiet in the movement of the midnight stars, +none of the fearful dumbness of the desert, that muteness without bound +or break, eternal—none of these qualities in the sweet silence of +October. I have listened to all of these, and found them answering to +mute tongues within my own soul, deep unto deep; but such moods are +rare—moods that can meet death, that can sweep through the heavens +with the constellations, and that can hold converse with the dumb, +stirless desert; whereas the need for the healing and restoration found +in the serene silence of October is frequent. +</P> + +<P> +There are voices here, however, many of them; but all subdued, single, +pure, as when the chorus stops, and some rare singer carries the air +on, and up, and far away till it is only soul. +</P> + +<P> +The joyous confusion and happy tumult of summer are gone; the mating +and singing and fighting are over; the growing and working and +watch-care done; the running even of the sap has ceased; the grip of +the little twigs has relaxed, and the leaves, for very weight of peace, +float off into the air, and all the wood, with empty hands, lies in the +after-summer sun, and dreams. +</P> + +<P> +With empty hands in the same warm sun I lie and dream. The sounds of +summer have died away; but the roar of coming winter has not yet broken +over the barriers of the north. Above my head stretches a fanlike +branch of witch-hazel, its yellow leaves falling, its tiny, twisted +flowers just curling into bloom. The snow will fall before its yellow +straps have burned crisp and brown. But let it fall. It must melt +again; for as long as these pale embers glow the icy hands of winter +shall slip and lose their hold on the outdoor world. +</P> + +<P> +And so I dream. The woods are at my back, the level meadow and wide +fields of corn-fodder stretch away in front of me to a flaming ridge of +oak and hickory. The sun is behind me over the woods, and the lazy air +glances with every gauzy wing and flashing insect form that skims the +sleepy meadow. But there is an unusual play of light over the grass, a +glinting of threads that enmesh the air as if the slow-swinging wind +were weaving gossamer of blown silk from the steeple-bush spindles +through the slanting reeds of the sun. +</P> + +<P> +It is not the wind that weaves; it is a multitude of small spiders. +Here is one close to my face, out at the tip of a slender grass-stem, +holding on with its fore legs and kicking out backward with its hind +legs a tiny skein of web off into the air. The threads stream and sway +and lengthen, gather and fill and billow, and tug at their anchorage +till, caught in the dip of some wayward current, they lift the little +aeronaut from his hangar and bear him away through the sky. +</P> + +<P> +Long before we dreamed of flight, this little voyager was coasting the +clouds. I can follow him far across the meadow in the cobweb basket as +his filmy balloon floats shimmering over the meadow sea. +</P> + +<P> +Who taught him navigation? By what compass is he steering? And where +will he come to port? Perhaps his anchor will catch in a hard-hack on +the other side of the pasture; or perhaps some wild air-current will +sweep him over the woodtops, over the Blue Hills, and bear him a +hundred miles away. No matter. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and +there is no port where the wind never blows. +</P> + +<P> +Yet no such ship would dare put to sea except in this soft and sunny +weather. The autumn seeds are sailing too—the pitching parachutes of +thistle and fall dandelion and wild lettuce, like fleets of tiny yachts +under sail—a breeze from a cut-over ridge in the woods blowing almost +cottony with the soft down of the tall lettuce that has come up thick +in the clearing. +</P> + +<P> +As I watch the strowing of the winds, my melancholy slips away. One +cannot lie here in the warm but unquickening sun, and see this sower +crossing meadow and cornfield without a vision of waking life, of +fields again all green where now stands the fodder, of woods all full +of song as soon as this sowing and the sleeping of the seeds are done. +The autumn wind goeth forth to sow, and with the most lavish of hands. +He wings his seeds, and weights his seeds, he burrs them, rounds them, +and angles them; they fly and fall, they sink and swim, they stick and +shoot, they pass the millstones of the robins' gizzards for the sake of +a chance to grow. They even lie in wait for me, plucking me by the +coat-sleeve, fastening upon my trousers' leg and holding on until I +have walked with them into my very garden. The cows are forced to +carry them, the squirrel to hide them, the streams to whirl them on +their foaming drift into places where no bird or squirrel or wayward +breeze would go. Not a corner within the horizon but will get its +needed seed, not a nook anywhere, from the wind-swept fodder-field to +the deepest, darkest swamp, but will come to life and flower again with +the coming spring. +</P> + +<P> +The leaves are falling, the birds are leaving, most of them having +already gone. Soon I shall hear the bugle notes of the last guard as +the Canada geese go over, headed swift and straight for the South. And +yonder stands the fodder, brown and dry, the slanting shocks securely +tied against the beating rains. How can one be melancholy when one +knows the meaning of the fodder, when one is able to find in it his +faith in the seasons, and see in it the beauty and the wisdom which has +been built into the round of the year? +</P> + +<P> +To him who lacks this faith and understanding let me give a serene +October day in the woods. Go alone, lie down upon a bank where you can +get a large view of earth and sky. "One seems to get nearer to nature +in the early spring days," says Mr. Burroughs. I think not, not if by +nearer you mean closer to the heart and meaning of things. "All +screens are removed, the earth everywhere speaks directly to you; she +is not hidden by verdure and foliage." That is true; yet for most of +us her lips are still dumb with the silence of winter. One cannot come +close to bare, cold earth. There is only one flat, faded expression on +the face of the fields in March; whereas in October there is a settled +peace and sweetness over all the face of Nature, a fullness and a +non-withholding in her heart that makes communication natural and +understanding easy. +</P> + +<P> +The sap is sinking in the trees, the great tides of life have turned, +but so slowly do they run these soft and fragrant days that they seem +almost still, as at flood. A blue jay is gathering acorns overhead, +letting one drop now and then to roll out of sight and be planted under +the mat of leaves. Troops of migrating warblers flit into and through +the trees, talking quietly among themselves as they search for food, +moving all the while—and to a fixed goal, the far-off South. +Bob-white whistles from the fodder-field; the odor of ripened fox +grapes is brought with a puff of wind from across the pasture; the +smell of mint, of pennyroyal, and of sweet fern crisping in the sun. +These are not the odors of death; but the fragrance of life's very +essence, of life ripened and perfected and fit for storing till another +harvest comes. And these flitting warblers, what are they but another +sign of promise, another proof of the wisdom which is at the heart of +things? And all this glory of hickory and oak, of sumac and creeper, +of burning berries on dogwood and ilex and elder—this sunset of the +seasons—but the preparation for another dawn? +</P> + +<P> +If one would be folded to the breast of Nature, if one would be pressed +to her beating heart, if one would feel the mother in the soul of +things, let these October days find him in the hills, or where the +river makes into some vast salt marsh, or underneath some ancient tree +with fields of corn in shock and browning pasture slopes that reach and +round themselves along the rim of the sky. +</P> + +<P> +The sun circles warm above me; and up against the snowy piles of cloud +a broad-winged hawk in lesser circles wheels and flings its piercing +cry far down to me; a fat, dozy woodchuck sticks his head out and eyes +me kindly from his burrow; and close over me, as if I too had grown and +blossomed there, bends a rank, purple-flowered ironweed. We understand +each other; we are children of the same mother, nourished at the same +abundant breast, the weed and I, and the woodchuck, and the wheeling +hawk, and the piled-up clouds, and the shouldering slopes against the +sky—I am brother to them all. And this is home, this earth and +sky—these fruitful fields, and wooded hills, and marshes of reed and +river flowing out to meet the sea. I can ask for no fairer home, none +larger, none of more abundant or more golden corn. If aught is +wanting, if just a tinge of shadow mingles with the rowan-scented haze, +it is the early-falling twilight, the thought of my days, how short +they are, how few of them find me with the freedom of these October +fields, and how soon they must fade into November. +</P> + +<P> +No, the thought of November does not disturb me. There is one glory of +the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; +for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also are the +months and seasons. And if I watch closely I shall see that not only +are the birds leaving, but the muskrats are building their winter +lodges, the frogs are bedding, the buds putting on their thick, furry +coats—life everywhere preparing for the cold. I need to take the same +precaution,—even in my heart. I will take a day out of October, a day +when the woods are aflame with color, when the winds are so slow that +the spiders are ballooning, and lying where I can see them ascending +and the parachute seeds go drifting by, I will watch until my eyes are +opened to see larger and plainer things go by—the days with the round +of labor until the evening; the seasons with their joyous waking, their +eager living; their abundant fruiting, and then their sleeping—for +they must needs sleep. First the blade, then the ear, after that the +full corn in the ear, and after that the field of fodder. If so with +the corn and the seasons, why not so with life? And what of it all +could be fairer or more desirable than its October?—to lie and look +out over a sunlit meadow to a field of fodder cut and shocked against +the winter with my own hands! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-197.jpg" ALT="Going back to town" BORDER="2" WIDTH="364" HEIGHT="156"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XV +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +GOING BACK TO TOWN +</H3> + +<P> +"Labor Day, and school lunches begin to-morrow," She said, carefully +drying one of the "Home Comforts" that had been growing dusty on an +upper shelf since the middle of June. +</P> + +<P> +She set the three tin lunch-boxes (two for the four boys and one for +me) on the back of the stove and stood looking a moment at them. +</P> + +<P> +"Are you getting tired of spreading us bread and butter?" I asked. +</P> + +<P> +She made no reply. +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't put us up our comforts this year, how are we going to +dispose of all that strawberry jam and currant jelly?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am not tired of putting up lunches," she answered. "I was just +wondering if this year we ought not to go back to town. Four miles +each way for the boys to school, and twenty each way for you. Are n't +we paying a pretty high price for the hens and the pleasures of being +snowed in?" +</P> + +<P> +"An enormous price," I affirmed solemnly. +</P> + +<P> +"And we 've paid it now these dozen winters running. Let's go into +Boston and take that suite of wedge-shaped rooms we looked at last fall +in Hotel Huntington, at the intersection of the Avenue and the railroad +tracks. The boys can count freight cars until they are exhausted, and +watch engines from their windows night and day." +</P> + +<P> +"It isn't a light matter," she went on. "And we can't settle it by +making it a joke. You need to be near your work; I need to be nearer +human beings; the children need much more rest and freedom than these +long miles to school and these many chores allow them." +</P> + +<P> +"You 're entirely right, my dear, and this time we 'll do it. Our good +neighbor here will take the cow; I 'll give the cabbages away, and send +for 'Honest Wash' Curtis to come for the hens." +</P> + +<P> +"But look at all this wild-grape jelly!" she exclaimed, turning to an +array of forty-four little garnet jars which she had just covered with +hot paraffin against the coming winter. +</P> + +<P> +"And the thirteen bushels of potatoes," I broke in. "And the +apples—there are going to be eight or ten barrels of prime Baldwins +this year. And—" +</P> + +<P> +But it never comes to an end—it never has yet, for as soon as we +determine to do it, we feel that we can or not, just as we please. +Simply deciding that we will move in yields us such an instant and +actual city sojourn that we seem already to have been and are now +gladly getting back to the country again. +</P> + +<P> +So here we have stayed summer and winter, knowing that we ought to go +back nearer my work so that I can do more of it; and nearer the center +of social life so we can get more of it—life being pretty much lost +that is not spent in working, or going, or talking! Here we have +stayed even through the winters, exempt from public benefits, blessing +ourselves, every time it snows on Saturday, that we are here and not +there for our week ends, here within the "tumultuous privacy" of the +storm and our own roaring fireplace, with our own apples and popcorn +and books and selves; and when it snows on Monday wishing the weather +would always temper itself and time itself to the peculiar needs of +Mullein Hill—its length of back country road and automobile. +</P> + +<P> +For an automobile is not a snow-plough, however much gasoline you give +it. Time was when I rode a snow-plough and enjoyed it, as my Neighbor +Jonas rides and enjoys his, feeling that he is plenty fast enough, as +indeed he is, his sense of safety on the way, the absolute certainty +(so far as there can be human certainty) of his arriving sometime, +being compensation enough for the loss of those sensations of speed +induced across one's diaphragm and over one's epidermis by the +automobile. +</P> + +<P> +Speeding is a disease of the hair follicles, I think, and the great +hallucination of haste under which we move and try to have a being is +seated in the muscles of the diaphragm. Have I not found myself +rushing for a hundred places by automobile that I never should have +started for at all by hayrick or snow-plough, and thus had saved myself +that time wholly? Space is Time's tail and we can't catch it. The +most we can catch, with the speediest car, is a sight of its tip going +around the corner ahead. +</P> + +<P> +Speed is contagious, and I fear that I have it. I moved away here into +Hingham to escape it, but life in the Hingham hills is not far enough +away to save a man from all that passes along the road. The wind, too, +bloweth where it listeth, and when there is infection on it, you can't +escape by hiding in Hingham—not entirely. And once the sporulating +speed germs get into your system, it is as if Anopheles had bitten you, +their multiplying and bursting into the blood occurring regularly, +accompanied by a chill at two cylinders and followed by a fever for +four; a chill at four and a fever for six—eight—twelve, just like +malaria! +</P> + +<P> +We all have it, all but Neighbor Jonas. He has instead a "stavin'" +good mare by the name of Bill. Bill is speedy. She sprang, years ago, +from fast stock, as you would know if you held the cultivator behind +her. When she comes to harrow the garden, Jonas must needs come with +her to say "Whoa!" all the way, and otherwise admonish and exhort her +into remembering that the cultivator is not a trotting-sulky, and that +a row of beets is not a half-mile track. But the hard highways hurt +Bill's feet, so that Jonas nowadays takes every automobile's dust, and +none too sweetly either. +</P> + +<P> +"Jonas," I said, as Bill was cooling off at the end of a row, "why +don't you get an automobile?" +</P> + +<P> +"I take the eggs down to the store every two weeks and get a shave; but +I don't need a car much, havin' Bill," he replied, smashing a vicious +greenhead on Bill's withers that was keeping her mixed up with the +traces and the teeth of the harrow. "Besides, they 're skittish, +nervous things compared with a hoss. What I 'd like is something +neither one nor t'other—a sort of cross between an auto and Bill." +</P> + +<P> +"Why not get a Ford car, then," I asked, "with a cultivator attachment? +It would n't step on as many hills in the row as Bill does, and I think +it would beat Bill on the road." +</P> + +<P> +There was a cluck, a jump, and we were off down another row, with Jonas +saying:— +</P> + +<P> +"Not yet. Bill is still fast enough for me." +</P> + +<P> +And for me, too; yet there is no denying that conditions have changed, +that a multitude of new ills have been introduced into the social +organism by the automobile, and except in the deep drifts of winter, +the Ford car comes nearer curing those ills than any other anti-toxin +yet discovered. +</P> + +<P> +But here are the drifts still; and here is the old question of going +back to the city to escape them. I shall sometimes wish we had gone +back as I start out on a snowy, blowy morning; but never at night as I +turn back—there is that difference between going to the city and going +home. I often think the trip in is worth while for the sake of the +trip out, such joy is it to pull in from the black, soughing woods to +the cheer of the house, stamping the powdery snow off your boots and +greatcoat to the sweet din of welcomes that drown the howling of the +wind outside. +</P> + +<P> +Once last winter I had to walk from the station. The snow was deep and +falling steadily when I left the house in the morning, with increasing +wind and thickening storm all day, so that my afternoon train out was +delayed and dropped me at the station long after dark. The roads were +blocked, the snow was knee-deep, the driving wind was horizontal, and +the whirling ice particles like sharp sand, stinging, blinding as I +bent to the road. +</P> + +<P> +I went forward leaning, the drag in my feet overcome by the pull of the +level wind on my slant body. Once through the long stretch of woods I +tried to cut across the fields. Here I lost my bearings, stumbled into +a ditch, and for a moment got utterly confused with the black of the +night, the bite of the cold, and the smothering hand of the wind on my +mouth. +</P> + +<P> +Then I sat down where I was to pull myself together. There might be +danger in such a situation, but I was not really cold—not cool enough. +I had been forcing the fight foolishly, head-on, by a frontal attack +instead of on the enemy's flank. +</P> + +<P> +Here in the meadow I was exposed to the full force of the sweeping +gale, and here I realized for the first time that this was the great +storm of the winter, one of the supreme passages of the year, and one +of the glorious physical fights of a lifetime. +</P> + +<P> +On a prairie, or in the treeless barrens and tundras of the vast, +frozen North, a fight like this could have but one end. What must the +wild polar night be like! What the will, the thrill of men like Scott +and Peary who have fought these forces to a standstill at the very +poles! Their craft, their cunning, their daring, their imagination! +The sway, the drive, the divine madness of such a purpose! A living +atom creeping across the ice-cap over the top of the world! A human +mote, so smothered in the Arctic dark and storm, so wide of the utmost +shore of men, by a trail so far and filled and faint that only God can +follow! +</P> + +<P> +It is not what a man does, but what he lives through doing it. Life +may be safer, easier, longer, and fuller of possessions in one place +than another. But possessions do not measure life, nor years, nor +ease, nor safety. Life in the Hingham hills in winter is wretchedly +remote at times, but nothing happens to me all day long in Boston to be +compared for a moment with this experience here in the night and snow. +I never feel the largeness of the sky there, nor the wideness of the +world, nor the loveliness of night, nor the fearful majesty of such a +winter storm. +</P> + +<P> +As the far-flung lines swept down upon me and bore me back into the +drift, I knew somewhat the fierce delight of berg and floe and that +primordial dark about the poles, and springing from my trench, I flung +myself single-handed and exultant against the double fronts of night +and storm, mightier than they, till weak, but victorious, I dragged +myself to the door of a neighboring farmhouse, the voice of the storm a +mighty song within my soul. +</P> + +<P> +This happened, as I say, <I>once</I> last winter, and of course she said we +simply ought <I>not</I> to live in such a place in winter; and of course, if +anything exactly like that should occur every winter night, I should +have to move into the city whether I liked city storms or not. One's +life is, to be sure, a consideration, but fortunately for life all the +winter days out here are not so magnificently ordered as this, except +at dawn each morning, and at dusk, and at midnight when the skies are +set with stars. +</P> + +<P> +But there is a largeness to the quality of country life, a freshness +and splendor as constant as the horizon and a very part of it. +</P> + +<P> +Take a day anywhere in the year: that day in March—the day of the +first frogs, when spring and winter meet; or that day in the fall—the +day of the first frost, when autumn and winter meet; or that day in +August—the day of the full-blown goldenrod, when summer and autumn +meet—<I>these</I>, together with the days of June, and more especially that +particular day in June when you can't tell earth from heaven, when +everything is life and love and song, and the very turtles of the pond +are moved from their lily-pads to wander the upland slopes to lay—the +day when spring and summer meet! +</P> + +<P> +Or if these seem rare days, try again anywhere in the calendar from the +rainy day in February when the thaw begins to Indian summer and the day +of floating thistledown, and the cruising fleets of wild lettuce and +silky-sailed fireweed on the golden air. The big soft clouds are +sailing their wider sea; the sweet sunshine, the lesser winds, the +chickadees and kinglets linger with you in your sheltered hollow +against the hill—you and they for yet a little slumber, a little sleep +before there breaks upon you the wrath of the North. +</P> + +<P> +But is this sweet, slumberous, half-melancholy day any nearer perfect +than that day when +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky<BR> +Arrives the snow"--<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +or the blizzard? +</P> + +<P> +But going back to town, as she intimated, concerns the children quite +as much as me. They travel eight miles a day to get to school, part of +it on foot and part of it by street car—and were absent one day last +year when the telephone wires were down and we thought there would be +no school because of the snow. They might not have missed that one day +had we been in the city, and I must think of that when it comes time to +go back. There is room for them in the city to improve in spelling and +penmanship too, vastly to improve. But they could n't have half so +much fun there as here, nor half so many things to do, simple, +healthful, homely, interesting things to do, as good for them as books +and food and sleep—these last things to be had here, too, in great +abundance. +</P> + +<P> +What could take the place of the cow and hens in the city? The hens +are Mansie's (he is the oldest) and the cow is mine. But night after +night last winter I would climb the Hill to see the barn lighted, and +in the shadowy stall two little human figures—one squat on an upturned +bucket milking, his milk-pail, too large to be held between his knees, +lodged perilously under the cow upon a half-peck measure; the other +little human figure quietly holding the cow's tail. +</P> + +<P> +No head is turned; not a squeeze is missed—this is <I>business</I> here in +the stall,—but as the car stops behind the scene, Babe calls— +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Father!" +</P> + +<P> +"Hello, Babe!" +</P> + +<P> +"Three teats done," calls Mansie, his head down, butting into the old +cow's flank. "You go right in, we 'll be there. She has n't kicked +but once!" +</P> + +<P> +Perhaps that is n't a good thing for those two little boys to +do—watering, feeding, brushing, milking the cow on a winter night in +order to save me—and loving to! Perhaps that is n't a good thing for +me to see them doing, as I get home from the city on a winter night! +</P> + +<P> +But I am a sentimentalist and not proof at all against two little boys +milking, who are liable to fall into the pail. +</P> + +<P> +Meantime the two middlers had shoveled out the road down to the +mail-box on the street so that I ran up on bare earth, the very wheels +of the car conscious of the love behind the shovels, of the speed and +energy it took to get the long job done before I should arrive. +</P> + +<P> +"How did she come up?" calls Beebum as he opens the house door for me, +his cheeks still glowing with the cold and exercise. +</P> + +<P> +"Did we give you wide enough swing at the bend?" cries Bitsie, seizing +the bag of bananas. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, we sailed up—took that curve like a bird—didn't need +chains—just like a boulevard right into the barn!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a fearful night out, is n't it?" she says, taking both of my +hands in hers, a touch of awe, a note of thankfulness in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"Bad night in Boston!" I exclaim. "Trains late, cars stalled—streets +blocked with snow. I 'm mighty glad to be out here a night like this." +</P> + +<P> +"Woof! Woof!"—And Babe and Pup are at the kitchen door with the pail +of milk, shaking themselves free from snow. +</P> + +<P> +"Where is Mansie?" his mother asks. +</P> + +<P> +"He just ran down to have a last look at his chickens." +</P> + +<P> +We sit down to dinner, but Mansie does n't come. The wind whistles +outside, the snow sweeps up against the windows,—the night grows +wilder and fiercer. +</P> + +<P> +"Why doesn't Mansie come?" his mother asks, looking at me. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, he can't shut the hen-house doors, for the snow. He 'll be here +in a moment." +</P> + +<P> +The meal goes on. +</P> + +<P> +"Will you go out and see what is the matter with the child?" she asks, +the look of anxiety changing to one of alarm on her face. +</P> + +<P> +As I am rising there is a racket in the cellar and the child soon comes +blinking into the lighted dining-room, his hair dusty with snow, his +cheeks blazing, his eyes afire. He slips into his place with just a +hint of apology about him and reaches for his cup of fresh, warm milk. +</P> + +<P> +He is twelve years old. +</P> + +<P> +"What does this mean, Mansie?" she says. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"You are late for dinner. And who knows what had happened to you out +there in the trees a night like this. What were you doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Shutting up the chickens." +</P> + +<P> +"But you did shut them up early in the afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, mother." +</P> + +<P> +"Well?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's awful cold, mother!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"They might freeze!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Specially those little ones." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know, but what took you so long?" +</P> + +<P> +"I did n't want 'em to freeze." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes?" +</P> + +<P> +"So I took a little one and put it on the roost in between two big +hens—a little one and a big one, a little one and a big one, to keep +the little ones warm; and it took a lot of time." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you have another cup of warm milk?" she asks, pouring him more +from the pitcher, doing very well with her lips and eyes, it seemed to +me, considering how she ran the cup over. +</P> + +<P> +Shall I take them back to the city for the winter—away from their +chickens, and cow and dog and pig and work-bench and haymow and +fireside, and the open air and their wild neighbors and the wilder +nights that I remember as a child? +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"There it a pleasure in the pathless woods,<BR> + There is a rapture on the lonely shore,<BR> +There is society where none intrudes,<BR> + By the deep sea--and music in its roar."<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Once they have known all of this I can take them into town and not +spoil the poet in them. +</P> + +<P> +"Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better +than games. Keep him in the open air. Above all, you must guard him +against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. The great God has called +me. Take comfort in that I die in peace with the world and myself and +not afraid"—from the last letter of Captain Scott to his wife, as he +lay watching the approach of death in the Antarctic cold. His own end +was nigh, but the infant son, in whose life he should never take a +father's part, what should be his last word for him? +</P> + +<P> +"Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better +than games. Keep him in the open air." +</P> + +<P> +Those are solemn words, and they carry a message of deep significance. +I have watched my own boys; I recall my own boyhood; and I believe the +words are true. So thoroughly do I believe in the physical and moral +value of the outdoors for children, the open fields and woods, that +before my children were all born I brought them here into the country. +Here they shall grow as the weeds and flowers grow, and in the same +fields with them; here they shall play as the young foxes and +woodchucks play, and on the same bushy hillsides with them—summer and +winter. +</P> + +<P> +Games are natural and good. It is a stick of a boy who won't be "it." +But there are better things than games, more lasting, more developing, +more educating. Kittens and puppies and children play; but children +should have, and may have, other and better things to do than puppies +and kittens can do; for they are not going to grow up into dogs and +cats. +</P> + +<P> +Once awaken a love for the woods in the heart of a child, and something +has passed into him that the evil days, when they come, shall have to +reckon with. Let me take my children into the country to live, if I +can. Or if I cannot, then let me take them on holidays, or, if it must +be, on Sunday mornings with me, for a tramp. +</P> + +<P> +I bless those Sunday-morning tramps to the Tumbling Dam Woods, to +Sheppard's Mills, to Cubby Hollow, to Cohansey Creek Meadows, that I +was taken upon as a lad of twelve. We would start out early, and deep +in the woods, or by some pond or stream, or out upon the wide meadows, +we would wait, and watch the ways of wild things—the little marsh +wrens bubbling in the calamus and cattails, the young minks at play, +the big pond turtles on their sunning logs—these and more, a multitude +more. Here we would eat our crackers and the wild berries or buds that +we could find, and with the sunset turn back toward home. +</P> + +<P> +We saw this and that, single deep impressions, that I shall always +remember. But better than any single sight, any sweet sound or smell, +was the sense of companionship with my human guide, and the sense that +I loved +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> + "not man the less, but nature more,<BR> +From these our interviews."<BR> +</P> + +<P> +If we <I>do</I> move into town this winter, it won't be because the boys wish +to go. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-216.jpg" ALT="The Christmas tree" BORDER="2" WIDTH="326" HEIGHT="188"> +</CENTER> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +XVI +</H3> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE CHRISTMAS TREE +</H3> + +<P> +We shall not go back to town before Christmas, any way. They have a +big Christmas tree on the Common, but the boys declare they had rather +have their own Christmas tree, no matter how small; rather go into the +woods and mark it weeks ahead, as we always do, and then go bring it +home the day before, than to look at the tallest spruce that the Mayor +could fetch out of the forests of Maine and set up on the Common. +Where do such simple-minded children live, and in such primitive +conditions that they can carry an axe into the woods these days and cut +their own Christmas tree? Here on the Hills of Hingham, almost twenty +miles from Boston. +</P> + +<P> +I hope it snows this Christmas as it did last. How it snowed! All day +we waited a lull in the gale, for our tree was still uncut, still out +in the Shanty-Field Woods. But all day long it blew, and all day long +the dry drifts swirled and eddied into the deep hollows and piled +themselves across the ridge road into bluffs and headlands that had to +be cut and tunneled through. As the afternoon wore on, the storm +steadied. The wind came gloriously through the tall woods, driving the +mingled snow and shadow till the field and the very barn were blotted +out. +</P> + +<P> +"We <I>must</I> go!" was the cry. "We'll have no Christmas tree!" +</P> + +<P> +"But this is impossible. We could never carry it home through all +this, even if we could find it." +</P> + +<P> +"But we 've marked it!" +</P> + +<P> +"You mean you have devoted it, hallowed it, you little Aztecs! Do you +think the tree will mind?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why—yes. Wouldn't you mind, father, if you were a tree and marked +for Christmas and nobody came for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I would—yes, I think you 're right. It is too bad. But we +'ll have to wait." +</P> + +<P> +We waited and waited, and for once they went to bed on Christmas Eve +with their tree uncut. They had hardly gone, however, when I took the +axe and the lantern (for safety) and started up the ridge for the +devoted tree. I found it; got it on my shoulder; and long after nine +o'clock—as snowy and as weary an old Chris as ever descended a +chimney—came dragging in the tree. +</P> + +<P> +We got to bed late that night—as all parents ought on the night before +Christmas; but Old Chris himself, soundest of sleepers, never slept +sounder! And what a Christmas Day we had. What a tree it was! Who +got it? How? No, old Chris did n't bring it—not when two of the boys +came floundering in from a walk that afternoon saying they had tracked +me from the cellar door clear out to the tree-stump—where they found +my axe! +</P> + +<P> +I hope it snows. Christmas ought to have snow; as it ought to have +holly and candles and stockings and mistletoe and a tree. I wonder if +England will send us mistletoe this year? Perhaps we shall have to use +our home-grown; but then, mistletoe is mistletoe, and one is n't asking +one's self what kind of mistletoe hangs overhead when one chances to +get under the chandelier. They tell me there are going to be no toys +this year, none of old Chris's kind but only weird, fierce, +Fourth-of-July things from Japan. "Christmas comes but once a year," +my elders used to say to me—a strange, hard saying; yet not so strange +and hard as the feeling that somehow, this year, Christmas may not come +at all. I never felt that way before. It will never do; and I shall +hang up my stocking. Of course they will have a tree at church for the +children, as they did last year, but will the choir sing this year, +"While shepherds watched their flock by night" and "Hark! the herald +angels sing"? +</P> + +<P> +I have grown suddenly old. The child that used to be in me is with the +ghost of Christmas Past, and I am partner now with Scrooge, taking old +Marley's place. The choir may sing; but— +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"The lonely mountains o'er<BR> +And the resounding shore<BR> +A voice of weeping heard and loud lament!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +</P> + +<P> +I cannot hear the angels, nor see, for the flames of burning cities, +their shining ranks descend the sky. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"No war, or battle's sound,<BR> +Was heard the world around;<BR> +The idle spear and shield were high uphung"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +on that first Christmas Eve. What has happened since then—since I was +a child?—since last Christmas, when I still believed in Christmas, and +sang with the choir, "Noel! Noel!"? +</P> + +<P> +But I am confusing sentiment and faith. If I cannot sing peace on +earth, I still believe in it; if I cannot hear the angels, I know that +the Christ was born, and that Christmas is coming. It will not be a +very merry Christmas; but it shall be a most significant, most solemn, +most holy Christmas. +</P> + +<P> +The Yule logs, as the Yule-tide songs, will be fewer this year. Many a +window, bright with candles a year ago, will be darkened. There will +be no goose at the Cratchits', for both Bob and Master Cratchit have +gone to the front. But Tiny Tim is left, and the Christ Child is left, +and my child is left, and yours—even your dear dreamchild "upon the +tedious shores of Lethe" that always comes back at Christmas. It takes +only one little child to make Christmas—one little child, and the +angels who companion him, and the shepherds who come to see him, and +the Wise Men who worship him and bring him gifts. +</P> + +<P> +We can have Christmas, for unto us again, as truly as in Bethlehem of +Judea, a child is born on whose shoulders shall be the government and +whose name is the Prince of Peace. +</P> + +<P> +Christ is reborn with every child, and Christmas is his festival. +Come, let us keep it for his sake; for the children's sake; for the +sake of the little child that we must become before we can enter into +the Kingdom of Heaven. It is neither kings nor kaisers, but a little +child that shall lead us finally. And long after the round-lipped +cannons have ceased to roar, we shall hear the Christmas song of the +Angels. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"But see! the Virgin blest<BR> +Hath laid her Babe to rest--"<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +Come, softly, swiftly, dress up the tree, hang high the largest +stockings; bring out the toys—softly! +</P> + +<P> +I hope it snows. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +THE END +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hills of Hingham, by Dallas Lore Sharp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILLS OF HINGHAM *** + +***** This file should be named 18664-h.htm or 18664-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/6/18664/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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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: The Hills of Hingham + +Author: Dallas Lore Sharp + +Release Date: June 23, 2006 [EBook #18664] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILLS OF HINGHAM *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + + +THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + + +BY + +DALLAS LORE SHARP + + + + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS + + + + + +BOSTON AND NEW YORK + +HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + +The Riverside Press Cambridge + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY DALLAS LORE SHARP + +ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + +_Published April 1916_ + + + + +TO THOSE WHO + +"_Enforst to seek some shelter nigh at hand_" + +HAVE FOUND THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + + + + +PREFACE + +The is not exactly the book I thought it was going to be--though I can +say the same of its author for that matter. I had intended this book +to set forth some features of the Earth that make it to be preferred to +Heaven as a place of present abode, and to note in detail the peculiar +attractions of Hingham over Boston, say,--Boston being quite the best +city on the Earth to live in. I had the book started under the title +"And this Our Life" + + . . . exempt from public haunt, + Finds tongues in trees," + +--when, suddenly, war broke out, the gates of Hell swung wide open into +Belgium, and Heaven began to seem the better place. Meanwhile, a +series of lesser local troubles had been brewing--drouth, caterpillars, +rheumatism, increased commutation rates, more college themes,--more +than I could carry back and forth to Hingham,--so that as the writing +went on Boston began to seem, not a better place than Hingham, but a +nearer place, somehow, and more thoroughly sprayed. + +And all this time the book on Life that I thought I was writing was +growing chapter by chapter into a defense of that book--a defense of +Life--my life here by my fireside with my boys and Her, and the garden +and woodlot and hens and bees, and days off and evenings at home and +books to read, yes, and books to write--all of which I had taken for +granted at twenty, and believed in with a beautiful faith at thirty, +when I moved out here into what was then an uninfected forest. + +That was the time to have written the book that I had intended this one +to be--while the adventure in contentment was still an adventure, while +the lure of the land was of fourteen acres yet unexplored, while back +to the soil meant exactly what the seed catalogues picture it, and my +summer in a garden had not yet passed into its frosty fall. Instead, I +have done what no writer ought to do, what none ever did before, unless +Jacob wrote,--taken a fourteen-year-old enthusiasm for my theme, to +find the enthusiasm grown, as Rachel must have grown by the time Jacob +got her, into a philosophy, and like all philosophies, in need of +defense. + +What men live by is an interesting speculative question, but what men +live on, and where they can live,--with children to bring up, and their +own souls to save,--is an intensely practical question which I have +been working at these fourteen years here in the Hills of Hingham. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + II. THE OPEN FIRE + III. THE ICE CROP + IV. SEED CATALOGUES + V. THE DUSTLESS-DUSTER + VI. SPRING PLOUGHING + VII. MERE BEANS + VIII. A PILGRIM FROM DUBUQUE + IX. THE HONEY FLOW + X. A PAIR OF PIGS + XI. LEAFING + XII. THE LITTLE FOXES + XIII. OUR CALENDAR + XIV. THE FIELDS OF FODDER + XV. GOING BACK TO TOWN + XVI. THE CHRISTMAS TREE + + + + +[Illustration: The hills of Hingham] + +I + +THE HILLS OF HINGHAM + + "As Surrey hills to mountains grew + In White of Selborne's loving view" + + +Really there are no hills in Hingham, to speak of, except Bradley Hill +and Peartree Hill and Turkey Hill, and Otis and Planter's and Prospect +Hills, Hingham being more noted for its harbor and plains. Everybody +has heard of Hingham smelts. Mullein Hill is in Hingham, too, but +Mullein Hill is only a wrinkle on the face of Liberty Plain, which +accounts partly for our having it. Almost anybody can have a hill in +Hingham who is content without elevation, a surveyor's term as applied +to hills, and a purely accidental property which is not at all +essential to real hillness, or the sense of height. We have a stump on +Mullein Hill for height. A hill in Hingham is not only possible, but +even practical as compared with a Forest in Arden, Arden being +altogether too far from town; besides + + ". . . there's no clock in the forest" + +and we have the 8.35 train to catch of a winter morning! + + + "A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees" + +sounds more pastoral than apple trees around a house on a hill in +Hingham, and it would be more ideal, too, if New England weather were +not so much better adapted to apples, and if one did not prefer apples, +and if one could raise a family in a sheep-cote. + +We started in the sheep-cote, back yonder when all the world was twenty +or thereabouts, and when every wild-cherry-bush was an olive tree. But +one day the tent caterpillar like a wolf swept down on our fold of +cherry-bushes and we fled Arden, never to get back. We lived for a +time in town and bought olives in bottles, stuffed ones sometimes, then +we got a hill in Hingham, just this side of Arden, still buying our +olives, but not our apples now, nor our peaches, nor our musk melons, +nor our wood for the open fire. We buy commutation tickets, and pay +dearly for the trips back and forth. But we could n't make a living in +Arden. Our hill in Hingham is a compromise. + +Only folk of twenty and close to twenty live in Arden. We are forty +now and no longer poets. When we are really old and our grasshoppers +become a burden, we may go back to town where the insects are an +entirely different species; but for this exceedingly busy present, +between our fading dawn of visions and our coming dusk of dreams, a +hill in Hingham, though a compromise, is an almost strategic position, +Hingham being more or less of an escape from Boston, and the hill, +though not in the Forest of Arden, something of an escape from Hingham, +a quaint old village of elm-cooled streets and gentle neighbors. Not +that we hate Boston, nor that we pass by on the other side in Hingham. +We gladly pick our neighbors up and set them in our motor car and bring +them to the foot of the hill. We people of the hills do not hate +either crowds or neighbors. We are neighbors ourselves and parts of +the city crowds too; and we love to bind up wounds and bring folk to +their inns. But we cannot take them farther, for there are no inns out +here. We leave them in Hingham and journey on alone into a region +where neither thief nor anyone infests the roadsides; where there are +no roads in fact, but only driftways and footpaths through the sparsely +settled hills. + +We leave the crowd on the streets, we leave the kind neighbor at his +front gate, and travel on, not very far, but on alone into a wide quiet +country where we shall have a chance, perhaps, of meeting with +ourselves--the day's great adventure, and far to find; yet this is what +we have come out to the hills for. + +Not for apples nor wood fires have we a hill in Hingham; not for hens +and a bigger house, and leisure, and conveniences, and excitements; not +for ways to earn a living, nor for ways to spend it. Stay in town for +that. There "you can even walk alone without being bored. No long, +uneventful stretches of bleak, wintry landscape, where nothing moves, +not even the train of thought. No benumbed and self-centered trees +holding out pathetic frozen branches for sympathy. Impossible to be +introspective here. Fall into a brown or blue study and you are likely +to be run over. Thought is brought to the surface by mental massage. +No time to dwell upon your beloved self. So many more interesting +things to think about. And the changing scenes unfold more rapidly +than a moving-picture reel." + +This sounds much more interesting than the country. And it is more +interesting, Broadway asking nothing of a country lane for excitement. +And back they go who live on excitement; while some of us take this +same excitement as the best of reasons for double windows and storm +doors and country life the year through. + +You can think in the city, but it is in spite of the city. +Gregariousness and individuality do not abide together; nor is external +excitement the cause or the concomitant of thought. In fact this +"mental massage" of the city is to real thinking about what a +mustard-plaster is to circulation--a counter-irritant. The thinker is +one who finds himself (quite impossible on Broadway!); and then finds +himself _interesting_--more interesting than Broadway--another +impossibility within the city limits. Only in the country can he do +that, in a wide and negative environment of quiet, room, and +isolation--necessary conditions for the enjoyment of one's own mind. +Thought is a country product and comes in to the city for distribution, +as books are gathered and distributed by libraries, but not written in +libraries. It is against the wide, drab background of the country that +thought most naturally reacts, thinking being only the excitement of a +man discovering himself, as he is compelled to do, where bending +horizon and arching sky shift as he shifts in all creation's constant +endeavor to swing around and center on him. Nothing centers on him in +the city, where he thinks by "mental massage"--through the scalp with +laying on of hands, as by benediction or shampoo. + +But for the busy man, say of forty, are the hills of Hingham with their +adventure possible? Why, there is nothing ailing the man of forty +except that he now is neither young nor old, nor rich, the chances are; +nor a dead failure either, but just an average man; yet he is one of +God's people, if the Philistines were (He brought them from Caphtor) +and the Syrians (those He brought from Kir). The man of forty has a +right to so much of the Promised Land as a hill in Hingham. But he is +afraid to possess it because it is so far from work and friends and +lighted streets. He is afraid of the dark and of going off to sit down +upon a stump for converse with himself. He is afraid he won't get his +work done. If his work were planting beans, he would get none planted +surely while on the stump; but so he might be saved the ungracious task +of giving away his surplus beans to bean-ridden friends for the summer. +A man, I believe, can plant too many beans. He might not finish the +freshman themes either. But when was the last freshman theme ever +done? Finish them if he can, he has only baked the freshmen into +sophomores, and so emptied the ovens for another batch of dough. He +shall never put a crust on the last freshman, and not much of a crust +on the last sophomore either, the Almighty refusing to cooeperate with +him in the baking. Let him do the best he can, not the most he can, +and quit for Hingham and the hills where he can go out to a stump and +sit down. + +College students also are a part of that world which can be too much +with us, cabbages, too, if we are growing cabbages. We don't do +over-much, but we are over-busy. We want too much. Buy a little hill +in Hingham, and even out here, unless you pray and go apart often to +your stump, your desire will be toward every hill in sight and the +valleys between. + +According to the deed my hill comprises "fourteen acres more or less" +of an ancient glacier, a fourteen-acre heap of unmitigated gravel, +which now these almost fourteen years I have been trying to clear of +stones, picking, picking for a whole Stone Age, and planning daily to +buy the nine-acre ridge adjoining me which is gravelier than mine. By +actual count we dumped five hundred cartloads of stones into the +foundation of a porch when making over the house recently--and still I +am out in the garden picking, picking, living in the Stone Age still, +and planning to prolong the stay by nine acres more that are worse than +these I now have, nine times worse for stones! + +I shall never cease picking stones, I presume, but perhaps I can get +out a permanent injunction against myself, to prevent my buying that +neighboring gravel hill, and so find time to climb my own and sit down +among the beautiful moth-infested oak trees. + +I do sit down, and I thrust my idle hands hard into my pockets to keep +them from the Devil who would have them out at the moths instantly--an +evil job, killing moths, worse than picking stones! + +Nothing is more difficult to find anywhere than time to sit down with +yourself, except the ability to enjoy the time after finding it,--even +here on a hill in Hingham, if the hill is in woods. There are foes to +face in the city and floods to stem out here, but let no one try to +fight several acres of caterpillars. When you see them coming, climb +your stump and wait on the Lord. He is slow; and the caterpillars are +horribly fast. True. Yet I say. To your stump and wait--and learn +how restful a thing it is to sit down by faith. For the town sprayer +is a vain thing. The roof of green is riddled. The rafters overhead +reach out as naked as in December. Ruin looks through. On sweep the +devouring hosts in spite of arsenate of lead and "wilt" disease and +Calasoma beetles. Nothing will avail; nothing but a new woodlot +planted with saplings that the caterpillars do not eat. Sit still my +soul, and know that when these oak trees fall there will come up the +fir tree and the pine tree and the shagbark, distasteful to the worms; +and they shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that +shall not be cut off. + +This is good forestry, and good philosophy--a sure handling of both +worms and soul. + +But how hard to follow! I would so like to help the Lord. Not to do +my own share only; but to shoulder the Almighty's too, saying-- + + "If it were done when 't is done, then 't were well + It were done quickly"; + +and I up and do it. But it does not stay done. I had sprayed, +creosoted, cut, trimmed, cemented, only to see the trees die, until I +was forced to rest upon the stump, when I saw what I had been blind to +before: that the pine trees were tipped with cones, and that there in +the tops were the red squirrels shucking and giving the winged seeds to +the winds to sow; and that even now up the wooded slope below me, where +the first of the old oaks had perished, was climbing a future grove of +seedling pines. + +The forests of Arden are not infested with gypsy moths, nor the woods +of Heaven either, I suppose; but the trees in the hills of Hingham are. +And yet they are the trees of the Lord; the moths are his also, and the +caring for them. I am caring for a few college freshmen and my soul. +I shall go forth to my work until the evening. The Lord can take the +night-shift; for it was He who instituted the twilight, and it is He +who must needs be responsible till the morning. + +So here a-top my stump in the beleaguered woodlot I sit with idle +hands, and no stars falling, and the universe turning all alone! + +To wake up at forty a factory hand! a floor-walker! a banker! a college +professor! a man about town or any other respectably successful, +humdrum, square wooden peg-of-a-thing in a square tight hole! There is +an evil, says the Preacher, which I have seen under the sun--the man of +about forty who has become moderately successful and automatic, but who +has not, and now knows he cannot, set the world on fire. This is a +vanity and it is an evil disease. + +From running the universe at thirty the man of forty finds himself +running with it, paced before, behind, and beside, by other runners and +by the very stars in their courses. He has struck the universal gait, +a strong steady stride that will carry him to the finish, but not among +the medals. This is an evil thing. Forty is a dangerous age. The +wild race of twenty, the staggering step of eighty, are full of peril, +but not so deadly as the even, mechanical going of forty; for youth has +the dash in hand; old age has ceased to worry and is walking in; while +the man of forty is right in the middle of the run, grinding along on +his second wind with the cheering all ahead of him. + +In fact, the man of forty finds himself half-way across the street with +the baby carriage in his hands, and touring cars in front of him, and +limousines behind him, and the hand-of-the-law staying and steadying +him on his perilous course. + +Life may be no busier at forty than at thirty, but it is certainly more +expensive. Work may not be so hard, but the facts of life are a great +deal harder, the hardest, barest of them being the here-and-now of all +things, the dead levelness of forty--an irrigated plain that has no +hill of vision, no valley of dream. But it may have its hill in +Hingham with a bit of meadow down below. + +Mullein Hill is the least of all hills, even with the added stump; but +looking down through the trees I can see the gray road, and an +occasional touring car, like a dream, go by; and off on the Blue Hills +of Milton--higher hills than ours in Hingham--hangs a purple mist that +from our ridge seems the very robe and veil of vision. + +The realities are near enough to me here crawling everywhere, indeed; +but close as I am to the flat earth I can yet look down at things--at +the road and the passing cars; and off at things--the hills and the +distant horizon; and so I can escape for a time that level stare into +the face of things which sees them as _things_ close and real, but +seldom as _life_, far off and whole. + +Perhaps I have never seen life whole; I may need a throne and not a +hill and a stump for that; but here in the wideness of the open skies, +in the sweet quiet, in the hush that often fills these deep woods, I +sometimes see life free, not free from men and things, but +unencumbered, coming to meet me out of the morning and passing on with +me toward the sunset until, at times, the stepping westward, the +uneventful onwardness of life has + + ". . . seemed to be + A kind of heavenly destiny" + +and, even the back-and-forth of it, a divine thing. + +This knowledge is too wonderful for me; I cannot keep fast hold of it; +yet to know occasionally that you are greater than your rhetoric, or +your acres of stones, or your woods of worms, worms that may destroy +your trees though you spray, is to steady and establish your soul, and +vastly to comfort it! + +To be greater than your possessions, than your accomplishments, than +your desires--greater than you know, than anybody at home knows or will +admit! So great that you can leave your plough in the turret that you +can leave the committees to meet, and the trees to fall, and the sun to +hurry on, while you take your seat upon a stump, assured from many a +dismaying observation that the trees will fall anyhow, that the sun +will hasten on its course, and that the committees, even the +committees, will meet and do business whether you attend or not! + +This is bed-rock fact, the broad and solid bottom for a cheerful +philosophy. To know that they can get on without you (more knowledge +than many ever attain!) is the beginning of wisdom; and to learn that +you can get on without them--at the close of the day, and out here on +your hill in Hingham--this is the end of understanding. + +If I am no more than the shoes I stitch, or the lessons I peg, and the +college can so calmly move on without me, how small I am! Let me hope +that I am useful there, and useful as a citizen-at-large; but I know +that I am chiefly and utterly dispensable at large, everywhere at +large, even in Hingham. But not here on my hilltop. Here I am +indispensable. In the short shift from my classroom, from chair to +hill, from doing to being, I pass from a means into an end, from a part +in the scheme of things to the scheme of things itself. + +Here stands my hill on the highway from dawn to dusk, and just where +the bending walls of the sky center and encircle it. This is not only +a large place, with room and verge enough; it is also a chief place, +where start the north and south and east and west, and the gray crooked +road over which I travel daily. + +I can trace the run of the road from my stump on the hill, off to where +it bends on the edge of night for its returning and rest here. + + "Let me live in a house by the aide of the road," + +sings the poet; but as for me, after traveling all day let me come back +to a house at the end of the road--for in returning and rest shall a +man be saved, in quietness and confidence shall he find strength. +Nowhere shall he find that quietness and confidence in larger measure +than here in the hills. And where shall he return to more rest? + +There are men whose souls are like these hills, simple, strong, quiet +men who can heal and restore; and there are books that help like the +hills, simple elemental, large books; music, and sleep, and prayer, and +play are healing too; but none of these cure and fill one with a +quietness and confidence as deep as that from the hills, even from the +little hills and the small fields and the vast skies of Hingham; a +confidence and joy in the earth, perhaps, rather than in heaven, and +yet in heaven too. + +If it is not also a steadied thinking and a cleared seeing, it is at +least a mental and moral convalescence that one gets--out of the +landscape, out of its largeness, sweetness and reality. I am quickly +conscious on the hills of space all about me--room for myself, room for +the things that crowd and clutter me; and as these arrange and set +themselves in order, I am aware of space within me, of freedom and +wideness there, of things in order, of doors unlocked and windows +opened, through which I look out upon a new young world, new like the +morning, young like the seedling pines on the slope--young and new like +my soul! + +Now I can go back to my classroom. Now I can read themes once more. +Now I can gaze into the round, moon-eyed face of youth and have +faith--as if my chair were a stump, my classroom a wooded hillside +covered with young pines, seedlings of the Lord, and full of sap, and +proof against the worm. + +Yet these are the same youth who yesterday wrote the "Autobiography of +a Fountain Pen" and "The Exhilarations of the Straw-Ride" and the +essays on "The Beauties of Nature." It is I who am not the same. I +have been changed, renewed, having seen from my stump the face of +eternal youth in the freshmen pines marching up the hillside, in the +young brook playing and pursuing through the meadow, in the young winds +over the trees, the young stars in the skies, the young moon riding +along the horizon + + "With the auld moon in her arm"-- + +youth immortal, and so, unburdened by its withered load of age. + +I come down from the hill with a soul resurgent,--strong like the heave +that overreaches the sag of the sea,--and bold in my faith--to a lot of +college students as the hope of the world! + +From the stump in the woodlot I see not only the face of things but the +course of things, that they are moving past me, over me, and round and +round me their fixed center--for the horizon to bend about, for the sky +to arch over, for the highways to start from, for every influence and +interest between Hingham and Heaven to focus on. + + "All things journey sun and moon + Morning noon and afternoon, + Night and all her stars,"-- + +and they all journey about me on my stump in the hilltop. + +We love human nature; we love to get back to it in New York and +Boston,--for a day, for six months in the winter even,--but we need to +get back to the hills at night. We are a conventional, gregarious, +herding folk. Let an American get rich and he builds a grand house in +the city. Let an Englishman get rich and he moves straight into the +country--out to such a spot as Bradley Hill in Hingham. + +There are many of the city's glories and conveniences lacking here on +Mullein Hill, but Mullein Hill has some of the necessities that are +lacking in the city--wide distances and silent places, and woods and +stumps where you can sit down and feel that you are greater than +anything in sight. In the city the buildings are too vast; the people +are too many. You might feel greater than any two or three persons +there, perhaps, but not greater than nearly a million. + +No matter how centered and serene I start from Hingham, a little way +into Boston and I am lost. First I begin to hurry (a thing unnecessary +in Hingham) for everybody else is hurrying; then I must get somewhere; +everybody else is getting somewhere, getting everywhere. For see them +in front of me and behind me, getting there ahead of me and coming +after me to leave no room for me when I shall arrive! But when shall I +and where shall I arrive? And what shall I arrive for? And who am I +that I would arrive? I look around for the encircling horizon, and up +for the overarching sky, and in for the guiding purpose; but instead of +a purpose I am hustled forward by a crowd, and at the bottom of a +street far down beneath such overhanging walls as leave me but a slit +of smoky sky. I am in the hands of a force mightier than I, in the +hands of the police force at the street corners, and am carried across +to the opposite curb through a breaker that rolls in front of me again +at the next crossing. So I move on, by external compulsion, knowing, +as I move, by a kind of mental contagion, feeling by a sort of proxy, +and putting my trust everywhere in advertising and the police. + +Thus I come, it may be, into the Public Library, "where is all the +recorded wit of the world, but none of the recording,"--where +Shakespeare and Old Sleuth and Pansy look all alike and as readable as +the card catalogues, or the boy attendants, or the signs of the Zodiac +in the vestibule floor. + +Who can read all these books? Who wishes to read any of these books? +They are too many--more books in here than men on the street outside! +And how dead they are in here, wedged side by side in this vast +sepulcher of human thought! + +I move among them dully, the stir of the streets coming to me as the +soughing of wind on the desert or the wash of waves on a distant shore. +Here I find a book of my own among the dead. I read its inscription +curiously. I must have written it--when I was alive aeons ago, and far +from here. But why did I? For see the unread, the shelved, the +numbered, the buried books! + +Let me out to the street! Dust we are, not books, and unto dust, good +fertile soil, not paper and ink, we shall return. No more writing for +me--but breathing and eating and jostling with the good earthy people +outside, laughing and loving and dying with them! + +The sweet wind in Copley Square! The sweet smell of gasoline! The +sweet scream of electric horns! + +And how sweet--how fat and alive and friendly the old colored hack +driver, standing there by the stone post! He has a number on his cap; +he is catalogued somewhere, but not in the library. Thank heaven he is +no book, but just a good black human being. I rush up and shake hands +with him. He nearly falls into his cab with astonishment; but I must +get hold of life again, and he looks so real and removed from letters! + +"Uncle!" I whisper, close in his ear, "have ye got it? Quick-- + + "'Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot-- + Dar's steppin' at de doo'! + Cross me twice wid de raabbit foot-- + Dar's creakin' on de floo'!'" + +He makes the passes, and I turn down Boylston Street, a living thing +once more with face toward--the hills of Hingham. + +It is five o'clock, and a winter evening, and all the street pours +forth to meet me--some of them coming with me bound for Hingham, +surely, as all of them are bound for a hill somewhere and a home. + +I love the city at this winter hour. This home-hurrying crowd--its +excitement of escape! its eagerness and expectancy! its camaraderie! +The arc-lights overhead glow and splutter with the joy they see on the +faces beneath them. + +It is nearly half-past five as I turn into Winter Street. Now the very +stores are closing. Work has ceased. Drays and automobiles are gone. +The two-wheeled fruit man is going from his stand at the Subway +entrance. The street is filled from wall to wall with men and women, +young women and young men, fresher, more eager, more excited, more +joyous even than the lesser crowd of shoppers down Boylston Street. +They don't notice me particularly. No one notices any one +particularly, for the lights overhead see us all, and we all understand +as we cross and dodge and lockstep and bump and jostle through this +deep narrow place of closing doors toward home. Then the last rush at +the station, that nightly baptism into human brotherhood as we plunge +into the crowd and are carried through the gates and into our +train--which is speeding far out through the dark before I begin to +come to myself--find myself leaving the others, separating, +individualizing, taking on definite shape and my own being. The train +is grinding in at my station, and I drop out along the track in the +dark alone. + +I gather my bundles and hug them to me, feeling not the bread and +bananas, but only the sense of possession, as I step off down the +track. Here is my automobile. Two miles of back-country road lie +before me. I drive slowly, the stars overhead, but not far away, and +very close about me the deep darkness of the woods--and silence and +space and shapes invisible, and voices inaudible as yet to my +city-dinned ears and staring eyes. But sight returns, and hearing, +till soon my very fingers, feeling far into the dark, begin to see and +hear. + +And now I near the hill: these are my woods; this is my gravel bank; +that my meadow, my wall, my postbox, and up yonder among the trees +shines my light. They are expecting me, She, and the boys, and the +dog, and the blazing fire, the very trees up there, and the watching +stars. + +How the car takes the hill--as if up were down, and wheels were wings, +and just as if the boys and the dog and the dinner and the fire were +all waiting for _it_! As they are, of course, it and me. I open up +the throttle, I jam the shrieking whistle, and rip around the bend in +the middle of the hill,--puppy yelping down to meet me. The noise we +make as the lights flash on, as the big door rolls back, and we come to +our nightly standstill inside the boy-filled barn! They drag me from +the wheel--puppy yanking at my trouser leg; they pounce upon my +bundles; they hustle me toward the house, where, in the lighted doorway +more welcome waits me--and questions, batteries of them, even puppy +joining the attack! + +Who would have believed I had seen and done all this,--had any such +adventurous trip,--lived any such significant day,--catching my regular +8.35 train as I did! + +But we get through the dinner and some of the talk and then the +out-loud reading before the fire; then while she is tucking the +children in bed, I go out to see that all is well about the barn. + +How the night has deepened since my return! No wind stirs. The +hill-crest blazes with the light of the stars. Such an earth and sky! +I lock the barn, and crossing the field, climb the ridge to the stump. +The bare woods are dark with shadow and deep with the silence of the +night. A train rumbles somewhere in the distance, then the silence and +space reach off through the shadows, infinitely far off down the +hillside; and the stars gather in the tops of the trees. + + + + +[Illustration: The open fire] + +II + +THE OPEN FIRE + +It is a January night. + + ". . . . . . . Enclosed + From Chaos and the inroad of Darkness old," + +we sit with our book before the fire. Outside in the night ghostly +shapes pass by, ghostly faces press against the window, and at the +corners of the house ghostly voices pause for parley, muttering thickly +through the swirl and smother of the snow. Inside burns the fire, +kindling into glorious pink and white peonies on the nearest wall and +glowing warm and sweet on her face as she reads. The children are in +bed. She is reading aloud to me: + +"'I wish the good old times would come again,' she said, 'when we were +not quite so rich. I do not mean that I want to be poor, but there was +a middle state'--so she was pleased to ramble on--'in which, I am sure, +we were a great deal happier.'" + +Her eyes left the familiar page, wandering far away beyond the fire. + +"Is it so hard to bear up under two thousand five hundred a year?" I +asked. + +The gleam of the fire, or perhaps a fancy out of the far-beyond, +lighted her eyes as she answered, + +"We began on four hundred and fifty a year; and we were perfectly--" + +"Yes, but you forget the parsonage; that was rent free!" + +"Four hundred and fifty with rent free--and we had everything we +could--" + +"You forget again that we had n't even one of our four boys." + +Her gaze rested tenderly upon the little chairs between her and the +fire, just where the boys had left them at the end of their listening +an hour before. + +"If you had allowed me," she went on, "I was going to say how glad we +ought to be that we are not quite so rich as--" + +"We should like to be?" I questioned. + +"'A purchase'"--she was reading again--"'is but a purchase, now that +you have money enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. +Do you not remember the brown suit, which you made to hang upon you, +till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew so threadbare--and +all because of that folio Beaumont and Fletcher which you dragged home +late at night from Barker's in Covent Garden? Do you remember how we +eyed it for weeks before we could make up our minds to the purchase, +and had not come to a determination till it was near ten o'clock of the +Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing--' + +"Is n't this exactly our case?" she asked, interrupting herself for no +other purpose than to prolong the passage she was reading. + +"Truly," I replied, trying hard to hide a note of eagerness in my +voice, for I had kept my battery masked these many months, "only Lamb +wanted an old folio, whereas we need a new car. I have driven that old +machine for five years and it was second-hand to begin with." + +I watched for the effect of the shot, but evidently I had not got the +range, for she was saying. + +"Is there a sweeter bit in all of 'Elia' than this, do you think"? + +"'--And when the old bookseller with some grumbling opened his shop, +and by the twinkling taper (for he was setting bedwards) lighted out +the relic from his dusty treasures--and when you lugged it home, +wishing it were twice as cumbersome--'" + +She had paused again. To know when to pause! how to make the most of +your author! to draw out the linked sweetness of a passage to its +longest--there reads your loving reader! + +"You see," laying her hand on mine, "old books and old friends are +best, and I should think you had really rather have a nice safe old car +than any new one. Thieves don't take old cars, as you know. And you +can't insure them, that's a comfort! And cars don't skid and collide +just because they are _old_, do they? And you never have to scold the +children about the paint and--and the old thing _does_ go--what do you +think Lamb would say about old cars?" + +"Lamb be hanged on old cars!" and I sent the sparks flying with a fresh +stick. + +"Well, then let's hear the rest of him on 'Old _China_.'" And so she +read, while the fire burned, and outside swept the winter storm. + +I have a weakness for out-loud reading and Lamb, and a peculiar joy in +wood fires when the nights are dark and snowy. My mind is not, after +all, _much_ set on automobiles then; there is such a difference between +a wild January night on Mullein Hill and an automobile show--or any +other show. If St. Bernard of Cluny had been an American and not a +monk, I think Jerusalem the Golden might very likely have been a quiet +little town like Hingham, all black with a winter night and lighted for +the Saint with a single open fire. Anyhow I cannot imagine the +mansions of the Celestial City without fireplaces. I don't know how +the equatorial people do; I have never lived on the equator, and I have +no desire to--nor in any other place where it is too hot for a +fireplace, or where wood is so scarce that one is obliged to substitute +a gas-log. I wish I could build an open hearth into every lowly home +and give every man who loves out-loud reading a copy of Lamb and sticks +enough for a fire. I wish--is it futile to wish that besides the +fireplace and the sticks I might add a great many more winter evenings +to the round of the year? I would leave the days as they are in their +beautiful and endless variety, but the long, shut-in winter evenings + + "When young and old in circle + About the firebrands close--" + +these I would multiply, taking them away from June to give to January, +could I supply the fire and the boys and the books and the reader to go +with them. + +And I often wonder if more men might not supply these things for +themselves? There are January nights for all, and space enough outside +of city and suburb for simple firesides; books enough also; yes, and +readers-aloud if they are given the chance. But the boys are hard to +get. They might even come girls. Well, what is the difference, +anyway? Suppose mine had been dear things with ribbons in their +hair--not these four, but four more? Then all the glowing circle about +the fireplace had been filled, the chain complete, a link of fine gold +for every link of steel! Ah! the cat hath nine lives, as Phisologus +saith; but a man hath as many lives as he hath sons, with two lives +besides for every daughter. So it must always seem to me when I +remember the precious thing that vanished from me before I could even +lay her in her mother's arms. She would have been, I think, a full +head taller than the oldest boy, and wiser than all four of the boys, +being a girl. + +The real needs of life are few, and to be had by most men, even though +they include children and an automobile. Second-hand cars are very +cheap, and the world seems full of orphans--how many orphans now! It +is n't a question of getting the things; the question is, What are the +necessary things? + +First, I say, a fireplace. A man does well to build his fireplace +first instead of the garage. Better than a roof over one's head is a +fire at one's feet; for what is there deadlier than the chill of a +fireless house? The fireplace first, unless indeed he have the chance, +as I had when a boy, to get him a pair of tongs. + +The first piece of household furniture I ever purchased was a pair of +old tongs. I was a lad in my teens. "Five--five--five--five--v-v-v-ve +_will_ you make it ten?" I heard the auctioneer cry as I passed the +front gate. He held a pair of brass-headed hearth tongs above his +head, waving them wildly at the unresponsive bidders. + +"Will _you_ make it ten?" he yelled at me as the last comer. + +"Ten," I answered, a need for fire tongs, that blistering July day, +suddenly overcoming me. + +"And sold for ten cents to the boy in the gate," shouted the +auctioneer. "Will somebody throw in the fireplace to go with them!" + +I took my tongs rather sheepishly, I fear, rather helplessly, and got +back through the gate, for I was on foot and several miles from home. +I trudged on for home carrying those tongs with me all the way, not +knowing why, not wishing to throw them into the briers for they were +very old and full of story, and I--was very young and full of--I cannot +tell, remembering what little _boys_ are made of. And now here they +lean against the hearth, that very pair. I packed them in the bottom +of my trunk when I started for college; I saved them through the years +when our open fire was a "base-burner," and then a gas-radiator in a +city flat. Moved, preserved, "married" these many years, they stand at +last where the boy must have dreamed them standing--that hot July day, +how long, long ago! + +But why should a boy have dreamed such dreams? And what was it in a +married old pair of brass-headed hearth tongs that a boy in his teens +should have bought them at auction and then have carried them to +college with him, rattling about on the bottom of his trunk? For it +was not an over-packed trunk. There were the tongs on the bottom and a +thirty-cent edition of "The Natural History of Selborne" on the +top--that is all. That is all the boy remembers. These two things, at +least, are all that now remain out of the trunkful he started with from +home--the tongs for sentiment, and for friendship the book. + +"Are you listening?" she asks, looking up to see if I have gone to +sleep. + +"Yes, I 'm listening." + +"And dreaming?" + +"Yes, dreaming a little, too,--of you, dear, and the tongs there, and +the boys upstairs, and the storm outside, and the fire, and of this +sweet room,--an old, old dream that I had years and years ago,--all +come true, and more than true." + +She slipped her hand into mine. + +"Shall I go on?" + +"Yes, go on, please, and I will listen--and, if you don't mind, dream a +little, too, perhaps." + +There is something in the fire and the rise and fall of her voice, +something so infinitely soothing in its tones, and in Lamb, and in such +a night as this--so vast and fearful, but so futile in its bitter sweep +about the fire--that while one listens one must really dream too. + + + + +[Illustration: The ice crop] + +III + +THE ICE CROP + +The ice-cart with its weighty tongs never climbs our Hill, yet the +icechest does not lack its clear blue cake of frozen February. We +gather our own ice as we gather our own hay and apples. The small +ice-house under the trees has just been packed with eighteen tons of +"black" ice, sawed and split into even blocks, tier on tier, the +harvest of the curing cold, as loft and cellar are still filled with +crops made in the summer's curing heat. So do the seasons overlap and +run together! So do they complement and multiply each other! Like the +star-dust of Saturn they belt our fourteen-acre planet, not with three +rings, nor four, but with twelve, a ring for every month, a girdle of +twelve shining circles running round the year--the tinkling ice of +February in the goblet of October!--the apples of October red and ripe +on what might have been April's empty platter! + +He who sows the seasons and gathers the months into ice-house and barn +lives not from sunup to sundown, revolving with the hands of the clock, +but, heliocentric, makes a daily circuit clear around the sun--the +smell of mint in the hay-mow, a reminder of noontime passed; the +prospect of winter in the growing garden, a gentle warning of night +coming on. Twelve times one are twelve--by so many times are months +and meanings and values multiplied for him whose fourteen acres bring +forth abundantly--provided that the barns on the place be kept safely +small. + +Big barns are an abomination unto the Lord, and without place on a wise +man's estate. As birds have nests, and foxes dens, so may any man have +a place to lay his head, with a _mansion_ prepared in the sky for his +soul. + +Big barns are as foolish for the ice-man as for others. The barns of +an ice-man must needs be large, yet they are over-large if he can say +to his soul: "Soul, thou hast much ice laid up for many days; eat, +drink, and be merry among the cakes"--and when the autumn comes he +still has a barn full of solid cemented cakes that must be sawed out! +No soul can be merry long on ice--nor on sugar, nor shoes, nor stocks, +nor hay, nor anything of that sort in great quantities. He who builds +great barns for ice, builds a refrigerator for his soul. Ice must +never become a man's only crop; for then winter means nothing but ice; +and the year nothing but winter; for the year's never at the spring for +him, but always at February or when the ice is making and the mercury +is down to zero. + +As I have already intimated, a safe kind of ice-house is one like mine, +that cannot hold more than eighteen tons--a year's supply (shrinkage +and Sunday ice-cream and other extras provided for). Such an ice-house +is not only an ice-house, it is also an act of faith, an avowal of +confidence in the stability of the frame of things, and in their +orderly continuance. Another winter will come, it proclaims, when the +ponds will be pretty sure to freeze. If they don't freeze, and never +do again--well, who has an ice-house big enough in that event? + +My ice-house is one of life's satisfactions; not architecturally, of +course, for there has been no great development yet in ice-house lines, +and this one was home-done; it is a satisfaction morally, being one +thing I have done that is neither more nor less. I have the big-barn +weakness--the desire for ice--for ice to melt--as if I were no wiser +than the ice-man! I builded bigger than I knew when I put the stone +porches about the dwelling-house, consulting in my pride the architect +first instead of the town assessors. I took no counsel of pride in +building the ice-house, nor of fear, nor of my love of ice. I said: "I +will build me a house to carry a year's supply of ice and no more, +however the price of ice may rise, and even with the risk of facing +seven hot and iceless years. I have laid up enough things among the +moths and rust. Ice against the rainy day I will provide, but ice for +my children and my children's children, ice for a possible cosmic +reversal that might twist the equator over the poles, I will not +provide for. Nor will I go into the ice business." + +Nor did I! And I say the building of that ice-house has been an +immense satisfaction to me. I entertain my due share of + + "Gorgons, and hydras and chimaeras dire"; + +but a cataclysm of the proportions mentioned above would as likely as +not bring on another Ice Age, or indeed-- + + ". . . run back and fetch the Age of Gold." + +To have an ice-house, and yourself escape cold storage--that seems to +me the thing. + +I can fill the house in a single day, and so trade a day for a year; or +is it not rather that I crowd a year into a day? Such days are +possible. It is not any day that I can fill the ice-house. Ice-day is +a chosen, dedicated day, one of the year's high festivals, the Day of +First Fruits, the ice crop being the year's earliest harvest. Hay is +made when the sun shines, a condition sometimes slow in coming; but ice +of the right quality and thickness, with roads right, and sky right for +harvesting, requires a conjunction of right conditions so difficult as +to make a good ice-day as rare as a day in June. June! why, June knows +no such glorious weather as that attending the harvest of the ice. + +This year it fell early in February--rather late in the season; so +late, in fact, that, in spite of my faith in winter, I began to grow +anxious--something no one on a hill in Hingham need ever do. Since New +Year's Day unseasonable weather had prevailed: shifty winds, uncertain +skies, rain and snow and sleet--that soft, spongy weather when the ice +soaks and grows soggy. By the middle of January what little ice there +had been in the pond was gone, and the ice-house was still empty. + +Toward the end of the month, however, the skies cleared, the wind +settled steadily into the north, and a great quiet began to deepen over +the fields, a quiet that at night grew so tense you seemed to hear the +close-glittering heavens snapping with the light of the stars. +Everything seemed charged with electric cold; the rich soil of the +garden struck fire like flint beneath your feet; the tall hillside +pines, as stiff as masts of steel, would suddenly crack in the brittle +silence, with a sharp report; and at intervals throughout the taut +boreal night you could hear a hollow rumbling running down the length +of the pond--the ice being split with the wide iron wedge of the cold. + +Down and down for three days slipped the silver column in the +thermometer until at eight o'clock on the fourth day it stood just +above zero. Cold? It was splendid weather! with four inches of ice on +the little pond behind the ridge, glare ice, black as you looked across +it, but like a pane of plate glass as you peered into it at the +stirless bottom below; smooth glare ice untouched by the wing of the +wind or by even the circling runner of the skater-snow. Another day +and night like this and the solid square-edged blocks could come in. + +I looked at the glass late that night and found it still falling. I +went on out beneath the stars. It may have been the tightened +telephone wires overhead, or the frozen ground beneath me ringing with +the distant tread of the coming north wind, yet over these, and with +them, I heard the singing of a voiceless song, no louder than the +winging hum of bees, but vaster--the earth and air responding to a +starry lyre as some Aeolian harper, sweeping through the silvery spaces +of the night, brushed the strings with her robes of jeweled cold. + +The mercury stood at zero by one o'clock. A biting wind had risen and +blew all the next day. Eight inches of ice by this time. One night +more and the crop would be ripe. And it was ripe. + +I was out before the sun, tramping down to the pond with pike and saw, +the team not likely to be along for half an hour yet, the breaking of +the marvelous day all mine. Like apples of gold in baskets of silver +were the snow-covered ridges in the light of the slow-coming dawn. The +wind had fallen, but the chill seemed the more intense, so silently it +took hold. My breath hung about me in little gray clouds, covering my +face, and even my coat, with rime. As the hurt passed from my fingers, +my eyebrows seemed to become detached, my cheeks shrunk, my flesh +suddenly free of cumbering clothes. But in half a minute the rapid red +blood would come beating back, spreading over me and out from me, with +the pain, and then the glow, of life, of perfect life that seemed +itself to feed upon the consuming cold. + +No other living thing was yet abroad, no stir or sound except the +tinkling of tiny bells all about me that were set to swinging as I +moved along. The crusted snow was strewn with them; every twig was +hung, and every pearl-bent grass blade. Then off through the woods +rang the chime of louder bells, sleigh bells; then the shrill squeal of +iron runners over dry snow; then the broken voices of men; and soon +through the winding wood road came the horses, their bay coats white, +as all things were, with the glittering dust of the hoar frost. + +It was beautiful work. The mid-afternoon found us in the thick of a +whirling storm, the grip of the cold relaxed, the woods abloom with the +clinging snow. But the crop was nearly in. High and higher rose the +cold blue cakes within the ice-house doors until they touched the +rafter plate. + +It was hard work. The horses pulled hard; the men swore hard, now and +again, and worked harder than they swore. They were rough, simple men, +crude and elemental like their labor. It was elemental work--filling a +house with ice, three hundred-pound cakes of clean, clear ice, cut from +the pond, skidded into the pungs, and hauled through the woods all +white, and under a sky all gray, with softly-falling snow. They earned +their penny; and I earned my penny, and I got it, though I asked only +the wages of going on from dawn to dark, down the crystal hours of the +day. + + + + +[Illustration: Seed catalogues] + +IV + +SEED CATALOGUES + +"The new number of the 'Atlantic' came to-day," She said, stopping by +the table. "It has your essay in it." + +"Yes?" I replied, only half hearing. + +"You have seen it, then?" + +"No"--still absorbed in my reading. + +"What is it you are so interested in?" she inquired, laying down the +new magazine. + +"A seed catalogue." + +"More seed catalogues! Why, you read nothing else last night." + +"But this is a new one," I replied, "and I declare I never saw turnips +that could touch this improved strain here. I am going to plant a lot +of them this year." + +"How many seed catalogues have you had this spring?" + +"Only six, so far." + +"And you plant your earliest seeds--" + +"In April, the middle of April, though I may be able to get my first +peas in by the last of March. You see peas"--she was backing +away--"this new Antarctic Pea--will stand a lot of cold; but beans--do +come here, and look at these Improved Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans!" +holding out the wonderfully lithographed page toward her. But she +backed still farther away, and, putting her hands behind her, looked at +me instead, and very solemnly. + +I suppose every man comes to know that unaccountable expression in his +wife's eyes soon or late: a sad, baffled expression, detached, remote, +as of things seen darkly, or descried afar off; an expression which +leaves you feeling that you are afar off,--discernible, but infinitely +dwindled. Two minds with but a single thought--so you start; but soon +she finds, or late, that as the heavens are high above the earth, so +are some of your thoughts above her thoughts. She cannot follow. On +the brink she stands and sees you, through the starry spaces, drift +from her ken in your fleet of--seed catalogues. + +I have never been able to explain to her the seed catalogue. She is as +fond of vegetables as I, and neither of us cares much for turnips--nor +for carrots, nor parsnips either, when it comes to that, our two hearts +at the table beating happily as one. Born in the country, she +inherited a love of the garden, but a feminine garden, the garden +_parvus, minor, minimus_--so many cut-worms long, so many cut-worms +wide. I love a garden of size, a garden that one cut-worm cannot sweep +down upon in the night. + +For years I have wanted to be a farmer, but there in the furrow ahead +of me, like a bird on its nest, she has sat with her knitting; and when +I speak of loving long rows to hoe, she smiles and says, "For the +_boys_ to hoe." Her unit of garden measure is a meal--so many beet +seeds for a meal; so many meals for a row, with never two rows of +anything, with hardly a full-length row of anything, and with all the +rows of different lengths, as if gardening were a sort of geometry or a +problem in arithmetic, figuring your vegetable with the meal for a +common divisor--how many times it will go into all your rows without +leaving a remainder! + +Now I go by the seed catalogue, planting, not after the dish, as if my +only vision were a garden peeled and in the pot, but after the Bush., +Peck, Qt., Pt., Lb., Oz., Pkg.,--so many pounds to the acre, instead of +so many seeds to the meal. + +And I have tried to show her that gardening is something of a risk, +attended by chance, and no such exact science as dressmaking; that you +cannot sow seeds as you can sew buttons; that the seed-man has no +machine for putting sure-sprout-humps into each of his minute wares as +the hook-and-eye-man has; that with all wisdom and understanding one +could do no better than to buy (as I am careful to do) out of that +catalogue whose title reads "Honest Seeds"; and that even the Sower in +Holy Writ allowed somewhat for stony places and other inherent hazards +of planting time. + +But she follows only afar off, affirming the primary meaning of that +parable to be plainly set forth in the context, while the secondary +meaning pointeth out the folly of sowing seed anywhere save on good +ground--which seemed to be only about one quarter of the area in the +parable that was planted; and that anyhow, seed catalogues, especially +those in colors, designed as they are to catch the simple-minded and +unwary, need to be looked into by the post-office authorities and if +possible kept from all city people, and from college professors in +particular. + +She is entirely right about the college professors. Her understanding +is based upon years of observation and the patient cooking of uncounted +pots of beans. + +I confess to a weakness for gardening and no sense at all of proportion +in vegetables. I can no more resist a seed catalogue than a toper can +his cup. There is no game, no form of exercise, to compare for a +moment in my mind with having a row of young growing things in a patch +of mellow soil; no possession so sure, so worth while, so interesting +as a piece of land. The smell of it, the feel of it, the call of it, +intoxicate me. The rows are never long enough, nor the hours, nor the +muscles strong enough either, when there is hoeing to do. + +Why should she not take it as a solemn duty to save me from the hoe? +Man is an immoderate animal, especially in the spring when the doors of +his classroom are about to open for him into the wide and greening +fields. There is only one place to live,--here in the hills of +Hingham; and there is nothing better to do here or anywhere, than the +hoeing, or the milking, or the feeding of the hens. + +A professor in the small college of Slimsalaryville tells in a recent +magazine of his long hair and no dress suit, and of his wife's doing +the washing in order that they might have bread and the "Eugenic +Review" on a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year. It is a sad +story, in the midst of which he exclaims: "I may even get to the place +where I can _spare time_ (italics mine) to keep chickens or a cow, and +that would help immensely; but I am so constituted that chickens or a +cow would certainly cripple my work." How cripple it? Is n't it his +work to _teach_? Far from it. "Let there be light," he says at the +end of the essay, is his work, and he adds that he has been so busy +with it that he is on the verge of a nervous break-down. Of course he +is. Who would n't be with that job? And of course he has n't a +constitution for chickens and a cow. But neither does he seem to have +constitution enough for the light-giving either, being ready to +collapse from his continuous shining. + +But isn't this the case with many of us? Aren't we overworking--doing +our own simple job of teaching and, besides that, taking upon ourselves +the Lord's work of letting there be light? + +I have come to the conclusion that there might not be any less light +were the Lord allowed to do his own shining, and that probably there +might be quite as good teaching if the teacher stuck humbly to his +desk, and after school kept chickens and a cow. The egg-money and +cream "would help immensely," even the Professor admits, the +Professor's wife fully concurring no doubt. + +Don't we all take ourselves a little seriously--we college professors +and others? As if the Lord could not continue to look after his light, +if we looked after our students! It is only in these last years that I +have learned that I can go forth unto my work and to my labor until the +evening, quitting then, and getting home in time to feed the chickens +and milk the cow. I am a professional man, and I dwell in the midst of +professional men, all of whom are inclined to help the Lord out by +working after dark--all of whom are really in dire constitutional need +of the early roosting chickens and the quiet, ruminating cow. + +To walk humbly with the hens, that's the thing--after the classes are +dismissed and the office closed. To get out of the city, away from +books, and theories, and students, and patients, and clients, and +customers--back to real things, simple, restful, healthful things for +body and soul, homely domestic things that lay eggs at 70 cents per +dozen, and make butter at $2.25 the 5-pound box! As for me, this does +"help immensely," affording me all necessary hair-cuts (I don't want +the "Eugenic Review"), and allowing Her to send the family washing +(except the flannels) to the laundry. + +Instead of crippling normal man's normal work, country living (chickens +and a cow) will prevent his work from crippling him--keeping him a +little from his students and thus saving him from too much teaching; +keeping him from reading the "Eugenic Review" and thus saving him from +too much learning; curing him, in short, of his "constitution" that is +bound to come to some sort of a collapse unless rested and saved by +chickens and a cow. + +"By not too many chickens," she would add; and there is no one to match +her with a chicken--fried, stewed, or turned into pie. + +The hens are no longer mine, the boys having taken them over; but the +gardening I can't give up, nor the seed catalogues. + +The one in my hands was exceptionally radiant, and exceptionally full +of Novelties and Specialties for the New Year, among them being an +extraordinary new pole bean--an Improved Kentucky Wonder. She had +backed away, as I have said, and instead of looking at the page of +beans, looked solemnly at me; then with something sorrowful, something +somewhat Sunday-like in her voice, an echo, I presume, of lessons in +the Catechism, she asked me-- + +"Who makes you plant beans?" + +"My dear," I began, "I--" + +"How many meals of pole beans did we eat last summer?" + +"I--don't--re--" + +"Three--just three," she answered. "And I think you must remember how +many of that row of poles we picked?" + +"Why, yes, I--" + +"Three--just three out of thirty poles! Now, do you think you remember +how many bushels of those beans went utterly unpicked?" + +I was visibly weakening by this time. + +"Three--do you think?" + +"Multiply that three by three-times-three! And now tell me--" + +But this was too much. + +"My dear," I protested, "I recollect exactly. It was--" + +"No, I don't believe you do. I cannot trust you at all with beans. +But I should like to know why you plant ten or twelve kinds of beans +when the only kind we like are limas!" + +"Why--the--catalogue advises--" + +"Yes, the catalogue advises--" + +"You don't seem to understand, my dear, that--" + +"Now, _why_ don't I understand?" + +I paused. This is always a hard question, and peculiarly hard as the +end of a series, and on a topic as difficult as beans. I don't know +beans. There is little or nothing about beans in the history of +philosophy or in poetry. Thoreau says that when he was hoeing his +beans it was not beans that he hoed nor he that hoed beans--which was +the only saying that came to mind at the moment, and under the +circumstances did not seem to help me much. + +"Well," I replied, fumbling among my stock of ready-made reasons, +"I--really--don't--know exactly why you don't understand. Indeed, I +really don't know--that _I_ exactly understand. _Everything_ is full +of things that even I can't understand--how to explain my tendency to +plant all kinds of beans, for instance; or my 'weakness,' as you call +it, for seed catalogues; or--" + +She opened her magazine, and I hastened to get the stool for her feet. +As I adjusted the light for her she said:-- + +"Let me remind you that this is the night of the annual banquet of your +Swampatalk Club; you don't intend to forego that famous roast beef for +the seed catalogues?" + +"I did n't intend to, but I must say that literature like this is +enough to make a man a vegetarian. Look at that page for an +old-fashioned New England Boiled Dinner! Such carrots. Really _they_ +look good enough to eat. I think I 'll plant some of those improved +carrots; and some of these parsnips; and some--" + +"You had better go get ready," she said, "and please put that big stick +on the fire for me," drawing the lamp toward her, as she spoke, so that +all of its green-shaded light fell over her--over the silver in her +hair, with its red rose; over the pink and lacy thing that wrapped her +from her sweet throat to the silver stars on her slippers. + +"I'm not going to that Club!" I said. "I have talked myself for three +hours to-day, attended two conferences, and listened to one address. +There were three different societies for the general improving of +things that met at the University halls to-day with big speakers from +the ends of the earth. To-morrow night I address The First Century +Club in the city after a dinner with the New England Teachers of +English Monthly Luncheon Club--and I would like to know what we came +out here in the woods for, anyhow?" + +"If you are going--" She was speaking calmly. + +"Going where?" I replied, picking up the seed catalogues to make room +for myself on the couch. "_Please_ look at this pumpkin! Think of +what a jack-o'-lantern it would make for the boys! I am going to +plant--" + +"You 'll be cold," she said, rising and drawing a steamer rug up over +me; then laying the open magazine across my shoulders while giving the +pillow a motherly pull, she added, with a sigh of contentment:-- + +"Perhaps, if it had n't been for me, you might have been a great +success with pumpkins or pigs--I don't know." + + + + +[Illustration: The Dustless-Duster] + +V + +THE DUSTLESS-DUSTER + +There are beaters, brooms and Bissell's Sweepers; there are dry-mops, +turkey-wings, whisks, and vacuum-cleaners; there are--but no matter. +Whatever other things there are, and however many of them in the +closet, the whole dust-raising kit is incomplete without the +Dustless-Duster. + +For the Dustless-Duster is final, absolute. What can be added to, or +taken away from, a Dustless-Duster? A broom is only a broom, even a +new broom. Its sphere is limited; its work is partial. Dampened and +held persistently down by the most expert of sweepers, the broom still +leaves something for the Dustless-Duster to do. But the +Dustless-Duster leaves nothing for anything to do. The dusting is done. + +Because there are many who dust, and because they have searched in vain +for a dustless-duster, I should like to say that the Dustless-Duster +can be bought at department stores, at those that have a full line of +departments--at any department store, in fact; for the Dustless-Duster +department is the largest of all the departments, whatever the store. +Ask for it of your jeweler, grocer, milliner. Ask for "The Ideal," +"The Universal," "The Indispensable," of any man with anything to sell +or preach or teach, and you shall have it--the perfect thing which you +have spent life looking for; which you have thought so often to have, +but found as often that you had not. You shall have it. I have it. +One hangs, rather, in the kitchen on the clothes-dryer. + +And one (more than one) hangs in the kitchen closet, and in the cellar, +and in the attic. I have often brought it home, for my search has been +diligent since a certain day, years ago,--a "Commencement Day" at the +Institute. + +I had never attended a Commencement exercise before; I had never been +in an opera house before; and the painted light through the roof of +windows high overhead, the strains of the orchestra from far below me, +the banks of broad-leaved palms, the colors, the odors, the confusion +of flowers and white frocks, were strangely thrilling. Nothing had +ever happened to me in the woods like this: the exaltation, the +depression, the thrill of joy, the throb of pain, the awakening, the +wonder, the purpose, and the longing! It was all a dream--all but the +form and the face of one girl graduate, and the title of her essay, +"The Real and the Ideal." + +I do not know what large and lofty sentiments she uttered; I only +remember the way she looked them. I did not hear the words she read; +but I still feel the absolute fitness of her theme--how real her simple +white frock, her radiant face, her dark hair! And how ideal! + +I had seen perfection. Here was the absolute, the final, the ideal, +the indispensable! And I was fourteen! Now I am past forty; and upon +the kitchen clothes-dryer hangs the Dustless-Duster. + +No, I have not lost the vision. The daughter of that girl, the image +of her mother, slipped into my classroom the other day. Nor have I +faltered in the quest. The search goes on, and must go on; for however +often I get it, only to cast it aside, the indispensable, the ultimate, +must continue to be indispensable and ultimate, until, some day-- + +What matters how many times I have had it, to discover every time that +it is only a piece of cheesecloth, ordinary cheesecloth, dyed black and +stamped with red letters? The search must go on, notwithstanding the +clutter in the kitchen closet. The cellar is crowded with +Dustless-Dusters, too; the garret is stuffed with them. There is +little else besides them anywhere in the house. And this was an empty +house when I moved into it, a few years ago. + +As I moved in, an old man moved out, back to the city whence a few +years before he had come; and he took back with him twelve two-horse +wagon-loads of Dustless-Dusters. He had spent a long life collecting +them, and now, having gathered all there were in the country, he was +going back to the city, in a last pathetic, a last heroic, effort to +find the one Dustless-Duster more. + +It was the old man's twelve two-horse loads that were pathetic. There +were many sorts of things in those twelve loads, of many lands, of many +dates, but all of one stamp. The mark was sometimes hard to find, +corroded sometimes nearly past deciphering, yet never quite gone. The +red letters were indelible on every piece, from the gross of antique +candle-moulds (against the kerosene's giving out) to an ancient +coffin-plate, far oxidized, and engraved "Jones," which, the old man +said, as he pried it off the side of the barn, "might come in handy any +day." + +The old man has since died and been laid to rest. Upon his coffin was +set a new silver plate, engraved simply and truthfully, "Brown." + +We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain, says Holy Writ, +that we can carry nothing out. But it is also certain that we shall +attempt to carry out, or try to find as soon as we are out, a +Dustless-Duster. For we did bring something with us into this world, +losing it temporarily, to be forever losing and finding it; and when we +go into another world, will it not be to carry the thing with us there, +or to continue there our eternal search for it? We are not so certain +of carrying nothing out of this world, but we are certain of leaving +many things behind. + +Among those that I shall leave behind me is The Perfect Automatic +Carpet-Layer. But I did not buy that. She did. It was one of the +first of our perfections. + +We have more now. I knew as I entered the house that night that +something had happened; that the hope of the early dawn had died, for +some cause, with the dusk. The trouble showed in her eyes: mingled +doubt, chagrin, self-accusation, self-defense, defeat--familiar +symptoms. She had seen something, something perfect, and had bought it. + +I knew the look well, and the feelings all too well, and said nothing. +For suppose I had been at home that day and she had been in town? +Still, on my trip into town that morning I ran the risk of meeting the +man who sold me "The Magic Stropless Razor Salve." No, not that man! +I shall never meet him again, for vengeance is mine, saith the _Lord_. +But suppose I had met him? And suppose he had had some other salve, +_Safety_ Razor Salve this time to sell? + +It is for young men to see visions and for old men to dream dreams; but +it is for no man or woman to buy one. + +She had seen a vision, and had bought it--"The Perfect Automatic +Carpet-Layer." + +I kept silence, as I say, which is often a thoughtful thing to do. + +"Are you ill?" she ventured, handing me my tea. + +"No." + +"Tired?" + +"No." + +"I hope you are not very tired, for the Parsonage Committee brought the +new carpet this afternoon, and I have started to put it down. I +thought we would finish it this evening. It won't be any work at all +for you, for I--I--bought you one of these to-day to put it down +with,"--pushing an illustrated circular across the table toward me. + + +ANY CHILD CAN USE IT + +THE PERFECT AUTOMATIC CARPET-LAYER + +No more carpet-laying bills. Do your own laying. No wrinkles. No +crowded corners. No sore knees. No pounded fingers. No broken backs. +Stand up and lay your carpet with the Perfect Automatic. Easy as +sweeping. Smooth as putting paper on the wall. You hold the handle, +and the Perfect Automatic does the rest. Patent Applied For. Price-- + + +--but it was not the price! It was the tool--a weird hybrid tool, part +gun, part rake, part catapult, part curry-comb, fit apparently for +almost any purpose, from the business of blunderbuss to the office of +an apple-picker. Its handle, which any child could hold, was somewhat +shorter and thicker than a hoe-handle, and had a slotted tin barrel, a +sort of intestine, on its ventral side along its entire length. Down +this intestine, their points sticking through the slot, moved the tacks +in single file to a spring-hammer close to the floor. This hammer was +operated by a lever or tongue at the head of the handle, the connection +between the hammer at the distal end and the lever at the proximal end +being effected by means of a steel-wire spinal cord down the dorsal +side of the handle. Over the fist of a hammer spread a jaw of sharp +teeth to take hold of the carpet. The thing could not talk; but it +could do almost anything else, so fearfully and wonderfully was it made. + +As for laying carpets with it, any child could do that. But we did n't +have any children then, and I had quite outgrown my childhood. I tried +to be a boy again just for that night. I grasped the handle of the +Perfect Automatic, stretched with our united strength, and pushed down +on the lever. The spring-hammer drew back, a little trap or mouth at +the end of the slotted tin barrel opened for the tack, the tack jumped +out, turned over, landed point downward upon the right spot in the +carpet, the crouching hammer sprang, and-- + +And then I lifted up the Perfect Automatic to see if the tack went +in,--a simple act that any child could do, but which took automatically +and perfectly all the stretch out of the carpet; for the hammer did not +hit the tack; the tack really did not get through the trap; the trap +did not open the slot; the slot--but no matter. We have no carpets +now. The Perfect Automatic stands in the garret with all its original +varnish on. At its feet sits a half-used can of "Beesene, The Prince +of Floor Pastes." + +We have only hard-wood floors now, which we treated, upon the strength +of the label, with this Prince of Pastes, "Beesene"--"guaranteed not to +show wear or dirt or to grow gritty; water-proof, gravel-proof. No rug +will ruck on it, no slipper stick to it. Needs no weighted brush. +Self-shining. The only perfect Floor Wax known. One box will do all +the floors you have." + +Indeed, half a box did all the floors we have. No slipper would stick +to the paste, but the paste would stick to the slipper; and the greasy +Prince did in spots all the floors we have: the laundry floor, the +attic floor, and the very boards of the vegetable cellar. + +I am young yet. I have not had time to collect my twelve two-horse +loads. But I am getting them fast. + +Only the other day a tall lean man came to the side door, asking after +my four boys by name, and inquiring when my new book would be off the +stocks, and, incidentally, showing me a patent-applied-for device +called "The Fat Man's Friend." + +"The Friend" was a steel-wire hoop, shaped and jointed like a pair of +calipers, but knobbed at its points with little metal balls. The +instrument was made to open and spring closed about the Fat Man's neck, +and to hold, by means of a clasp on each side, a napkin, or bib, spread +securely over the Fat Man's bosom. + +"Ideal thing, now, is n't it?" said the agent, demonstrating with his +handkerchief. + +"Why--yes"--I hesitated--"for a fat man, perhaps." + +"Just so," he replied, running me over rapidly with a professional eye; +"but you know, Professor, that when a man's forty, or thereabouts, it's +the nature of him to stouten. Once past forty he's liable to pick up +any day. And when he starts, you know as well as I, Professor, when he +starts there's nothing fattens faster than a man of forty. You ought +to have one of these 'Friends' on hand." + +"But fat does n't run in my family," I protested, my helpless, +single-handed condition being plainly manifest in my tone. + +"No matter," he rejoined, "look at me! Six feet three, and thin as a +lath. I 'm what you might call a walking skeleton, ready to disjoint, +as the poet says, and eat all my meals in fear, which I would do if 't +wa'n't for this little 'Friend.' I can't eat without it. I miss it +more when I am eatin' than I miss the victuals. I carry one with me +all the time. Awful handy little thing. Now--" + +"But--" I put in. + +"Certainly," he continued, with the smoothest-running motor I ever +heard, "but here's the point of the whole matter, as you might say. +_This_ thing is up to date, Professor. Now, the old-fashioned way of +tying a knot in the corner of your napkin and anchoring it under your +Adam's apple--_that's_ gone by. Also the stringed bib and safety-pin. +Both those devices were crude--but necessary, of course, Professor--and +inconvenient, and that old-fashioned knot really dangerous; for the +knot, pressing against the Adam's apple, or the apple, as you might +say, trying to swallow the knot--well, if there isn't less apoplexy and +strangulation when this little Friend finds universal application, then +I 'm no Prophet, as the Good Book says." + +"But you see--" I broke in. + +"I do, Professor. It's right here. I understand your objection. But +it is purely verbal and academic, Professor. You are troubled +concerning the name of this indispensable article. But you know, as +well as I--even better with your education, Professor--that there 's +nothing, absolutely nothing in a name. 'What's in a name?' the poet +says. And I 'll agree with you--though, of course, it's +confidential--that 'The Fat Man's Friend' is, as you literary folks +would say, more or less of a _nom de plume_. Isn't it? Besides,--if +you 'll allow me the language, Professor,--it's too delimiting, +restricting, prejudicing. Sets a lean man against it. But between us, +Professor, they 're going to change the name of the next batch. +They're--" + +"Indeed!" I exclaimed; "what's the next batch going to be?" + +"Oh, just the same--fifteen cents each--two for a quarter. You could +n't tell them apart. You might just as well have one of these, and run +no chances getting one of the next lot. They'll be precisely the same; +only, you see, they're going to name the next ones 'Every Bosom's +Friend,' to fit lean and fat, and without distinction of sex. Ideal +thing now, is n't it? Yes, that's right--fifteen cents--two for +twenty-five, Professor?--don't you want another for your wife?" + +No, I did not want another for her. But if _she_ had been at home, and +I had been away, who knows but that all six of us had come off with a +"Friend" apiece? They were a bargain by the half-dozen. + +A bargain? Did anybody ever get a bargain--something worth more than +he paid? Well--you shall, when you bring home a Dustless-Duster. + +And who has not brought it home! Or who is not about to bring it home! +Not all the years that I have searched, not all the loads that I have +collected, count against the conviction that at last I have it--the +perfect thing--until I _reach_ home. But with several of my +perfections I have never yet reached home, or I am waiting an opportune +season to give them to my wife. I have been disappointed; but let no +one try to tell me that there is no such thing as Perfection. Is not +the desire for it the breath of my being? Is not the search for it the +end of my existence? Is not the belief that at last I possess it--in +myself, my children, my breed of hens, my religious creed, my political +party--is not this conviction, I say, all there is of existence? + +It is very easy to see that perfection is not in any of the other +political parties. During a political campaign, not long since, I +wrote to a friend in New Jersey,-- + +"Now, whatever your particular, personal brand of political faith, it +is clearly your moral duty to vote this time the Democratic ticket." + +Whereupon (and he is a thoughtful, God-fearing man, too) he wrote +back,-- + +"As I belong to the only party of real reform, I shall stick to it this +year, as I always have, and vote the straight ticket." + +Is there a serener faith than this human faith in perfection? A surer, +more unshakable belief than this human belief in the present possession +of it? + +There is only one thing deeper in the heart of man than his desire for +completeness, and that is his conviction of being about to attain unto +it. He dreams of completeness by night; works for completeness by day; +buys it of every agent who comes along; votes for it at every election; +accepts it with every sermon; and finds it--momentarily--every time he +finds himself. The desire for it is the sweet spring of all his +satisfactions; the possession of it the bitter fountain of many of his +woes. + +Apply the conviction anywhere, to anything--creeds, wives, hens--and +see how it works out. + +As to _hens_:-- + +There are many breeds of fairly good hens, and I have tried as many +breeds as I have had years of keeping hens, but not until the poultry +show, last winter, did I come upon the perfect hen. I had been working +toward her through the Bantams, Brahmas, and Leghorns, to the Plymouth +Rocks. I had tried the White and the Barred Plymouth Rocks, but they +were not the hen. Last winter I came upon the originator of the Buff +Plymouth Rocks--and here she was! I shall breed nothing henceforth but +Buff Plymouth Rocks. + +In the Buff Rock we have a bird of ideal size, neither too large nor +too small, weighing about three pounds more than the undersized +Leghorn, and about three pounds less than the oversized Brahma; we have +a bird of ideal color, too--a single, soft, even tone, and no such +barnyard daub as the Rhode Island Red; not crow-colored, either, like +the Minorca; nor liable to all the dirt of the White Plymouth Rocks. +Being a beautiful and uniform buff, this perfect Plymouth Rock is +easily bred true to color, as the vari-colored fowls are not. + +Moreover, the Buff Rock is a layer, is _the_ layer, maturing as she +does about four weeks later than the Rhode Island Reds, and so escaping +that fatal early fall laying with its attendant moult and eggless +interim until March! On the other hand, the Buff Rock matures about a +month earlier than the logy, slow-growing breeds, and so gets a good +start before the cold and eggless weather comes. + +And such an egg! There are white eggs and brown eggs, large and small +eggs, but only one ideal egg--the Buff Rock's. It is of a soft lovely +brown, yet whitish enough for a New York market, but brown enough, +however, to meet the exquisite taste of the Boston trade. In fact it +is neither white nor brown, but rather a delicate blend of the two--a +new tone, indeed, a bloom rather, that I must call fresh-laid lavender. + +So, at least, I am told. My pullets are not yet laying, having had a +very late start last spring. But the real question, speaking +professionally, with any breed of fowls is a market question: How do +they dress? How do they eat? + +If the Buff Plymouth Rock is an ideal bird in her feathers, she is even +more so plucked. All white-feathered fowl, in spite of yellow legs, +look cadaverous when picked. All dark-feathered fowl, with their +tendency to green legs and black pin-feathers, look spotted, long dead, +and unsavory. But the Buff Rock, a melody in color, shows that +consonance, that consentaneousness, of flesh to feather that makes the +plucked fowl to the feathered fowl what high noon is to the faint and +far-off dawn--a glow of golden legs and golden neck, mellow, melting as +butter, and all the more so with every unpicked pinfeather. + +Can there be any doubt of the existence of hen-perfection? Any +question of my having attained unto it--with the maturing of this new +breed of hens? + +For all spiritual purposes, that is, for all satisfactions, the ideal +hen is the pullet--the Buff Plymouth Rock pullet. + +Just so the ideal wife. If we could only keep them pullets! + +The trouble we husbands have with our wives begins with our marrying +them. There is seldom any trouble with them before. Our belief in +feminine perfection is as profound and as eternal as youth. And the +perfection is just as real as the faith. Youth is always bringing the +bride home--to hang her on the kitchen clothes-dryer. She turns out to +be ordinary cheese-cloth, dyed a more or less fast black--this +perfection that he had stamped in letters of indelible red! + +The race learns nothing. I learn, but not my children after me. They +learn only after themselves. Already I hear my boys saying that their +wives--! And the oldest of these boys has just turned fourteen! + +Fourteen! the trouble all began at fourteen. No, the trouble began +with Adam, though Eve has been responsible for much of it since. Adam +had all that a man should have wanted in his perfect Garden. +Nevertheless he wanted Eve. Eve in turn had Adam, a perfect man! but +she wanted something more--if only the apple tree in the middle of the +Garden. And we all of us were there in that Garden--with Adam thinking +he was getting perfection in Eve; with Eve incapable of appreciating +perfection in Adam. The trouble is human. + + "Flounder, flounder in the sea, + Prythee quickly come to me! + For my wife, Dame Isabel, + Wants strange things I scarce dare tell." + + +"And what does she want _now_?" asks the flounder. + +"Oh, she wants to _vote_ now," says the fisherman. + +"Go home, and you shall find her with the ballot," sighs the flounder. +"But has n't she Dustless-Dusters enough already?" + +It would seem so. But once having got Adam, who can blame her for +wanting an apple tree besides, or the ballot? + +'T is no use to forbid her. Yes, she has you, but--but Eve had Adam, +too, another perfect man! Don't forbid her, for she will have it +anyhow. It may not turn out to be all that she thinks it is. But did +you turn out to be all that she thought you were? She will have a bite +of this new apple if she has to disobey, and die for it, because such +disobedience and death are in answer to a higher command, and to a +larger life from within. Eve's discovery that Adam was cheese-cloth, +and her reaching out for something better, did not, as Satan promised, +make us as God; but it did make us different from all the other animals +in the Garden, placing us even above the angels,--so far above, as to +bring us, apparently, by a new and divine descent, into Eden. + +The hope of the race is in Eve,--in her making the best she can of +Adam; in her clear understanding of his lame logic,--that her +_im_perfections added to his perfections make the perfect Perfection; +and in her reaching out beyond Adam for something more--for the ballot +now. + +If there is growth, if there is hope, if there is continuance, if there +is immortality for the race and for the soul, it is to be found in this +sure faith in the Ultimate, the Perfect, in this certain disappointment +every time we think we have it; and in this abiding conviction that we +are about to bring it home. But let a man settle down on perfection as +a present possession, and that man is as good as dead already--even +religiously dead, if he has possession of a perfect Salvation. + +Now, "Sister Smith" claimed to possess Perfection--a perfect infallible +book of revelations in her King James Version of the Scriptures, and +she claimed to have lived by it, too, for eighty years. I was fresh +from the theological school, and this was my first "charge." This was +my first meal, too, in this new charge, at the home of one of the +official brethren, with whom Sister Smith lived. + +There was an ominous silence at the table for which I could hardly +account--unless it had to do with the one empty chair. Then Sister +Smith appeared and took the chair. The silence deepened. Then Sister +Smith began to speak and everybody stopped eating. Brother Jones laid +down his knife, Sister Jones dropped her hands into her lap until the +thing should be over. Leaning far forward toward me across the table, +her steady gray eyes boring through me, her long bony finger pointing +beyond me into eternity, Sister Smith began with spaced and measured +words:-- + +"My young Brother--what--do--you--think--of--Jonah?" + +I reached for a doughnut, broke it, slowly, dipped it up and down in +the cup of mustard and tried for time. Not a soul stirred. Not a word +or sound broke the tense silence about the operating-table. + +"What--do--you--think--of--Jonah?" + +"Well, Sister Smith, I--" + +"Never mind. Don't commit yourself. You needn't tell me what you +think of Jonah. +You--are--too--young--to--know--what--you--think--of--Jonah. But I +will tell you what _I_ think of Jonah: if the Scriptures had said that +Jonah swallowed the whale, it would be just as easy to believe as it is +that the whale swallowed Jonah." + +"So it would, Sister Smith," I answered weakly, "just as easy." + +"And now, my young Brother, you preach the Scriptures--the old genuine +inspired Authorized Version, word for word, just as God spoke it!" + +Sister Smith has gone to Heaven, but in spite of her theology. Dear +old soul, she sent me many a loaf of her salt-rising bread after that, +for she had as warm a heart as ever beat its brave way past eighty. + +But she had neither a perfect Book, nor a perfect Creed, nor a perfect +Salvation. She did not need them; nor could she have used them; for +they would have posited a divine command to be perfect--a too difficult +accomplishment for any of us, even for Sister Smith. + +There is no such divine command laid upon us; but only such a divinely +human need springing up within us, and reaching out for everything, in +its deep desire, from dust-cloths dyed black to creeds of every color. + +This is a life of imperfections, a world made of cheese-cloth, merely +dyed black, and stamped in red letters--The Dustless-Duster. Yet a +cheese-cloth world so dyed and stamped is better than a cloth-of-gold +world, for the cloth-of-gold you would not want to dye nor to stamp +with burning letters. + +We have never found it,--this perfect thing,--and perhaps we never +shall. But the desire, the search, the faith, must not fail us, as at +times they seem to do. At times the very tides of the ocean seem to +fail,--when the currents cease to run. Yet when they are at slack +here, they are at flood on the other side of the world, turning already +to pour back-- + + ". . . lo, out of his plenty the sea + Pours fast; full soon the time of the flood-tide shall be--" + +The faith cannot fail us--for long. Full soon the ebb-tide turns, + + "And Belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know" + +that there is perfection; that the desire for it is the breath of life; +that the search for it is the hope of immortality. + +But I know only in part. I see through a glass darkly, and I may be no +nearer it now than when I started, yet the search has carried me far +from that start. And if I never arrive, then, at least, I shall keep +going on, which, in itself maybe the thing--the Perfect Thing that I am +seeking. + + + + +[Illustration: Spring ploughing] + +VI + +SPRING PLOUGHING + + "See-Saw, Margery Daw! + Sold her bed and lay upon straw" + +--the very worst thing, I used to think, that ever happened in Mother +Goose. I might steal a pig, perhaps, like Tom the Piper's Son, but +never would I do such a thing as Margery did; the dreadful picture of +her nose and of that bottle in her hand made me sure of that. And +yet--snore on, Margery!--I sold my _plough_ and bought an automobile! +As if an automobile would carry me + + "To the island-valley of Avilion," + +where I should no longer need the touch of the soil and the slow simple +task to heal me of my grievous wound! + +Speed, distance, change--are these the cure for that old hurt we call +living, the long dull ache of winter, the throbbing bitter-sweet pain +of spring? We seek for something different, something not different +but faster and still faster, to fill our eyes with flying, our ears +with rushing, our skins with scurrying, our diaphragms, which are our +souls, with the thrill of curves, and straight stretches, of lifts, and +drops, and sudden halts--as of elevators, merry-go-rounds, chutes, +scenic railways, aeroplanes, and heavy low-hung cars. + +To go--up or down, or straight away--anyway, but round and round, and +slowly--as if one could speed away from being, or ever travel beyond +one's self! How pathetic to sell all that one has and buy an +automobile! to shift one's grip from the handles of life to the wheel +of change! to forsake the furrow for the highway, the rooted soil for +the flying dust, the here for the there; imagining that somehow a car +is more than a plough, that going is the last word in +living--demountable rims and non-skid tires, the great gift of the God +Mechanic, being the 1916 model of the wings of the soul! + +But women must weep in spite of modern mechanics, and men must plough. +Petroleum, with all of its by-products, cannot be served for bread. I +have tried many substitutes for ploughing; and as for the automobile, I +have driven that thousands of miles, driven it almost daily, summer and +winter; but let the blackbirds return, let the chickweed start in the +garden, then the very stones of the walls cry out--"Plough! plough!" + +It is not the stones I hear, but the entombed voices of earlier +primitive selves far back in my dim past; those, and the call of the +boy I was yesterday, whose landside toes still turn in, perhaps, from +walking in the furrow. When that call comes, no + + "Towered cities please us then + And the busy hum of men," + +or of automobiles. I must plough. It is the April wind that wakes the +call-- + + "Zephirus eek, with his sweete breeth"-- + +and many hearing it long to "goon on pilgrimages," or to the Maine +woods to fish, or, waiting until the 19th, to leave Boston by boat and +go up and down the shore to see how fared their summer cottages during +the winter storms; some even imagine they have malaria and long for +bitters--as many men as many minds when + + "The time of the singing of birds is come + And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." + +But as for me it is neither bitters, nor cottages, nor trout, nor + + "ferne halwes couth in sondry landes" + +that I long for: but simply for the soil, for the warming, stirring +earth, for my mother. It is back to her breast I would go, back to the +wide sweet fields, to the slow-moving team and the lines about my +shoulder, to the even furrow rolling from the mould-board, to the taste +of the soil, the sight of the sky, the sound of the robins and +bluebirds and blackbirds, and the ringing notes of Highhole over the +sunny fields. + +I hold the plough as my only hold upon the earth, and as I follow +through the fresh and fragrant furrow I am planted with every footstep, +growing, budding, blooming into a spirit of the spring. I can catch +the blackbirds ploughing, I can turn under with my furrow the laughter +of the flowers, the very joy of the skies. But if I so much as turn in +my tracks, the blackbirds scatter; if I shout, Highhole is silent; if I +chase the breeze, it runs away; I might climb into the humming maples, +might fill my hands with arbutus and bloodroot, might run and laugh +aloud with the light; as if with feet I could overtake it, could catch +it in my hands, and in my heart could hold it all--this living earth, +shining sky, flowers, buds, voices, colors, odors--this spring! + +But I can plough--while the blackbirds come close behind me in the +furrow; and I can be the spring. + +I could plough, I mean, when I had a plough. But I sold it for five +dollars and bought a second-hand automobile for fifteen hundred--as +everybody else has. So now I do as everybody else does,--borrow my +neighbor's plough, or still worse, get my neighbor to do my ploughing, +being still blessed with a neighbor so steadfast and simple as to +possess a plough. But I must plough or my children's children will +never live to have children,--they will have motor cars instead. The +man who pulls down his barns and builds a garage is not planning for +posterity. But perhaps it does not matter; for while we are purring +cityward over the sleek and tarry roads, big hairy Finns are following +the plough round and round our ancestral fields, planting children in +the furrows, so that there shall be some one here when we have motored +off to possess the land. + +I see no way but to keep the automobile and buy another plough, not for +my children's sake any more than for my own. There was an old man +living in this house when I bought it who moved back into the city and +took with him, among other things, a big grindstone and two +long-handled hayforks--for crutches, did he think? and to keep a +cutting edge on the scythe of his spirit as he mowed the cobblestones? +When I am old and my children compel me to move back near the asylums +and hospitals, I shall carry into the city with me a plough; and I +shall pray the police to let me go every springtime to the Garden or +the Common and there turn a few furrows as one whom still his mother +comforteth. + +It is only a few furrows that I now turn. A half-day and it is all +over, all the land ploughed that I own,--all that the Lord intended +should be tilled. A half-day--but every fallow field and patch of +stubble within me has been turned up in that time, given over for the +rain and sunshine to mellow and put into tender tilth. + +No other labor, no other contact with the earth is like ploughing. You +may play upon it, travel over it, delve into it, build your house down +on it; but when you strike into the bosom of the fields with your +ploughshare, wounding and healing as your feet follow deep in the long +fresh cut, you feel the throbbing of the heart of life through the +oaken handles as you never felt it before; you are conscious of a +closer union,--dust with dust,--of a more mystical union,--spirit with +spirit,--than any other approach, work, or rite, or ceremony, can give +you. You move, but your feet seem to reach through and beyond the +furrow like the roots of the oak tree; sun and air and soil are yours +as if the blood in your veins were the flow of all sweet saps, oak and +maple and willow, and your breath their bloom of green and garnet and +gold. + +And so, until I get a new plough and a horse to pull it, I shall hire +my neighbor--hire him to drive the horses, while I hold in the plough! +This is what I have come to! _Hiring_ another to skim my cream and +share it! Let me handle both team and plough, a plough that guides +itself, and a deep rich piece of bottom land, and a furrow,--a long +straight furrow that curls and crests like a narrow wave and breaks +evenly into the trough of the wave before. + +But even with the hired plough, I am taking part in the making of +spring; and more: I am planting me again as a tree, a bush, a mat of +chickweed,--lowly, tiny, starry-flowered chickweed,--in the earth, +whence, so long ago it sometimes seems, I was pulled up. + +But the ploughing does more--more than root me as a weed. Ploughing is +walking not by sight. A man believes, trusts, worships something he +cannot see when he ploughs. It is an act of faith. In all time men +have known and _feared_ God; but there must have been a new and higher +consciousness when they began to plough. They hunted and feared God +and remained savage; they ploughed, trusted, and loved God--and became +civilized. + +Nothing more primitive than the plough have we brought with us out of +our civilized past. In the furrow was civilization cradled, and there, +if anywhere, shall it be interred. + +You go forth unto your day's work, if you have land enough, until the +Lord's appointed close; then homeward plod your weary way, leaving the +world to the poets. Not yours + + "The hairy gown, the mossy cell." + +You have no need of them. + +What more + + "Of every star that Heaven doth shew + And every hearb that sips the dew" + +can the poet spell than all day long you have _felt_? Has ever poet +handled more of life than you? Has he ever gone deeper than the bottom +of your furrow, or asked any larger faith than you of your field? Has +he ever found anything sweeter or more satisfying than the wholesome +toilsome round of the plough? + + + + +[Illustration: Mere beans] + +VII + +MERE BEANS + +"God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it; +he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited."--Isaiah. + + +"A farmer," said my neighbor, Joel Moore, with considerable finality, +"has got to get all he can, and keep all he gets, or die." + +"Yes," I replied with a fine platitude; "but he's got to give if he's +going to get." + +"Just so," he answered, his eye a-glitter with wrath as it traveled the +trail of the fox across the dooryard; "just so, and I 'll go halves +with the soil; but I never signed a lease to run this farm on shares +with the varmints." + +"Well," said I, "I 've come out from the city to run my farm on shares +with the whole universe--fox and hawk, dry weather and wet, summer and +winter. I believe there is a great deal more to farming than mere +beans. I 'm going to raise birds and beasts as well. I 'm going to +cultivate everything, from my stone-piles up to the stars." + +He looked me over. I had not been long out from the city. Then he +said, thinking doubtless of my stone-piles:-- + +"Professor, you 've bought a mighty rich piece of land. And it's just +as you say; there's more to farmin' than beans. But, as I see it, +beans are beans anyway you cook 'em; and I think, if I was you, I would +hang on a while yet to my talkin' job in the city." + +It was sound advice. I have a rich farm. I have raised beans that +were beans, and I have raised birds, besides, and beasts,--a perfectly +enormous crop of woodchucks; I have cultivated everything up to the +stars; but I find it necessary to hang on a while yet to my talkin' job +in the city. + +Nevertheless, Joel is fundamentally wrong about the beans, for beans +are not necessarily beans any way you cook them, nor are beans mere +beans any way you grow them--not if I remember Thoreau and my extensive +ministerial experience with bean suppers. + +As for growing mere beans--listen to Thoreau. He is out in his patch +at Walden. + +"When my hoe tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods +and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an +instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor +I that hoed beans." + +Who was it, do you suppose, that hoed? And, if not beans, what was it +that he hoed? Well, poems for one thing, prose poems. If there is a +more delightful chapter in American literature than that one in Walden +on the bean-patch, I don't know which chapter it is. That patch was +made to yield more than beans. The very stones were made to tinkle +till their music sounded on the sky. + +"As _I_ see it, beans are beans," said Joel. And so they are, as he +sees them. + +Is not the commonplaceness, the humdrumness, the dead-levelness, of +life largely a matter of individual vision, "as I see it"? + +Take farm life, for instance, and how it is typified in my neighbor! +how it is epitomized, too, and really explained in his "beans are +beans"! He raises beans; she cooks beans; they eat beans. Life is +pretty much all beans. If "beans are beans," why, how much more is +life? + +He runs his farm on halves with the soil, and there the sharing stops, +and consequently there the returns stop. He gives to the soil and the +soil gives back, thirty, sixty, an hundredfold. What if he should give +to the skies as well?--to the wild life that dwells with him on his +land?--to the wild flowers that bank his meadow brook?--to the trees +that cover his pasture slopes? Would they, like the soil, give +anything back? + +Off against the sky to the south a succession of his rounded slopes +shoulder their way from the woods out to where the road and the brook +wind through. They cannot be tilled; the soil is too scant and +gravelly; but they are lovely in their gentle forms, and still lovelier +in their clumps of mingled cedars and gray birches, scattered dark and +sharply pointed on the blue of the sky, and diffuse, and soft, and +gleaming white against the hillside's green. I cannot help seeing them +from my windows, cannot help lingering over them--could not, rather; +for recently my neighbor (and there never was a better neighbor) sent a +man over those hills with an axe, and piled the birches into cords of +snowy firewood. + +It was done. I could not help it, but in my grief I went over and +spoke to him about it. He was sorry, and explained the case by +saying,-- + +"Well, if there's one kind of tree I hate more than another, it's a +gray birch." + +We certainly need a rural uplift. We need an urban uplift, too, no +doubt, for I suppose "beans are beans" in Boston, just as they are here +in Hingham. But it does seem the more astonishing that in the country, +where the very environment is poetry, where companionship with living +things is constant, where even the labor of one's hands is cooeperation +with the divine forces of nature--the more astonishing, I say, that +under these conditions life should so often be but bare existence, mere +beans. + +There are many causes for this, one of them being an unwillingness to +share largely with the whole of nature. "I 'll go halves with the +soil," said my neighbor; but he did not sign a lease to run his farm on +shares with the "varmints," the fox, which stole his fine rooster, on +this particular occasion. + +But such a contract is absolutely necessary if one is to get out of +farm life--out of any life--its flowers and fragrance, as well as its +pods and beans. And, first, one must be convinced, must acknowledge to +one's self, that the flower and fragrance are needed in life, are as +useful as pods and beans. A row of sweet peas is as necessary on the +farm as a patch of the best wrinkled variety in the garden. + +But to come back to the fox. + +Now, I have lived long enough, and I have had that fox steal roosters +enough, to understand, even feel, my neighbor's wrath perfectly. I +fully sympathize with him. What, then, you ask, of my sympathy for the +fox? + +At times, I must admit, the strain has been very great. More than once +(three times, to be exact) I have fired at that same fox to kill. I +have lost many a rooster, but those I have not lost are many, many +more. Browned to a turn, and garnished with parsley, a rooster is +almost a poem. So was that wild fox, the other morning, almost a poem, +standing on the bare knoll here near the house, his form half-shrouded +in the early mist, his keen ears pricked, his pointed nose turned +toward the yard where the hens were waking up. + +Something primitive, something wild and free and stirring, something +furtive, crafty, cunning--the shadow of the dark primeval forest, at +sight of him, fell across the glaring common-placeness of that whole +tame day. + +I will not ask, Was it worth the rooster? For that is too gross, too +cheap a price to pay for a glimpse of wild life that set the dead +nerves of the cave man in me thrilling with new life. Rather I would +ask, Are such sights and thrills worth the deliberate purpose to have a +woodlot, as well as a beanpatch and a henyard, on the farm? + +Our American farm life needs new and better machinery, better methods, +better buildings, better roads, better schools, better stock; but given +all of these, and farm life must still continue to be earthy, material, +mere beans--only more of them--until the farm is run on shares with all +the universe around, until the farmer learns not only to reap the +sunshine, but also to harvest the snow; learns to get a real and rich +crop out of his landscape, his shy, wild neighbors, his independence +and liberty, his various, difficult, yet strangely poetical, tasks. + +But, if farm life tends constantly to become earthy, so does business +life, and professional life--beans, all of it. + +The farmers educated for mere efficiency, the merchants, the preachers, +doctors, lawyers, educated for mere efficiency, are educated for mere +beans? A great fortune, a great congregation, a great practice, a +great farm crop, are one and all mere beans? Efficiency is not a whole +education, nor meat a whole living, nor the worker the whole man. + +And I said as much to Joel. + +"Beans," I said, "must be raised. Much of life must be spent hoeing +the beans. But I am going to ask myself: 'Is it _mere_ beans that I am +hoeing? And is it the _whole_ of me that is hoeing the beans?'" + +"Well," he replied, "you settle down on that farm of yours as I settled +on mine, and I 'll tell you what answer you 'll get to them questions. +There ain't no po'try about farmin'. God did n't intend there should +be--as I see it." + +"Now, that is n't the way I see it at all. This is God's earth,--and +there could n't be a better one." + +"Of course there could n't, but there was one once." + +"When?" I asked, astonished. + +"In the beginning." + +"You mean the Garden of Eden?" + +"Just that." + +"Why, man, this earth, this farm of yours, is the Garden of Eden." + +"But it says God drove him out of the Garden and, what's more, it says +He made him farm for a livin', don't it?" + +"That's what it says," I replied. + +"Well, then, as I see it, that settles it, don't it? God puts a man on +a farm when he ain't fit for anything else. 'Least, that's the way I +see it. That's how I got here, I s'pose, and I s'pose that's why I +stay here." + +"But," said I, "there's another version of that farm story." + +"Not in the Bible?" he asked, now beginning to edge away, for it was +not often that I could get him so near to books as this. Let me talk +books with Joel Moore and the talk lags. Farming and neighboring are +Joel's strong points, not books. He is a general farmer and a kind of +universal neighbor (that being his specialty); on neighborhood and farm +topics his mind is admirably full and clear. + +"That other version is in the Bible, right along with the one you've +been citing--just before it in Genesis." + +He faced me squarely, a light of confidence in his eye, a ring of +certainty, not to say triumph, in his tones:-- + +"You 're sure of that, Professor?" + +"Reasonably." + +"Well, I 'm not a college man, but I 've read the Bible. Let's go in +and take a look at Holy Writ on farmin',"--leading the way with +alacrity into the house. + +"My father was a great Bible man down in Maine," he went on. "Let me +raise a curtain. This was his," pointing to an immense family Bible, +with hand-wrought clasps, that lay beneath the plush family album, also +clasped, on a frail little table in the middle of the parlor floor. + +The daylight came darkly through the thick muslin draperies at the +window and fell in a faint line across the floor. An oval frame of +hair-flowers hung on the wall opposite me--a somber wreath of +immortelles for the departed--_of_ the departed--black, brown, auburn, +and grizzled-gray, with one touch (a calla lily, I think) of the +reddest hair I ever beheld. In one corner of the room stood a closed +cabinet organ; behind me, a tall base-burner, polished till it seemed +to light the dimmest corners of the room. There was no fire in the +stove; there was no air in the room, only the mingled breath of soot +and the hair-flowers and the plush album and the stuffed blue jay under +the bell-jar on the mantelpiece, and the heavy brass-clasped Bible. +There was no coffin in the room; but Joel took up the Bible and handed +it to me as if we were having a funeral. + +"Read me that other account of Adam's farm," he said; "I can't see +without my specs." + +In spite of a certain restraint of manner and evident uneasiness at the +situation, he had something of boldness, even the condescension of the +victor toward me. He was standing and looking down at me; yet he stood +ill at ease by the table. + +"Sit down, Joel," I said, assuming an authority in his house that I saw +he could not quite feel. + +"I can't; I 've got my overhalls on." + +"Let us do all things decently and in order, Joel," I continued, +touching the great Book reverently. + +"But I never set in this room. My chair's out there in the kitchen." + +I moved over to the window to get what light I could, Joel following me +with furtive, sidelong glances, as if he saw ghosts in the dark corners. + +"We keep this room mostly for funerals," he volunteered, in order to +stir up talk and lay what of the silence and the ghosts he could. + +"I 'll read your story of Adam's farming first," I said, and began: +"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth"--going on +with the account of the dry, rainless world, and with no man to till +the soil; then to the forming of Adam out of the dust, and the planting +of Eden; of the rivers, of God's mistake in trying Adam alone in the +Garden, of the rib made into Eve, of the prohibited tree, the snake, +the wormy apple, the fall, the curse, the thorns--and how, in order to +crown the curse and make it real, God drove the sinful pair forth from +the Garden and condemned them to farm for a living. + +"That's it," Joel muttered with a mourner's groan. "That's Holy Writ +on farmin' as _I_ understand it. Now, where's the other story?" + +"Here it is," I answered, "but we 've got to have some fresh air and +more light on it," rising as I spoke and reaching for the bolt on the +front door. With a single quick jerk I had it back, and throwing +myself forward, swung the door wide to the open sky, while Joel groaned +again, and the big, rusty hinges thrice groaned at the surprise and +shock of it. But the thing was done. + +A flood of warm, sweet sunshine poured over us; a breeze, +wild-rose-and-elder-laden, swept in out of the broad meadow that +stretched from the very doorstep to a distant hill of pines, and +through the air, like a shower in June, fell the notes of soaring, +singing bobolinks. + +Joel stood looking out over his farm with the eyes of a stark stranger. +He had never seen it from the front door before. It was a new prospect. + +"Let's sit here on the millstone step," I said, bringing the Bible out +into the fresh air, "and I 'll read you something you never heard +before," and I read,--laying the emphasis so as to render a new thing +of the old story,--"In the beginning God created the heaven and the +earth, and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon +the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the +waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And +God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the +darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called +night. + +"And the evening and the morning were the first day." + +Starting each new phase of the tale with "And God said," and bringing +it to a close with "And God saw that it was good," I read on through +the seas and dry land, the sun and stars, and all living things, to man +and woman--"male and female created he them"--and in his own likeness, +blessing them and crowning the blessing with saying, "Be fruitful and +multiply and replenish the earth and _subdue_ it,"--farm for a living; +rounding out the whole marvelous story with the sweet refrain: "And God +saw _everything_ that he had made, and behold it was _very_ good. + +"And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." + +"_Thus_, Joel," I concluded, glancing at him as with opened eyes he +looked out for the first time over his new meadow,--"_thus_, according +to my belief, and not as you have been reading it, were the heavens and +the earth finished and all the host of them." + +He took the old book in his lap and sat silent with me for a while on +the step. Then he said:-- + +"Nobody has got to the bottom of that book yet, have they? And it's +true; it's all true. It's just accordin' as you see it. Do ye know +what I'm going to do? I 'm going to buy one of them double-seated red +swings and put it right out here under this sassafras tree, and Hannah +and I are going to set in, and swing in it, and listen a little to them +bobolinks." + + + + +[Illustration: A pilgrim from Dubuque] + +VIII + +A PILGRIM FROM DUBUQUE + +It is a long road from anywhere to Mullein Hill, and only the rural +postman and myself travel it at all frequently. The postman goes by, +if he can, every weekday, somewhere between dawn and dark, the absolute +uncertainty of his passing quite relieving the road of its wooded +loneliness. I go back and forth somewhat regularly; now and then a +neighbor takes this route to the village, and at rarer intervals an +automobile speeds over the "roller coaster road"; but seldom does a +stranger on foot appear so far from the beaten track. One who walks to +Mullein Hill deserves and receives a welcome. + +I may be carting gravel when he comes, as I was the day the Pilgrim +from Dubuque arrived. Swinging the horses into the yard with their +staggering load, I noticed him laboring up the Hill by the road in +front. He stopped in the climb for a breathing spell,--a tall, erect +old man in black, with soft, high-crowned hat, and about him something, +even at the distance, that was--I don't +know--unusual--old-fashioned--Presbyterian. + +Dropping the lines, I went down to greet the stranger, though I saw he +carried a big blue book under his arm. To my knowledge no book-agent +had ever been seen on the Hill. But had I never seen one anywhere I +should have known this man had not come to sell me a book. "More +likely," I thought, "he has come to give me a book. We shall see." +Yet I could not quite make him out, for while he was surely +professional, he was not exactly clerical, in spite of a certain +Scotch-Covenanter-something in his appearance. He had never preached +at men, I knew, as instinctively as I knew he had never persuaded them +with books or stocks or corner-lots in Lhassa. He had a fine, kindly +face, that was singularly clear and simple, in which blent the shadows +and sorrows of years with the serene and mellow light of good thoughts. + +"Is this Mullein Hill?" he began, shifting the big blue copy of the +"Edinburgh Review" from under his arm. + +"You're on Mullein Hill," I replied, "and welcome." + +"Is--are--you Dallas Lore--" + +"Sharp?" I said, finishing for him. "Yes, sir, this is Dallas Lore +Sharp, but these are not his over-alls--not yet; for they have never +been washed and are about three sizes too large for him." + +He looked at me, a little undone, I thought, disappointed, maybe, and a +bit embarrassed at having been betrayed by overalls and rolled-up +sleeves and shovels. He had not expected the overalls, not new ones, +anyhow. And why are new overalls so terribly new and unwashed! Only a +woman, only a man's wife, is fitted to buy his overalls, for she only +is capable of allowing enough for shrinkage. To-day I was in my new +pair, but not of them, not being able to get near enough to them for +that. + +"I am getting old," he went on quickly, his face clearing; "my +perceptions are not so keen, nor my memory so quick as it used to be. +I should have known that 'good writing must have a pre-literary +existence as lived reality; the writing must be only the necessary +accident of its being lived over again in thought'"--quoting verbatim, +though I was slow in discovering it, from an essay of mine, published +years before. + +It was now my turn to allow for shrinkage. Had he learned this passage +for the visit and applied it thus by chance? My face must have showed +my wonder, my incredulity, indeed, for explaining himself he said,-- + +"I am a literary pilgrim, sir--" + +"Who has surely lost his way," I ventured. + +Then with a smile that made no more allowances necessary he assured +me,-- + +"Oh, no, sir! I am quite at home in the hills of Hingham. I have been +out at Concord for a few days, and am now on the main road from Concord +to Dubuque. I am Mr. Kinnier, Dr. Kinnier, of Dubuque, Iowa, +and"--releasing my hand--"let me see"--pausing as we reached the top of +the hill, and looking about in search of something--"Ah, yes [to +himself], there on the horizon they stand, those two village spires, +'those tapering steeples where they look up to worship toward the sky, +and look down to scowl across the street'"--quoting again, word for +word, from another of my essays. Then to me: "They are a little +farther away and a little closer together than I expected to see +them--too close [to himself again] for God to tell from which side of +the street the prayers and praises come, mingling as they must in the +air." + +He said it with such thought-out conviction, such sweet sorrow, and +with such relief that I began now to fear for what he might quote next +and _miss_ from the landscape. The spires were indeed there (may +neither one of them now be struck by lightning!); but what a terrible +memory the man has! Had he come from Dubuque to prove me-- + +The spires, however, seemed to satisfy him; he could steer by them; and +to my great relief, he did not demand a chart to each of the wonders of +Mullein Hill--my thirty-six woodchuck holes, etc., etc., nor ask, as +John Burroughs did, for a sight of the fox that performed in one of my +books somewhat after the manner of modern _literary_ foxes. Literary +foxes! One or another of us watches this Hilltop day and night with a +gun for literary foxes! I want no pilgrims from Dubuque, no +naturalists from Woodchuck Lodge, poking into the landscape or under +the stumps for spires and foxes and boa constrictors and things that +they cannot find outside the book. I had often wondered what I would +do if such visitors ever came. Details, I must confess, might on many +pages be difficult to verify; but for some years now I have faithfully +kept my four boys here in the woods to prove the reality of my main +theme. + +This morning, with heaps of gravel in the yard, the hilltop looked +anything but like the green and fruitful mountain of the book, still +less like a way station between anywhere and _Concord_! And as for +myself--it was no wonder he said to me,-- + +"Now, sir, please go on with your teaming. I ken the lay of the land +about Mullein Hill + + "'Whether the simmer kindly warms + Wi' life and light, + Or winter howls in gusty storms + The lang, dark night.'" + + +But I did not go on with the teaming. Gravel is a thing that will +wait. Here it lies where it was dumped by the glaciers of the Ice Age. +There was no hurry about it; whereas pilgrims and poets from Dubuque +must be stopped as they pass. So we sat down and talked--of books and +men, of poems and places, but mostly of books,--books I had written, +and other books--great books "whose dwelling is the light of setting +suns." Then we walked--over the ridges, down to the meadow and the +stream, and up through the orchard, still talking of books, my strange +visitor, whether the books were prose or poetry, catching up the volume +somewhere with a favorite passage, and going on--reading on--from +memory, line after line, pausing only to repeat some exquisite turn, or +to comment upon some happy thought. + +Not one book was he giving me, but many. The tiny leather-bound copy +of Burns that he drew from his coat pocket he did not give me, however, +but fondly holding it in his hands said:-- + +"It was my mother's. She always read to us out of it. She knew every +line of it by heart as I do. + +"'Some books are lies frae end to end'-- + +but this is no one of them. I have carried it these many years." + +Our walk brought us back to the house and into the cool living-room +where a few sticks were burning on the hearth. Taking one of the +rocking-chairs before the fireplace, the Pilgrim sat for a time looking +into the blaze. Then he began to rock gently back and forth, his eyes +fixed upon the fire, quite forgetful evidently of my presence, and +while he rocked his lips moved as, half audibly, he began to speak with +some one--not with me--with some one invisible to me who had come to +him out of the flame. I listened as he spoke, but it was a language +that I could not understand. + +Then remembering where he was he turned to me and said, his eyes going +back again beyond the fire,-- + +"She often comes to me like this; but I am very lonely since she left +me,--lonely--lonely--and so I came on to Concord to visit Thoreau's +grave." + +And this too was language I could not understand. I watched him in +silence, wondering what was behind his visit to me. + +"Thoreau was a lonely man," he went on, "as most writers are, I think, +but Thoreau was very lonely." + +"Wild," Burroughs had called him; "irritating," I had called him; and +on the table beside the Pilgrim lay even then a letter from Mr. +Burroughs, in which he had taken me to task on behalf of Thoreau. + +"I feel like scolding you a little," ran the letter, "for disparaging +Thoreau for my benefit. Thoreau is nearer the stars than I am. I may +be more human, but he is certainly more divine. His moral and ethical +value I think is much greater, and he has a heroic quality that I +cannot approach." + +There was something queer in this. Why had I not understood Thoreau? +Wild he surely was, and irritating too, because of a certain strain and +self-consciousness. A "counter-irritant" he called himself. Was this +not true? + +As if in answer to my question, as if to explain his coming out to +Mullein Hill, the Pilgrim drew forth a folded sheet of paper from his +pocket and without opening it or looking at it, said:-- + +"I wrote it the other day beside Thoreau's grave. You love your +Thoreau--you will understand." + +And then in a low, thrilling voice, timed as to some solemn chant, he +began, the paper still folded in his hands:-- + + "A lonely wand'rer stands beside the stone + That marks the grave where Thoreau's ashes lie; + An object more revered than monarch's throne, + Or pyramids beneath Egyptian sky. + + "He turned his feet from common ways of men, + And forward went, nor backward looked around; + Sought truth and beauty in the forest glen, + And in each opening flower glory found. + + "He paced the woodland paths in rain and sun; + With joyous thrill he viewed the season's sign; + And in the murmur of the meadow run + With raptured ear he heard a voice divine. + + "Truth was the beacon ray that lured him on. + It lit his path on plain and mountain height, + In wooded glade and on the flow'ry lawn-- + Where'er he strayed, it was his guiding light. + + "Close by the hoary birch and swaying pine + To Nature's voice he bent a willing ear; + And there remote from men he made his shrine, + Her face to see, her many tongues to hear. + + "The robin piped his morning song for him; + The wild crab there exhaled its rathe perfume; + The loon laughed loud and by the river's brim + The water willow waved its verdant plume. + + "For him the squirrels gamboled in the pines, + And through the pane the morning sunbeams glanced; + The zephyrs gently stirred his climbing vines + And on his floor the evening shadows danced. + + "To him the earth was all a fruitful field. + He saw no barren waste, no fallow land; + The swamps and mountain tops would harvests yield; + And Nature's stores he garnered on the strand. + + "There the essential facts of life he found. + The full ripe grain he winnowed from the chaff; + And in the pine tree,--rent by lightning round, + He saw God's hand and read his autograph. + + "Against the fixed and complex ways of life + His earnest, transcendental soul rebelled; + And chose the path that shunned the wasted strife, + Ignored the sham, and simple life upheld. + + "Men met him, looked and passed, but knew him not, + And critics scoffed and deemed him not a seer. + He lives, and scoff and critic are forgot; + We feel his presence and his words we hear. + + "He passed without regret,--oft had his breath + Bequeathed again to earth his mortal clay, + Believing that the darkened night of death + Is but the dawning of eternal day." + +The chanting voice died away and--the woods were still. The deep +waters of Walden darkened in the long shadows of the trees that were +reaching out across the pond. Evening was close at hand. Would the +veery sing again? Or was it the faint, sweet music of the bells of +Lincoln, Acton, and Concord that I heard, humming in the pine needles +outside the window, as if they were the strings of a harp? + +The chanting voice died away and--the room was still; but I seem to +hear that voice every time I open the pages of "The Week" or "Walden." +And the other day, as I stood on the shores of the pond, adding my +stone to the cairn where the cabin used to stand, a woodthrush off in +the trees (trees that have grown great since Thoreau last looked upon +them), began to chant--or was it the Pilgrim from Dubuque?-- + + "Truth was the beacon ray that lured him on. + It lit his path on plain and mountain height, + In wooded glade and on the flow'ry lawn-- + Where'er he strayed, it was his guiding light." + + + + +[Illustration: The Honey Flow] + +IX + +THE HONEY FLOW + +And this our life, exempt from public haunt and those swift currents +that carry the city-dweller resistlessly into the movie show, leaves us +caught in the quiet eddy of little unimportant things,--digging among +the rutabagas, playing the hose at night, casting the broody hens into +the "dungeon," or watching the bees. + +Many hours of my short life I have spent watching the bees,--blissful, +idle hours, saved from the wreck of time, hours fragrant of white +clover and buckwheat and filled with the honey of nothing-to-do; every +minute of them capped, like the comb within the hive, against the +coming winter of my discontent. If, for the good of mankind, I could +write a new Commandment to the Decalogue, it would read: Thou shalt +keep a hive of bees. + +Let one begin early, and there is more health in a hive of bees than in +a hospital; more honey, too, more recreation and joy for the +philosophic mind, though no one will deny that very many persons +prepare themselves both in body and mind for the comforting rest and +change of the hospital with an almost solemn joy. + +But personally I prefer a hive of bees. They are a sure cure, it is +said, for rheumatism, the patient making bare the afflicted part, then +with it stirring up the bees. But it is saner and happier to get the +bees before you get the rheumatism and prevent its coming. No one can +keep bees without being impressed with the wisdom of the ounce of +prevention. + +I cannot think of a better habit to contract than keeping bees. What a +quieting, pastoral turn it gives to life! You can keep them in the +city--on the roof or in the attic--just as you can actually live in the +city, if you have to; but bees, even more than cows, suggest a rural +prospect, old-fashioned gardens, pastures, idyls,--things out of +Virgil, and Theocritus--and out of Spenser too,-- + + "And more, to lulle him in his slumber soft, + A trickling streame from high rock tumbling downe, + And ever drizling raine upon the loft, + Mixt with a murmuring winde, much like the sowne + Of swarming bees, did cast him in a swowne: + No other noyse, nor peoples troublous cryes, + As still are wont t' annoy the walled towne + Might there be heard: but carelesse Quiet lyes, + Wrapt in eternall silence farre from enimyes" + +that is not the land of the lotus, but of the _melli-lotus_, of lilacs, +red clover, mint, and goldenrod--a land of honey-bee. Show me the +bee-keeper and I will show you a poet; a lover of waters that go softly +like Siloa; with the breath of sage and pennyroyal about him; an +observer of nature, who can handle his bees without veil or gloves. +Only a few men keep bees,--only philosophers, I have found. They are a +different order utterly from hen-men, bee-keeping and chicken-raising +being respectively the poetry and prose of country life, though there +are some things to be said for the hen, deficient as the henyard is in +euphony, rhythm, and tune. + +In fact there is not much to be said for the bee, not much that the +public can understand; for it is neither the bee nor the eagle that is +the true American bird, but the rooster. In one of my neighboring +towns five thousand petitioners recently prayed the mayor that they be +allowed to let their roosters crow. The petition was granted. In all +that town, peradventure, not five bee-keepers could be found, and for +the same reason that so few righteous men were found in Sodom. + +Bee-keeping, like keeping righteous, is exceedingly difficult; it is +one of the fine arts, and no dry-mash-and-green-bone affair as of hens. +Queens are a peculiar people, and their royal households, sometimes an +hundred thousand strong, are as individual as royal houses are liable +to be. + +I have never had two queens alike, never two colonies that behaved the +same, never two seasons that made a repetition of a particular handling +possible. A colony of bees is a perpetual problem; the strain of the +bees, the age and disposition of the queen, the condition of the +colony, the state of the weather, the time of the season, the +little-understood laws of the honey-flow,--these singly, and often all +in combination, make the wisest handling of a colony of bees a question +fresh every summer morning and new every evening. + +For bees should be "handled," that is, bees left to their own devices +may make you a little honey--ten to thirty pounds in the best of +seasons; whereas rightly handled they will as easily make you three +hundred pounds of pure comb honey--food of prophets, and with saleratus +biscuit instead of locusts, a favorite dish with the sons of prophets +here on Mullein Hill. + +Did you ever eat apple-blossom honey? Not often, for it is only rarely +that the colony can be built up to a strength sufficient to store this +earliest flow. But I have sometimes caught it; and then as the season +advances, and flow after flow comes on with the breaking of the great +floral waves, I get other flavors,--pure white clover, wild raspberry, +golden sumac, pearly white clethra, buckwheat, black as axle grease, +and last of all, the heavy, rich yellow of the goldenrod. These, by +careful watching, I get pure and true to flavor like so many fruit +extracts at the soda fountains. + +Then sometimes the honey for a whole season will be adulterated, not by +anything that I have done, but by the season's peculiar conditions, or +by purely local conditions,--conditions that may not prevail in the +next town at all. + +One year it began in the end of July. The white clover flow was over +and the bees were beginning to work upon the earliest blossoms of the +dwarf sumac. Sitting in front of the hives soon after the renewed +activity commenced, I noticed a peculiarly rank odor on the air, and +saw that the bees in vast numbers were rising and making for a pasture +somewhere over the sprout-land that lay to the north of the hives. Yet +I felt sure there was nothing in blossom in that direction within range +of my bees (they will fly off two miles for food); nothing but dense +hardwood undergrowth from stumps cut some few years before. + +Marking their line of flight I started into the low jungle to find +them. I was half a mile in when I caught the busy hum of wings. I +looked but could see nothing,--not a flower of any sort, nothing but +oak, maple, birch, and young pine saplings just a little higher than my +head. But the air was full of bees; yet not of swarming bees, for that +is a different and unmistakable hum. Then I found myself in the thick +of a copse of witch-hazel up and down the stems of which the bees were +wildly buzzing. There was no dew left on the bushes, so it was not +that they were after; on looking more closely I saw that they were +crawling down the stems to the little burrs containing the seed of last +fall's flowering. Holding to the top of the burr with their hind legs +they seemed to drink head down from out of the base of the burr. + +Picking one of these, I found a hole at its base, and inside, instead +of seeds, a hollow filled with plant lice or aphides, that the bees +were milking. Here were big black ants, too, and yellow wasps drinking +from the same pail. + +But a bee's tongue, delicate as it is, would crush a fragile plant +louse. I picked another burr, squeezing it gently, when there issued +from the hole at the base a drop of crystal-clear liquid, held in the +thinnest of envelopes, which I tasted and found sweet. In burr after +burr I found these sacks or cysts of sweets secreted by the aphides for +the bees to puncture and drain. The largest of them would fill a bee +at a draught. Some of the burrs contained big fat grubs of a beetle +unknown to me,--the creature that had eaten the seeds, bored the hole +at the base, and left the burr cleaned and garnished for the aphides. +These in turn invited the bees, and the bees, carrying this "honey-dew" +home, mixed it with the pure nectar of the flowers and spoiled the crop. + +Can you put stoppers into these millions of honey-dew jugs? Can you +command your bees to avoid these dire bushes and drink only of the +wells at the bottoms of the white-clover tubes? Hardly that, but you +can clip the wing of your queen and make her obedient; you can command +the colony not to swarm, not to waste its strength in drones, and you +can tell it where and how to put this affected honey so that the pure +crop is not spoiled; you can order the going out and coming in of those +many thousands so that every one is a faithful, wise, and efficient +servant, gathering the fragrance and sweet of the summer from every +bank whereon the clover and the wild mints blow. + +Small things these for a man with anything to do? Small indeed, but +demanding large love and insight, patience, foresight, and knowledge. +It does not follow that a man who can handle a colony of bees can rule +his spirit or take a city, but the virtues absolutely necessary to the +bee-keeper are those required for the guiding of nations; and there +should be a bee-plank incorporated into every party platform, promising +that president, cabinet, and every member of congress along with the +philosophers shall keep bees. + + + + +[Illustration: A pair of pigs] + +X + +A PAIR OF PIGS + +I dropped down beside Her on the back steps and took a handful of her +peas to pod. She set the colander between us, emptied half of her task +into my hat, and said:-- + +"It is ten o'clock. I thought you had to be at your desk at eight this +morning? And you are hot and tired. What is it you have been doing?" + +"Getting ready for the _pigs_," I replied, laying marked and steady +emphasis on the plural. + +"You are putting the pods among the peas and the peas with the +pods"--and so I was. "Then we are going to have another pig," she went +on. + +"No, not _a_ pig this time; I think I 'll get a pair. You see while +you are feeding one you can just as well be feeding--" + +"A lot of them," she said with calm conviction. + +"You 're right!" I exclaimed, a little eagerly. "Besides two pigs do +better than--" + +"Well, then," very gravely and never pausing for an instant in her +shelling, "let's fence in the fourteen acres and have a nice little +piggery of Mullein Hill." + +The pods popped and split in her nimble fingers as if she knew a secret +spring in their backs. I can beat her picking peas, but in shelling +peas she seems to have more fingers than I have; they quite confuse me +at times as they twinkle at their task. + +So they did now. I had spent several weeks working up my brief for two +pigs; but was utterly unprepared for a whole piggery. The suddenness +of it, the sweep and compass of it, left me powerless to pod the peas +for a moment. + +I ought to have been at my writing, but it was too late to mention that +now; besides here was my hat still full of peas. I could not +ungallantly dump them back into her empty pan and quit. There was +nothing for it but to pod on and stop with one pig. But my heart was +set on a pair of pigs. College had just closed (we were having our +17th of June peas) and the joy of the farm was upon me. I had a cow +and a heifer, eighty-six hens, three kinds of bantams, ten hives of +bees, and two ducks. I was planning to build a pigeon coop, and had +long talked of turning the nine-acre ridge of sprout land joining my +farm into a milch goat pasture, selling the milk at one dollar a quart +to Boston babies; I had thought somewhat of Belgian hares and black +foxes as a side-line; and in addition to these my heart was set on a +pair of pigs. + +"Why won't one pig do?" she would ask. And I tried to explain; but +there are things that cannot be explained to the feminine mind, things +perfectly clear to a man that you cannot make a woman see. + +Pigs, I told her, naturally go by pairs, like twins and scissors and +tongs. They do better together, as scissors do. Nobody ever bought a +_scissor_. Certainly not. Pigs need the comfort of one another's +society, and the diversion of one another to take up their minds in the +pen; hens I explained were not the only broody creatures, for all +animals show the tendency, and does not the Preacher say, "Two are +better than one: if two lie together then have they heat: but how can +one be warm alone"? + +I was sure, I told her, that the Preacher had pigs in mind, for judging +by the number of pig-prohibitions throughout Hebrew literature, they +must have had pigs _constantly_ in mind. This observation of the early +Hebrew poet and preacher is confirmed, I added, by all the modern +agricultural journals, as well as by all our knowing neighbors. Even +the Flannigans (an Irish family down the road),--even the Flannigans, I +pointed out, always have two pigs, for all their eight children and his +job tending gate at the railroad crossing. They have a goat, too. If +a man with that sort of job can have eight children and a goat and two +pigs, why can't a college professor have a few of the essential, +elementary things, I 'd like to know? + +"Do you call your four boys a few?" she asked. + +"I don't call my four Flannigan's eight," I replied, "nor my one pig +his two. Flannigan has the finest pigs on the road. He has a +wonderful way with a pair of pigs--something he inherited, I suppose, +for I imagine there have been pigs in the Flannigan family ever since--" + +"They were kings in Ireland," she put in sweetly. + +"Flannigan says," I continued, "that I ought to have two pigs: 'For +shure, a pair o' pags is double wan pag,' says Flannigan--good clear +logic it strikes me, and quite convincing." + +She picked up the colander of shelled peas with a sigh. "We shall want +the new potatoes and fresh salmon to go with these," her mind not on +pigs at all, but on the dinner. "Can't you dig me a few?" + +"I might dig up a few fresh salmon," I replied, "but not any new +potatoes, for they have just got through the ground." + +"But if I wanted you to, could n't you?" + +"I don't see how I could if there are n't any to dig." + +"But won't you go look--dig up a few hills--you can't tell until you +look. You said you did n't leave the key outside in the door yesterday +when we went to town, but you did. And as for a lot of pigs--" + +"I don't want a lot of pigs," I protested. + +"But you do, though. You want a lot of everything. Here you 've +planted five hundred cabbages for winter just as if we were a +sauerkraut factory--and the probabilities are we shall go to town this +winter--" + +"Go where!" I cried. + +"And as for pigs, your head is as full of pigs as Deerfoot Farm or the +Chicago stockyards-- + + _Mullein Hill Sausages + Made of Little Pigs_ + +that's really your dream"--spelling out the advertisement with pea-pods +on the porch floor. + +"Now, don't you think it best to save some things for your +children,--this sausage business, say,--and you go on with your humble +themes and books?" + +She looked up at me patiently, sweetly inscrutable as she added:-- + +"You need a pig, Dallas, one pig, I am quite sure; but two pigs are +nothing short of the pig business, and that is not what we are living +here on Mullein Hill for." + +She went in with her peas and left me with my pigs--or perhaps they +were her thoughts; leaving thoughts around being a habit of hers. + +What did she mean by my needing a pig? She was quite sure I needed +_one_ pig. Is it my own peculiar, personal need? That can hardly be, +for I am not different from other men. There may be in all men, deep +down and unperceived, except by their wives, perhaps, traits and +tendencies that call for the keeping of a pig. I think this must be +so, for while she has always said we need the cow or the chickens or +the parsley, she has never spoken so of the pig, it being referred to +invariably as mine, until put into the cellar in a barrel. + +The pig as my property, or rather as my peculiar privilege, is utterly +unrelated in her mind to _salt_ pork. And she is right about that. No +man needs a pig to put in a barrel. Everybody knows that it costs less +to buy your pig in the barrel. And there is little that is edifying +about a barrel of salt pork. I always try to fill my mind with +cheerful thoughts before descending into the dark of the cellar to fish +a cold, white lump of the late pig out of the pickle. + +Not in the uncertain hope of his becoming pork, but for the certain +present joy of his _being_ pork, does a man need a pig. In all his +other possessions man is always to be blest. In the pig he has a +constant, present reward: because the pig _is_ and there is no question +as to what he shall be. He is pork and shall be salt pork, not spirit, +to our deep relief. + +Instead of spirit the pig is clothed upon with lard, a fatty, opaque, +snow-white substance, that boils and grows limpid clear and flames with +heat; and while not so volatile and spirit-like as butter, nevertheless +it is one of earth's pure essences, perfected, sublimated, not after +the soul with suffering, but after the flesh with corn and solid +comfort--the most abundant of one's possessions, yet except to the pig +the most difficult of all one's goods to bestow. + +The pig has no soul. I am not so sure of the flower in the crannied +wall, not so sure of the very stones in the wall, so long have they +been, so long shall be; but the pig--no one ever plucked up a pig from +his sty to say,-- + + "I hold you here squeal and all, in my hand, + Little pig--but _if_ I could understand + What you are, squeal and all, and all in all"-- + +No poet or philosopher ever did that. But they have kept pigs. Here +is Matthew Arnold writing to his mother about _Literature and Dogma_ +and poems and--"The two pigs are grown very large and handsome, and +Peter Wood advises us to fatten them and kill our own bacon. We +consume a great deal of bacon, and Flu complains that it is dear and +not good, so there is much to be said for killing our own; but she does +not seem to like the idea." + +"Very large and handsome "--this from the author of + + "The evening comes, the fields are still!" + +And here is his wife, again, not caring to have them killed, finding, +doubtless, a better use for them in the pen, seeing that Matthew often +went out there to scratch them. + +Poets, I say, have kept pigs, for a change, I think, from their poetry. +For a big snoring pig is not a poem, whatever may be said of a little +roast pig; and what an escape from books and people and parlors (in +this country) is the feeding and littering and scratching of him! You +put on your old clothes for him. He takes you out behind the barn; +there shut away from the prying gaze of the world, and the stern eye, +conscience, you deliberately fill him, stuff him, fatten him, till he +grunts, then you scratch him to keep him grunting, yourself reveling in +the sight of the flesh indulged, as you dare not indulge any other +flesh. You would love to feed the whole family that way; only it would +not be good for them. You cannot feed even the dog or the horse or the +hens so. One meal a day for the dog; a limited ration of timothy for +the horse, and _scratch_-feed, for the hens--feed to compel them to +scratch for fear they will run to flesh instead of eggs; and the +children's wedge of pie you sharpen though the point of it pierces your +soul; and the potato you leave off of her plate; and you forgo +your--you get _you_ a medicine ball, I should say, in order to keep +down the fat lest it overlie and smother the soul. + +Compelled to deny and subject the body, what do I then but get me a pig +and feed _it_, and scratch it, and bed it in order to see it fatten and +to hear it snore? The flesh cries out for indulgence; but the spirit +demands virtue; and a pig, being the virtue of indulgence, satisfies +the flesh and is winked at by the soul. + +If a pig is the spirit's concession to the flesh, no less is he at +times a gift to the spirit. There are times in life when one needs +just such companionship as the pig's, and just such shelter as one +finds within his pen. After a day in the classroom discoursing on the +fourth dimension of things in general, I am prone to feel somewhat +removed, at sea somewhat. + +Then I go down and spread my arms along the fence and come to anchor +with the pig. + + + + +[Illustration: Leafing] + +XI + +LEAFING + +Poets, I said, have kept pigs for an escape from their poetry. But +keeping pigs is not all prose. I put my old clothes on to feed him, it +is true; he takes me out behind the barn; but he also takes me one day +in the year out into the woods--a whole day in the woods--with rake and +sacks and hay-rig, and the four boys, to gather him leaves for bedding. + +Leafing Day is one of the days in red on the Mullein Hill Calendar; and +of all our days in the woods surely none of them is fresher, more +fragrant, more joyous, and fuller of poetry than the day we go to rake +and sack and bring home the leaves for the pig. + +You never went after leaves for the pigs? Perhaps you never even had a +pig. But a pig is worth having, if only to see the comfort he takes in +the big bed of dry leaves you give him in the sunny corner of his pen. +And, if leafing had no other reward, the thought of the snoozing, +snoring pig buried to his winking snout in the bed, would give joy and +zest enough to the labor. + +But leafing like every other humble labor of our life here in the Hills +of Hingham has its own reward,--and when you can say that of any labor +you are speaking of its poetry. + +We jolt across the bumpy field, strike into the back wood-road, and +turn off upon an old stumpy track over which cordwood was carted years +ago. Here in the hollow at the foot of a high wooded hill the winds +have whirled the oak and maple leaves into drifts almost knee-deep. + +We are off the main road, far into the heart of the woods. We straddle +stumps, bend down saplings, stop while the horse takes a bite of sweet +birch, tack and tip and tumble and back through the tight squeezes +between the trees; and finally, after a prodigious amount of "whoa"-ing +and "oh"-ing and squealing and screeching, we land right side up and so +headed that we can start the load out toward the open road. + +You can yell all you want to when you go leafing, yell at every stump +you hit, yell every time a limb knocks off your hat or catches you +under the chin, yell when the horse stops suddenly to browse on the +twigs, and stands you meekly on your head in the bottom of the rig. +You can screech and howl and yell like the wild Indian that you are; +you can dive and wrestle in the piles of leaves, and cut all the crazy +capers you know; for this is a Saturday; these are the wild woods and +the noisy leaves; and who is there looking on besides the mocking jays +and the crows? + +The leaves pile up. The wind blows keen among the tall, naked trees; +the dull clouds hang low above the ridge; and through the cold gray of +the maple swamp below peers the ghostly face of Winter. + +You start up the ridge with your rake, and draw down another pile, +thinking, as you work, of the pig. The thought is pleasing. The warm +glow all over your body strikes in to your heart. You rake away as if +it were your own bed you were gathering--as really it is. He that +rakes for his pig rakes also for himself. A merciful man is merciful +to his beast, and he that gathers leaves for his pig spreads a blanket +of down over his own winter bed. + +Is it to warm my feet on winter nights that I pull on my boots at ten +o'clock and go my round at the barn? Yet it does warm my feet, through +and through, to look into the stalls and see the cow chewing her cud, +and the horse cleaning up his supper hay, standing to his fetlocks in +his golden bed of new rye-straw; and then, going to the pig's pen, to +hear him snoring louder than the north wind, somewhere in the depths of +his leaf-bed, far out of sight. It warms my feet, it also warms my +heart. + +So the leaves pile up. How good a thing it is to have a pig to work +for! What zest and purpose it lends to one's raking and piling and +storing! If I could get nothing else to spend myself on, I should +surely get me a pig. Then, when I went to walk in the woods, I should +be obliged occasionally to carry a rake and a bag with me, much better +things to take into the woods than empty hands, and sure to scratch +into light a number of objects that would never come within the range +of opera-glass or gun or walking-stick. To see things through a +twenty-four-toothed rake is to see them very close, as through a +microscope magnifying twenty-four diameters. + +And so, as the leaves pile up, we keep a sharp lookout for what the +rake uncovers; here under a rotten stump a hatful of acorns, probably +gathered by the white-footed wood-mouse. For the stump "gives" at the +touch of the rake, and a light kick topples it down hill, spilling out +a big nest of feathers and three dainty little creatures that scurry +into the leaf-piles like streaks of daylight. They are the +white-footed mice, long-tailed, big-eared, and as clean and +high-bred-looking as greyhounds. + +Combing down the steep hillside with our rakes, we dislodge a large +stone, exposing a black patch of fibrous roots and leaf-mould, in which +something moves and disappears. Scooping up a double handful of the +mould, we capture a little red-backed salamander. + +Listen! Something piping! Above the rustle of the leaves we, too, +hear a "fine, plaintive" sound--no, a shrill and ringing little racket, +rather, about the bigness of a penny whistle. + +Dropping the rake, we cautiously follow up the call (it seems to speak +out of every tree-trunk!) and find the piper clinging to a twig, no +salamander at all, but a tiny wood-frog. Pickering's hyla, his little +bagpipe blown almost to bursting as he tries to rally the scattered +summer by his tiny, mighty "skirl." Take him nose and toes, he is +surely as much as an inch long; not very large to pipe against this +north wind that has been turned loose in the bare woods. + +We go back to our raking. Above us, among the stones of the slope, +hang bunches of Christmas fern; around the foot of the trees we uncover +trailing clusters of gray-green partridge vine, glowing with crimson +berries; we rake up the prince's-pine, pipsissewa, creeping-Jennie, and +wintergreen red with ripe berries--a whole bouquet of evergreens, +exquisite, fairy-like forms that later shall gladden our Christmas +table. + +But how they gladden and cheer the October woods! Summer dead? Hope +all gone? Life vanished away? See here, under this big pine, a whole +garden of arbutus, green and budded, almost ready to bloom! The snows +shall come before their sweet eyes open; but open they will at the very +first touch of spring. We will gather a few, and let them wake up in +saucers of clean water in our sunny south windows. + +Leaves for the pig, and arbutus for us! We make a clean sweep down the +hillside "jumping" a rabbit from its form under a brush-pile, +discovering where a partridge roosts in a low-spreading hemlock; coming +upon a snail cemetery in a hollow hickory stump; turning up a +yellow-jackets' nest built two thirds underground; tracing the tunnel +of a bobtailed mouse in its purposeless windings in the leaf-mould, +digging into a woodchuck's-- + +"But come, boys, get after those bags! It is leaves in the hay-rig we +want, not woodchucks at the bottom of woodchuck-holes." + +Two small boys catch up a bag, and hold it open, while two more stuff +in the crackling leaves. Then I come along with my big feet, and pack +the leaves in tight, and on to the rig goes the bulging bag. + +Exciting? If you can't believe it exciting, hop up on the load, and +let us jog you home. Swish! bang! thump! tip! turn! joggle! jolt! +Hold on to your ribs. Pull in your popping eyes. Look out for the +stump! Isn't it fun to go leafing? Is n't it fun to do anything that +your heart does with you?--even though you do it for a pig! + +Just watch the pig as we shake out the bags of leaves. See him caper, +spin on his toes, shake himself, and curl his tail. That curl is his +laugh. We double up and weep when we laugh hard; but the pig can't +weep, and he can't double himself up; so he doubles up his tail. There +is where his laugh comes off, curling and kinking in little spasms of +pure pig joy. + +"Boosh! Boosh!" he snorts, and darts around the pen like a whirlwind, +scattering the leaves in forty ways, to stop short--the shortest +stop!--and fall to rooting for acorns. + +He was once a long-tusked boar of the forest, this snow-white, +sawed-off, pug-nose little porker of mine--ages and ages ago. But he +still remembers the smell of the forest leaves; he still knows the +taste of the acorn-mast; he is still wild pig somewhere deep down +within him. + +And we were once long-haired, strong-limbed savages who roamed the +forest for him--ages and ages ago. And we, too, like him, remember the +smell of the fallen leaves, and the taste of the forest fruits, and of +pig, _roast_ pig. And if the pig in his heart is still a wild boar, no +less are we at times wild savages in our hearts. + +Anyhow, for one day in the fall I want to go leafing. I want to give +my pig a taste of acorns, and a big pile of leaves to dive so deep into +that he cannot see his pen. No, I do not live in a pen; I do not want +to; but surely I might, if once in a while I did not go leafing, did +not escape now and then from my little penned-in, daily round into the +wide, sweet woods, my ancestral home. + + + + +[Illustration: The little foxes] + +XII + +THE LITTLE FOXES + +I was picking strawberries down by the woods when some one called out +from the road:-- + +"Say, ain't they a litter of young foxes somewheres here in the ridges?" + +I recognized the man as one of the chronic fox-hunters of the region, +and answered:-- + +"I 'm sure of it, by the way an old she-fox has pestered my chickens +lately." + +"Well, she won't pester them no more. She 's been trapped and killed. +Any man that would kill a she-fox this time o' year and let her pups +starve to death, he ain't no better than a brute, he ain't. I 've +hunted two days for 'em; and I 'll hunt till I find 'em." And he +disappeared into the woods, on my side of the road, upon a quest so +utterly futile, apparently, and so entirely counter to the notion I had +had of the man, that I stopped my picking and followed him up the +ridge, just to see which way a man would go to find a den of suckling +foxes in all the miles and miles of swamp and ledgy woodland that +spread in every direction about him. I did not see which way he went, +for by the time I reached the crest he had gone on and out of hearing +through the thick sprout-land. I sat down, however, upon a stump to +think about him, this man of the shoeshop, working his careful way up +and down the bushy slopes, around the granite ledges, across the bogs +and up-grown pastures, into the matted green-brier patches, hour after +hour searching for a hole in the ground a foot wide, for a den of +little foxes that were whimpering and starving because their mother did +not return. + +He found them--two miles away in the next town, on the edge of an open +field, near a public road, and directly across from a schoolhouse! I +don't know how he found them. But patience and knowledge and love, and +a wild, primitive instinct that making shoes had never taken out of his +primitive nature, helped him largely in his hunt. He took them, nursed +them back to strength on a bottle, fed them milk and rice until they +could forage for themselves, turned them loose in the woods, and then, +that fall, he shot them one after the other as often as he had a +holiday from the shop, or a moonlight night upon which he could hunt. + +But he did not kill all of them. Seven foxes were shot at my lower +bars last winter. It is now strawberry time again, and again an old +she-fox lies in wait for every hen that flies over the chicken-yard +fence--which means another litter of young foxes somewhere here in the +ridges. The line continues, even at the hands of the man with the gun. +For strangely coupled with the desire to kill is the instinct to save, +in human nature and in all nature--to preserve a remnant, that no line +perish forever from the earth. As the unthinkable ages of geology come +and go, animal and vegetable forms arise, change, and disappear; but +life persists, lines lead on, and in some form many of the ancient +families breathe our air and still find a home on this small and +smaller-growing globe of ours. + +And it may continue so for ages yet, with our help and permission. + +Wild life is changing more rapidly to-day than ever before, is being +swept faster and faster toward the brink of the world; but it is +cheering to look out of my window, as I write, and see the brown +thrasher getting food for her young out of the lawn, to hear the +scratch of squirrels' feet across the porch, to catch a faint and not +unpleasant odor of skunk through the open window as the breeze blows in +from the woods, and to find, as I found in hoeing my melons early this +morning, the pointed prints of a fox making in a confident and knowing +line toward the chicken-yard. + +I have lived some forty years upon the earth (how the old hickory +outside my window mocks me!), and I have seen some startling changes in +wild animal life. Even I can recall a great flock of snowy herons, or +egrets, that wandered up from the South one year and stayed a while on +the Maurice River marshes, just as, in earlier times, it is recorded +that along the Delaware "the white cranes did whiten the river-bank +like a great snow-drift." To-day the snowy herons have all but +vanished from the remotest glades of the South; and my friend Finley, +on the trail of the Western plume-hunters, searched in vain for a +single pair of the exquisite birds in the vast tule lakes of Oregon, +where, only a few weeks before his trip, thousands of pairs had nested. +He found heaps of rotting carcasses stripped of their fatally lovely +plumes; he found nests with eggs and dead young, but no live birds; the +family of snowy herons, the whole race, apparently, had been suddenly +swept off the world, annihilated, and was no more. + +A few men with guns--for money--had done it. And the wild areas of the +world, especially of our part of the world, have grown so limited now +that a few men could easily, quickly destroy, blot out from the book of +life, almost any of our bird and animal families. "Thou madest him to +have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things +under his feet"--literally, and he must go softly now lest the very +fowl of the air and fish of the sea be destroyed forever. Within my +memory the passenger pigeon, by some cataclysm perhaps, has apparently +become extinct; and the ivory-billed woodpecker probably, this latter +by the hand of man, for I knew the man who believed that he had killed +the last pair of these noble birds reported from the Florida forests. +So we thought it had fared also with the snowy heron, but recently we +have had word from the wardens of the Audubon Society that a remnant +has escaped; a few pairs of the birds have been discovered along the +Gulf coast--so hardly can Nature forgo her own! So far away does the +mother of life hide her child, and so cunningly! + +With our immediate and intelligent help, this family of birds, from +these few pairs can be saved and spread again over the savannas of the +South and the wide tule lakes in the distant Northwest. + +The mother-principle, the dominant instinct in all life, is not failing +in our time. As Nature grows less capable (and surely she does!) of +mothering her own, then man must turn mother, as he has in the Audubon +Society; as he did in the case of the fellow from the shoe-shop who +saved the little foxes. And there is this to hearten him, that, while +extinction of the larger forms of animal life seems inevitable in the +future, a little help and constant help now will save even the largest +of our animals for a long time to come. + +The way animal life hangs on against almost insuperable odds, and the +power in man's hands to further or destroy it, is quite past belief +until one has watched carefully the wild creatures of a thickly settled +region. + +The case of the Indian will apply to all our other aborigines. It is +somewhat amazing to be told, as we are on good authority, that there +are probably more live Indians on the reservations to-day than there +were all told over all of North America when the white men first came +here. Certainly they have been persecuted, but they have also been +given protection--pens! + +Wild life, too, will thrive, in spite of inevitable persecution and +repression, if given only a measure of protection. + +Year by year the cities spread, the woods and wild places narrow, yet +life holds on. The fox trots free across my small farm, and helps +himself successfully from the poultry of my careful raising. + +Nature--man-nature--has been hard on the little brute--to save him! +His face has grown long from much experience, and deep-lined with +wisdom. He seems a normal part of civilization; he literally passes in +and out of the city gates, roams at large through my town, and dens +within the limits of my farm. Enduring, determined, resourceful, +quick-witted, soft-footed, he holds out against a pack of enemies that +keep continually at his heels, and runs in his race the race of all +life, winning for all life, with our help, a long lease yet upon the +earth. + +For here is Reynard sitting upon a knoll in the road, watching me tear +down upon him in a thirty-horse-power motor-car. He steps into the +bushes to let me pass, then comes back to the road and trots upon his +four adequate legs back to the farm to see if I left the gate of the +henyard open. + +There is no sight of Nature more heartening to me than this glimpse of +the fox; no thought of Nature more reassuring than the thought of the +way Reynard holds his own--of the long-drawn, dogged fight that Nature +will put up when cornered and finally driven to bay. The globe is too +small for her eternally to hold out against man; but with the help of +man, and then in spite of man, she will fight so good a fight that not +for years yet need another animal form perish from the earth. + +If I am assuming too much authority, it is because, here in the +remoteness of my small woods where I can see at night the lights of the +distant city, I have personally taken a heartless hand in this +determined attempt to exterminate the fox. No, I do not raise fancy +chickens in order to feed him. On the contrary, much as I love to see +him, I keep a double-barreled gun against his coming. He knows it, and +comes just the same. At least the gun does not keep him away. My +neighbors have dogs, but they do not keep him away. Guns, dogs, traps, +poison--nothing can keep the foxes away. + +It must have been about four o'clock the other morning when one of my +children tiptoed into my room and whispered, "Father, there's the old +fox walking around Pigeon-Henny's coop behind the barn." + +I got up and hurried with the little fellow into his room, and sure +enough, there in the fog of the dim morning I could make out the form +of a fox moving slowly around the small coop. + +The old hen was clucking in terror to her chicks, her cries having +awakened the small boys. + +I got myself down into the basement, seized my gun, and, gliding out +through the cellar door, crept stealthily into the barn. + +The back window was open. The thick, wet fog came pouring in like +smoke. I moved up boldly through the heavy smother and looked down +into the field. There was the blur of the small coop, but where was +the fox? + +Pushing the muzzle of my double-barreled gun out across the +window-sill, I waited. + +Yes, there, through a rift in the fog, stood the fox! What a shot! +The old rascal cocked his ears toward the house. All was still. +Quickly under the wire of the coop went his paw, the old hen fluttering +and crying in fresh terror. + +Carefully, noiselessly, I swung the muzzle of the gun around on the +window-sill until the bead drew dead upon the thief. The cow in her +stall beside me did not stir. I knew that four small boys in the +bedroom window had their eyes riveted upon that fox waiting for me to +fire. It was a nervous situation, so early in the morning, in the +cold, white fog, and without anything much but slippers on. Usually, +of course, I shot in boots. + +But there stood the fox clawing out my young chickens, and, steadying +the gun as best I could on the moving window-sill, I fired. + +That the fox jumped is not to be wondered at. I jumped myself as both +barrels went off together. A gun is a sudden thing any time of day, +but so early in the morning, and when everything was wrapped in silence +and the ocean fog, the double explosion was extremely startling. + +I should have fired only one barrel, for the fox, after jumping, turned +around and looked all over the end of the barn to see if the shooting +were going to happen again. I wished then that I had saved the other +barrel. + +All I could do was to shout at him, which made him run off. + +The boys wanted to know if I thought I had killed the hen. On going +out later I found that I had not even hit the coop--not so bad a shot, +after all, taking into account the size of the coop and the thick, +distorting qualities of the weather. + +There is no particular credit to the fox in this, nor do I come in for +any particular credit this time; but the little drama does illustrate +the chances in the game of life, chances that sometimes, usually +indeed, are in favor of the fox. + +He not only got away, but he also got away with eleven out of the +twelve young chicks in that brood. He had dug a hole under the wire of +the coop, then, by waiting his chance, or by frightening the chicks +out, had eaten all of them but one. + +That he escaped this time was sheer luck; that he got his breakfast +before escaping was due to his cunning. And I have seen so many +instances of his cunning that, with my two scientific eyes wide open, I +could believe him almost as wise as he was thought to be in the olden +days of fable and folk-lore. How cool and collected he can be, too! + +One day last autumn I was climbing the steep ridge behind the +mowing-field when I heard a fox-hound yelping over in the hollow +beyond. Getting cautiously to the top of the ridge, I saw the hound +off below me on the side of the parallel ridge across the valley. He +was beating slowly along through the bare sprout-land, and evidently +having a hard time holding the trail. Now and then he would throw his +head up into the air and howl, a long, doleful howl, as if in protest, +begging the fox to stop its fooling and play fair. + +The hound was walking, not running, and at a gait almost as deliberate +as his howl. Round and round in one place he would go, off this way, +off that, then back, until, catching the scent again, or in despair of +ever hitting it (I don't know which), he would stand stock-still and +howl. + +That the hound was tired I felt sure; but that he was on the trail of a +fox I could not believe; and I was watching him curiously when +something stirred on the top of the ridge almost beside me. + +Without turning so much as my head, I saw the fox, a beautiful +creature, going slowly round and round in a circle--in a figure eight, +rather--among the bushes; then straight off it went and back; off again +in another direction and back; then in and out, round and round, +utterly without hurry, until, taking a long leap down the steep +hillside, the wily creature was off at an easy trot. + +The hound did know what he was about. Across the valley, up the ridge, +he worked his sure way, while I held my breath at his accuracy. +Striking the woven circle at the top of the ridge, he began to weave in +and out, back and forth, sniffling and whimpering like a tired child, +beating gradually out into a wider and wider circle, and giving the fox +all the rest it could want, before taking up the lead again and +following on down the trail. + +The hound knew what he was about; but so did the fox: the latter, +moreover, taking the initiative, inventing the trick, leading the run, +and so in the end not only escaping the hound, but also vastly widening +the distance between their respective wits and abilities. + +I recently witnessed a very interesting instance of this superiority of +the fox. One of the best hunters in my neighborhood, a man widely +known for the quality of his hounds, sold a dog, Gingles, an +extraordinarily fine animal, to a hunter in a near-by town. The new +owner brought his dog down here to try him out. + +The hound was sent into the woods and was off in a moment on a warm +trail. But it was not long before the baying ceased, and shortly +after, back came the dog. The new owner was disappointed; but the next +day he returned and started the dog again, only to have the same thing +happen, the dog returning in a little while with a sheepish air of +having been fooled. Over and over the trial was made, when, finally, +the dog was taken back to its trainer as worthless. + +Then both men came out with the dog, the trainer starting him on the +trail and following on after him as fast as he could break his way +through the woods. Suddenly, as in the trials before, the baying +ceased, but before the baffled dog had had time to grow discouraged, +the men came up to find him beating distractedly about in a small, +freshly burned area among the bushes, his nose full of strong ashes, +the trail hopelessly lost. With the help of the men the fox was +dislodged, and the dog carried him on in a course that was to his new +owner's entire satisfaction. + +The fox jumped into the ashes to save himself. Just so have the swifts +left the hollow trees and taken to my chimney, the phoebe to my pigpen, +the swallow to my barn loft, the vireo to my lilac bush, the screech +owls to my apple trees, the red squirrel for its nest to my ice-house, +and the flat-nosed adder to the sandy knoll by my beehives. I have +taken over from its wild inhabitants fourteen acres in Hingham; but, +beginning with the fox, the largest of my wild creatures, and counting +only what we commonly call "animals" (beasts, birds, and reptiles), +there are dwelling with me, being fruitful and multiplying, here on +this small plot of cultivated earth this June day, some seventy species +of wild things--thirty-six in feathers, fourteen in furs (not reckoning +in the muskrat on the other side of the road), twelve in scales, four +in shells, nine in skins (frogs, newts, salamanders)--seventy-five in +all. + +Here is a multiple life going serenely and abundantly on in an +environment whose utter change from the primeval is hardly exaggerated +by phoebe's shift for a nest from a mossy ledge in the heart of the +ancient woods to a joist close up against the hot roof of my pigpen +behind the barn. From this very joist, however, she has already +brought off two broods since March, one of four and one of five. + +As long as pigpens endure, and that shall be as long as the human race +endures, why should not the line of phoebes also endure? The case of +the fox is not quite the same, for he needs more room than a pigpen; +but as long as the domestic hen endures, if we will but give the fox +half the chance we give to phoebe, he too shall endure. + +I had climbed the footpath from the meadow late one autumn evening, and +stood leaning back upon a short hay-fork, looking into the calm +moonlight that lay over the frosted field, and listening to the hounds +baying in the swamp far away to the west of me. You have heard at +night the passing of a train beyond the mountains; the creak of +thole-pins round a distant curve in the river; the closing of a barn +door somewhere down the valley. The far-off cry of the hounds was +another such friendly and human voice calling across the vast of the +night. + +How clear their cries and bell-like! How mellow in the distance, +ringing on the rim of the moonlit sky, round the sides of a swinging +silver bell! Their clanging tongues beat all in unison, the sound +rising and falling through the rolling woodland and spreading like a +curling wave as the pack broke into the open over the level meadows. + +I caught myself picking out the individual voices as they spoke, for an +instant, singly and unmistakable, under the wild excitement of the +drive, then all together, a fiercer, faster chorus as the chase swept +unhindered across the meadows. + +What was that? A twig that broke, some brittle oak leaf that cracked +in the path behind me! I held my breath as a soft sound of padded feet +came up the path, as something stopped, breathed, came on--as into the +moonlight, beyond the circle of shadow in which I stood, walked the fox. + +The dogs were now very near and coming as swift as their eager legs +could carry them. But I was standing still, so still that the fox did +not recognize me as anything more than a stump. + +No, I was more than a stump; that much he saw immediately. But how +much more than a stump? + +The dogs were coming. But what was I? The fox was curious, +interested, and after trying to make me out from a distance, crept +gingerly up and sniffed at my shoes! + +But my shoes had been soaked for an hour in the dew of the meadow and +seemed to tell him little. So he backed off, and sat down upon his +tail in the edge of the pine-tree shadow to watch me. He might have +outwatched me, though I kept amazingly still, but the hounds were +crashing through the underbrush below, and he must needs be off. +Getting carefully up, he trotted first this side of me, then that, for +a better view, then down the path up which he had just come, and into +the very throat of the panting clamor, when, leaping lightly aside over +a pile of brush and stones, he vanished as the dogs broke madly about +me. + +Cool? It was iced! And it was a revelation to me of what may be the +mind of Nature. I have never seen anything in the woods, never had a +glimpse into the heart of Nature, that has given me so much confidence +in the possibility of a permanent alliance between human life and wild +life, in the long endurance yet of our vastly various animal forms in +the midst of spreading farms and dooryards, as this deliberate dodge of +the fox. + +At heart Nature is always just as cool and deliberate, capable always +of taking every advantage. She is not yet past the panic, and probably +never will be; but no one can watch the change of age-long habits in +the wild animals, their ready adaptability, their amazing +resourcefulness, with any very real fears for what civilization may yet +have in store for them so long as our superior wit is for, instead of +against, them. + +I have found myself present, more than once, at an emergency when only +my helping hand could have saved; but the circumstances have seldom +been due to other than natural causes--very rarely man-made. On the +contrary, man-made conditions out of doors--the multiplicity of fences, +gardens, fields, crops, trees, for the primeval uniformity of forest or +prairie--are all in favor of greater variety and more abundance of wild +life (except for the larger forms), because all of this means more +kinds of foods, more sorts of places for lairs and nests, more paths +and short cuts and chances for escape--all things that help preserve +life. + +One morning, about two weeks ago, I was down by the brook along the +road, when I heard a pack of hounds that had been hunting in the woods +all night, bearing down in my direction. + +It was a dripping dawn, everything soaked in dew, the leaf edges +beaded, the grass blades bent with wet, so that instead of creeping +into the bushes to wait for the hunt to drive by, I hurried up the road +to the steep gravel bank, climbed it and sat down, well out of sight, +but where I could see a long stretch of the road. + +On came the chase. I kept my eyes down the road at the spot where the +trout brook turns at the foot of the slope, for here the fox, if on the +meadow side of the brook, would be pretty sure to cross--and there he +stood! + +I had hardly got my eyes upon the spot, when out through a tangle of +wild grapevine he wound, stopped, glanced up and down, then dug his +heels into the dirt, and flew up the road below me and was gone. + +He was a big fellow, but very tired, his coat full of water, his big +brush heavy and dragging with the dripping dew. He was running a race +burdened with a weight of fur almost equal to the weight of a full suit +of water-soaked clothes upon a human runner; and he struck the open +road as if glad to escape from the wallow of wet grass and thicket that +had clogged his long course. + +On came the dogs, very close upon him; and I turned again to the bend +in the brook to see them strike the road, when, flash, below me on the +road, with a rush of feet, a popping of dew-laid dust, the fox!--back +into the very jaws of the hounds!--Instead he broke into the tangle of +grapevines out of which he had first come, just as the pack broke into +the road from _behind_ the mass of thick, ropy vines. + +Those dogs hit the plain trail in the road with a burst of noise and +speed that carried them through the cut below me in a howling gale, a +whirlwind of dust, and down the hill and on. + +Not one of the dogs came back. Their speed had carried them on beyond +the point where the fox had turned in his tracks and doubled his trail, +on so far that though I waited several minutes, not one of the dogs had +discovered the trick to come back on the right lead. + +If I had had a _gun_! Yes, but I did not. But if I _had_ had a gun, +it might have made no particular difference. Yet it is the gun that +makes the difference--all the difference between much or little wild +life--life that our groves and fields may have at our hands now, as +once the forests and prairies had it directly from the hands of the +Lord. + + + + +[Illustration: Our calendar] + +XIII + +OUR CALENDAR + +There are four red-lettered calendars about the house: one with the +Sundays in red; one with Sundays and the legal holidays in red; one with +the Thursdays in red,--Thursday being publication day for the periodical +sending out the calendar,--and one, our own calendar, with several sorts +of days in red--all the high festival days here on Mullein Hill, the last +to be added being the Pup's birthday which falls on September 15. + +Pup's Christian name is Jersey,--because he came to us from that dear +land by express when he was about the size of two pounds of sugar,--an +explanation that in no manner accounts for all we went through in naming +him. The christening hung fire from week to week, everybody calling him +anything, until New Year's. It had to stop here. Returning from the +city New Year's day I found, posted on the stand of my table-lamp, the +cognomen done in red, this declaration:-- + +January 1, 1915 + +No person can call Jersey any other name but JERSEY. If anybody calls +him any other name but Jersey, exceeding five times a day he will have to +clean out his coop two times a day. + + +This was as plain as if it had been written on the wall. Somebody at +last had spoken, and not as the scribes, either. + +We shall celebrate Jersey's first birthday September 15, and already on +the calendar the day is red--red, with the deep deep red of our six +hearts! He is just a dog, a little roughish-haired mixed +Scotch-and-Irish terrier, not big enough yet to wrestle with a woodchuck, +but able to shake our affections as he shakes a rat. And that is because +I am more than half through with my fourscore years and this is my first +dog! And the boys--this is their first dog, too, every stray and tramp +dog that they have brought home, having wandered off again. + +One can hardly imagine what that means exactly. Of course, we have had +other things, chickens and pigs and calves, rabbits, turtles, bantams, +the woods and fields, books and kindling--and I have had Her and the four +boys,--the family that is,--till at times, I will say, I have not felt +the need of anything more. But none of these things is a dog, not even +the boys. A dog is one of man's primal needs. "We want a dog!" had been +a kind of family cry until Babe's last birthday. + +Some six months before that birthday Babe came to me and said:-- + +"Father, will you guess what I want for my birthday?" + +"A new pair of skates with a key fore and aft," I replied. + +"Skates in August!" he shouted in derision. "Try again." + +"A fast-flyer sled with automatic steering-gear and an electric +self-starter and stopper." + +"No. Now, Father,"--and the little face in its Dutch-cut frame sobered +seriously,--"it's something with four legs." + +"A duck," I suggested. + +"That has only two." + +"An armadillo, then." + +"No." + +"A donkey." + +"No." + +"An elephant?" + +"No." + +"An alligator?" + +"No." + +"A h-i-p hip, p-o, po, hippo, p-o-t pot, hippopot, a hippopota, m-u-s +mus--hippopotamus, _that's_ what it is!" + +This had always made him laugh, being the way, as I had told him, that I +learned to spell when I went to school; but to-day there was something +deep and solemn in his heart, and he turned away from my lightness with +close-sealed lips, while his eyes, winking hard, seemed suspiciously +open. I was half inclined to call him back and guess again. But had not +every one of the four boys been making me guess at that four-legged thing +since they could talk about birthdays? And were not the conditions of +our living as unfit now for four-legged things as ever? Besides, they +already had the cow and the pig and a hundred two-legged hens. More live +stock was simply out of the question at present. + +The next day Babe snuggled down beside me at the fire. + +"Father," he said, "have you guessed yet?" + +"Guessed what?" I asked. + +"What I want for my birthday?" + +"A nice little chair to sit before the fire in?" + +"Horrors! a chair! why, I said a four-legged thing." + +"Well, how many legs has a chair?" + +"Father," he said, "has a rocking-chair four legs?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then it must have four feet, hasn't it?" + +"Cert--why--I--don't--know exactly about that," I stammered. "But if you +want a rocking-chair for your birthday, you shall have it, feet or fins, +four legs or two, though I must confess that I don't exactly know, +according to legs, just where a rocking-chair does belong." + +"I don't want any chair, nor anything else with wooden legs." + +"What kind of legs, then?" + +"Bone ones." + +"Why! why! I don't know any bone-legged things." + +"Bones with hair on them." + +"Oh, you want a Teddybear--_you_, and coming eight! Well! Well! But +Teddybears have wire legs, I think, instead of bone." + +The set look settled once more on his little, square face and the talk +ceased. But the fight was on. Day after day, week after week, he had me +guessing--through all the living quadrupeds--through all the fossil +forms--through many that the Lord did not make, but might have made, had +Adam only known enough Greek and Latin to give them names. Gently, +persistently, he kept me guessing as the far-off day drew near, though +long since my only question had been--What breed? August came finally, +and a few days before the 24th we started by automobile for New Jersey. + +We were speeding along the road for Princeton when all four boys leaned +forward from the back seat, and Babe, close in my ear, said:-- + +"Shall I have any birthday down here, Father?" + +"Certainly." + +"Have you guessed _what_ yet?" + +I blew the horn fiercely, opened up the throttle till the words were +snatched from his teeth by the swirling dust behind and conversation was +made impossible. Two days later, the birthday found us at Uncle Joe's. + +Babe was playing with Trouble, the little Scotch-Irish terrier, when +Uncle Joe and I came into the yard. With Trouble in his arms Babe looked +up and asked:-- + +"Uncle Joe, could you guess what four-legged thing I want for my +birthday?" + +"You want a dog," said Uncle Joe, and I caught up the dear child in my +arms and kept back his cries with kisses. + +"And you shall have one, too, if you will give me three or four weeks to +get him for you. Trouble here is the daddy of--goodness! I suppose he +is--of I don't know how many little puppies--but a good many--and I am +giving you one of them right now, for this birthday, only, you will wait +till their mother weans them, of course?" + +"Yes, yes, of course!" + +And so it happened that several weeks later a tiny black-and-tan puppy +with nothing much of a tail came through from New Jersey to Hingham to +hearts that had waited for him very, very long. + +Pup's birthday makes the seventh red-letter day of that kind on the +calendar. These are only the beginning of such days, our own peculiar +days when we keep tryst with ourselves, because in one way or another +these days celebrate some trial or triumph, some deep experience of the +soul. + +There is Melon Day, for example,--a movable feast-day in August, if +indeed it come so early, when we pick the first watermelon. That, you +ask, a deep emotional experience, an affair of the soul? + +This is Massachusetts, dear reader, and I hail from the melon fields of +Jersey. Even there a watermelon, to him who is spiritually minded, who, +walking through a field of the radiant orbs (always buy an elongated +ellipsoid for a real melon), hears them singing as they shine--even to +the Jerseyman, I say, the taste of the season's first melon is of +something out of Eden before the fall. But here in Massachusetts, Ah, +the cold I fight, the drought I fight, the worms I fight, the blight I +fight, the striped bugs I fight, the will-to-die in the very vines +themselves I fight, until at last (once it was the 7th of August!) the +heart inside of one of the green rinds is red with ripeness, and ready to +split at the sight of a knife, answering to the thump with a far-off, +muffled thud,--the family, I say, when that melon is brought in crisp and +cool from the dewy field, is prompt at breakfast, and puts a fervor into +the doxology that morning deeper far than is usual for the mere manna and +quail gathered daily at the grocer's. + +We have been (once) to the circus, but that day is not in red. That is +everybody's day, while the red-letter days on our +calendar--Storm-Door-and-Double-Window Day, for instance; or the day +close to Christmas when we begin, "Marley was dead, to begin with"; or +the Day of the First Snow--these days are peculiarly, privately our own, +and these are red. + + + + +[Illustration: The Fields of Fodder] + +XIV + +THE FIELDS OF FODDER + +It is doubtless due to early associations, to the large part played by +cornfields in my boyhood, that I cannot come upon one now in these New +England farms without a touch of homesickness. It was always the +autumn more than the spring that appealed to me as a child; and there +was something connected with the husking and the shocking of the corn +that took deeper hold upon my imagination than any other single event +of the farm year, a kind of festive joy, something solemnly beautiful +and significant, that to this day makes a field of corn in the shock +not so much the substance of earth's bounty as the symbol of earth's +life, or rather of life--here on the earth as one could wish it to +be--lived to the end, and rich in corn, with its fodder garnered and +set in order over a broad field. + +Perhaps I have added touches to this picture since the days when I was +a boy, but so far back as when I used to hunt out the deeply fluted +cornstalks to turn into fiddles, it was minor notes I played--the notes +of the wind coming over the field of corn-butts and stirring the loose +blades as it moved among the silent shocks. I have more than a memory +of mere corn, of heavy-eared stalks cut and shocked to shed the winter +rain: that, and more, as of the sober end of something, the fulfillment +of some solemn compact between us--between me and the fields and skies. + +Is this too much for a boy to feel? Not if he is father to the man! I +have heard my own small boys, with grave faces, announce that this is +the 21st of June, the longest day of the year--as if the shadows were +already lengthening, even across their morning way. + +If my spirit should return to earth as a flower, it would come a +four-o'clock, or a yellow evening primrose, for only the long afternoon +shadows or falling twilight would waken and spread my petals. No, I +would return an aster or a witch-hazel bush, opening after the corn is +cut, the crops gathered, and the yellow leaves begin to come sighing to +the ground. + +At that word "sighing" many trusting readers will lay this essay down. +They have had more than enough of this brand of pathos from their youth +up. + + "The 'sobbing wind,' the 'weeping rain,'-- + 'Tis time to give the lie + To these old superstitious twain-- + That poets sing and sigh. + + "Taste the sweet drops,--no tang of brine, + Feel them--they do not burn; + The daisy-buds, whereon they shine, + Laugh, and to blossoms turn"-- + +that is, in June they do; but do they in October? There are no daisies +to laugh in October. A few late asters fringe the roadsides; an +occasional bee hums loudly in among them; but there is no sound of +laughter, and no shine of raindrops in the broken hoary seed-stalks +that strew the way. If the daisy-buds _laugh_,--as surely they do in +June,--why should not the wind sob and the rain weep--as surely they +do--in October? There are days of shadow with the days of sunshine; +the seasons have their moods, as we have ours, and why should one be +accused of more sentiment than sense, and of bad rhetoric, too, in +yielding to the spirit of the empty woods till the slow, slanting rain +of October weeps, and the soughing wind comes sobbing through the trees? + +Fall rain, fall steadily, heavily, drearily. Beat off the fading +leaves and flatten them into shapeless patterns on the soaking floor. +Fall and slant and flatten, and, if you will, weep. Blow wind, through +the creaking branches, blow about the whispering corners; parley there +outside my window; whirl and drive the brown leaves into hiding, and if +I am sad, sigh with me and sob. + +May one not indulge in gentle melancholy these closing days of autumn, +and invite the weather in, without being taken to task for it? One +should no more wish to escape from the sobering influence of the +October days than from the joy of the June days, or the thrill in the +wide wonder of the stars. + + + "If winds have wailed and skies wept tears, + To poet's vision dim, + 'T was that his own sobs filled his ears, + His weeping blinded him"-- + +of course! And blessed is the man who finds winds that will wail with +him, and skies that love him enough to weep in sympathy. It saves his +friends and next of kin a great deal of perfunctory weeping. + +There is no month in all the twelve as lovely and loved as October. A +single, glorious June day is close to the full measure of our capacity +for joy; but the heart can hold a month of melancholy and still ache +for more. So it happens that June is only a memory of individual days, +while October is nothing less than a season, a mood, a spirit, a soul, +beautiful, pensive, fugitive. So much is already gone, so many things +seem past, that all the gold of gathered crops and glory on the wooded +hillsides only gild and paint the shadow that sleeps within the very +sunshine of October. + +In June the day itself was the great event. It is not so in October. +Then its coming and going were attended with ceremony and splendor, the +dawn with invisible choirs, the sunset with all the pageantry and pomp +of a regal fete. Now the day has lessened, and breaks tardily and +without a dawn, and with a blend of shadow quickly fades into the +night. The warp of dusk runs through even its sunlit fabric from +daybreak to dark. + +It is this shadow, this wash of haze upon the flaming landscape, this +screen of mist through which the sunlight sifts, that veils the face of +the fields and softens, almost to sadness, the October mood of things. + +For it is the inner mood of things that has changed as well as the +outward face of things. The very heart of the hills feels it. The +hush that fell with the first frost has hardly been broken. The +blackened grass, the blasted vine, have not grown green again. No new +buds are swelling, as after a late frost in spring. Instead, the old +leaves on the limbs rattle and waver down; the cornfield is only an +area of stubs and long lines of yellow shocks; and in the corners of +the meadow fence stand clumps of flower-stalks,--joe-pye-weed, boneset, +goldenrod,--bare and already bleaching; and deep within their matted +shade, where the brook bends about an elder bush, a single amber +pendant of the jewel-weed, to which a bumble-bee comes droning on wings +so loud that a little hyla near us stops his pipe to listen! + +There are other sounds, now that the shrill cry of the hyla is +stilled--the cawing of crows beyond the wood, the scratching of a +beetle in the crisp leaves, the cheep of a prying chickadee, the tiny +chirrup of a cricket in the grass--remnants of sounds from the summer, +and echoes as of single strings left vibrating after the concert is +over and the empty hall is closed. + +But how sweet is the silence! To be so far removed from sounds that +one can hear a single cricket and the creeping of a beetle in the +leaves! Life allows so little margin of silence nowadays. One cannot +sit down in quiet and listen to the small voices; one is obliged to +stand up--in a telephone booth, a pitiful, two-by-two oasis of silence +in life's desert of confusion and din. If October brought one nothing +else but this sweet refuge from noises it would be enough. For the +silence of October, with its peculiar qualities, is pure balm. There +is none of the oppressive stillness that precedes a severe storm, none +of the ominous hush that falls before the first frost, none of the +death-like lack of sound in a bleak snow-buried swamp or pasture, none +of the awesome majesty of quiet in the movement of the midnight stars, +none of the fearful dumbness of the desert, that muteness without bound +or break, eternal--none of these qualities in the sweet silence of +October. I have listened to all of these, and found them answering to +mute tongues within my own soul, deep unto deep; but such moods are +rare--moods that can meet death, that can sweep through the heavens +with the constellations, and that can hold converse with the dumb, +stirless desert; whereas the need for the healing and restoration found +in the serene silence of October is frequent. + +There are voices here, however, many of them; but all subdued, single, +pure, as when the chorus stops, and some rare singer carries the air +on, and up, and far away till it is only soul. + +The joyous confusion and happy tumult of summer are gone; the mating +and singing and fighting are over; the growing and working and +watch-care done; the running even of the sap has ceased; the grip of +the little twigs has relaxed, and the leaves, for very weight of peace, +float off into the air, and all the wood, with empty hands, lies in the +after-summer sun, and dreams. + +With empty hands in the same warm sun I lie and dream. The sounds of +summer have died away; but the roar of coming winter has not yet broken +over the barriers of the north. Above my head stretches a fanlike +branch of witch-hazel, its yellow leaves falling, its tiny, twisted +flowers just curling into bloom. The snow will fall before its yellow +straps have burned crisp and brown. But let it fall. It must melt +again; for as long as these pale embers glow the icy hands of winter +shall slip and lose their hold on the outdoor world. + +And so I dream. The woods are at my back, the level meadow and wide +fields of corn-fodder stretch away in front of me to a flaming ridge of +oak and hickory. The sun is behind me over the woods, and the lazy air +glances with every gauzy wing and flashing insect form that skims the +sleepy meadow. But there is an unusual play of light over the grass, a +glinting of threads that enmesh the air as if the slow-swinging wind +were weaving gossamer of blown silk from the steeple-bush spindles +through the slanting reeds of the sun. + +It is not the wind that weaves; it is a multitude of small spiders. +Here is one close to my face, out at the tip of a slender grass-stem, +holding on with its fore legs and kicking out backward with its hind +legs a tiny skein of web off into the air. The threads stream and sway +and lengthen, gather and fill and billow, and tug at their anchorage +till, caught in the dip of some wayward current, they lift the little +aeronaut from his hangar and bear him away through the sky. + +Long before we dreamed of flight, this little voyager was coasting the +clouds. I can follow him far across the meadow in the cobweb basket as +his filmy balloon floats shimmering over the meadow sea. + +Who taught him navigation? By what compass is he steering? And where +will he come to port? Perhaps his anchor will catch in a hard-hack on +the other side of the pasture; or perhaps some wild air-current will +sweep him over the woodtops, over the Blue Hills, and bear him a +hundred miles away. No matter. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and +there is no port where the wind never blows. + +Yet no such ship would dare put to sea except in this soft and sunny +weather. The autumn seeds are sailing too--the pitching parachutes of +thistle and fall dandelion and wild lettuce, like fleets of tiny yachts +under sail--a breeze from a cut-over ridge in the woods blowing almost +cottony with the soft down of the tall lettuce that has come up thick +in the clearing. + +As I watch the strowing of the winds, my melancholy slips away. One +cannot lie here in the warm but unquickening sun, and see this sower +crossing meadow and cornfield without a vision of waking life, of +fields again all green where now stands the fodder, of woods all full +of song as soon as this sowing and the sleeping of the seeds are done. +The autumn wind goeth forth to sow, and with the most lavish of hands. +He wings his seeds, and weights his seeds, he burrs them, rounds them, +and angles them; they fly and fall, they sink and swim, they stick and +shoot, they pass the millstones of the robins' gizzards for the sake of +a chance to grow. They even lie in wait for me, plucking me by the +coat-sleeve, fastening upon my trousers' leg and holding on until I +have walked with them into my very garden. The cows are forced to +carry them, the squirrel to hide them, the streams to whirl them on +their foaming drift into places where no bird or squirrel or wayward +breeze would go. Not a corner within the horizon but will get its +needed seed, not a nook anywhere, from the wind-swept fodder-field to +the deepest, darkest swamp, but will come to life and flower again with +the coming spring. + +The leaves are falling, the birds are leaving, most of them having +already gone. Soon I shall hear the bugle notes of the last guard as +the Canada geese go over, headed swift and straight for the South. And +yonder stands the fodder, brown and dry, the slanting shocks securely +tied against the beating rains. How can one be melancholy when one +knows the meaning of the fodder, when one is able to find in it his +faith in the seasons, and see in it the beauty and the wisdom which has +been built into the round of the year? + +To him who lacks this faith and understanding let me give a serene +October day in the woods. Go alone, lie down upon a bank where you can +get a large view of earth and sky. "One seems to get nearer to nature +in the early spring days," says Mr. Burroughs. I think not, not if by +nearer you mean closer to the heart and meaning of things. "All +screens are removed, the earth everywhere speaks directly to you; she +is not hidden by verdure and foliage." That is true; yet for most of +us her lips are still dumb with the silence of winter. One cannot come +close to bare, cold earth. There is only one flat, faded expression on +the face of the fields in March; whereas in October there is a settled +peace and sweetness over all the face of Nature, a fullness and a +non-withholding in her heart that makes communication natural and +understanding easy. + +The sap is sinking in the trees, the great tides of life have turned, +but so slowly do they run these soft and fragrant days that they seem +almost still, as at flood. A blue jay is gathering acorns overhead, +letting one drop now and then to roll out of sight and be planted under +the mat of leaves. Troops of migrating warblers flit into and through +the trees, talking quietly among themselves as they search for food, +moving all the while--and to a fixed goal, the far-off South. +Bob-white whistles from the fodder-field; the odor of ripened fox +grapes is brought with a puff of wind from across the pasture; the +smell of mint, of pennyroyal, and of sweet fern crisping in the sun. +These are not the odors of death; but the fragrance of life's very +essence, of life ripened and perfected and fit for storing till another +harvest comes. And these flitting warblers, what are they but another +sign of promise, another proof of the wisdom which is at the heart of +things? And all this glory of hickory and oak, of sumac and creeper, +of burning berries on dogwood and ilex and elder--this sunset of the +seasons--but the preparation for another dawn? + +If one would be folded to the breast of Nature, if one would be pressed +to her beating heart, if one would feel the mother in the soul of +things, let these October days find him in the hills, or where the +river makes into some vast salt marsh, or underneath some ancient tree +with fields of corn in shock and browning pasture slopes that reach and +round themselves along the rim of the sky. + +The sun circles warm above me; and up against the snowy piles of cloud +a broad-winged hawk in lesser circles wheels and flings its piercing +cry far down to me; a fat, dozy woodchuck sticks his head out and eyes +me kindly from his burrow; and close over me, as if I too had grown and +blossomed there, bends a rank, purple-flowered ironweed. We understand +each other; we are children of the same mother, nourished at the same +abundant breast, the weed and I, and the woodchuck, and the wheeling +hawk, and the piled-up clouds, and the shouldering slopes against the +sky--I am brother to them all. And this is home, this earth and +sky--these fruitful fields, and wooded hills, and marshes of reed and +river flowing out to meet the sea. I can ask for no fairer home, none +larger, none of more abundant or more golden corn. If aught is +wanting, if just a tinge of shadow mingles with the rowan-scented haze, +it is the early-falling twilight, the thought of my days, how short +they are, how few of them find me with the freedom of these October +fields, and how soon they must fade into November. + +No, the thought of November does not disturb me. There is one glory of +the sun and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; +for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also are the +months and seasons. And if I watch closely I shall see that not only +are the birds leaving, but the muskrats are building their winter +lodges, the frogs are bedding, the buds putting on their thick, furry +coats--life everywhere preparing for the cold. I need to take the same +precaution,--even in my heart. I will take a day out of October, a day +when the woods are aflame with color, when the winds are so slow that +the spiders are ballooning, and lying where I can see them ascending +and the parachute seeds go drifting by, I will watch until my eyes are +opened to see larger and plainer things go by--the days with the round +of labor until the evening; the seasons with their joyous waking, their +eager living; their abundant fruiting, and then their sleeping--for +they must needs sleep. First the blade, then the ear, after that the +full corn in the ear, and after that the field of fodder. If so with +the corn and the seasons, why not so with life? And what of it all +could be fairer or more desirable than its October?--to lie and look +out over a sunlit meadow to a field of fodder cut and shocked against +the winter with my own hands! + + + + +[Illustration: Going back to town] + +XV + +GOING BACK TO TOWN + +"Labor Day, and school lunches begin to-morrow," She said, carefully +drying one of the "Home Comforts" that had been growing dusty on an +upper shelf since the middle of June. + +She set the three tin lunch-boxes (two for the four boys and one for +me) on the back of the stove and stood looking a moment at them. + +"Are you getting tired of spreading us bread and butter?" I asked. + +She made no reply. + +"If you don't put us up our comforts this year, how are we going to +dispose of all that strawberry jam and currant jelly?" + +"I am not tired of putting up lunches," she answered. "I was just +wondering if this year we ought not to go back to town. Four miles +each way for the boys to school, and twenty each way for you. Are n't +we paying a pretty high price for the hens and the pleasures of being +snowed in?" + +"An enormous price," I affirmed solemnly. + +"And we 've paid it now these dozen winters running. Let's go into +Boston and take that suite of wedge-shaped rooms we looked at last fall +in Hotel Huntington, at the intersection of the Avenue and the railroad +tracks. The boys can count freight cars until they are exhausted, and +watch engines from their windows night and day." + +"It isn't a light matter," she went on. "And we can't settle it by +making it a joke. You need to be near your work; I need to be nearer +human beings; the children need much more rest and freedom than these +long miles to school and these many chores allow them." + +"You 're entirely right, my dear, and this time we 'll do it. Our good +neighbor here will take the cow; I 'll give the cabbages away, and send +for 'Honest Wash' Curtis to come for the hens." + +"But look at all this wild-grape jelly!" she exclaimed, turning to an +array of forty-four little garnet jars which she had just covered with +hot paraffin against the coming winter. + +"And the thirteen bushels of potatoes," I broke in. "And the +apples--there are going to be eight or ten barrels of prime Baldwins +this year. And--" + +But it never comes to an end--it never has yet, for as soon as we +determine to do it, we feel that we can or not, just as we please. +Simply deciding that we will move in yields us such an instant and +actual city sojourn that we seem already to have been and are now +gladly getting back to the country again. + +So here we have stayed summer and winter, knowing that we ought to go +back nearer my work so that I can do more of it; and nearer the center +of social life so we can get more of it--life being pretty much lost +that is not spent in working, or going, or talking! Here we have +stayed even through the winters, exempt from public benefits, blessing +ourselves, every time it snows on Saturday, that we are here and not +there for our week ends, here within the "tumultuous privacy" of the +storm and our own roaring fireplace, with our own apples and popcorn +and books and selves; and when it snows on Monday wishing the weather +would always temper itself and time itself to the peculiar needs of +Mullein Hill--its length of back country road and automobile. + +For an automobile is not a snow-plough, however much gasoline you give +it. Time was when I rode a snow-plough and enjoyed it, as my Neighbor +Jonas rides and enjoys his, feeling that he is plenty fast enough, as +indeed he is, his sense of safety on the way, the absolute certainty +(so far as there can be human certainty) of his arriving sometime, +being compensation enough for the loss of those sensations of speed +induced across one's diaphragm and over one's epidermis by the +automobile. + +Speeding is a disease of the hair follicles, I think, and the great +hallucination of haste under which we move and try to have a being is +seated in the muscles of the diaphragm. Have I not found myself +rushing for a hundred places by automobile that I never should have +started for at all by hayrick or snow-plough, and thus had saved myself +that time wholly? Space is Time's tail and we can't catch it. The +most we can catch, with the speediest car, is a sight of its tip going +around the corner ahead. + +Speed is contagious, and I fear that I have it. I moved away here into +Hingham to escape it, but life in the Hingham hills is not far enough +away to save a man from all that passes along the road. The wind, too, +bloweth where it listeth, and when there is infection on it, you can't +escape by hiding in Hingham--not entirely. And once the sporulating +speed germs get into your system, it is as if Anopheles had bitten you, +their multiplying and bursting into the blood occurring regularly, +accompanied by a chill at two cylinders and followed by a fever for +four; a chill at four and a fever for six--eight--twelve, just like +malaria! + +We all have it, all but Neighbor Jonas. He has instead a "stavin'" +good mare by the name of Bill. Bill is speedy. She sprang, years ago, +from fast stock, as you would know if you held the cultivator behind +her. When she comes to harrow the garden, Jonas must needs come with +her to say "Whoa!" all the way, and otherwise admonish and exhort her +into remembering that the cultivator is not a trotting-sulky, and that +a row of beets is not a half-mile track. But the hard highways hurt +Bill's feet, so that Jonas nowadays takes every automobile's dust, and +none too sweetly either. + +"Jonas," I said, as Bill was cooling off at the end of a row, "why +don't you get an automobile?" + +"I take the eggs down to the store every two weeks and get a shave; but +I don't need a car much, havin' Bill," he replied, smashing a vicious +greenhead on Bill's withers that was keeping her mixed up with the +traces and the teeth of the harrow. "Besides, they 're skittish, +nervous things compared with a hoss. What I 'd like is something +neither one nor t'other--a sort of cross between an auto and Bill." + +"Why not get a Ford car, then," I asked, "with a cultivator attachment? +It would n't step on as many hills in the row as Bill does, and I think +it would beat Bill on the road." + +There was a cluck, a jump, and we were off down another row, with Jonas +saying:-- + +"Not yet. Bill is still fast enough for me." + +And for me, too; yet there is no denying that conditions have changed, +that a multitude of new ills have been introduced into the social +organism by the automobile, and except in the deep drifts of winter, +the Ford car comes nearer curing those ills than any other anti-toxin +yet discovered. + +But here are the drifts still; and here is the old question of going +back to the city to escape them. I shall sometimes wish we had gone +back as I start out on a snowy, blowy morning; but never at night as I +turn back--there is that difference between going to the city and going +home. I often think the trip in is worth while for the sake of the +trip out, such joy is it to pull in from the black, soughing woods to +the cheer of the house, stamping the powdery snow off your boots and +greatcoat to the sweet din of welcomes that drown the howling of the +wind outside. + +Once last winter I had to walk from the station. The snow was deep and +falling steadily when I left the house in the morning, with increasing +wind and thickening storm all day, so that my afternoon train out was +delayed and dropped me at the station long after dark. The roads were +blocked, the snow was knee-deep, the driving wind was horizontal, and +the whirling ice particles like sharp sand, stinging, blinding as I +bent to the road. + +I went forward leaning, the drag in my feet overcome by the pull of the +level wind on my slant body. Once through the long stretch of woods I +tried to cut across the fields. Here I lost my bearings, stumbled into +a ditch, and for a moment got utterly confused with the black of the +night, the bite of the cold, and the smothering hand of the wind on my +mouth. + +Then I sat down where I was to pull myself together. There might be +danger in such a situation, but I was not really cold--not cool enough. +I had been forcing the fight foolishly, head-on, by a frontal attack +instead of on the enemy's flank. + +Here in the meadow I was exposed to the full force of the sweeping +gale, and here I realized for the first time that this was the great +storm of the winter, one of the supreme passages of the year, and one +of the glorious physical fights of a lifetime. + +On a prairie, or in the treeless barrens and tundras of the vast, +frozen North, a fight like this could have but one end. What must the +wild polar night be like! What the will, the thrill of men like Scott +and Peary who have fought these forces to a standstill at the very +poles! Their craft, their cunning, their daring, their imagination! +The sway, the drive, the divine madness of such a purpose! A living +atom creeping across the ice-cap over the top of the world! A human +mote, so smothered in the Arctic dark and storm, so wide of the utmost +shore of men, by a trail so far and filled and faint that only God can +follow! + +It is not what a man does, but what he lives through doing it. Life +may be safer, easier, longer, and fuller of possessions in one place +than another. But possessions do not measure life, nor years, nor +ease, nor safety. Life in the Hingham hills in winter is wretchedly +remote at times, but nothing happens to me all day long in Boston to be +compared for a moment with this experience here in the night and snow. +I never feel the largeness of the sky there, nor the wideness of the +world, nor the loveliness of night, nor the fearful majesty of such a +winter storm. + +As the far-flung lines swept down upon me and bore me back into the +drift, I knew somewhat the fierce delight of berg and floe and that +primordial dark about the poles, and springing from my trench, I flung +myself single-handed and exultant against the double fronts of night +and storm, mightier than they, till weak, but victorious, I dragged +myself to the door of a neighboring farmhouse, the voice of the storm a +mighty song within my soul. + +This happened, as I say, _once_ last winter, and of course she said we +simply ought _not_ to live in such a place in winter; and of course, if +anything exactly like that should occur every winter night, I should +have to move into the city whether I liked city storms or not. One's +life is, to be sure, a consideration, but fortunately for life all the +winter days out here are not so magnificently ordered as this, except +at dawn each morning, and at dusk, and at midnight when the skies are +set with stars. + +But there is a largeness to the quality of country life, a freshness +and splendor as constant as the horizon and a very part of it. + +Take a day anywhere in the year: that day in March--the day of the +first frogs, when spring and winter meet; or that day in the fall--the +day of the first frost, when autumn and winter meet; or that day in +August--the day of the full-blown goldenrod, when summer and autumn +meet--_these_, together with the days of June, and more especially that +particular day in June when you can't tell earth from heaven, when +everything is life and love and song, and the very turtles of the pond +are moved from their lily-pads to wander the upland slopes to lay--the +day when spring and summer meet! + +Or if these seem rare days, try again anywhere in the calendar from the +rainy day in February when the thaw begins to Indian summer and the day +of floating thistledown, and the cruising fleets of wild lettuce and +silky-sailed fireweed on the golden air. The big soft clouds are +sailing their wider sea; the sweet sunshine, the lesser winds, the +chickadees and kinglets linger with you in your sheltered hollow +against the hill--you and they for yet a little slumber, a little sleep +before there breaks upon you the wrath of the North. + +But is this sweet, slumberous, half-melancholy day any nearer perfect +than that day when + + "Announced by all the trumpets of the sky + Arrives the snow"-- + +or the blizzard? + +But going back to town, as she intimated, concerns the children quite +as much as me. They travel eight miles a day to get to school, part of +it on foot and part of it by street car--and were absent one day last +year when the telephone wires were down and we thought there would be +no school because of the snow. They might not have missed that one day +had we been in the city, and I must think of that when it comes time to +go back. There is room for them in the city to improve in spelling and +penmanship too, vastly to improve. But they could n't have half so +much fun there as here, nor half so many things to do, simple, +healthful, homely, interesting things to do, as good for them as books +and food and sleep--these last things to be had here, too, in great +abundance. + +What could take the place of the cow and hens in the city? The hens +are Mansie's (he is the oldest) and the cow is mine. But night after +night last winter I would climb the Hill to see the barn lighted, and +in the shadowy stall two little human figures--one squat on an upturned +bucket milking, his milk-pail, too large to be held between his knees, +lodged perilously under the cow upon a half-peck measure; the other +little human figure quietly holding the cow's tail. + +No head is turned; not a squeeze is missed--this is _business_ here in +the stall,--but as the car stops behind the scene, Babe calls-- + +"Hello, Father!" + +"Hello, Babe!" + +"Three teats done," calls Mansie, his head down, butting into the old +cow's flank. "You go right in, we 'll be there. She has n't kicked +but once!" + +Perhaps that is n't a good thing for those two little boys to +do--watering, feeding, brushing, milking the cow on a winter night in +order to save me--and loving to! Perhaps that is n't a good thing for +me to see them doing, as I get home from the city on a winter night! + +But I am a sentimentalist and not proof at all against two little boys +milking, who are liable to fall into the pail. + +Meantime the two middlers had shoveled out the road down to the +mail-box on the street so that I ran up on bare earth, the very wheels +of the car conscious of the love behind the shovels, of the speed and +energy it took to get the long job done before I should arrive. + +"How did she come up?" calls Beebum as he opens the house door for me, +his cheeks still glowing with the cold and exercise. + +"Did we give you wide enough swing at the bend?" cries Bitsie, seizing +the bag of bananas. + +"Oh, we sailed up--took that curve like a bird--didn't need +chains--just like a boulevard right into the barn!" + +"It's a fearful night out, is n't it?" she says, taking both of my +hands in hers, a touch of awe, a note of thankfulness in her voice. + +"Bad night in Boston!" I exclaim. "Trains late, cars stalled--streets +blocked with snow. I 'm mighty glad to be out here a night like this." + +"Woof! Woof!"--And Babe and Pup are at the kitchen door with the pail +of milk, shaking themselves free from snow. + +"Where is Mansie?" his mother asks. + +"He just ran down to have a last look at his chickens." + +We sit down to dinner, but Mansie does n't come. The wind whistles +outside, the snow sweeps up against the windows,--the night grows +wilder and fiercer. + +"Why doesn't Mansie come?" his mother asks, looking at me. + +"Oh, he can't shut the hen-house doors, for the snow. He 'll be here +in a moment." + +The meal goes on. + +"Will you go out and see what is the matter with the child?" she asks, +the look of anxiety changing to one of alarm on her face. + +As I am rising there is a racket in the cellar and the child soon comes +blinking into the lighted dining-room, his hair dusty with snow, his +cheeks blazing, his eyes afire. He slips into his place with just a +hint of apology about him and reaches for his cup of fresh, warm milk. + +He is twelve years old. + +"What does this mean, Mansie?" she says. + +"Nothing." + +"You are late for dinner. And who knows what had happened to you out +there in the trees a night like this. What were you doing?" + +"Shutting up the chickens." + +"But you did shut them up early in the afternoon." + +"Yes, mother." + +"Well?" + +"It's awful cold, mother!" + +"Yes?" + +"They might freeze!" + +"Yes?" + +"Specially those little ones." + +"Yes, I know, but what took you so long?" + +"I did n't want 'em to freeze." + +"Yes?" + +"So I took a little one and put it on the roost in between two big +hens--a little one and a big one, a little one and a big one, to keep +the little ones warm; and it took a lot of time." + +"Will you have another cup of warm milk?" she asks, pouring him more +from the pitcher, doing very well with her lips and eyes, it seemed to +me, considering how she ran the cup over. + +Shall I take them back to the city for the winter--away from their +chickens, and cow and dog and pig and work-bench and haymow and +fireside, and the open air and their wild neighbors and the wilder +nights that I remember as a child? + + "There it a pleasure in the pathless woods, + There is a rapture on the lonely shore, + There is society where none intrudes, + By the deep sea--and music in its roar." + +Once they have known all of this I can take them into town and not +spoil the poet in them. + +"Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better +than games. Keep him in the open air. Above all, you must guard him +against indolence. Make him a strenuous man. The great God has called +me. Take comfort in that I die in peace with the world and myself and +not afraid"--from the last letter of Captain Scott to his wife, as he +lay watching the approach of death in the Antarctic cold. His own end +was nigh, but the infant son, in whose life he should never take a +father's part, what should be his last word for him? + +"Make our boy interested in natural history if you can. It is better +than games. Keep him in the open air." + +Those are solemn words, and they carry a message of deep significance. +I have watched my own boys; I recall my own boyhood; and I believe the +words are true. So thoroughly do I believe in the physical and moral +value of the outdoors for children, the open fields and woods, that +before my children were all born I brought them here into the country. +Here they shall grow as the weeds and flowers grow, and in the same +fields with them; here they shall play as the young foxes and +woodchucks play, and on the same bushy hillsides with them--summer and +winter. + +Games are natural and good. It is a stick of a boy who won't be "it." +But there are better things than games, more lasting, more developing, +more educating. Kittens and puppies and children play; but children +should have, and may have, other and better things to do than puppies +and kittens can do; for they are not going to grow up into dogs and +cats. + +Once awaken a love for the woods in the heart of a child, and something +has passed into him that the evil days, when they come, shall have to +reckon with. Let me take my children into the country to live, if I +can. Or if I cannot, then let me take them on holidays, or, if it must +be, on Sunday mornings with me, for a tramp. + +I bless those Sunday-morning tramps to the Tumbling Dam Woods, to +Sheppard's Mills, to Cubby Hollow, to Cohansey Creek Meadows, that I +was taken upon as a lad of twelve. We would start out early, and deep +in the woods, or by some pond or stream, or out upon the wide meadows, +we would wait, and watch the ways of wild things--the little marsh +wrens bubbling in the calamus and cattails, the young minks at play, +the big pond turtles on their sunning logs--these and more, a multitude +more. Here we would eat our crackers and the wild berries or buds that +we could find, and with the sunset turn back toward home. + +We saw this and that, single deep impressions, that I shall always +remember. But better than any single sight, any sweet sound or smell, +was the sense of companionship with my human guide, and the sense that +I loved + + "not man the less, but nature more, + From these our interviews." + +If we _do_ move into town this winter, it won't be because the boys +wish to go. + + + + +[Illustration: The Christmas tree] + +XVI + +THE CHRISTMAS TREE + +We shall not go back to town before Christmas, any way. They have a +big Christmas tree on the Common, but the boys declare they had rather +have their own Christmas tree, no matter how small; rather go into the +woods and mark it weeks ahead, as we always do, and then go bring it +home the day before, than to look at the tallest spruce that the Mayor +could fetch out of the forests of Maine and set up on the Common. +Where do such simple-minded children live, and in such primitive +conditions that they can carry an axe into the woods these days and cut +their own Christmas tree? Here on the Hills of Hingham, almost twenty +miles from Boston. + +I hope it snows this Christmas as it did last. How it snowed! All day +we waited a lull in the gale, for our tree was still uncut, still out +in the Shanty-Field Woods. But all day long it blew, and all day long +the dry drifts swirled and eddied into the deep hollows and piled +themselves across the ridge road into bluffs and headlands that had to +be cut and tunneled through. As the afternoon wore on, the storm +steadied. The wind came gloriously through the tall woods, driving the +mingled snow and shadow till the field and the very barn were blotted +out. + +"We _must_ go!" was the cry. "We'll have no Christmas tree!" + +"But this is impossible. We could never carry it home through all +this, even if we could find it." + +"But we 've marked it!" + +"You mean you have devoted it, hallowed it, you little Aztecs! Do you +think the tree will mind?" + +"Why--yes. Wouldn't you mind, father, if you were a tree and marked +for Christmas and nobody came for you?" + +"Perhaps I would--yes, I think you 're right. It is too bad. But we +'ll have to wait." + +We waited and waited, and for once they went to bed on Christmas Eve +with their tree uncut. They had hardly gone, however, when I took the +axe and the lantern (for safety) and started up the ridge for the +devoted tree. I found it; got it on my shoulder; and long after nine +o'clock--as snowy and as weary an old Chris as ever descended a +chimney--came dragging in the tree. + +We got to bed late that night--as all parents ought on the night before +Christmas; but Old Chris himself, soundest of sleepers, never slept +sounder! And what a Christmas Day we had. What a tree it was! Who +got it? How? No, old Chris did n't bring it--not when two of the boys +came floundering in from a walk that afternoon saying they had tracked +me from the cellar door clear out to the tree-stump--where they found +my axe! + +I hope it snows. Christmas ought to have snow; as it ought to have +holly and candles and stockings and mistletoe and a tree. I wonder if +England will send us mistletoe this year? Perhaps we shall have to use +our home-grown; but then, mistletoe is mistletoe, and one is n't asking +one's self what kind of mistletoe hangs overhead when one chances to +get under the chandelier. They tell me there are going to be no toys +this year, none of old Chris's kind but only weird, fierce, +Fourth-of-July things from Japan. "Christmas comes but once a year," +my elders used to say to me--a strange, hard saying; yet not so strange +and hard as the feeling that somehow, this year, Christmas may not come +at all. I never felt that way before. It will never do; and I shall +hang up my stocking. Of course they will have a tree at church for the +children, as they did last year, but will the choir sing this year, +"While shepherds watched their flock by night" and "Hark! the herald +angels sing"? + +I have grown suddenly old. The child that used to be in me is with the +ghost of Christmas Past, and I am partner now with Scrooge, taking old +Marley's place. The choir may sing; but-- + + "The lonely mountains o'er + And the resounding shore + A voice of weeping heard and loud lament!" + + +I cannot hear the angels, nor see, for the flames of burning cities, +their shining ranks descend the sky. + + "No war, or battle's sound, + Was heard the world around; + The idle spear and shield were high uphung" + +on that first Christmas Eve. What has happened since then--since I was +a child?--since last Christmas, when I still believed in Christmas, and +sang with the choir, "Noel! Noel!"? + +But I am confusing sentiment and faith. If I cannot sing peace on +earth, I still believe in it; if I cannot hear the angels, I know that +the Christ was born, and that Christmas is coming. It will not be a +very merry Christmas; but it shall be a most significant, most solemn, +most holy Christmas. + +The Yule logs, as the Yule-tide songs, will be fewer this year. Many a +window, bright with candles a year ago, will be darkened. There will +be no goose at the Cratchits', for both Bob and Master Cratchit have +gone to the front. But Tiny Tim is left, and the Christ Child is left, +and my child is left, and yours--even your dear dreamchild "upon the +tedious shores of Lethe" that always comes back at Christmas. It takes +only one little child to make Christmas--one little child, and the +angels who companion him, and the shepherds who come to see him, and +the Wise Men who worship him and bring him gifts. + +We can have Christmas, for unto us again, as truly as in Bethlehem of +Judea, a child is born on whose shoulders shall be the government and +whose name is the Prince of Peace. + +Christ is reborn with every child, and Christmas is his festival. +Come, let us keep it for his sake; for the children's sake; for the +sake of the little child that we must become before we can enter into +the Kingdom of Heaven. It is neither kings nor kaisers, but a little +child that shall lead us finally. And long after the round-lipped +cannons have ceased to roar, we shall hear the Christmas song of the +Angels. + + "But see! the Virgin blest + Hath laid her Babe to rest--" + +Come, softly, swiftly, dress up the tree, hang high the largest +stockings; bring out the toys--softly! + +I hope it snows. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Hills of Hingham, by Dallas Lore Sharp + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HILLS OF HINGHAM *** + +***** This file should be named 18664.txt or 18664.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/6/6/18664/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +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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