{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_10605/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_10605","id":"gutenberg_10605","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10605","summary":null,"tags":["Amherst Region (Mass.) -- Social life and customs","Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Nature/Gardening/Animals","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Country life -- Massachusetts -- Amherst Region","Grayson, David, 1870-1946 -- Homes and haunts -- Massachusetts -- Amherst Region","Massachusetts -- Intellectual life -- 20th century"],"text":"[*Note: Please Credit to Sjaani]\n\n\n_ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT_\n\nDavid Grayson\n\n\n\nI\n\n\n\"THE BURDEN OF THE VALLEY OF VISION\"\n\nI came here eight years ago as the renter of this farm, of which soon\nafterward I became the owner. The time before that I like to forget. The\nchief impression it left, upon my memory, now happily growing\nindistinct, is of being hurried faster than I could well travel. From\nthe moment, as a boy of seventeen, I first began to pay my own way, my\ndays were ordered by an inscrutable power which drove me hourly to my\ntask. I was rarely allowed to look up or down, but always forward,\ntoward that vague Success which we Americans love to glorify.\n\nMy senses, my nerves, even my muscles were continually strained to the\nutmost of attainment. If I loitered or paused by the wayside, as it\nseems natural for me to do, I soon heard the sharp crack of the lash.\nFor many years, and I can say it truthfully, I never rested. I neither\nthought nor reflected. I had no pleasure, even though I pursued it\nfiercely during the brief respite of vacations. Through many feverish\nyears I did not work: I merely produced.\n\nThe only real thing I did was to hurry as though every moment were my\nlast, as though the world, which now seems so rich in everything, held\nonly one prize which might be seized upon before I arrived. Since then I\nhave tried to recall, like one who struggles to restore the visions of a\nfever, what it was that I ran to attain, or why I should have borne\nwithout rebellion such indignities to soul and body. That life seems\nnow, of all illusions, the most distant and unreal. It is like the\nunguessed eternity before we are born: not of concern compared with that\neternity upon which we are now embarked.\n\nAll these things happened in cities and among crowds. I like to forget\nthem. They smack of that slavery of the spirit which is so much worse\nthan any mere slavery of the body.\n\nOne day--it was in April, I remember, and the soft maples in the city\npark were just beginning to blossom--I stopped suddenly. I did not\nintend to stop. I confess in humiliation that it was no courage, no will\nof my own. I intended to go on toward Success: but Fate stopped me. It\nwas as if I had been thrown violently from a moving planet: all the\nuniverse streamed around me and past me. It seemed to me that of all\nanimate creation, I was the only thing that was still or silent. Until I\nstopped I had not known the pace I ran; and I had a vague sympathy and\nunderstanding, never felt before, for those who left the running. I lay\nprostrate with fever and close to death for weeks and watched the world\ngo by: the dust, the noise, the very colour of haste. The only sharp\npang that I suffered was the feeling that I should be broken-hearted and\nthat I was not; that I should care and that I did not. It was as though\nI had died and escaped all further responsibility. I even watched with\ndim equanimity my friends racing past me, panting as they ran. Some of\nthem paused an instant to comfort me where I lay, but I could see that\ntheir minds were still upon the running and I was glad when they went\naway. I cannot tell with what weariness their haste oppressed me. As for\nthem, they somehow blamed me for dropping out. I knew. Until we\nourselves understand, we accept no excuse from the man who stops. While\nI felt it all, I was not bitter. I did not seem to care. I said to\nmyself: \"This is Unfitness. I survive no longer. So be it.\"\n\nThus I lay, and presently I began to hunger and thirst. Desire rose\nwithin me: the indescribable longing of the convalescent for the food of\nrecovery. So I lay, questioning wearily what it was that I required. One\nmorning I wakened with a strange, new joy in my soul. It came to me at\nthat moment with indescribable poignancy, the thought of walking\nbarefoot in cool, fresh plow furrows as I had once done when a boy. So\nvividly the memory came to me--the high airy world as it was at that\nmoment, and the boy I was walking free in the furrows--that the weak\ntears filled my eyes, the first I had shed in many years. Then I thought\nof sitting in quiet thickets in old fence corners, the wood behind me\nrising still, cool, mysterious, and the fields in front stretching away\nin illimitable pleasantness. I thought of the good smell of cows at\nmilking--you do not know, if you do not know!--I thought of the sights\nand sounds, the heat and sweat of the hay fields. I thought of a certain\nbrook I knew when a boy that flowed among alders and wild parsnips,\nwhere I waded with a three-foot rod for trout. I thought of all these\nthings as a man thinks of his first love. Oh, I craved the soil. I\nhungered and thirsted for the earth. I was greedy for growing things.\n\nAnd thus, eight years ago, I came here like one sore-wounded creeping\nfrom the field of battle. I remember walking in the sunshine, weak yet,\nbut curiously satisfied. I that was dead lived again. It came to me then\nwith a curious certainty, not since so assuring, that I understood the\nchief marvel of nature hidden within the Story of the Resurrection, the\nmarvel of plant and seed, father and son, the wonder of the seasons, the\nmiracle of life. I, too, had died: I had lain long in darkness, and now\nI had risen again upon the sweet earth. And I possessed beyond others a\nknowledge of a former existence, which I knew, even then, I could never\nreturn to.\n\nFor a time, in the new life, I was happy to drunkenness--working,\neating, sleeping. I was an animal again, let out to run in green\npastures. I was glad of the sunrise and the sunset. I was glad at noon.\nIt delighted me when my muscles ached with work and when, after supper,\nI could not keep my eyes open for sheer weariness. And sometimes I was\nawakened in the night out of a sound sleep--seemingly by the very\nsilences--and lay in a sort of bodily comfort impossible to describe.\n\nI did not want to feel or to think: I merely wanted to live. In the sun\nor the rain I wanted to go out and come in, and never again know the\npain of the unquiet spirit. I looked forward to an awakening not without\ndread for we are as helpless before birth as in the presence of death.\n\nBut like all birth, it came, at last, suddenly. All that summer I had\nworked in a sort of animal content. Autumn had now come, late autumn,\nwith coolness in the evening air. I was plowing in my upper field--not\nthen mine in fact--and it was a soft afternoon with the earth turning up\nmoist and fragrant. I had been walking the furrows all day long. I had\ntaken note, as though my life depended upon it, of the occasional stones\nor roots in my field, I made sure of the adjustment of the harness, I\ndrove with peculiar care to save the horses. With such simple details of\nthe work in hand I had found it my joy to occupy my mind. Up to that\nmoment the most important things in the world had seemed a straight\nfurrow and well-turned corners--to me, then, a profound accomplishment.\n\nI cannot well describe it, save by the analogy of an opening door\nsomewhere within the house of my consciousness. I had been in the dark:\nI seemed to emerge. I had been bound down: I seemed to leap up--and with\na marvellous sudden sense of freedom and joy.\n\nI stopped there in my field and looked up. And it was as if I had never\nlooked up before. I discovered another world. It had been there before,\nfor long and long, but I had never seen nor felt it. All discoveries are\nmade in that way: a man finds the new thing, not in nature but in\nhimself.\n\nIt was as though, concerned with plow and harness and furrow, I had\nnever known that the world had height or colour or sweet sounds, or\nthat there was _feeling_ in a hillside. I forgot myself, or where I was.\nI stood a long time motionless. My dominant feeling, if I can at all\nexpress it, was of a strange new friendliness, a warmth, as though these\nhills, this field about me, the woods, had suddenly spoken to me and\ncaressed me. It was as though I had been accepted in membership, as\nthough I was now recognised, after long trial, as belonging here.\n\nAcross the town road which separates my farm from my nearest\nneighbour's, I saw a field, familiar, yet strangely new and unfamiliar,\nlying up to the setting sun, all red with autumn, above it the\nincalculable heights of the sky, blue, but not quite clear, owing to the\nIndian summer haze. I cannot convey the sweetness and softness of that\nlandscape, the airiness of it, the mystery of it, as it came to me at\nthat moment. It was as though, looking at an acquaintance long known, I\nshould discover that I loved him. As I stood there I was conscious of\nthe cool tang of burning leaves and brush heaps, the lazy smoke of which\nfloated down the long valley and found me in my field, and finally I\nheard, as though the sounds were then made for the first time, all the\nvague murmurs of the country side--a cow-bell somewhere in the distance,\nthe creak of a wagon, the blurred evening hum of birds, insects, frogs.\nSo much it means for a man to stop and look up from his task. So I\nstood, and I looked up and down with a glow and a thrill which I cannot\nnow look back upon without some envy and a little amusement at the very\ngrandness and seriousness of it all. And I said aloud to myself:\n\n\"I will be as broad as the earth. I will not be limited.\"\n\nThus I was born into the present world, and here I continue, not knowing\nwhat other world I may yet achieve. I do not know, but I wait in\nexpectancy, keeping my furrows straight and my corners well turned.\nSince that day in the field, though my fences include no more acres, and\nI still plow my own fields, my real domain has expanded until I crop\nwide fields and take the profit of many curious pastures. From my farm I\ncan see most of the world; and if I wait here long enough all people\npass this way.\n\nAnd I look out upon them not in the surroundings which they have chosen\nfor themselves, but from the vantage ground of my familiar world. The\nsymbols which meant so much in cities mean little here. Sometimes it\nseems to me as though I saw men naked. They come and stand beside my\noak, and the oak passes solemn judgment; they tread my furrows and the\nclods give silent evidence; they touch the green blades of my corn, the\ncorn whispers its sure conclusions. Stern judgments that will be\ndeceived by no symbols!\n\nThus I have delighted, secretly, in calling myself an unlimited farmer,\nand I make this confession in answer to the inner and truthful demand of\nthe soul that we are not, after all, the slaves of things, whether corn,\nor banknotes, or spindles; that we are not the used, but the users; that\nlife is more than profit and loss. And so I shall expect that while I am\ntalking farm some of you may be thinking dry goods, banking, literature,\ncarpentry, or what-not. But if you can say: I am an unlimited dry goods\nmerchant, I am an unlimited carpenter, I will give you an old-fashioned\ncountry hand-shake, strong and warm. We are friends; our orbits\ncoincide.\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nI BUY A FARM\n\nAs I have said, when I came here I came as a renter, working all of the\nfirst summer without that \"open vision\" of which the prophet Samuel\nspeaks. I had no memory of the past and no hope of the future. I fed\nupon the moment. My sister Harriet kept the house and I looked after the\nfarm and the fields. In all those months I hardly knew that I had\nneighbours, although Horace, from whom I rented my place, was not\ninfrequently a visitor. He has since said that I looked at him as though\nhe were a \"statute.\" I was \"citified,\" Horace said; and \"citified\" with\nus here in the country is nearly the limit of invective, though not\nviolent enough to discourage such a gift of sociability as his. The\nScotch Preacher, the rarest, kindest man I know, called once or twice,\nwearing the air of formality which so ill becomes him. I saw nothing in\nhim: it was my fault, not his, that I missed so many weeks of his\nfriendship. Once in that time the Professor crossed my fields with his\ntin box slung from his shoulder; and the only feeling I had, born of\ncrowded cities, was that this was an intrusion upon my property.\nIntrusion: and the Professor! It is now unthinkable. I often passed the\nCarpentry Shop on my way to town. I saw Baxter many times at his bench.\nEven then Baxter's eyes attracted me: he always glanced up at me as I\npassed, and his look had in it something of a caress. So the home of\nStarkweather, standing aloof among its broad lawns and tall trees,\ncarried no meaning for me.\n\nOf all my neighbours, Horace is the nearest. From the back door of my\nhouse, looking over the hill, I can see the two red chimneys of his\nhome, and the top of the windmill. Horace's barn and corn silo are more\npretentious by far than his house, but fortunately they stand on lower\nground, where they are not visible from my side of the hill. Five\nminutes' walk in a straight line across the fields brings me to Horace's\ndoor; by the road it takes at least ten minutes.\n\nIn the fall after my arrival I had come to love the farm and its\nsurroundings so much that I decided to have it for my own. I did not\nlook ahead to being a farmer. I did not ask Harriet's advice. I found\nmyself sitting one day in the justice's office. The justice was bald and\nas dry as corn fodder in March. He sat with spectacled impressiveness\nbehind his ink-stained table. Horace hitched his heel on the round of\nhis chair and put his hat on his knee. He wore his best coat and his\nhair was brushed in deference to the occasion. He looked uncomfortable,\nbut important. I sat opposite him, somewhat overwhelmed by the business\nin hand. I felt like an inadequate boy measured against solemnities too\nlarge for him. The processes seemed curiously unconvincing, like a game\nin which the important part is to keep from laughing; and yet when I\nthought of laughing I felt cold chills of horror. If I had laughed at\nthat moment I cannot think what that justice would have said! But it was\na pleasure to have the old man read the deed, looking at me over his\nspectacles from time to time to make sure I was not playing truant.\nThere are good and great words in a deed. One of them I brought away\nwith me from the conference, a very fine, big one, which I love to have\nout now and again to remind me of the really serious things of life. It\ngives me a peculiar dry, legal feeling. If I am about to enter upon a\nserious bargain, like the sale of a cow, I am more avaricious if I work\nwith it under my tongue.\n\nHereditaments! Hereditaments!\n\nSome words need to be fenced in, pig-tight, so that they cannot escape\nus; others we prefer to have running at large, indefinite but inclusive.\nI would not look up that word for anything: I might find it fenced in so\nthat it could not mean to me all that it does now.\n\nHereditaments! May there be many of them--or it!\n\nIs it not a fine Providence that gives us different things to love? In\nthe purchase of my farm both Horace and I got the better of the\nbargain--and yet neither was cheated. In reality a fairly strong lantern\nlight will shine through Horace, and I could see that he was hugging\nhimself with the joy of his bargain; but I was content. I had some money\nleft--what more does anyone want after a bargain?--and I had come into\npossession of the thing I desired most of all. Looking at bargains from\na purely commercial point of view, someone is always cheated, but looked\nat with the simple eye both seller and buyer always win.\n\nWe came away from the gravity of that bargaining in Horace's wagon. On\nour way home Horace gave me fatherly advice about using my farm. He\nspoke from the height of his knowledge to me, a humble beginner. The\nconversation ran something like this:\n\nHORACE: Thar's a clump of plum trees along the lower pasture fence.\nPerhaps you saw 'm----\n\nMYSELF: I saw them: that is one reason I bought the back pasture. In May\nthey will be full of blossoms.\n\nHORACE: They're _wild_ plums: they ain't good for nothing.\n\nMYSELF: But think how fine they will be all the year round.\n\nHORACE: Fine! They take up a quarter-acre of good land. I've been going\nto cut 'em myself this ten years.\n\nMYSELF: I don't think I shall want them cut out.\n\nHORACE: Humph.\n\nAfter a pause:\n\nHORACE: There's a lot of good body cord-wood in that oak on the knoll.\n\nMYSELF: Cord-wood! Why, that oak is the treasure of the whole farm, I\nhave never seen a finer one. I could not think of cutting it.\n\nHORACE: It will bring you fifteen or twenty dollars cash in hand.\n\nMYSELF: But I rather have the oak.\n\nHORACE: Humph.\n\nSo our conversation continued for some time. I let Horace know that I\npreferred rail fences, even old ones, to a wire fence, and that I\nthought a farm should not be too large, else it might keep one away from\nhis friends. And what, I asked, is corn compared with a friend? Oh, I\ngrew really oratorical! I gave it as my opinion that there should be\nvines around the house (Waste of time, said Horace), and that no farmer\nshould permit anyone to paint medicine advertisements on his barn\n(Brings you ten dollars a year, said Horace), and that I proposed to fix\nthe bridge on the lower road (What's a path-master for? asked Horace). I\nsaid that a town was a useful adjunct for a farm; but I laid it down as\na principle that no town should be too near a farm. I finally became so\nenthusiastic in setting forth my conceptions of a true farm that I\nreduced Horace to a series of humphs. The early humphs were incredulous,\nbut as I proceeded, with some joy, they became humorously contemptuous,\nand finally began to voice a large, comfortable, condescending\ntolerance. I could fairly feel Horace growing superior as he sat there\nbeside me. Oh, he had everything in his favour. He could prove what he\nsaid: One tree + one thicket = twenty dollars. One landscape = ten cords\nof wood = a quarter-acre of corn = twenty dollars. These equations prove\nthemselves. Moreover, was not Horace the \"best off\" of any farmer in the\ncountry? Did he not have the largest barn and the best corn silo? And\nare there better arguments?\n\nHave you ever had anyone give you up as hopeless? And is it not a\npleasure? It is only after people resign you to your fate that you\nreally make friends of them. For how can you win the friendship of one\nwho is trying to convert you to his superior beliefs?\n\nAs we talked, then, Horace and I, I began to have hopes of him. There is\nno joy comparable to the making of a friend, and the more resistant the\nmaterial the greater the triumph. Baxter, the carpenter, says that when\nhe works for enjoyment he chooses curly maple.\n\nWhen Horace set me down at my gate that afternoon he gave me his hand\nand told me that he would look in on me occasionally, and that if I had\nany trouble to let him know.\n\nA few days later I heard by the roundabout telegraph common in country\nneighbourhoods that Horace had found a good deal of fun in reporting\nwhat I said about farming and that he had called me by a highly humorous\nbut disparaging name. Horace has a vein of humour all his own. I have\ncaught him alone in his fields chuckling to himself, and even breaking\nout in a loud laugh at the memory of some amusing incident that\nhappened ten years ago. One day, a month or more after our bargain,\nHorace came down across his field and hitched his jean-clad leg over my\nfence, with the intent, I am sure, of delving a little more in the same\nrich mine of humour.\n\n\"Horace,\" I said, looking him straight in the eye, \"did you call me\nan--Agriculturist!\"\n\nI have rarely seen a man so pitifully confused as Horace was at that\nmoment. He flushed, he stammered, he coughed, the perspiration broke out\non his forehead. He tried to speak and could not. I was sorry for him.\n\n\"Horace,\" I said, \"you're a Farmer.\"\n\nWe looked at each other a moment with dreadful seriousness, and then\nboth of us laughed to the point of holding our sides. We slapped our\nknees, we shouted, we wriggled, we almost rolled with merriment. Horace\nput out his hand and we shook heartily. In five minutes I had the whole\nstory of his humorous reports out of him.\n\nNo real friendship is ever made without an initial clashing which\ndiscloses the metal of each to each. Since that day Horace's jean-clad\nleg has rested many a time on my fence and we have talked crops and\ncalves. We have been the best of friends in the way of whiffle-trees,\nbutter tubs and pig killings--but never once looked up together at the\nsky.\n\nThe chief objection to a joke in the country is that it is so\nimperishable. There is so much room for jokes and so few jokes to fill\nit. When I see Horace approaching with a peculiar, friendly, reminiscent\nsmile on his face I hasten with all ardour to anticipate him:\n\n\"Horace,\" I exclaim, \"you're a Farmer.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"The heat and sweat of the hay fields\"]\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nTHE JOY OF POSSESSION\n\n\"How sweet the west wind sounds in my own trees:\nHow graceful climb these shadows on my hill.\"\n\nAlways as I travel, I think, \"Here I am, let anything happen!\"\n\nI do not want to know the future; knowledge is too certain, too cold,\ntoo real.\n\nIt is true that I have not always met the fine adventure nor won the\nfriend, but if I had, what should I have more to look for at other\nturnings and other hilltops?\n\nThe afternoon of my purchase was one of the great afternoons of my life.\nWhen Horace put me down at my gate, I did not go at once to the house;\nI did not wish, then, to talk with Harriet. The things I had with myself\nwere too important. I skulked toward my barn, compelling myself to walk\nslowly until I reached the corner, where I broke into an eager run as\nthough the old Nick himself were after me. Behind the barn I dropped\ndown on the grass, panting with laughter, and not without some of the\nshame a man feels at being a boy. Close along the side of the barn, as I\nsat there in the cool of the shade, I could see a tangled mat of\nsmartweed and catnip, and the boards of the barn, brown and\nweather-beaten, and the gables above with mud swallows' nests, now\ndeserted; and it struck me suddenly, as I observed these homely pleasant\nthings:\n\n\"All this is mine.\"\n\nI sprang up and drew a long breath.\n\n\"Mine,\" I said.\n\nIt came to me then like an inspiration that I might now go out and take\nformal possession of my farm. I might experience the emotion of a\nlandowner. I might swell with dignity and importance--for once, at\nleast.\n\nSo I started at the fence corner back of the barn and walked straight\nup through the pasture, keeping close to my boundaries, that I might not\nmiss a single rod of my acres. And oh, it was a prime afternoon! The\nLord made it! Sunshine--and autumn haze--and red trees--and yellow\nfields--and blue distances above the far-away town. And the air had a\ntang which got into a man's blood and set him chanting all the poetry he\never knew.\n\n\"I climb that was a clod,\n  I run whose steps were slow,\nI reap the very wheat of God\n  That once had none to sow!\"\n\nSo I walked up the margin of my field looking broadly about me: and\npresently, I began to examine my fences--_my_ fences--with a critical\neye. I considered the quality of the soil, though in truth I was not\nmuch of a judge of such matters. I gloated over my plowed land, lying\nthere open and passive in the sunshine. I said of this tree: \"It is\nmine,\" and of its companion beyond the fence: \"It is my neighbour's.\"\nDeeply and sharply within myself I drew the line between _meum_ and\n_tuum_: for only thus, by comparing ourselves with our neighbours, can\nwe come to the true realisation of property. Occasionally I stopped to\npick up a stone and cast it over the fence, thinking with some\ntruculence that my neighbour would probably throw it back again. Never\nmind, I had it out of _my_ field. Once, with eager surplusage of energy,\nI pulled down a dead and partly rotten oak stub, long an eye-sore, with\nan important feeling of proprietorship. I could do anything I liked. The\nfarm was _mine_.\n\nHow sweet an emotion is possession! What charm is inherent in ownership!\nWhat a foundation for vanity, even for the greater quality of\nself-respect, lies in a little property! I fell to thinking of the\nexcellent wording of the old books in which land is called \"real\nproperty,\" or \"real estate.\" Money we may possess, or goods or chattels,\nbut they give no such impression of mineness as the feeling that one's\nfeet rest upon soil that is his: that part of the deep earth is his with\nall the water upon it, all small animals that creep or crawl in the\nholes of it, all birds or insects that fly in the air above it, all\ntrees, shrubs, flowers, and grass that grow upon it, all houses, barns\nand fences--all, his. As I strode along that afternoon I fed upon\npossession. I rolled the sweet morsel of ownership under my tongue. I\nseemed to set my feet down more firmly on the good earth. I straightened\nmy shoulders: _this land was mine_. I picked up a clod of earth and let\nit crumble and drop through my fingers: it gave me a peculiar and\npoignant feeling of possession. I can understand why the miser enjoys\nthe very physical contact of his gold. Every sense I possessed, sight,\nhearing, smell, touch, led upon the new joy.\n\nAt one corner of my upper field the fence crosses an abrupt ravine upon\nleggy stilts. My line skirts the slope halfway up. My neighbour owns the\ncrown of the hill which he has shorn until it resembles the tonsured\npate of a monk. Every rain brings the light soil down the ravine and\nlays it like a hand of infertility upon my farm. It had always bothered\nme, this wastage; and as I looked across my fence I thought to myself:\n\n\"I must have that hill. I will buy it. I will set the fence farther up.\nI will plant the slope. It is no age of tonsures either in religion or\nagriculture.\"\n\nThe very vision of widened acres set my thoughts on fire. In\nimagination I extended my farm upon all sides, thinking how much better\nI could handle my land than my neighbours. I dwelt avariciously upon\nmore possessions: I thought with discontent of my poverty. More land I\nwanted. I was enveloped in clouds of envy. I coveted my neighbour's\nland: I felt myself superior and Horace inferior: I was consumed with\nblack vanity.\n\nSo I dealt hotly with these thoughts until I reached the top of the\nridge at the farther corner of my land. It is the highest point on the\nfarm.\n\nFor a moment I stood looking about me on a wonderful prospect of serene\nbeauty. As it came to me--hills, fields, woods--the fever which had been\nconsuming me died down. I thought how the world stretched away from my\nfences--just such fields--for a thousand miles, and in each small\nenclosure a man as hot as I with the passion of possession. How they all\nenvied, and hated, in their longing for more land! How property kept\nthem apart, prevented the close, confident touch of friendship, how it\nseparated lovers and ruined families! Of all obstacles to that complete\ndemocracy of which we dream, is there a greater than property?\n\nI was ashamed. Deep shame covered me. How little of the earth, after\nall, I said, lies within the limits of my fences. And I looked out upon\nthe perfect beauty of the world around me, and I saw how little excited\nit was, how placid, how undemanding.\n\nI had come here to be free and already this farm, which I thought of so\nfondly as my possession, was coming to possess me. Ownership is an\nappetite like hunger or thirst, and as we may eat to gluttony and drink\nto drunkenness so we may possess to avarice. How many men have I seen\nwho, though they regard themselves as models of temperance, wear the\nmarks of unbridled indulgence of the passion of possession, and how like\ngluttony or licentiousness it sets its sure sign upon their faces.\n\nI said to myself, Why should any man fence himself in? And why hope to\nenlarge one's world by the creeping acquisition of a few acres to his\nfarm? I thought of the old scientist, who, laying his hand upon the\ngrass, remarked: \"Everything under my hand is a miracle\"--forgetting\nthat everything outside was also a miracle.\n\n[Illustration: \"HOW GRACEFUL CLIMB THESE SHADOWS ON MY HILL\"]\n\nAs I stood there I glanced across the broad valley wherein lies the most\nof my farm, to a field of buckwheat which belongs to Horace. For an\ninstant it gave me the illusion of a hill on fire: for the late sun\nshone full on the thick ripe stalks of the buckwheat, giving forth an\nabundant red glory that blessed the eye. Horace had been proud of his\ncrop, smacking his lips at the prospect of winter pancakes, and here I\nwas entering his field and taking without hindrance another crop, a crop\ngathered not with hands nor stored in granaries: a wonderful crop,\nwhich, once gathered, may long be fed upon and yet remain unconsumed.\n\nSo I looked across the countryside; a group of elms here, a tufted\nhilltop there, the smooth verdure of pastures, the rich brown of\nnew-plowed fields--and the odours, and the sounds of the country--all\ncropped by me. How little the fences keep me out: I do not regard\ntitles, nor consider boundaries. I enter either by day or by night, but\nnot secretly. Taking my fill, I leave as much as I find.\n\nAnd thus standing upon the highest hill in my upper pasture, I thought\nof the quoted saying of a certain old abbot of the middle ages--\"He\nthat is a true monk considers nothing as belonging to him except a\nlyre.\"\n\nWhat finer spirit? Who shall step forth freer than he who goes with\nnothing save his lyre? He shall sing as he goes: he shall not be held\ndown nor fenced in.\n\nWith a lifting of the soul I thought of that old abbot, how smooth his\nbrow, how catholic his interest, how serene his outlook, how free his\nfriendships, how unlimited his whole life. Nothing but a lyre!\n\nSo I made a covenant there with myself. I said: \"I shall use, not be\nused. I do not limit myself here. I shall not allow possessions to come\nbetween me and my life or my friends.\"\n\nFor a time--how long I do not know--I stood thinking. Presently I\ndiscovered, moving slowly along the margin of the field below me, the\nold professor with his tin botany box. And somehow I had no feeling that\nhe was intruding upon my new land. His walk was slow and methodical, his\nhead and even his shoulders were bent--almost habitually--from looking\nclose upon the earth, and from time to time he stooped, and once he\nknelt to examine some object that attracted his eye. It seemed\nappropriate that he should thus kneel to the earth. So he gathered _his_\ncrop and fences did not keep him out nor titles disturb him. He also was\nfree! It gave me at that moment a peculiar pleasure to have him on my\nland, to know that I was, if unconsciously, raising other crops than I\nknew. I felt friendship for this old professor: I could understand him,\nI thought. And I said aloud but in a low tone, as though I were\naddressing him:\n\n--Do not apologise, friend, when you come into my field. You do not\ninterrupt me. What you have come for is of more importance at this\nmoment than corn. Who is it that says I must plow so many furrows this\nday? Come in, friend, and sit here on these clods: we will sweeten the\nevening with fine words. We will invest our time not in corn, or in\ncash, but in life.--\n\nI walked with confidence down the hill toward the professor. So\nengrossed was he with his employment that he did not see me until I was\nwithin a few paces of him. When he looked up at me it was as though his\neyes returned from some far journey. I felt at first out of focus,\nunplaced, and only gradually coming into view. In his hand he held a\nlump of earth containing a thrifty young plant of the purple\ncone-flower, having several blossoms. He worked at the lump deftly,\ndelicately, so that the earth, pinched, powdered and shaken out, fell\nbetween his fingers, leaving the knotty yellow roots in his hand. I\nmarked how firm, slow, brown, the old man was, how little obtrusive in\nmy field. One foot rested in a furrow, the other was set among the grass\nof the margin, near the fence--his place, I thought.\n\nHis first words, though of little moment in themselves, gave me a\ncurious satisfaction, as when a coin, tested, rings true gold, or a\nhero, tried, is heroic.\n\n\"I have rarely,\" he said, \"seen a finer display of rudbeckia than this,\nalong these old fences.\"\n\nIf he had referred to me, or questioned, or apologised, I should have\nbeen disappointed. He did not say, \"your fences,\" he said \"these\nfences,\" as though they were as much his as mine. And he spoke in his\nown world, knowing that if I could enter I would, but that if I could\nnot, no stooping to me would avail either of us.\n\n\"It has been a good autumn for flowers,\" I said inanely, for so many\nthings were flying through my mind that I could not at once think of the\ngreat particular words which should bring us together. At first I\nthought my chance had passed, but he seemed to see something in me after\nall, for he said:\n\n\"Here is a peculiarly large specimen of the rudbeckia. Observe the deep\npurple of the cone, and the bright yellow of the petals. Here is another\nthat grew hardly two feet away, in the grass near the fence where the\nrails and the blackberry bushes have shaded it. How small and\nundeveloped it is.\"\n\n\"They crowd up to the plowed land,\" I observed.\n\n\"Yes, they reach out for a better chance in life--like men. With more\nroom, better food, freer air, you see how much finer they grow.\"\n\nIt was curious to me, having hitherto barely observed the cone-flowers\nalong my fences, save as a colour of beauty, how simply we fell to\ntalking of them as though in truth they were people like ourselves,\nhaving our desires and possessed of our capabilities. It gave me then,\nfor the first time, the feeling which has since meant such varied\nenjoyment, of the peopling of the woods.\n\n\"See here,\" he said, \"how different the character of these individuals.\nThey are all of the same species. They all grow along this fence within\ntwo or three rods; but observe the difference not only in size but in\ncolouring, in the shape of the petals, in the proportions of the cone.\nWhat does it all mean? Why, nature trying one of her endless\nexperiments. She sows here broadly, trying to produce better\ncone-flowers. A few she plants on the edge of the field in the hope that\nthey may escape the plow. If they grow, better food and more sunshine\nproduce more and larger flowers.\"\n\nSo we talked, or rather he talked, finding in me an eager listener. And\nwhat he called botany seemed to me to be life. Of birth, of growth, of\nreproduction, of death, he spoke, and his flowers became sentient\ncreatures under my eyes.\n\nAnd thus the sun went down and the purple mists crept silently along the\ndistant low spots, and all the great, great mysteries came and stood\nbefore me beckoning and questioning. They came and they stood, and out\nof the cone-flower, as the old professor spoke, I seemed to catch a\nglimmer of the true light. I reflected how truly everything is in\nanything. If one could really understand a cone-flower he could\nunderstand this Earth. Botany was only one road toward the Explanation.\n\nAlways I hope that some traveller may have more news of the way than I,\nand sooner or later, I find I must make inquiry of the direction of\nevery thoughtful man I meet. And I have always had especial hope of\nthose who study the sciences: they ask such intimate questions of\nnature. Theology possesses a vain-gloriousness which places its faith in\nhuman theories; but science, at its best, is humble before nature\nherself. It has no thesis to defend: it is content to kneel upon the\nearth, in the way of my friend, the old professor, and ask the simplest\nquestions, hoping for some true reply.\n\nI wondered, then, what the professor thought, after his years of work,\nof the Mystery; and finally, not without confusion, I asked him. He\nlistened, for the first time ceasing to dig, shake out and arrange his\nspecimens. When I had stopped speaking he remained for a moment silent,\nthen he looked at me with a new regard. Finally he quoted quietly, but\nwith a deep note in his voice:\n\n\"Canst thou by searching find God? Canst thou\nfind out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high\nas heaven: what canst thou do? deeper than hell,\nwhat canst thou know?\"\n\nWhen the professor had spoken we stood for a moment silent, then he\nsmiled and said briskly:\n\n\"I have been a botanist for fifty-four years. When I was a boy I\nbelieved implicitly in God. I prayed to him, having a vision of him--a\nperson--before my eyes. As I grew older I concluded that there was no\nGod. I dismissed him from the universe. I believed only in what I could\nsee, or hear, or feel. I talked about Nature and Reality.\"\n\nHe paused, the smile still lighting his face, evidently recalling to\nhimself the old days. I did not interrupt him. Finally he turned to me\nand said abruptly.\n\n\"And now--it seems to me--there is nothing but God.\"\n\nAs he said this he lifted his arm with a peculiar gesture that seemed\nto take in the whole world.\n\nFor a time we were both silent. When I left him I offered my hand and\ntold him I hoped I might become his friend. So I turned my face toward\nhome. Evening was falling, and as I walked I heard the crows calling,\nand the air was keen and cool, and I thought deep thoughts.\n\nAnd so I stepped into the darkened stable. I could not see the outlines\nof the horse or the cow, but knowing the place so well I could easily\nget about. I heard the horse step aside with a soft expectant whinny. I\nsmelled the smell of milk, the musty, sharp odour of dry hay, the\npungent smell of manure, not unpleasant. And the stable was warm after\nthe cool of the fields with a sort of animal warmth that struck into me\nsoothingly. I spoke in a low voice and laid my hand on the horse's\nflank. The flesh quivered and shrunk away from my touch--coming back\nconfidently, warmly. I ran my hand along his back and up his hairy neck.\nI felt his sensitive nose in my hand. \"You shall have your oats,\" I\nsaid, and I gave him to eat. Then I spoke as gently to the cow, and she\nstood aside to be milked.\n\nAnd afterward I came out into the clear bright night, and the air was\nsweet and cool, and my dog came bounding to meet me.--So I carried the\nmilk into the house, and Harriet said in her heartiest tone:\n\n\"You are late, David. But sit up, I have kept the biscuits warm.\"\n\nAnd that night my sleep was sound.\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nENTERTAIN AN AGENT UNAWARES\n\nWith the coming of winter I thought the life of a farmer might lose\nsomething of its charm. So much interest lies in the growth not only of\ncrops but of trees, vines, flowers, sentiments and emotions. In the\nsummer the world is busy, concerned with many things and full of gossip:\nin the winter I anticipated a cessation of many active interests and\nenthusiasms. I looked forward to having time for my books and for the\nquiet contemplation of the life around me. Summer indeed is for\nactivity, winter for reflection. But when winter really came every day\ndiscovered some new work to do or some new adventure to enjoy. It is\nsurprising how many things happen on a small farm. Examining the book\nwhich accounts for that winter, I find the history of part of a\nforenoon, which will illustrate one of the curious adventures of a\nfarmer's life. It is dated January 5.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI went out this morning with my axe and hammer to mend the fence along\nthe public road. A heavy frost fell last night and the brown grass and\nthe dry ruts of the roads were powdered white. Even the air, which was\nperfectly still, seemed full of frost crystals, so that when the sun\ncame up one seemed to walk in a magic world. I drew in a long breath and\nlooked out across the wonderful shining country and I said to myself:\n\n\"Surely, there is nowhere I would rather be than here.\" For I could have\ntravelled nowhere to find greater beauty or a better enjoyment of it\nthan I had here at home.\n\nAs I worked with my axe and hammer, I heard a light wagon come rattling\nup the road. Across the valley a man had begun to chop a tree. I could\nsee the axe steel flash brilliantly in the sunshine before I heard the\nsound of the blow.\n\nThe man in the wagon had a round face and a sharp blue eye. I thought he\nseemed a businesslike young man.\n\n\"Say, there,\" he shouted, drawing up at my gate, \"would you mind holding\nmy horse a minute? It's a cold morning and he's restless.\"\n\n\"Certainly not,\" I said, and I put down my tools and held his horse.\n\nHe walked up to my door with a brisk step and a certain jaunty poise of\nthe head.\n\n\"He is well contented with himself,\" I said. \"It is a great blessing for\nany man to be satisfied with what he has got.\"\n\nI heard Harriet open the door--how every sound rang through the still\nmorning air!\n\nThe young man asked some question and I distinctly heard Harriet's\nanswer:\n\n\"He's down there.\"\n\nThe young man came back: his hat was tipped up, his quick eye darted\nover my grounds as though in a single instant he had appraised\neverything and passed judgment upon the cash value of the inhabitants.\nHe whistled a lively little tune.\n\n\"Say,\" he said, when he reached the gate, not at all disconcerted, \"I\nthought you was the hired man. Your name's Grayson, ain't it? Well, I\nwant to talk with you.\"\n\nAfter tying and blanketing his horse and taking a black satchel from his\nbuggy he led me up to my house. I had a pleasurable sense of excitement\nand adventure. Here was a new character come to my farm. Who knows, I\nthought, what he may bring with him: who knows what I may send away by\nhim? Here in the country we must set our little ships afloat on small\nstreams, hoping that somehow, some day, they will reach the sea.\n\nIt was interesting to see the busy young man sit down so confidently in\nour best chair. He said his name was Dixon, and he took out from his\nsatchel a book with a fine showy cover. He said it was called \"Living\nSelections from Poet, Sage and Humourist.\"\n\n\"This,\" he told me, \"is only the first of the series. We publish six\nvolumes full of literchoor. You see what a heavy book this is?\"\n\nI tested it in my hand: it was a heavy book.\n\n\"The entire set,\" he said, \"weighs over ten pounds. There are 1,162\npages, enough paper if laid down flat, end to end, to reach half a\nmile.\"\n\nI cannot quote his exact language: there was too much of it, but he made\nan impressive showing of the amount of literature that could be had at a\nvery low price per pound. Mr. Dixon was a hypnotist. He fixed me with\nhis glittering eye, and he talked so fast, and his ideas upon the\nsubject were so original that he held me spellbound. At first I was\ninclined to be provoked: one does not like to be forcibly hypnotised,\nbut gradually the situation began to amuse me, the more so when Harriet\ncame in.\n\n\"Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?\" asked the agent, holding\nhis book admiringly at arm's length. \"This up here,\" he said, pointing\nto the illuminated cover, \"is the Muse of Poetry She is scattering\nflowers--poems, you know. Fine idea, ain't it? Colouring fine, too.\"\n\nHe jumped up quickly and laid the book on my table, to the evident\ndistress of Harriet.\n\n\"Trims up the room, don't it?\" he exclaimed, turning his head a little\nto one side and observing the effect with an expression of affectionate\nadmiration.\n\n\"How much,\" I asked, \"will you sell the covers for without the\ninsides?\"\n\n\"Without the insides?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"the binding will trim up my table just as well without\nthe insides.\"\n\nI thought he looked at me a little suspiciously, but he was evidently\nsatisfied by my expression of countenance, for he answered promptly:\n\n\"Oh, but you want the insides. That's what the books are for. The\nbindings are never sold alone.\"\n\nHe then went on to tell me the prices and terms of payment, until it\nreally seemed that it would be cheaper to buy the books than to let him\ncarry them away again. Harriet stood in the doorway behind him frowning\nand evidently trying to catch my eye. But I kept my face turned aside so\nthat I could not see her signal of distress and my eyes fixed on the\nyoung man Dixon. It was as good as a play. Harriet there,\nserious-minded, thinking I was being befooled, and the agent thinking he\nwas befooling me, and I, thinking I was befooling both of them--and all\nof us wrong. It was very like life wherever you find it.\n\nFinally, I took the book which he had been urging upon me, at which\nHarriet coughed meaningly to attract my attention. She knew the danger\nwhen I really got my hands on a book. But I made up as innocent as a\nchild. I opened the book almost at random--and it was as though, walking\ndown a strange road, I had come upon an old tried friend not seen before\nin years. For there on the page before me I read:\n\n\"The world is too much with us; late and soon,\nGetting and spending we lay waste our powers:\nLittle we see in Nature that is ours;\nWe have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!\nThe sea that bares her bosom to the moon;\nThe winds that will be howling at all hours,\nBut are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;\nFor this, for everything, we are out of tune;\nIt moves us not.\"\n\nAnd as I read it came back to me--a scene like a picture--the place, the\ntime, the very feel of the hour when I first saw those lines. Who shall\nsay that the past does not live! An odour will sometimes set the blood\ncoursing in an old emotion, and a line of poetry is the resurrection and\nthe life. For a moment I forgot Harriet and the agent, I forgot myself,\nI even forgot the book on my knee--everything but that hour in the\npast--a view of shimmering hot housetops, the heat and dust and noise of\nan August evening in the city, the dumb weariness of it all, the\nloneliness, the longing for green fields; and then these great lines of\nWordsworth, read for the first time, flooding in upon me:\n\n       \"Great God! I'd rather be\nA pagan suckled in a creed outworn:\nSo might I, standing on this pleasant lea,\nHave glimpses that would make me less forlorn;\nHave sight of Proteus rising from the sea;\nAnd hear old Triton blow his wreath\u00e8d horn.\"\n\nWhen I had finished I found myself standing in my own room with one arm\nraised, and, I suspect, a trace of tears in my eyes--there before the\nagent and Harriet. I saw Harriet lift one hand and drop it hopelessly.\nShe thought I was captured at last. I was past saving. And as I looked\nat the agent I saw \"grim conquest glowing in his eye!\" So I sat down not\na little embarrassed by my exhibition--when I had intended to be\nself-poised.\n\n\"You like it, don't you?\" said Mr. Dixon unctuously.\n\n\"I don't see,\" I said earnestly, \"how you can afford to sell such\nthings as this so cheap.\"\n\n\"They _are_ cheap,\" he admitted regretfully. I suppose he wished he had\ntried me with the half-morocco.\n\n\"They are priceless,\" I said, \"absolutely priceless. If you were the\nonly man in the world who had that poem, I think I would deed you my\nfarm for it.\"\n\nMr. Dixon proceeded, as though it were all settled, to get out his black\norder book and open it briskly for business. He drew his fountain pen,\ncapped it, and looked up at me expectantly. My feet actually seemed\nslipping into some irresistible whirlpool. How well he understood\npractical psychology! I struggled within myself, fearing engulfment: I\nwas all but lost.\n\n\"Shall I deliver the set at once,\" he said, \"or can you wait until the\nfirst of February?\"\n\nAt that critical moment a floating spar of an idea swept my way and I\nseized upon it as the last hope of the lost.\n\n[Illustration: 'Did you ever see a more beautiful binding?']\n\n\"I don't understand,\" I said, as though I had not heard his last\nquestion, \"how you dare go about with all this treasure upon you. Are\nyou not afraid of being stopped in the road and robbed? Why, I've seen\nthe time when, if I had known you carried such things as these, such\ncures for sick hearts, I think I should have stopped you myself!\"\n\n\"Say, you _are_ an odd one,\" said Mr. Dixon.\n\n\"Why do you sell such priceless things as these?\" I asked, looking at\nhim sharply.\n\n\"Why do I sell them?\" and he looked still more perplexed. \"To make\nmoney, of course; same reason you raise corn.\"\n\n\"But here is wealth,\" I said, pursuing my advantage. \"If you have these\nyou have something more valuable than money.\"\n\nMr. Dixon politely said nothing. Like a wise angler, having failed to\nland me at the first rush, he let me have line. Then I thought of\nRuskin's words, \"Nor can any noble thing be wealth except to a noble\nperson.\" And that prompted me to say to Mr. Dixon:\n\n\"These things are not yours; they are mine. You never owned them; but I\nwill sell them to you.\"\n\nHe looked at me in amazement, and then glanced around--evidently to\ndiscover if there were a convenient way of escape.\n\n\"You're all straight, are you?\" he asked tapping his forehead; \"didn't\nanybody ever try to take you up?\"\n\n\"The covers are yours,\" I continued as though I had not heard him, \"the\ninsides are mine and have been for a long time: that is why I proposed\nbuying the covers separately.\"\n\nI opened his book again. I thought I would see what had been chosen for\nits pages. And I found there many fine and great things.\n\n\"Let me read you this,\" I said to Mr. Dixon; \"it has been mine for a\nlong time. I will not sell it to you. I will give it to you outright.\nThe best things are always given.\"\n\nHaving some gift in imitating the Scotch dialect, I read:\n\n  \"November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;\n    The shortening winter day is near a close;\n  The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;\n    The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:\n  The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,\n    This night his weekly moil is at an end,\n  Collects his spades, his mattocks and his hoes,\n    Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,\n  And weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend.\"\n\nSo I read \"The Cotter's Saturday Night.\" I love the poem very much\nmyself, sometimes reading it aloud, not so much for the tenderness of\nits message, though I prize that, too, as for the wonder of its music:\n\n  \"Compared with these, Italian trills are tame;\n  The tickl'd ear no heart-felt raptures raise.\"\n\nI suppose I showed my feeling in my voice. As I glanced up from time to\ntime I saw the agent's face change, and his look deepen and the lips,\nusually so energetically tense, loosen with emotion. Surely no poem in\nall the language conveys so perfectly the simple love of the home, the\nquiet joys, hopes, pathos of those who live close to the soil.\n\nWhen I had finished--I stopped with the stanza beginning:\n\n  \"Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way\";\n\nthe agent turned away his head trying to brave out his emotion. Most of\nus, Anglo-Saxons, tremble before a tear when we might fearlessly beard a\ntiger.\n\nI moved up nearer to the agent and put my hand on his knee; then I read\ntwo or three of the other things I found in his wonderful book. And once\nI had him laughing and once again I had the tears in his eyes. Oh, a\nsimple young man, a little crusty without, but soft inside--like the\nrest of us.\n\nWell, it was amazing once we began talking not of books but of life, how\nreally eloquent and human he became. From being a distant and\nuncomfortable person, he became at once like a near neighbour and\nfriend. It was strange to me--as I have thought since--how he conveyed\nto us in few words the essential emotional note of his life. It was no\nviolin tone, beautifully complex with harmonics, but the clear simple\nvoice of the flute. It spoke of his wife and his baby girl and his home.\nThe very incongruity of detail--he told us how he grew onions in his\nback yard--added somehow to the homely glamour of the vision which he\ngave us. The number of his house, the fact that he had a new cottage\norgan, and that the baby ran away and lost herself in Seventeenth\nStreet--were all, curiously, fabrics of his emotion.\n\nIt was beautiful to see commonplace facts grow phosphorescent in the\nheat of true feeling. How little we may come to know Romance by the\ncloak she wears and how humble must be he who would surprise the heart\nof her!\n\nIt was, indeed, with an indescribable thrill that I heard him add the\ndetails, one by one--the mortgage on his place, now rapidly being paid\noff, the brother who was a plumber, the mother-in-law who was not a\nmother-in-law of the comic papers. And finally he showed us the picture\nof the wife and baby that he had in the cover of his watch; a fat baby\nwith its head resting on its mother's shoulder.\n\n\"Mister,\" he said, \"p'raps you think it's fun to ride around the country\nlike I do, and be away from home most of the time. But it ain't. When I\nthink of Minnie and the kid--\"\n\nHe broke off sharply, as if he had suddenly remembered the shame of such\nconfidences.\n\n\"Say,\" he asked, \"what page is that poem on?\"\n\nI told him.\n\n\"One forty-six,\" he said. \"When I get home I'm going to read that to\nMinnie. She likes poetry and all such things. And where's that other\npiece that tells how a man feels when he's lonesome? Say, that fellow\nknew!\"\n\nWe had a genuinely good time, the agent and I, and when he finally rose\nto go, I said:\n\n\"Well, I've sold you a new book.\"\n\n\"I see now, mister, what you mean.\"\n\nI went down the path with him and began to unhitch his horse.\n\n\"Let me, let me,\" he said eagerly.\n\nThen he shook hands, paused a moment awkwardly as if about to say\nsomething, then sprang into his buggy without saying it.\n\nWhen he had taken up his reins he remarked:\n\n\"Say! but you'd make an agent! You'd hypnotise 'em.\"\n\nI recognised it as the greatest compliment he could pay me: the craft\ncompliment.\n\nThen he drove off, but pulled up before he had gone five yards. He\nturned in his seat, one hand on the back of it, his whip raised.\n\n\"Say!\" he shouted, and when I walked up he looked at me with fine\nembarrassment.\n\n\"Mister, perhaps you'd accept one of these sets from Dixon free gratis,\nfor nothing.\"\n\n\"I understand,\" I said, \"but you know I'm giving the books to you--and I\ncouldn't take them back again.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"you're a good one, anyhow. Good-bye again,\" and then,\nsuddenly, business naturally coming uppermost, he remarked with great\nenthusiasm:\n\n\"You've given me a new idea. _Say_, I'll sell 'em.\"\n\n\"Carry them carefully, man,\" I called after him; \"they are precious.\"\n\nSo I went back to my work, thinking how many fine people there are in\nthis world--if you scratch 'em deep enough.\n\n[Illustration: \"Horace 'hefted' it\"]\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nTHE AXE-HELVE\n\n_April the 15th._\n\nThis morning I broke my old axe handle. I went out early while the fog\nstill filled the valley and the air was cool and moist as it had come\nfresh from the filter of the night. I drew a long breath and let my axe\nfall with all the force I could give it upon a new oak log. I swung it\nunnecessarily high for the joy of doing it and when it struck it\ncommunicated a sharp yet not unpleasant sting to the palms of my hands.\nThe handle broke short off at the point where the helve meets the steel.\nThe blade was driven deep in the oak wood. I suppose I should have\nregretted my foolishness, but I did not. The handle was old and somewhat\nworn, and the accident gave me an indefinable satisfaction: the\nculmination of use, that final destruction which is the complement of\ngreat effort.\n\nThis feeling was also partly prompted by the thought of the new helve I\nalready had in store, awaiting just such a catastrophe. Having come\nsomewhat painfully by that helve, I really wanted to see it in use.\n\nLast spring, walking in my fields, I looked out along the fences for a\nwell-fitted young hickory tree of thrifty second growth, bare of knots\nat least head high, without the cracks or fissures of too rapid growth\nor the doziness of early transgression. What I desired was a fine,\nhealthy tree fitted for a great purpose and I looked for it as I would\nlook for a perfect man to save a failing cause. At last I found a\nsapling growing in one of the sheltered angles of my rail fence. It was\nset about by dry grass, overhung by a much larger cherry tree, and\nbearing still its withered last year's leaves, worn diaphanous but\ncurled delicately, and of a most beautiful ash gray colour, something\nlike the fabric of a wasp's nest, only yellower. I gave it a shake and\nit sprung quickly under my hand like the muscle of a good horse. Its\nbark was smooth and trim, its bole well set and solid.\n\nA perfect tree! So I came up again with my short axe and after clearing\naway the grass and leaves with which the wind had mulched it, I cut into\nthe clean white roots. I had no twinge of compunction, for was this not\nfulfillment? Nothing comes of sorrow for worthy sacrifice. When I had\nlaid the tree low, I clipped off the lower branches, snapped off the top\nwith a single clean stroke of the axe, and shouldered as pretty a\nsecond-growth sapling stick as anyone ever laid his eyes upon.\n\nI carried it down to my barn and put it on the open rafters over the cow\nstalls. A cow stable is warm and not too dry, so that a hickory log\ncures slowly without cracking or checking. There it lay for many weeks.\nOften I cast my eyes up at it with satisfaction, watching the bark\nshrink and slightly deepen in colour, and once I climbed up where I\ncould see the minute seams making way in the end of the stick.\n\nIn the summer I brought the stick into the house, and put it in the dry,\nwarm storeroom over the kitchen where I keep my seed corn. I do not\nsuppose it really needed further attention, but sometimes when I chanced\nto go into the storeroom, I turned it over with my foot. I felt a sort\nof satisfaction in knowing that it was in preparation for service: good\nmaterial for useful work. So it lay during the autumn and far into the\nwinter.\n\nOne cold night when I sat comfortably at my fireplace, listening to the\nwind outside, and feeling all the ease of a man at peace with himself,\nmy mind took flight to my snowy field sides and I thought of the trees\nthere waiting and resting through the winter. So I came in imagination\nto the particular corner in the fence where I had cut my hickory\nsapling. Instantly I started up, much to Harriet's astonishment, and\nmade my way mysteriously up the kitchen stairs. I would not tell what I\nwas after: I felt it a sort of adventure, almost like the joy of seeing\na friend long forgotten. It was as if my hickory stick had cried out at\nlast, after long chrysalishood:\n\n\"I am ready.\"\n\nI stood it on end and struck it sharply with my knuckles: it rang out\nwith a certain clear resonance.\n\n\"I am ready.\"\n\nI sniffed at the end of it. It exhaled a peculiar good smell, as of old\nfields in the autumn.\n\n\"I am ready.\"\n\nSo I took it under my arm and carried it down.\n\n\"Mercy, what are you going to do?\" exclaimed Harriet.\n\n\"Deliberately, and with malice aforethought,\" I responded, \"I am going\nto litter up your floor. I have decided to be reckless. I don't care\nwhat happens.\"\n\nHaving made this declaration, which Harriet received with becoming\ndisdain, I laid the log by the fireplace--not too near--and went to\nfetch a saw, a hammer, a small wedge, and a draw-shave.\n\nI split my log into as fine white sections as a man ever saw--every\npiece as straight as morality, and without so much as a sliver to mar\nit. Nothing is so satisfactory as to have a task come out in perfect\ntime and in good order. The little pieces of bark and sawdust I swept\nscrupulously into the fireplace, looking up from time to time to see how\nHarriet was taking it. Harriet was still disdainful.\n\nMaking an axe-helve is like writing a poem (though I never wrote one).\nThe material is free enough, but it takes a poet to use it. Some people\nimagine that any fine thought is poetry, but there was never a greater\nmistake. A fine thought, to become poetry, must be seasoned in the upper\nwarm garrets of the mind for long and long, then it must be brought down\nand slowly carved into words, shaped with emotion, polished with love.\nElse it is no true poem. Some people imagine that any hickory stick will\nmake an axe-helve. But this is far from the truth. When I had whittled\naway for several evenings with my draw-shave and jack-knife, both of\nwhich I keep sharpened to the keenest edge, I found that my work was not\nprogressing as well as I had hoped.\n\n\"This is more of a task,\" I remarked one evening, \"than I had imagined.\"\n\nHarriet, rocking placidly in her arm-chair, was mending a number of\npairs of new socks, Poor Harriet! Lacking enough old holes to occupy her\nenergies, she mends holes that may possibly appear. A frugal person!\n\n\"Well, David,\" she said, \"I warned you that you could buy a helve\ncheaper than you could make it.\"\n\n\"So I can buy a book cheaper than I can write it,\" I responded.\n\nI felt somewhat pleased with my return shot, though I took pains not to\nshow it. I squinted along my hickory stick which was even then beginning\nto assume, rudely, the outlines of an axe-handle. I had made a\nprodigious pile of fine white shavings and I was tired, but quite\nsuddenly there came over me a sort of love for that length of wood. I\nsprung it affectionately over my knee, I rubbed it up and down with my\nhand, and then I set it in the corner behind the fireplace.\n\n\"After all,\" I said, for I had really been disturbed by Harriet's\nremark--\"after all, power over one thing gives us power over everything.\nWhen you mend socks prospectively--into futurity--Harriet, that is an\nevidence of true greatness.\"\n\n\"Sometimes I think it doesn't pay,\" remarked Harriet, though she was\nplainly pleased.\n\n\"Pretty good socks,\" I said, \"can be bought for fifteen cents a pair.\"\n\nHarriet looked at me suspiciously, but I was as sober as the face of\nnature.\n\nFor the next two or three evenings I let the axe-helve stand alone in\nthe corner. I hardly looked at it, though once in a while, when occupied\nwith some other work, I would remember, or rather half remember, that I\nhad a pleasure in store for the evening. The very thought of sharp tools\nand something, to make with them acts upon the imagination with peculiar\nzest. So we love to employ the keen edge of the mind upon a knotty and\ndifficult subject.\n\nOne evening the Scotch preacher came in. We love him very much, though\nhe sometimes makes us laugh--perhaps, in part, because he makes us\nlaugh. Externally he is a sort of human cocoanut, rough, brown, shaggy,\nbut within he has the true milk of human kindness. Some of his qualities\ntouch greatness. His youth was spent in stony places where strong winds\nblew; the trees where he grew bore thorns; the soil where he dug was\nfull of roots. But the crop was human love. He possesses that quality,\nunusual in one bred exclusively in the country, of magnanimity toward\nthe unlike. In the country we are tempted to throw stones at strange\nhats! But to the Scotch preacher every man in one way seems transparent\nto the soul. He sees the man himself, not his professions any more than\nhis clothes. And I never knew anyone who had such an abiding disbelief\nin the wickedness of the human soul. Weakness he sees and comforts;\nwickedness he cannot see.\n\nWhen he came in I was busy whittling my axe-helve, it being my pleasure\nat that moment to make long, thin, curly shavings so light that many of\nthem were caught on the hearth and bowled by the draught straight to\nfiery destruction.\n\nThere is a noisy zest about the Scotch preacher: he comes in \"stomping\"\nas we say, he must clear his throat, he must strike his hands together;\nhe even seems noisy when he unwinds the thick red tippet which he wears\nwound many times around his neck. It takes him a long time to unwind it,\nand he accomplishes the task with many slow gyrations of his enormous\nrough head. When he sits down he takes merely the edge of the chair,\nspreads his stout legs apart, sits as straight as a post, and blows his\nnose with a noise like the falling of a tree.\n\nHis interest in everything is prodigious. When he saw what I was doing\nhe launched at once upon an account of the methods of axe-helving,\nancient and modern, with true incidents of his childhood.\n\n\"Man,\" he exclaimed, \"you've clean forgotten one of the preenciple\nrefinements of the art. When you chop, which hand do you hold down?\"\n\nAt the moment, I couldn't have told \"to save my life, so we both got up\non our feet and tried.\n\n\"It's the right hand down,\" I decided; \"that's natural to me.\"\n\n\"You're a normal right-handed chopper, then,\" said the Scotch preacher,\n\"as I was thinking. Now let me instruct you in the art. Being\nright-handed, your helve must bow out--so. No first-class chopper uses a\nstraight handle.\"\n\nHe fell to explaining, with gusto, the mysteries of the bowed handle,\nand as I listened I felt a new and peculiar interest in my task This\nwas a final perfection to be accomplished, the finality of technique!\n\nSo we sat with our heads together talking helves and axes, axes with\nsingle blades and axes with double blades, and hand axes and great\nchoppers' axes, and the science of felling trees, with the true\nphilosophy of the last chip, and arguments as to the best procedure when\na log begins to \"pinch\"--until a listener would have thought that the\nart of the chopper included the whole philosophy of existence--as indeed\nit does, if you look at it in that way. Finally I rushed out and brought\nin my old axe-handle, and we set upon it like true artists, with\ncritical proscription for being a trivial product of machinery.\n\n\"Man,\" exclaimed the preacher, \"it has no character. Now your helve\nhere, being the vision of your brain and work of your hands, will\ninterpret the thought of your heart.\"\n\nBefore the Scotch preacher had finished his disquisition upon the art of\nhelve-making and its relations with all other arts, I felt like Peary\ndiscovering the Pole.\n\nIn the midst of the discourse, while I was soaring high, the Scotch\npreacher suddenly stopped, sat up, and struck his knee with a tremendous\nresounding smack.\n\n\"Spoons!\" he exclaimed.\n\nHarriet and I stopped and looked at him in astonishment.\n\n\"Spoons,\" repeated Harriet.\n\n\"Spoons,\" said the Scotch preacher. \"I've not once thought of my errand;\nand my wife told me to come straight home. I'm more thoughtless every\nday!\"\n\nThen he turned to Harriet:\n\n\"I've been sent to borrow some spoons,\" he said.\n\n\"Spoons!\" exclaimed Harriet.\n\n\"Spoons,\" answered the Scotch preacher. \"We've invited friends for\ndinner to-morrow, and we must have spoons.\"\n\n\"But why--how--I thought--\" began Harriet, still in astonishment.\n\nThe Scotch preacher squared around toward her and cleared his throat.\n\n\"It's the baptisms,\" he said: \"when a baby is brought for baptism, of\ncourse it must have a baptismal gift. What is the best gift for a baby?\nA spoon. So we present it with a spoon. To-day we discovered we had only\nthree spoons left, and company coming. Man, 'tis a proleefic\nneighbourhood.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"LET MY AXE FALL\"]\n\nHe heaved a great sigh.\n\nHarriet rushed out and made up a package. When she came in I thought it\nseemed suspiciously large for spoons, but the Scotch preacher having\nagain launched into the lore of the chopper, took it without at first\nperceiving anything strange. Five minutes after we had closed the door\nupon him he suddenly returned holding up the package.\n\n\"This is an uncommonly heavy package,\" he remarked; \"did I say\ntable-spoons?\"\n\n\"Go on!\" commanded Harriet; \"your wife will understand.\"\n\n\"All right--good-bye again,\" and his sturdy figure soon disappeared in\nthe dark.\n\n\"The impractical man!\" exclaimed Harriet. \"People impose on him.\"\n\n\"What was in that package, Harriet?\"\n\n\"Oh, I put in a few jars of jelly and a cake of honey.\"\n\nAfter a moment Harriet looked up from her work.\n\n\"Do you know the greatest sorrow of the Scotch preacher and his wife?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" I asked.\n\n\"They have no chick nor child of their own,\" said Harriet.\n\nIt is prodigious, the amount of work required to make a good\naxe-helve--I mean to make it according to one's standard. I had times of\nhumorous discouragement and times of high elation when it seemed to me I\ncould not work fast enough. Weeks passed when I did not touch the helve\nbut left it standing quietly in the corner. Once or twice I took it out\nand walked about with it as a sort of cane, much to the secret\namusement, I think, of Harriet. At times Harriet takes a really wicked\ndelight in her superiority.\n\nEarly one morning in March the dawn came with a roaring wind, sleety\nsnow drove down over the hill, the house creaked and complained in every\nclapboard. A blind of one of the upper windows, wrenched loose from its\nfastenings, was driven shut with such force that it broke a window pane.\nWhen I rushed up to discover the meaning of the clatter and to repair\nthe damage, I found the floor covered with peculiar long fragments of\nglass--the pane having been broken inward from the centre.\n\n\"Just what I have wanted,\" I said to myself.\n\nI selected a few of the best pieces and so eager was I to try them that\nI got out my axe-helve before breakfast and sat scratching away when\nHarriet came down.\n\nNothing equals a bit of broken glass for putting on the final perfect\ntouch to a work of art like an axe-helve. Nothing will so beautifully\nand delicately trim out the curves of the throat or give a smoother turn\nto the waist. So with care and an indescribable affection, I added the\nfinal touches, trimming the helve until it exactly fitted my hand. Often\nand often I tried it in pantomime, swinging nobly in the centre of the\nsitting-room (avoiding the lamp), attentive to the feel of my hand as it\nran along the helve. I rubbed it down with fine sandpaper until it\nfairly shone with whiteness. Then I borrowed a red flannel cloth of\nHarriet and having added a few drops--not too much--of boiled oil, I\nrubbed the helve for all I was worth. This I continued for upward of an\nhour. At that time the axe-helve had taken on a yellowish shade, very\nclear and beautiful.\n\nI do not think I could have been prouder if I had carved a statue or\nbuilt a parthenon. I was consumed with vanity; but I set the new helve\nin the corner with the appearance of utter unconcern.\n\n\"There,\" I remarked, \"it's finished.\"\n\nI watched Harriet out of the corner of my eye: she made as if to speak\nand then held silent.\n\nThat evening friend Horace came in. I was glad to see him. Horace is or\nwas a famous chopper. I placed him at the fireplace where his eye,\nsooner or later, must fall upon my axe-helve. Oh, I worked out my\ndesigns! Presently he saw the helve, picked it up at once and turned it\nover in his hands. I had a suffocating, not unhumorous, sense of\nself-consciousness. I know how a poet must feel at hearing his first\npoem read aloud by some other person who does not know its authorship. I\nsuffer and thrill with the novelist who sees a stranger purchase his\nbook in a book-shop. I felt as though I stood that moment before the\nGreat Judge.\n\nHorace \"hefted\" it and balanced it, and squinted along it; he rubbed it\nwith his thumb, he rested one end of it on the floor and sprung it\nroughly.\n\n\"David,\" he said severely, \"where did you git this?\"\n\nOnce when I was a boy I came home with my hair wet. My father asked:\n\n\"David, have you been swimming?\"\n\nI had exactly the same feeling when Horace asked his question. Now I am,\ngenerally speaking, a truthful man. I have written a good deal about the\nimmorality, the unwisdom, the short-sightedness, the sinful wastefulness\nof a lie. But at that moment, if Harriet had not been present--and that\nillustrates one of the purposes of society, to bolster up a man's\nmorals--I should have evolved as large and perfect a prevarication as it\nlay within me to do--cheerfully. But I felt Harriet's moral eye upon me:\nI was a coward as well as a sinner. I faltered so long that Horace\nfinally looked around at me.\n\nHorace has no poetry in his soul, neither does he understand the\nphilosophy of imperfection nor the art of irregularity.\n\nIt is a tender shoot, easily blasted by cold winds, the creative\ninstinct: but persistent. It has many adventitious buds. A late frost\ndestroying the freshness of its early verdure, may be the means of a\nricher growth in later and more favourable days.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFor a week I left my helve standing there in the corner. I did not even\nlook at it. I was slain. I even thought of getting up in the night and\nputting the helve on the coals--secretly. Then, suddenly, one morning, I\ntook it up not at all tenderly, indeed with a humorous appreciation of\nmy own absurdities, and carried it out into the yard. An axe-helve is\nnot a mere ornament but a thing of sober purpose. The test, after all,\nof axe-helves is not sublime perfection, but service. We may easily find\nflaws in the verse of the master--how far the rhythm fails of the final\nperfect music, how often uncertain the rhyme--but it bears within it,\nhidden yet evident, that certain incalculable fire which kindles and\nwill continue to kindle the souls of men. The final test is not the\nperfection of precedent, not regularity, but life, spirit.\n\nIt was one of those perfect, sunny, calm mornings that sometimes come in\nearly April: the zest of winter yet in the air, but a promise of summer.\n\nI built a fire of oak chips in the middle of the yard, between two flat\nstones. I brought out my old axe, and when the fire had burned down\nsomewhat, leaving a foundation of hot coals, I thrust the eye of the axe\ninto the fire. The blade rested on one of the flat stones, and I kept it\ncovered with wet rags in order that it might not heat sufficiently to\ndestroy the temper of the steel. Harriet's old gray hen, a garrulous\nfowl, came and stood on one leg and looked at me first with one eye and\nthen with the other. She asked innumerable impertinent questions and was\ngenerally disagreeable.\n\n\"I am sorry, madam,\" I said finally, \"but I have grown adamant to\ncriticism. I have done my work as well as it lies in me to do it. It is\nthe part of sanity to throw it aside without compunction. A work must\nprove itself. Shoo!\"\n\nI said this with such conclusiveness and vigour that the critical old\nhen departed hastily with ruffled feathers.\n\nSo I sat there in the glorious perfection of the forenoon, the great day\nopen around me, a few small clouds abroad in the highest sky, and all\nthe earth radiant with sunshine. The last snow of winter was gone, the\nsap ran in the trees, the cows fed further afield.\n\nWhen the eye of the axe was sufficiently expanded by the heat I drew it\nquickly from the fire and drove home the helve which I had already\nwhittled down to the exact size. I had a hickory wedge prepared, and it\nwas the work of ten seconds to drive it into the cleft at the lower end\nof the helve until the eye of the axe was completely and perfectly\nfilled. Upon cooling the steel shrunk upon the wood, clasping it with\nsuch firmness that nothing short of fire could ever dislodge it. Then,\ncarefully, with knife and sandpaper I polished off the wood around the\nsteel of the axe until I had made as good a job of it as lay within my\npower.\n\nSo I carried the axe to my log-pile. I swung it above my head and the\nfeel of it was good in my hands. The blade struck deep into the oak\nwood. And I said to myself with satisfaction:\n\n\"It serves the purpose.\"\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nTHE MARSH DITCH\n\n\"If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy and life\nemits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-smelling herbs--is more\nelastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your Success.\"\n\n\nIn all the days of my life I have never been so well content as I am\nthis spring. Last summer I thought I was happy, the fall gave me a\nfinality of satisfaction, the winter imparted perspective, but spring\nconveys a wholly new sense of life, a quickening the like of which I\nnever before experienced. It seems to me that everything in the world is\nmore interesting, more vital, more significant. I feel like \"waving\naside all roofs,\" in the way of Le Sage's Asmodeus.\n\nI even cease to fear Mrs. Horace, who is quite the most formidable\nperson in this neighbourhood. She is so avaricious in the saving of\nsouls--and so covetous of mine, which I wish especially to retain. When\nI see her coming across the hill I feel like running and hiding, and if\nI were as bold as a boy, I should do it, but being a grown-up coward I\nremain and dissemble.\n\nShe came over this morning. When I beheld her afar off, I drew a long\nbreath: \"One thousand,\" I quoted to myself, \"shall flee at the rebuke of\none.\"\n\nIn calmness I waited. She came with colours flying and hurled her\nbiblical lance. When I withstood the shock with unexpected jauntiness,\nfor I usually fall dead at once, she looked at me with severity and\nsaid:\n\n\"Mr. Grayson, you are a materialist.\"\n\n\"You have shot me with a name,\" I replied. \"I am unhurt.\"\n\nIt would be impossible to slay me on a day like this. On a day like\nthis I am immortal.\n\nIt comes to me as the wonder of wonders, these spring days, how surely\neverything, spiritual as well as material, proceeds out of the earth. I\nhave times of sheer Paganism when I could bow and touch my face to the\nwarm bare soil. We are so often ashamed of the Earth--the soil of it,\nthe sweat of it, the good common coarseness of it. To us in our fine\nraiment and soft manners, it seems indelicate. Instead of seeking that\nassociation with the earth which is the renewal of life, we devise\nourselves distant palaces and seek strange pleasures. How often and\nsadly we repeat the life story of the yellow dodder of the moist lanes\nof my lower farm. It springs up fresh and clean from the earth itself,\nand spreads its clinging viny stems over the hospitable wild balsam and\ngolden rod. In a week's time, having reached the warm sunshine of the\nupper air, it forgets its humble beginnings. Its roots wither swiftly\nand die out, but the sickly yellow stems continue to flourish and\nspread, drawing their nourishment not from the soil itself, but by\nstrangling and sucking the life juices of the hosts on which it feeds.\nI have seen whole byways covered thus with yellow dodder--rootless,\nleafless, parasitic--reaching up to the sunlight, quite cutting off and\nsmothering the plants which gave it life. A week or two it flourishes\nand then most of it perishes miserably. So many of us come to be like\nthat: so much of our civilization is like that. Men and women there\nare--the pity of it--who, eating plentifully, have never themselves\ntaken a mouthful from the earth. They have never known a moment's real\nlife of their own. Lying up to the sun in warmth and comfort--but\nleafless--they do not think of the hosts under them, smothered,\nstrangled, starved. They take _nothing_ at first hand. They experience\ndescribed emotion, and think prepared thoughts. They live not in life,\nbut in printed reports of life. They gather the odour of odours, not the\nodour itself: they do not hear, they overhear. A poor, sad, second-rate\nexistence!\n\nBring out your social remedies! They will fail, they will fail, every\none, until each man has his feet somewhere upon the soil!\n\nMy wild plum trees grow in the coarse earth, among excrementitious\nmould, a physical life which finally blossoms and exhales its perfect\nodour: which ultimately bears the seed of its immortality.\n\nHuman happiness is the true odour of growth, the sweet exhalation of\nwork: and the seed of human immortality is borne secretly within the\ncoarse and mortal husk. So many of us crave the odour without\ncultivating the earthly growth from which it proceeds: so many, wasting\nmortality, expect immortality!\n\n----\"Why,\" asks Charles Baxter, \"do you always put the end of your\nstories first?\"\n\n\"You may be thankful,\" I replied, \"that I do not make my remarks all\nendings. Endings are so much more interesting than beginnings.\"\n\nWithout looking up from the buggy he was mending, Charles Baxter\nintimated that my way had at least one advantage: one always knew, he\nsaid, that I really had an end in view--and hope deferred, he said----\n\n----How surely, soundly, deeply, the physical underlies the spiritual.\nThis morning I was up and out at half-past four, as perfect a morning as\nI ever saw: mists yet huddled in the low spots, the sun coming up over\nthe hill, and all the earth fresh with moisture, sweet with good\nodours, and musical with early bird-notes.\n\nIt is the time of the spring just after the last seeding and before the\nearly haying: a catch-breath in the farmer's year. I have been utilising\nit in digging a drainage ditch at the lower end of my farm. A spot of\nmarsh grass and blue flags occupies nearly half an acre of good land and\nI have been planning ever since I bought the place to open a drain from\nits lower edge to the creek, supplementing it in the field above, if\nnecessary, with submerged tiling. I surveyed it carefully several weeks\nago and drew plans and contours of the work as though it were an\ninter-oceanic canal. I find it a real delight to work out in the earth\nitself the details of the drawing.\n\nThis morning, after hastening with the chores, I took my bag and my\nspade on my shoulder and set off (in rubber boots) for the ditch. My way\nlay along the margin of my cornfield in the deep grass. On my right as I\nwalked was the old rail fence full of thrifty young hickory and cherry\ntrees with here and there a clump of blackberry bushes. The trees\nbeyond the fence cut off the sunrise so that I walked in the cool broad\nshadows. On my left stretched the cornfield of my planting, the young\ncorn well up, very attractive and hopeful, my really frightful scarecrow\nstanding guard on the knoll, a wisp of straw sticking up through a hole\nin his hat and his crooked thumbs turned down--\"No mercy.\"\n\n\"Surely no corn ever before grew like this,\" I said to myself.\n\"To-morrow I must begin cultivating again.\"\n\nSo I looked up and about me--not to miss anything of the morning--and I\ndrew in a good big breath and I thought the world had never been so open\nto my senses.\n\nI wonder why it is that the sense of smell is so commonly\nunder-regarded. To me it is the source of some of my greatest pleasures.\nNo one of the senses is more often allied with robustity of physical\nhealth. A man who smells acutely may be set down as enjoying that which\nis normal, plain, wholesome. He does not require seasoning: the ordinary\nearth is good enough for him. He is likely to be sane--which means\nsound, healthy--in his outlook upon life.\n\nOf all hours of the day there is none like the early morning for\ndownright good odours--the morning before eating. Fresh from sleep and\nunclogged with food a man's senses cut like knives. The whole world\ncomes in upon him. A still morning is best, for the mists and the\nmoisture seem to retain the odours which they have distilled through the\nnight. Upon a breezy morning one is likely to get a single predominant\nodour as of clover when the wind blows across a hay field or of apple\nblossoms when the wind comes through the orchard, but upon a perfectly\nstill morning, it is wonderful how the odours arrange themselves in\nupright strata, so that one walking passes through them as from room to\nroom in a marvellous temple of fragrance, (I should have said, I think,\nif I had not been on my way to dig a ditch, that it was like turning the\nleaves of some delicate volume of lyrics!)\n\nSo it was this morning. As I walked along the margin of my field I was\nconscious, at first, coming within the shadows of the wood, of the cool,\nheavy aroma which one associates with the night: as of moist woods and\nearth mould. The penetrating scent of the night remains long after the\nsights and sounds of it have disappeared. In sunny spots I had the\nfragrance of the open cornfield, the aromatic breath of the brown earth,\ngiving curiously the sense of fecundity--a warm, generous odour of\ndaylight and sunshine. Down the field, toward the corner, cutting in\nsharply, as though a door opened (or a page turned to another lyric),\ncame the cloying, sweet fragrance of wild crab-apple blossoms, almost\ntropical in their richness, and below that, as I came to my work, the\nthin acrid smell of the marsh, the place of the rushes and the flags and\nthe frogs.\n\nHow few of us really use our senses! I mean give ourselves fully at any\ntime to the occupation of the senses. We do not expect to understand a\ntreatise on Economics without applying our minds to it, nor can we\nreally smell or hear or see or feel without every faculty alert. Through\nsheer indolence we miss half the joy of the world!\n\nOften as I work I stop to see: really see: see everything, or to listen,\nand it is the wonder of wonders, how much there is in this old world\nwhich we never dreamed of, how many beautiful, curious, interesting\nsights and sounds there are which ordinarily make no impression upon our\nclogged, overfed and preoccupied minds. I have also had the feeling--it\nmay be unscientific but it is comforting--that any man might see like an\nIndian or smell like a hound if he gave to the senses the brains which\nthe Indian and the hound apply to them. And I'm pretty sure about the\nIndian! It is marvellous what a man can do when he puts his entire mind\nupon one faculty and bears down hard.\n\nSo I walked this morning, not hearing nor seeing, but smelling. Without\ndesiring to stir up strife among the peaceful senses, there is this\nfurther marvel of the sense of smell. No other possesses such an\nafter-call. Sight preserves pictures: the complete view of the aspect of\nobjects, but it is photographic and external. Hearing deals in echoes,\nbut the sense of smell, while saving no vision of a place or a person,\nwill re-create in a way almost miraculous the inner _emotion_ of a\nparticular time or place. I know of nothing that will so \"create an\nappetite under the ribs of death.\"\n\nOnly a short time ago I passed an open doorway in the town. I was busy\nwith errands, my mind fully engaged, but suddenly I caught an odour from\nsomewhere within the building I was passing. I stopped! It was as if in\nthat moment I lost twenty years of my life: I was a boy again, living\nand feeling a particular instant at the time of my father's death. Every\nemotion of that occasion, not recalled in years, returned to me sharply\nand clearly as though I experienced it for the first time. It was a\npeculiar emotion: the first time I had ever felt the oppression of\nspace--can I describe it?--the utter bigness of the world and the\naloofness of myself, a little boy, within it--now that my father was\ngone. It was not at that moment sorrow, nor remorse, nor love: it was an\ninexpressible cold terror--that anywhere I might go in the world, I\nshould still be alone!\n\nAnd there I stood, a man grown, shaking in the sunshine with that old\nboyish emotion brought back to me by an odour! Often and often have I\nknown this strange rekindling of dead fires. And I have thought how, if\nour senses were really perfect, we might lose nothing, out of our lives:\nneither sights, nor sounds, nor emotions: a sort of mortal immortality.\nWas not Shakespeare great because he lost less of the savings of his\nsenses than other men? What a wonderful seer, hearer, smeller, taster,\nfeeler, he must have been--and how, all the time, his mind must have\nplayed upon the gatherings of his senses! All scenes, all men, the very\nturn of a head, the exact sound of a voice, the taste of food, the feel\nof the world--all the emotions of his life must he have had there before\nhim as he wrote, his great mind playing upon them, reconstructing,\nre-creating and putting them down hot upon his pages. There is nothing\nstrange about great men; they are like us, only deeper, higher, broader:\nthey think as we do, but with more intensity: they suffer as we do, more\nkeenly: they love as we do, more tenderly.\n\nI may be over-glorifying the sense of smell, but it is only because I\nwalked this morning in a world of odours. The greatest of the senses, of\ncourse, is not smell or hearing, but sight. What would not any man\nexchange for that: for the faces one loves, for the scenes one holds\nmost dear, for all that is beautiful and changeable and beyond\ndescription? The Scotch Preacher says that the saddest lines in all\nliterature are those of Milton, writing of his blindness.\n\n\"Seasons return; but not to me returns\nDay, or the sweet approach of even or morn,\nOr sight of vernal bloom or Summer's rose,\nOr flocks, or herds, or human face divine.\"\n\n--I have wandered a long way from ditch-digging, but not wholly without\nintention. Sooner or later I try to get back into the main road. I throw\ndown my spade in the wet trampled grass at the edge of the ditch. I take\noff my coat and hang it over a limb of the little hawthorn tree. I put\nmy bag near it. I roll up the sleeves of my flannel shirt: I give my hat\na twirl; I'm ready for work.\n\n--The senses are the tools by which we lay hold upon the world: they are\nthe implements of consciousness and growth. So long as they are used\nupon the good earth--used to wholesome weariness--they remain healthy,\nthey yield enjoyment, they nourish growth; but let them once be removed\nfrom their natural employment and they turn and feed upon themselves,\nthey seek the stimulation of luxury, they wallow in their own\ncorruption, and finally, worn out, perish from off the earth which they\nhave not appreciated. Vice is ever the senses gone astray.\n\n--So I dug. There is something fine in hard physical labour, straight\nahead: no brain used, just muscles. I stood ankle-deep in the cool\nwater: every spadeful came out with a smack, and as I turned it over at\nthe edge of the ditch small turgid rivulets coursed back again. I did\nnot think of anything in particular. I dug. A peculiar joy attends the\nvery pull of the muscles. I drove the spade home with one foot, then I\nbent and lifted and turned with a sort of physical satisfaction\ndifficult to describe. At first I had the cool of the morning, but by\nseven o'clock the day was hot enough! I opened the breast of my shirt,\ngave my sleeves another roll, and went at it again for half an hour,\nuntil I dripped with perspiration.\n\n\"I will knock off,\" I said, so I used my spade as a ladder and climbed\nout of the ditch. Being very thirsty, I walked down through the marshy\nvalley to the clump of alders which grows along the creek. I followed a\ncow-path through the thicket and came to the creek side, where I knelt\non a log and took a good long drink. Then I soused my head in the cool\nstream, dashed the water upon my arms and came up dripping and gasping!\nOh, but it was fine!\n\nSo I came back to the hawthorn tree, where I sat down comfortably and\nstretched my legs. There is a poem in stretched legs--after hard\ndigging--but I can't write it, though I can feel it! I got my bag and\ntook out a half loaf of Harriet's bread. Breaking off big crude pieces,\nI ate it there in the shade. How rarely we taste the real taste of\nbread! We disguise it with butter, we toast it, we eat it with milk or\nfruit. We even soak it with gravy (here in the country where we aren't\nat all polite--but very comfortable), so that we never get the downright\ndelicious taste of the bread itself. I was hungry this morning and I ate\nmy half loaf to the last crumb--and wanted more. Then I lay down for a\nmoment in the shade and looked up into the sky through the thin outer\nbranches of the hawthorn. A turkey buzzard was lazily circling\ncloud-high above me: a frog boomed intermittently from the little marsh,\nand there were bees at work in the blossoms.\n\n--I had another drink at the creek and went back somewhat reluctantly,\nI confess, to the work. It was hot, and the first joy of effort had worn\noff. But the ditch was to be dug and I went at it again. One becomes a\nsort of machine--unthinking, mechanical: and yet intense physical work,\nthough making no immediate impression on the mind, often lingers in the\nconsciousness. I find that sometimes I can remember and enjoy for long\nafterward every separate step in a task.\n\nIt is curious, hard physical labour! One actually stops thinking. I\noften work long without any thought whatever, so far as I know, save\nthat connected with the monotonous repetition of the labour itself--down\nwith the spade, out with it, up with it, over with it--and repeat. And\nyet sometimes--mostly in the forenoon when I am not at all tired--I will\nsuddenly have a sense as of the world opening around me--a sense of its\nbeauty and its meanings--giving me a peculiar deep happiness, that is\nnear complete content--\n\nHappiness, I have discovered, is nearly always a rebound from hard work.\nIt is one of the follies of men to imagine that they can enjoy mere\nthought, or emotion, or sentiment! As well try to eat beauty! For\nhappiness must be tricked! She loves to see men at work. She loves\nsweat, weariness, self-sacrifice. She will be found not in palaces but\nlurking in cornfields and factories and hovering over littered desks:\nshe crowns the unconscious head of the busy child. If you look up\nsuddenly from hard work you will see her, but if you look too long she\nfades sorrowfully away.\n\n--Down toward the town there is a little factory for barrel hoops and\nstaves. It has one of the most musical whistles I ever heard in my life.\nIt toots at exactly twelve o'clock: blessed sound! The last half-hour at\nditch-digging is a hard, slow pull. I'm warm and tired, but I stick down\nto it and wait with straining ear for the music. At the very first note,\nof that whistle I drop my spade. I will even empty out a load of dirt\nhalf way up rather than expend another ounce of energy; and I spring out\nof the ditch and start for home with a single desire in my heart--or\npossibly lower down. And Harriet, standing in the doorway, seems to me\na sort of angel--a culinary angel!\n\nTalk of joy: there may be things better than beef stew and baked\npotatoes and home-made bread--there may be--\n\n\n\nVII\n\n\nAN ARGUMENT WITH A MILLIONNAIRE\n\n  \"Let the mighty and great\n  Roll in splendour and state,\n  I envy them not, I declare it.\n  I eat my own lamb,\n  My own chicken and ham,\n  I shear my own sheep and wear it.\n\n  I have lawns, I have bowers,\n  I have fruits, I have flowers.\n  The lark is my morning charmer;\n  So you jolly dogs now,\n  Here's God bless the plow--\n  Long life and content to the farmer.\"\n\n----_Rhyme on an old pitcher of English pottery_.\n\nI have been hearing of John Starkweather ever since I came here. He is a\nmost important personage in this community. He is rich. Horace\nespecially loved to talk about him. Give Horace half a chance, whether\nthe subject be pigs or churches, and he will break in somewhere with the\nremark: \"As I was saying to Mr. Starkweather--\" or, \"Mr. Starkweather\nsays to me--\" How we love to shine by reflected glory! Even Harriet has\nnot gone unscathed; she, too, has been affected by the bacillus of\nadmiration. She has wanted to know several times if I saw John\nStarkweather drive by: \"the finest span of horses in this country,\" she\nsays, and \"_did_ you see his daughter?\" Much other information\nconcerning the Starkweather household, culinary and otherwise, is\ncurrent among our hills. We know accurately the number of Mr.\nStarkweather's bedrooms, we can tell how much coal he uses in winter and\nhow many tons of ice in summer, and upon such important premises we\nargue his riches.\n\nSeveral times I have passed John Starkweather's home. It lies between my\nfarm and the town, though not on the direct road, and it is really\nbeautiful with the groomed and guided beauty possible to wealth. A\nstately old house with a huge end chimney of red brick stands with\ndignity well back from the road; round about lie pleasant lawns that\nonce were cornfields: and there are drives and walks and exotic shrubs.\nAt first, loving my own hills so well, I was puzzled to understand why I\nshould also enjoy Starkweather's groomed surroundings. But it came to me\nthat after all, much as we may love wildness, we are not wild, nor our\nworks. What more artificial than a house, or a barn, or a fence? And the\ngreater and more formal the house, the more formal indeed must be the\nnearer natural environments. Perhaps the hand of man might well have\nbeen less evident in developing the surroundings of the Starkweather\nhome--for art, dealing with nature, is so often too accomplished!\n\nBut I enjoy the Starkweather place and as I look in from the road, I\nsometimes think to myself with satisfaction: \"Here is this rich man who\nhas paid his thousands to make the beauty which I pass and take for\nnothing--and having taken, leave as much behind.\" And I wonder sometimes\nwhether he, inside his fences, gets more joy of it than I, who walk the\nroads outside. Anyway, I am grateful to him for using his riches so much\nto my advantage.\n\nOn fine mornings John Starkweather sometimes comes out in his slippers,\nbare-headed, his white vest gleaming in the sunshine, and walks slowly\naround his garden. Charles Baxter says that on these occasions he is\nasking his gardener the names of the vegetables. However that may be, he\nhas seemed to our community the very incarnation of contentment and\nprosperity--his position the acme of desirability.\n\nWhat was my astonishment, then, the other morning to see John\nStarkweather coming down the pasture lane through my farm. I knew him\nafar off, though I had never met him. May I express the inexpressible\nwhen I say he had a rich look; he walked rich, there was richness in the\nconfident crook of his elbow, and in the positive twitch of the stick he\ncarried: a man accustomed to having doors opened before he knocked. I\nstood there a moment and looked up the hill at him, and I felt that\nprofound curiosity which every one of us feels every day of his life to\nknow something of the inner impulses which stir his nearest neighbour. I\nshould have liked to know John Starkweather; but I thought to myself as\nI have thought so many times how surely one comes finally to imitate his\nsurroundings. A farmer grows to be a part of his farm; the sawdust on\nhis coat is not the most distinctive insignia of the carpenter; the poet\nwrites his truest lines upon his own countenance. People passing in my\nroad take me to be a part of this natural scene. I suppose I seem to\nthem as a partridge squatting among dry grass and leaves, so like the\ngrass and leaves as to be invisible. We all come to be marked upon by\nnature and dismissed--how carelessly!--as genera or species. And is it\nnot the primal struggle of man to escape classification, to form new\ndifferentiations?\n\nSometimes--I confess it--when I see one passing in my road, I feel like\nhailing him and saying:\n\n\"Friend, I am not all farmer. I, too, am a person; I am different and\ncurious. I am full of red blood, I like people, all sorts of people; if\nyou are not interested in me, at least I am intensely interested in you.\nCome over now and let's talk!\"\n\nSo we are all of us calling and calling across the incalculable gulfs\nwhich separate us even from our nearest friends!\n\nOnce or twice this feeling has been so real to me that I've been near\nto the point of hailing utter strangers--only to be instantly overcome\nwith a sense of the humorous absurdity of such an enterprise. So I laugh\nit off and I say to myself:\n\n\"Steady now: the man is going to town to sell a pig; he is coming back\nwith ten pounds of sugar, five of salt pork, a can of coffee and some\nnew blades for his mowing machine. He hasn't time for talk\"--and so I\ncome down with a bump to my digging, or hoeing, or chopping, or whatever\nit is.\n\n----Here I've left John Starkweather in my pasture while I remark to\nthe extent of a page or two that I didn't expect him to see me when he\nwent by.\n\nI assumed that he was out for a walk, perhaps to enliven a worn appetite\n(do you know, confidentially, I've had some pleasure in times past in\nreflecting upon the jaded appetites of millionnaires!), and that he\nwould pass out by my lane to the country road; but instead of that, what\nshould he do but climb the yard fence and walk over toward the barn\nwhere I was at work.\n\nPerhaps I was not consumed with excitement: here was fresh adventure!\n\n\"A farmer,\" I said to myself with exultation, \"has only to wait long\nenough and all the world comes his way.\"\n\nI had just begun to grease my farm wagon and was experiencing some\ndifficulty in lifting and steadying the heavy rear axle while I took off\nthe wheel. I kept busily at work, pretending (such is the perversity of\nthe human mind) that I did not see Mr. Starkweather. He stood for a\nmoment watching me; then he said:\n\n\"Good morning, sir.\"\n\nI looked up and said:\n\n\"Oh, good morning!\"\n\n\"Nice little farm you have here.\"\n\n\"It's enough for me,\" I replied. I did not especially like the \"little.\"\nOne is human.\n\nThen I had an absurd inspiration: he stood there so trim and jaunty and\nprosperous. So rich! I had a good look at him. He was dressed in a\nwoollen jacket coat, knee-trousers and leggins; on his head he wore a\njaunty, cocky little Scotch cap; a man, I should judge, about fifty\nyears old, well-fed and hearty in appearance, with grayish hair and a\ngood-humoured eye. I acted on my inspiration:\n\n\"You've arrived,\" I said, \"at the psychological moment.\"\n\n\"How's that?\"\n\n\"Take hold here and help me lift this axle and steady it. I'm having a\nhard time of it.\"\n\nThe look of astonishment in his countenance was beautiful to see.\n\nFor a moment failure stared me in the face. His expression said with\nemphasis: \"Perhaps you don't know who I am.\" But I looked at him with\nthe greatest good feeling and my expression said, or I meant it to say:\n\"To be sure I don't: and what difference does it make, anyway!\"\n\n\"You take hold there,\" I said, without waiting for him to catch his\nbreath, \"and I'll get hold here. Together we can easily get the wheel\noff.\"\n\nWithout a word he set his cane against the barn and bent his back, up\ncame the axle and I propped it with a board.\n\n\"Now,\" I said, \"you hang on there and steady it while I get the wheel\noff\"--though, indeed, it didn't really need much steadying.\n\nAs I straightened up, whom should I see but Harriet standing transfixed\nin the pathway half way down to the barn, transfixed with horror. She\nhad recognised John Starkweather and had heard at least part of what I\nsaid to him, and the vision of that important man bending his back to\nhelp lift the axle of my old wagon was too terrible! She caught my eye\nand pointed and mouthed. When I smiled and nodded, John Starkweather\nstraightened up and looked around.\n\n\"Don't, on your life,\" I warned, \"let go of that axle.\"\n\nHe held on and Harriet turned and retreated ingloriously. John\nStarkweather's face was a study!\n\n\"Did you ever grease a wagon?\" I asked him genially.\n\n\"Never,\" he said.\n\n\"There's more of an art in it than you think,\" I said, and as I worked I\ntalked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed him exactly how to\nput it on--neither too much nor too little, and so that it would\ndistribute itself evenly when the wheel was replaced.\n\n\"There's a right way of doing everything,\" I observed.\n\n\"That's so,\" said John Starkweather: \"if I could only get workmen that\nbelieved it.\"\n\nBy that time I could see that he was beginning to be interested. I put\nback the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on the nut. He helped\nme with the other end of the axle with all good humour.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" I said, as engagingly as I knew how, \"you'd like to try the\nart yourself? You take the grease this time and I'll steady the wagon.\"\n\n\"All right!\" he said, laughing, \"I'm in for anything.\"\n\nHe took the grease box and the paddle--less gingerly than I thought he\nwould.\n\n\"Is that right?\" he demanded, and so he put on the grease. And oh, it\nwas good to see Harriet in the doorway!\n\n\"Steady there,\" I said, \"not so much at the end: now put the box down on\nthe reach.\"\n\nAnd so together we greased the wagon, talking all the time in the\nfriendliest way. I actually believe that he was having a pretty good\ntime. At least it had the virtue of unexpectedness. He wasn't bored!\n\nWhen he had finished we both straightened our backs and looked at each\nother. There was a twinkle in his eye: then we both laughed. \"He's all\nright,\" I said to myself. I held up my hands, then he held up his: it\nwas hardly necessary to prove that wagon-greasing was not a delicate\noperation.\n\n\"It's a good wholesome sign,\" I said, \"but it'll come off. Do you happen\nto remember a story of Tolstoi's called Ivan the Fool'?\"\n\n(\"What is a farmer doing quoting Tolstoi!\" remarked his\ncountenance--though he said not a word.)\n\n\"In the kingdom of Ivan, you remember,\" I said, \"it was the rule that\nwhoever had hard places on his hands came to table, but whoever had not\nmust eat what the others left.\"\n\nThus I led him up to the back steps and poured him a basin of hot\nwater--which I brought myself from the kitchen, Harriet having\nmarvellously and completely disappeared. We both washed our hands,\ntalking with great good humour.\n\nWhen we had finished I said:\n\n\"Sit down, friend, if you've time, and let's talk.\"\n\nSo he sat down on one of the logs of my woodpile: a solid sort of man,\nrather warm after his recent activities. He looked me over with some\ninterest and, I thought, friendliness.\n\n\"Why does a man like you,\" he asked finally, \"waste himself on a little\nfarm back here in the country?\"\n\nFor a single instant I came nearer to being angry than I have been for a\nlong time. _Waste_ myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had a\nsudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest sarcasms I\ncould lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! \"Oh well,\" I thought, with\nvainglorious superiority, \"he doesn't know,\" So I said:\n\n\"What would you have me be--a millionnaire?\"\n\nHe smiled, but with a sort of sincerity.\n\n\"You might be,\" he said: \"who can tell!\"\n\nI laughed outright: the humour of it struck me as delicious. Here I had\nbeen, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, rather gloating\nover him as a poor suffering millionnaire (of course millionnaires _are_\nunhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying\n_me_ for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious,\nthis human nature of ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling!\n\nSo I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed my legs. I\nfelt as though I had set foot in a new country.\n\n\"Would you really advise me,\" I asked, \"to start in to be a\nmillionnaire?\"\n\nHe chuckled:\n\n\"Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to a star; but\nbegin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend. When I\nbegan----\" he stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did\nnot know who he was.\n\n\"Of course,\" I said, \"I understand that.\"\n\n\"A man must begin small\"--he was on pleasant ground--\"and anywhere he\nlikes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must save,\nhe must be both bold and cautious. I know a man who began when he was\nabout your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good digestion.\nHe's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in the city, a\nplace in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes. He has so\narranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and he draws the\ndividends--and all in a little more than twenty years. I made every\nsingle cent--but as I said, it's a penny business to start with. The\npoint is, I like to see young men ambitious.\"\n\n[Illustration: \"What would you have me be--a millionaire?\"]\n\n\"Ambitious,\" I asked, \"for what?\"\n\n\"Why, to rise in the world; to get ahead.\"\n\n\"I know you'll pardon me,\" I said, \"for appearing to cross-examine you,\nbut I'm tremendously interested in these things. What do you mean by\nrising? And who am I to get ahead of?\"\n\nHe looked at me in astonishment, and with evident impatience at my\nconsummate stupidity.\n\n\"I am serious,\" I said. \"I really want to make the best I can of my\nlife. It's the only one I've got.\"\n\n\"See here,\" he said: \"let us say you clear up five hundred a year from\nthis farm----\"\n\n\"You exaggerate--\" I interrupted.\n\n\"Do I?\" he laughed; \"that makes my case all the better. Now, isn't it\npossible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand or five\nthousand or even fifty thousand a year?\"\n\nIt seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars!\n\n\"I suppose I might,\" I said, \"but do you think I'd be any better off or\nhappier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? You see, I like all\nthese surroundings better than any other place I ever knew. That old\ngreen hill over there with the oak on it is an intimate friend of mine.\nI have a good cornfield in which every year I work miracles. I've a cow\nand a horse, and a few pigs. I have a comfortable home. My appetite is\nperfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep every night\nlike a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to disturb me. I enjoy\nthe mornings here in the country: and the evenings are pleasant. Some of\nmy neighbours have come to be my good friends. I like them and I am\npretty sure they like me. Inside the house there I have the best books\never written and I have time in the evenings to read them--I mean\n_really_ read them. Now the question is, would I be any better off, or\nany happier, if I had fifty thousand a year?\"\n\nJohn Starkweather laughed.\n\n\"Well, sir,\" he said, \"I see I've made the acquaintance of a\nphilosopher.\"\n\n\"Let us say,\" I continued, \"that you are willing to invest twenty years\nof your life in a million dollars.\" (\"Merely an illustration,\" said\nJohn Starkweather.) \"You have it where you can put it in the bank and\ntake it out again, or you can give it form in houses, yachts, and other\nthings. Now twenty years of my life--to me--is worth more than a million\ndollars. I simply can't afford to sell it for that. I prefer to invest\nit, as somebody or other has said, unearned in life. I've always had a\nliking for intangible properties.\"\n\n\"See here,\" said John Starkweather, \"you are taking a narrow view of\nlife. You are making your own pleasure the only standard. Shouldn't a\nman make the most of the talents given him? Hasn't he a duty to\nsociety?\"\n\n\"Now you are shifting your ground,\" I said, \"from the question of\npersonal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me ask\nyou: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be plowed\nand cultivated?\"\n\n\"Yes, but----\"\n\n\"Isn't it honest and useful work?\"\n\n\"Of course.\"\n\n\"Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?\"\n\n\"Certainly.\"\n\n\"It takes all there is in a good man,\" I said, \"to be a good farmer.\"\n\n\"But the point is,\" he argued, \"might not the same faculties applied to\nother things yield better and bigger results?\"\n\n\"That is a problem, of course,\" I said. \"I tried money-making once--in a\ncity--and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am both successful and\nhappy. I suppose I was one of the young men who did the work while some\nmillionnaire drew the dividends.\" (I was cutting close, and I didn't\nventure to look at him). \"No doubt he had his houses and yachts and went\nto Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs--back--where there\nwasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill, or a\nbrook: only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord be thanked for\nmy escape! Sometimes I think that Success has formed a silent conspiracy\nagainst Youth. Success holds up a single glittering apple and bids Youth\nstrip and run for it; and Youth runs and Success still holds the apple.\"\n\nJohn Starkweather said nothing.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said, \"there are duties. We realise, we farmers, that we must\nproduce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or burn. We realise that\nwe are the foundation: we connect human life with the earth. We dig and\nplant and produce, and having eaten at the first table ourselves, we\npass what is left to the bankers and millionnaires. Did you ever think,\nstranger, that most of the wars of the world have been fought for the\ncontrol of this farmer's second table? Have you thought that the surplus\nof wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads are struggling to\ncarry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and mills; a little of it\ngathered in cash makes a millionnaire. But we farmers, we sit back\ncomfortably after dinner, and joke with our wives and play with our\nbabies, and let all the rest of you fight for the crumbs that fall from\nour abundant tables. If once we really cared and got up and shook\nourselves, and said to the maid: 'Here, child, don't waste the crusts:\ngather 'em up and to-morrow we'll have a cottage pudding,' where in the\nworld would all the millionnaires be?\"\n\nOh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Starkweather, or\nany other man, get away with the conviction that a millionnaire is\nbetter than a farmer. \"Moreover,\" I said, \"think of the position of the\nmillionnaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with the\nsymbols of life, whether cash or houses. Any day the symbols may change;\na little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue or a\nwestern breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't scattering as\nmany crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but I've noticed that\nthe farmers still continue to have plenty to eat) and then what happens\nto your millionnaire? Not knowing how to produce anything himself, he\nwould starve to death if there were not always, somewhere, a farmer to\ntake him up to the table.\"\n\n\"You're making a strong case,\" laughed John Starkweather.\n\n\"Strong!\" I said. \"It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society a\nfew acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a\nman. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to\ndislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, a farmer is like an oak, his\nroots strike deep in the soil, he draws a sufficiency of food from the\nearth itself, he breathes the free air around him, his thirst is\nquenched by heaven itself--and there's no tax on sunshine.\"\n\nI paused for very lack of breath. John Starkweather was laughing.\n\n\"When you commiserate me, therefore\" (\"I'm sure I shall never do it\nagain,\" said John Starkweather)--\"when you commiserate me, therefore,\nand advise me to rise, you must give me really good reasons for changing\nmy occupation and becoming a millionnaire. You must prove to me that I\ncan be more independent, more honest, more useful as a millionnaire, and\nthat I shall have better and truer friends!\"\n\nJohn Starkweather looked around at me (I knew I had been absurdly eager\nand I was rather ashamed of myself) and put his hand on my knee (he has\na wonderfully fine eye!).\n\n\"I don't believe,\" he said, \"you'd have any truer friends.\"\n\n\"Anyway,\" I said repentantly, \"I'll admit that millionnaires have their\nplace--at present I wouldn't do entirely away with them, though I do\nthink they'd enjoy farming better. And if I were to select a\nmillionnaire for all the best things I know, I should certainly choose\nyou, Mr. Starkweather.\"\n\nHe jumped up.\n\n\"You know who I am?\" he asked.\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"And you knew all the time?\"\n\nI nodded.\n\n\"Well, you're a good one!\"\n\nWe both laughed and fell to talking with the greatest friendliness. I\nled him down my garden to show him my prize pie-plant, of which I am\nenormously proud, and I pulled for him some of the finest stalks I could\nfind.\n\n\"Take it home,\" I said, \"it makes the best pies of any pie-plant in this\ncountry.\"\n\nHe took it under his arm.\n\n\"I want you to come over and see me the first chance you get,\" he said.\n\"I'm going to prove to you by physical demonstration that it's better\nsport to be a millionnaire than a farmer--not that I am a millionnaire:\nI'm only accepting the reputation you give me.\"\n\nSo I walked with him down to the lane.\n\n\"Let me know when you grease up again,\" he said, \"and I'll come over.\"\n\nSo we shook hands: and he set off sturdily down the road with the\npie-plant leaves waving cheerfully over his shoulder.\n\n[Illustration: \"Somehow, and suddenly, I was a boy again\"]\n\n\n\nVIII\n\n\nA BOY AND A PREACHER\n\nThis morning I went to church with Harriet. I usually have some excuse\nfor not going, but this morning I had them out one by one and they were\naltogether so shabby that I decided not to use them. So I put on my\nstiff shirt and Harriet came out in her best black cape with the silk\nfringes. She looked so immaculate, so ruddy, so cheerfully sober (for\nSunday) that I was reconciled to the idea of driving her up to the\nchurch. And I am glad I went, for the experience I had.\n\nIt was an ideal summer Sunday: sunshiny, clear and still. I believe if\nI had been some Rip Van Winkle waking after twenty years' sleep I should\nhave known it for Sunday. Away off over the hill somewhere we could hear\na lazy farm boy singing at the top of his voice: the higher cadences of\nhis song reached us pleasantly through the still air. The hens sitting\nnear the lane fence, fluffing the dust over their backs, were holding a\nsmall and talkative service of their own. As we turned into the main\nroad we saw the Patterson children on their way to church, all the\nlittle girls in Sunday ribbons, and all the little boys very\nuncomfortable in knit stockings.\n\n\"It seems a pity to go to church on a day like this,\" I said to Harriet.\n\n\"A pity!\" she exclaimed. \"Could anything be more appropriate?\"\n\nHarriet is good because she can't help it. Poor woman!--but I haven't\nany pity for her.\n\nIt sometimes seems to me the more worshipful I feel the less I want to\ngo to church. I don't know why it is, but these forms, simple though\nthey are, trouble me. The moment an emotion, especially a religious\nemotion, becomes an institution, it somehow loses life. True emotion is\nrare and costly and that which is awakened from without never rises to\nthe height of that which springs spontaneously from within.\n\nBack of the church stands a long low shed where we tied our horse. A\nnumber of other buggies were already there, several women were standing\nin groups, preening their feathers, a neighbour of ours who has a\ntremendous bass voice was talking to a friend:\n\n\"Yas, oats is showing up well, but wheat is backward.\"\n\nHis voice, which he was evidently trying to subdue for Sunday, boomed\nthrough the still air. So we walked among the trees to the door of the\nchurch. A smiling elder, in an unaccustomed long coat, bowed and greeted\nus. As we went in there was an odour of cushions and our footsteps on\nthe wooden floor echoed in the warm emptiness of the church. The Scotch\npreacher was finding his place in the big Bible; he stood solid and\nshaggy behind the yellow oak pulpit, a peculiar professional look on his\nface. In the pulpit the Scotch preacher is too much minister, too little\nman. He is best down among us with his hand in ours. He is a sort of\nhuman solvent. Is there a twisted and hardened heart in the community he\nbeams upon it from his cheerful eye, he speaks out of his great charity,\nhe gives the friendly pressure of his large hand, and that hardened\nheart dissolves and its frozen hopelessness loses itself in tears. So he\ngoes through life, seeming always to understand. He is not surprised by\nwickedness nor discouraged by weakness: he is so sure of a greater\nStrength!\n\nBut I must come to my experience, which I am almost tempted to call a\nresurrection--the resurrection of a boy, long since gone away, and of a\ntall lank preacher who, in his humility, looked upon himself as a\nfailure. I hardly know how it all came back to me; possibly it was the\nscent-laden breeze that came in from the woods and through the half-open\nchurch window, perhaps it was a line in one of the old songs, perhaps it\nwas the droning voice of the Scotch preacher--somehow, and suddenly, I\nwas a boy again.\n\n----To this day I think of death as a valley: a dark shadowy valley:\nthe Valley of the Shadow of Death. So persistent are the impressions of\nboyhood! As I sat in the church I could see, as distinctly as though I\nwere there, the church of my boyhood and the tall dyspeptic preacher\nlooming above the pulpit, the peculiar way the light came through the\ncoarse colour of the windows, the barrenness and stiffness of the great\nempty room, the raw girders overhead, the prim choir. There was\nsomething in that preacher, gaunt, worn, sodden though he appeared: a\nspark somewhere, a little flame, mostly smothered by the gray dreariness\nof his surroundings, and yet blazing up at times to some warmth.\n\nAs I remember it, our church was a church of failures. They sent us the\nold gray preachers worn out in other fields. Such a succession of them I\nremember, each with some peculiarity, some pathos. They were of the old\nsort, indoctrinated Presbyterians, and they harrowed well our barren\nfield with the tooth of their hard creed. Some thundered the Law, some\npleaded Love; but of all of them I remember best the one who thought\nhimself the greatest failure. I think he had tried a hundred churches--a\nhard life, poorly paid, unappreciated--in a new country. He had once had\na family, but one by one they had died. No two were buried in the same\ncemetery; and finally, before he came to our village, his wife, too, had\ngone. And he was old, and out of health, and discouraged: seeking some\nfinal warmth from his own cold doctrine. How I see him, a trifle bent,\nin his long worn coat, walking in the country roads: not knowing of a\nboy who loved him!\n\nHe told my father once: I recall his exact, words:\n\n\"My days have been long, and I have failed. It was not given me to reach\nmen's hearts.\"\n\nOh, gray preacher, may I now make amends? Will you forgive me? I was a\nboy and did not know; a boy whose emotions were hidden under mountains\nof reserve: who could have stood up to be shot more easily than he could\nhave said: \"I love you!\"\n\nOf that preacher's sermons I remember not one word, though I must have\nheard scores of them--only that they were interminably long and dull and\nthat my legs grew weary of sitting and that I was often hungry. It was\nno doubt the dreadful old doctrine that he preached, thundering the\nhorrors of disobedience, urging an impossible love through fear and a\nvain belief without reason. All that touched me not at all, save with a\nsort of wonder at the working of his great Adam's apple and the strange\nrollings of his cavernous eyes. This he looked upon as the work of God;\nthus for years he had sought, with self-confessed failure, to touch the\nsouls of his people. How we travel in darkness and the work we do in all\nseriousness counts for naught, and the thing we toss off in play-time,\nunconsciously, God uses!\n\nOne tow-headed boy sitting there in a front row dreaming dreams, if the\nsermons touched him not, was yet thrilled to the depths of his being by\nthat tall preacher. Somewhere, I said, he had a spark within him. I\nthink he never knew it: or if he knew it, he regarded it as a wayward\nimpulse that might lead him from his God. It was a spark of poetry:\nstrange flower in such a husk. In times of emotion it bloomed, but in\ndaily life it emitted no fragrance. I have wondered what might have been\nif some one--some understanding woman--had recognised his gift, or if he\nhimself as a boy had once dared to cut free! We do not know: we do not\nknow the tragedy of our nearest friend!\n\nBy some instinct the preacher chose his readings mostly from the Old\nTestament--those splendid, marching passages, full of oriental imagery.\nAs he read there would creep into his voice a certain resonance that\nlifted him and his calling suddenly above his gray surroundings.\n\nHow vividly I recall his reading of the twenty-third Psalm--a particular\nreading. I suppose I had heard the passage many times before, but upon\nthis certain morning----\n\nShall I ever forget? The windows were open, for it was May, and a boy\ncould look out on the hillside and see with longing eyes the inviting\ngrass and trees. A soft wind blew in across the church; it was full of\nthe very essence of spring. I smell it yet. On the pulpit stood a bunch\nof crocuses crowded into a vase: some Mary's offering. An old man named\nJohnson who sat near us was already beginning to breathe heavily,\npreparatory to sinking into his regular Sunday snore. Then those words\nfrom the preacher, bringing me suddenly--how shall I express it?--out of\nsome formless void, to intense consciousness--a miracle of creation:\n\n\"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will\nfear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort\nme.\"\n\nWell, I saw the way to the place of death that morning; far more vividly\nI saw it than any natural scene I know: and myself walking therein. I\nshall know it again when I come to pass that way; the tall, dark, rocky\ncliffs, the shadowy path within, the overhanging dark branches, even the\nwhitened dead bones by the way--and as one of the vivid phantasms of\nboyhood--cloaked figures I saw, lurking mysteriously in deep recesses,\nfearsome for their very silence. And yet I with magic rod and staff\nwalking within--boldly, fearing no evil, full of faith, hope, courage,\nlove, invoking images of terror but for the joy of braving them. Ah,\ntow-headed boy, shall I tread as lightly that dread pathway when I come\nto it? Shall I, like you, fear no evil!\n\nSo that great morning went away. I heard nothing of singing or sermon\nand came not to myself until my mother, touching my arm, asked me if I\nhad been asleep! And I smiled and thought how little grown people\nknew--and I looked up at the sad sick face of the old preacher with a\nnew interest and friendliness. I felt, somehow, that he too was a\nfamiliar of my secret valley. I should have liked to ask him, but I did\nnot dare. So I followed my mother when she went to speak to him, and\nwhen he did not see, I touched his coat.\n\nAfter that how I watched when he came to the reading. And one great\nSunday, he chose a chapter from Ecclesiastes, the one that begins\nsonorously:\n\n\"Remember now thy creator in the days of thy\nyouth.\"\n\nSurely that gaunt preacher had the true fire in his gray soul. How his\nvoice dwelt and quivered and softened upon the words!\n\n\"While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the\nstars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after\nthe rain----\"\nThus he brought in the universe to that\nsmall church and filled the heart of a boy.\n\n\"In the days when the keepers of the house shall\ntremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves,\nand the grinders cease because they are few, and those\nthat look out of the windows be darkened.\"\n\n\"And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when\nthe sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up\nat the voice of the bird and all the daughters of music\nshall be brought low.\"\n\nDo not think that I understood the meaning of those passages: I am not\nvain enough to think I know even now--but the _sound_ of them, the roll\nof them, the beautiful words, and above all, the pictures!\n\nThose Daughters of Music, how I lived for days imagining them! They were\nof the trees and the hills, and they were very beautiful but elusive;\none saw them as he heard singing afar off, sweet strains fading often\ninto silences. Daughters of Music! Daughters of Music! And why should\nthey be brought low?\n\nDoors shut in the street--how I _saw_ them--a long, long street, silent,\nfull of sunshine, and the doors shut, and no sound anywhere but the low\nsound of the grinding: and the mill with the wheels drowsily turning and\nno one there at all save one boy with fluttering heart, tiptoeing in the\nsunlit doorway.\n\nAnd the voice of the bird. Not the song but the _voice_. Yes, a bird had\na voice. I had known it always, and yet somehow I had not dared to say\nit. I felt that they would look at me with that questioning,\nincredulous look which I dreaded beyond belief. They might laugh! But\nhere it was in the Book--the voice of a bird. How my appreciation of\nthat Book increased and what a new confidence it gave me in my own\nimages! I went about for days, listening, listening, listening--and\ninterpreting.\n\nSo the words of the preacher and the fire in them:\n\n\"And when they shall be afraid of that which is\nhigh and fears shall be in the way----\"\n\nI knew the fear of that which is high: I had dreamed of it commonly. And\nI knew also the Fear that stood in the way: him I had seen in a myriad\nof forms, looming black by darkness in every lane I trod; and yet with\nwhat defiance I met and slew him!\n\nAnd then, more thrilling than all else, the words of the preacher:\n\n\"Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden\nbowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,\nor the wheel broken at the cistern.\"\n\nSuch pictures: that silver cord, that golden bowl! And why and\nwherefore?\n\nA thousand ways I turned them in my mind--and always with the sound of\nthe preacher's voice in my ears--the resonance of the words conveying an\nindescribable fire of inspiration. Vaguely and yet with certainty I knew\nthe preacher spoke out of some unfathomable emotion which I did not\nunderstand--which I did not care to understand. Since then I have\nthought what those words must have meant to him!\n\nAh, that tall lank preacher, who thought himself a failure: how long I\nshall remember him and the words he read and the mournful yet resonant\ncadences of his voice--and the barren church, and the stony religion!\nHeaven he gave me, unknowing, while he preached an ineffectual hell.\n\nAs we rode home Harriet looked into my face.\n\n\"You have enjoyed the service,\" she said softly.\n\n\"Yes,\" I said.\n\n\"It _was_ a good sermon,\" she said.\n\n\"Was it?\" I replied.\n\n\n\nIX\n\n\nTHE TRAMP\n\nI have had a new and strange experience--droll in one way, grotesque in\nanother and when everything is said, tragic: at least an adventure.\nHarriet looks at me accusingly, and I have had to preserve the air of\none deeply contrite now for two days (no easy accomplishment for me!),\neven though in secret I have smiled and pondered.\n\nHow our life has been warped by books! We are not contented with\nrealities: we crave conclusions. With what ardour our minds respond to\nreal events with literary deductions. Upon a train of incidents, as\nunconnected as life itself, we are wont to clap a booky ending. An\ninstinctive desire for completeness animates the human mind (a struggle\nto circumscribe the infinite). We would like to have life \"turn\nout\"--but it doesn't--it doesn't. Each event is the beginning of a whole\nnew genealogy of events. In boyhood I remember asking after every story\nI heard: \"What happened next?\" for no conclusion ever quite satisfied\nme--even when the hero died in his own gore. I always knew there was\nsomething yet remaining to be told. The only sure conclusion we can\nreach is this: Life changes. And what is more enthralling to the human\nmind than this splendid, boundless, coloured mutability!--life in the\nmaking? How strange it is, then, that we should be contented to take\nsuch small parts of it as we can grasp, and to say, \"This is the true\nexplanation.\" By such devices we seek to bring infinite existence within\nour finite egoistic grasp. We solidify and define where solidification\nmeans loss of interest; and loss of interest, not years, is old age.\n\nSo I have mused since my tramp came in for a moment out of the Mystery\n(as we all do) and went away again into the Mystery (in our way, too).\n\nThere are strange things in this world!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs I came around the corner I saw sitting there on my steps the very\npersonification of Ruin, a tumble-down, dilapidated wreck of manhood. He\ngave one the impression of having been dropped where he sat, all in a\nheap. My first instinctive feeling was not one of recoil or even of\nhostility, but rather a sudden desire to pick him up and put him where\nhe belonged, the instinct, I should say, of the normal man who hangs his\naxe always on the same nail. When he saw me he gathered himself together\nwith reluctance and stood fully revealed. It was a curious attitude of\nmingled effrontery and apology. \"Hit me if you dare,\" blustered his\noutward personality. \"For God's sake, don't hit me,\" cried the innate\nfear in his eyes. I stopped and looked at him sharply, His eyes dropped,\nhis look slid away, so that I experienced a sense of shame, as though I\nhad trampled upon him. A damp rag of humanity! I confess that my first\nimpulse, and a strong one, was to kick him for the good of the human\nrace. No man has a right to be like that.\n\nAnd then, quite suddenly, I had a great revulsion of feeling. What was I\nthat I should judge without knowledge? Perhaps, after all, here was one\nbearing treasure. So I said:\n\n\"You are the man I have been expecting.\"\n\nHe did not reply, only flashed his eyes up at me, wherein fear deepened.\n\n\"I have been saving up a coat for you,\" I said, \"and a pair of shoes.\nThey are not much worn,\" I said, \"but a little too small for me. I think\nthey will fit you.\"\n\nHe looked at me again, not sharply, but with a sort of weak cunning. So\nfar he had not said a word.\n\n\"I think our supper is nearly ready,\" I said: \"let us go in.\"\n\n\"No, mister,\" he mumbled, \"a bite out here--no, mister\"--and then, as\nthough the sound of his own voice inspired him, he grew declamatory.\n\n\"I'm a respectable man, mister, plumber by trade, but----\"\n\n\"But,\" I interrupted, \"you can't get any work, you're cold and you\nhaven't had anything to eat for two days, so you are walking out here in\nthe country where we farmers have no plumbing to do. At home you have a\nstarving wife and three small children----\"\n\n\"Six, mister----\"\n\n\"Well, six--And now we will go in to supper.\"\n\nI led him into the entry way and poured for him a big basin of hot\nwater. As I stepped out again with a comb he was slinking toward the\ndoorway.\n\n\"Here,\" I said, \"is a comb; we are having supper now in a few minutes.\"\n\nI wish I could picture Harriet's face when I brought him into her\nimmaculate kitchen. But I gave her a look, one of the commanding sort\nthat I can put on in times of great emergency, and she silently laid\nanother place at the table.\n\nWhen I came to look at our Ruin by the full lamplight I was surprised to\nsee what a change a little warm water and a comb had wrought in him. He\ncame to the table uncertain, blinking, apologetic. His forehead, I saw,\nwas really impressive--high, narrow and thin-skinned. His face gave one\nsomehow the impression of a carving once full of significant lines, now\nblurred and worn as though Time, having first marked it with the lines\nof character, had grown discouraged and brushed the hand of\nforgetfulness over her work. He had peculiar thin, silky hair of no\nparticular colour, with a certain almost childish pathetic waviness\naround the ears and at the back of the neck. Something, after all, about\nthe man aroused one's compassion.\n\nI don't know that he looked dissipated, and surely he was not as dirty\nas I had at first supposed. Something remained that suggested a care for\nhimself in the past. It was not dissipation, I decided; it was rather an\nindefinable looseness and weakness, that gave one alternately the\nfeeling I had first experienced, that of anger, succeeded by the\ncompassion that one feels for a child. To Harriet, when she had once\nseen him, he was all child, and she all compassion.\n\nWe disturbed him with no questions. Harriet's fundamental quality is\nhomeliness, comfortableness. Her tea-kettle seems always singing; an\nindefinable tabbiness, as of feather cushions, lurks in her\ndining-room, a right warmth of table and chairs, indescribably\ncomfortable at the end of a chilly day. A busy good-smelling steam\narises from all her dishes at once, and the light in the middle of the\ntable is of a redness that enthralls the human soul. As for Harriet\nherself, she is the personification of comfort, airy, clean, warm,\ninexpressibly wholesome. And never in the world is she so engaging as\nwhen she ministers to a man's hunger. Truthfully, sometimes, when she\ncomes to me out of the dimmer light of the kitchen to the radiance of\nthe table with a plate of muffins, it is as though she and the muffins\nwere a part of each other, and that she is really offering some of\nherself. And down in my heart I know she is doing just that!\n\nWell, it was wonderful to see our Ruin expand in the warmth of Harriet's\npresence. He had been doubtful of me; of Harriet, I could see, he was\nabsolutely sure. And how he did eat, saying nothing at all, while\nHarriet plied him with food and talked to me of the most disarming\ncommonplaces. I think it did her heart good to see the way he ate: as\nthough he had had nothing before in days. As he buttered his muffin,\nnot without some refinement, I could see that his hand was long, a\ncurious, lean, ineffectual hand, with a curving little finger. With the\ndrinking of the hot coffee colour began to steal up into his face, and\nwhen Harriet brought out a quarter of pie saved over from our dinner and\nplaced it before him--a fine brown pie with small hieroglyphics in the\ntop from whence rose sugary bubbles--he seemed almost to escape himself.\nAnd Harriet fairly purred with hospitality.\n\nThe more he ate the more of a man he became. His manners improved, his\nback straightened up, he acquired a not unimpressive poise of the head.\nSuch is the miraculous power of hot muffins and pie!\n\n\"As you came down,\" I asked finally, \"did you happen to see old man\nMasterson's threshing machine?\"\n\n\"A big red one, with a yellow blow-off?\"\n\n\"That's the one,\" I said.\n\n\"Well, it was just turning into a field about two miles above here,\" he\nreplied.\n\n\"Big gray, banked barn?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, and a little unpainted house,\" said our friend.\n\n\"That's Parsons',\" put in Harriet, with a mellow laugh. \"I wonder if he\never _will_ paint that house. He builds bigger barns every year and\ndoesn't touch the house. Poor Mrs. Parsons----\"\n\nAnd so we talked of barns and threshing machines in the way we farmers\nlove to do and I lured our friend slowly into talking about himself. At\nfirst he was non-committal enough and what he said seemed curiously made\nto order; he used certain set phrases with which to explain simply what\nwas not easy to explain--a device not uncommon to all of us. I was\nfearful of not getting within this outward armouring, but gradually as\nwe talked and Harriet poured him a third cup of hot coffee he dropped\ninto a more familiar tone. He told with some sprightliness of having\nseen threshings in Mexico, how the grain was beaten out with flails in\nthe patios, and afterwards thrown up in the wind to winnow out.\n\n\"You must have seen a good deal of life,\" remarked Harriet\nsympathetically.\n\nAt this remark I saw one of our Ruin's long hands draw up and clinch. He\nturned his head toward Harriet. His face was partly in the shadow, but\nthere was something striking and strange in the way he looked at her,\nand a deepness in his voice when he spoke:\n\n\"Too much! I've seen too much of life.\" He threw out one arm and brought\nit back with a shudder.\n\n\"You see what it has left me,\" he said, \"I am an example of too much\nlife.\"\n\nIn response to Harriet's melting compassion he had spoken with\nunfathomable bitterness. Suddenly he leaned forward toward me with a\npiercing gaze as though he would look into my soul. His face had changed\ncompletely; from the loose and vacant mask of the early evening it had\ntaken on the utmost tensity of emotion.\n\n\"You do not know,\" he said, \"what it is to live too much--and to be\nafraid.\"\n\n\"Live too much?\" I asked.\n\n\"Yes, live too much, that is what I do--and I am afraid.\"\n\nHe paused a moment and then broke out in a higher key:\n\n\"You think I am a tramp. Yes--you do. I know--a worthless fellow, lying,\nbegging, stealing when he can't beg. You have taken me in and fed me.\nYou have said the first kind words I have heard, it seems to me, in\nyears. I don't know who you are. I shall never see you again.\"\n\nI cannot well describe the intensity of the passion with which he spoke,\nhis face shaking with emotion, his hands trembling.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" I said easily, \"we are comfortable people here--and it is a\ngood place to live.\"\n\n\"No no,\" he returned. \"I know, I've got my call--\" Then leaning forward\nhe said in a lower, even more intense voice--\"I live everything\nbeforehand.\"\n\nI was startled by the look of his eyes: the abject terror of it: and I\nthought to myself, \"The man is not right in his mind.\" And yet I longed\nto know of the life within this strange husk of manhood.\n\n\"I know,\" he said, as if reading my thought, \"you think\"--and he tapped\nhis forehead with one finger--\"but I'm not. I'm as sane as you are.\"\n\nIt was a strange story he told. It seems almost unbelievable to me as I\nset it down here, until I reflect how little any one of us knows of the\ndeep life within his nearest neighbour--what stories there are, what\ntragedies enacted under a calm exterior! What a drama there _may_ be in\nthis commonplace man buying ten pounds of sugar at the grocery store, or\nthis other one driving his two old horses in the town road! We do not\nknow. And how rarely are the men of inner adventure articulate!\nTherefore I treasure the curious story the tramp told me. I do not\nquestion its truth. It came as all truth does, through a clouded and\nunclean medium: and any judgment of the story itself must be based upon\na knowledge of the personal equation of the Ruin who told it.\n\n\"I am no tramp,\" he said, \"in reality, I am no tramp. I began as well as\nanyone--It doesn't matter now, only I won't have any of the sympathy\nthat people give to the man who has seen better days. I hate sentiment.\n_I hate it_----\"\n\nI cannot attempt to set down the story in his own words. It was broken\nwith exclamations and involved with wandering sophistries and diatribes\nof self-blame. His mind had trampled upon itself in throes of\nintrospection until it was often difficult to say which way the paths of\nthe narrative really led. He had thought so much and acted so little\nthat he travelled in a veritable bog of indecision. And yet, withal,\nsome ideas, by constant attrition, had acquired a really striking form.\n\"I am afraid before life,\" he said. \"It makes me dizzy with thought.\"\n\nAt another time he said, \"If I am a tramp at all, I am a mental tramp. I\nhave an unanchored mind.\"\n\nIt seems that he came to a realisation that there was something peculiar\nabout him at a very early age. He said they would look at him and\nwhisper to one another and that his sayings were much repeated, often in\nhis hearing. He knew that he was considered an extraordinary child: they\nbaited him with questions that they might laugh at his quaint replies.\nHe said that as early as he could remember he used to plan situations so\nthat he might say things that were strange and even shocking in a\nchild. His father was a small professor in a small college--a \"worm\" he\ncalled him bitterly--\"one of those worms that bores in books and finally\ndries up and blows off.\" But his mother--he said she was an angel. I\nrecall his exact expression about her eyes that \"when she looked at one\nit made him better.\" He spoke of her with a softening of the voice,\nlooking often at Harriet. He talked a good deal about his mother, trying\nto account for himself through her. She was not strong, he said, and\nvery sensitive to the contact of either friends or enemies--evidently a\nnervous, high-strung woman.\n\n\"You have known such people,\" he said, \"everything hurt her.\"\n\nHe said she \"starved to death.\" She starved for affection and\nunderstanding.\n\nOne of the first things he recalled of his boyhood was his passionate\nlove for his mother.\n\n\"I can remember,\" he said, \"lying awake in my bed and thinking how I\nwould love her and serve her--and I could see myself in all sorts of\nimpossible places saving her from danger. When she came to my room to\nbid me good night, I imagined how I should look--for I have always been\nable to see myself doing things--when I threw my arms around her neck to\nkiss her.\"\n\nHere he reached a strange part of his story. I had been watching Harriet\nout of the corner of my eye. At first her face was tearful with\ncompassion, but as the Ruin proceeded it became a study in wonder and\nfinally in outright alarm. He said that when his mother came in to bid\nhim good night he saw himself so plainly beforehand (\"more vividly than\nI see you at this moment\") and felt his emotion so keenly that when his\nmother actually stooped to kiss him, somehow he could not respond, he\ncould not throw his arms around her neck. He said he often lay quiet, in\nwaiting, trembling all over until she had gone, not only suffering\nhimself but pitying her, because he understood how she must feel. Then\nhe would follow her, he said, in imagination through the long hall,\nseeing himself stealing behind her, just touching her hand, wistfully\nhoping that she might turn to him again--and yet fearing. He said no one\nknew the agonies he suffered at seeing his mother's disappointment over\nhis apparent coldness and unresponsiveness.\n\n\"I think,\" he said, \"it hastened her death.\" He would not go to the\nfuneral; he did not dare, he said. He cried and fought when they came to\ntake him away, and when the house was silent he ran up to her room and\nburied his head in her pillows and ran in swift imagination to her\nfuneral. He said he could see himself in the country road, hurrying in\nthe cold rain--for it seemed raining--he said he could actually feel the\nstones and ruts, although he could not tell how it was possible that he\nshould have seen himself at a distance and _felt_ in his own feet the\nstones of the road. He said he saw the box taken from the wagon--_saw_\nit--and that he heard the sound of the clods thrown in, and it made him\nshriek until they came running and held him.\n\nAs he grew older he said he came to live everything beforehand, and that\nthe event as imagined was so far more vivid and affecting that he had no\nheart for the reality itself.\n\n\"It seems strange to you,\" he said, \"but I am telling you exactly what\nmy experience was.\"\n\nIt was curious, he said, when his father told him he must not do a\nthing, how he went on and imagined in how many different ways he could\ndo it--and how, afterward, he imagined he was punished by that \"worm,\"\nhis father, whom he seemed to hate bitterly. Of those early days, in\nwhich he suffered acutely--in idleness, apparently--and perhaps that was\none of the causes of his disorder--he told us at length, but many of the\nincidents were so evidently worn by the constant handling of his mind\nthat they gave no clear impression.\n\nFinally, he ran away from home, he said. At first he found that a wholly\nnew place and new people took him out of himself (\"surprised me,\" he\nsaid, \"so that I could not live everything beforehand\"). Thus he fled.\nThe slang he used, \"chased himself all over the country,\" seemed\npeculiarly expressive. He had been in foreign countries; he had herded\nsheep in Australia (so he said), and certainly from his knowledge of the\ncountry he had wandered with the gamboleros of South America; he had\ngone for gold to Alaska, and worked in the lumber camps of the Pacific\nNorthwest. But he could not escape, he said. In a short time he was no\nlonger \"surprised.\" His account of his travels, while fragmentary, had a\npeculiar vividness. He _saw_ what he described, and he saw it so plainly\nthat his mind ran off into curious details that made his words strike\nsometimes like flashes of lightning. A strange and wonderful\nmind--uncontrolled. How that man needed the discipline of common work!\n\nI have rarely listened to a story with such rapt interest. It was not\nonly what he said, nor how he said it, but how he let me see the strange\nworkings of his mind. It was continuously a story of a story. When his\nvoice finally died down I drew a long breath and was astonished to\nperceive that it was nearly midnight--and Harriet speechless with her\nemotions. For a moment he sat quiet and then burst out:\n\n\"I cannot get away: I cannot escape,\" and the veritable look of some\ntrapped creature came into his eyes, fear so abject that I reached over\nand laid my hand on his arm:\n\n\"Friend,\" I said, \"stop here. We have a good country. You have travelled\nfar enough. I know from experience what a cornfield will do for a man.\"\n\n\"I have lived all sorts of life,\" he continued as if he had not heard a\nword I said, \"and I have lived it all twice, and I am afraid.\"\n\n\"Face it,\" I said, gripping his arm, longing for some power to \"blow\ngrit into him.\"\n\n\"Face it!\" he exclaimed, \"don't you suppose I have tried. If I could do\na thing--anything--a few times without thinking--_once_ would be\nenough--I might be all right. I should be all right.\"\n\nHe brought his fist down on the table, and there was a note of\nresolution in his voice. I moved my chair nearer to him, feeling as\nthough I were saving an immortal soul from destruction. I told him of\nour life, how the quiet and the work of it would solve his problems. I\nsketched with enthusiasm my own experience and I planned swiftly how he\ncould live, absorbed in simple work--and in books.\n\n\"Try it,\" I said eagerly.\n\n\"I will,\" he said, rising from the table, and grasping my hand. \"I'll\nstay here.\"\n\nI had a peculiar thrill of exultation and triumph. I know how the priest\nmust feel, having won a soul from torment!\n\nHe was trembling with excitement and pale with emotion and weariness.\nOne must begin the quiet life with rest. So I got him off to bed, first\npouring him a bathtub of warm water. I laid out clean clothes by his\nbedside and took away his old ones, talking to him cheerfully all the\ntime about common things. When I finally left him and came downstairs I\nfound Harriet standing with frightened eyes in the middle of the\nkitchen.\n\n\"I'm afraid to have him sleep in this house,\" she said.\n\nBut I reassured her. \"You do not understand,\" I said.\n\nOwing to the excitement of the evening I spent a restless night. Before\ndaylight, while I was dreaming a strange dream of two men running, the\none who pursued being the exact counterpart of the one who fled, I heard\nmy name called aloud:\n\n\"David, David!\"\n\nI sprang out of bed.\n\n\"The tramp has gone,\" called Harriet.\n\nHe had not even slept in his bed. He had raised the window, dropped out\non the ground and vanished.\n\n\n\nX\n\n\nTHE INFIDEL\n\nI find that we have an infidel in this community. I don't know that I\nshould set down the fact here on good white paper; the walls, they say,\nhave eyes, the stones have ears. But consider these words written in\nbated breath! The worst of it is--I gather from common report--this\ninfidel is a Cheerful Infidel, whereas a true infidel should bear upon\nhis face the living mark of his infamy. We are all tolerant enough of\nthose who do not agree with us, provided only they are sufficiently\nmiserable! I confess when I first heard of him--through Mrs. Horace\n(with shudders)--I was possessed of a consuming secret desire to see\nhim. I even thought of climbing a tree somewhere along the public\nroad--like Zaccheus, wasn't it?--and watching him go by. If by any\nchance he should look my way I could easily avoid discovery by crouching\namong the leaves. It shows how pleasant must be the paths of\nunrighteousness that we are tempted to climb trees to see those who walk\ntherein. My imagination busied itself with the infidel. I pictured him\nas a sort of Moloch treading our pleasant countryside, flames and smoke\nproceeding from his nostrils, his feet striking fire, his voice like the\nsound of a great wind. At least that was the picture I formed of him\nfrom common report.\n\nAnd yesterday afternoon I met the infidel and I must here set down a\ntrue account of the adventure. It is, surely, a little new door opened\nin the house of my understanding. I might travel a whole year in a city,\nbrushing men's elbows, and not once have such an experience. In country\nspaces men develop sensitive surfaces, not calloused by too frequent\ncontact, accepting the new impression vividly and keeping it bright to\nthink upon.\n\nI met the infidel as the result of a rather unexpected series of\nincidents. I don't think I have said before that we have for some time\nbeen expecting a great event on this farm. We have raised corn and\nbuckwheat, we have a fertile asparagus bed and onions and pie-plant\n(enough to supply the entire population of this community) and I can't\ntell how many other vegetables. We have had plenty of chickens hatched\nout (I don't like chickens, especially hens, especially a certain gaunt\nand predatory hen named [so Harriet says] Evangeline, who belongs to a\nneighbour of ours) and we have had two litters of pigs, but until this\nbright moment of expectancy we never have had a calf.\n\nUpon the advice of Horace, which I often lean upon as upon a staff, I\nhave been keeping my young heifer shut up in the cow-yard now for a week\nor two. But yesterday, toward the middle of the afternoon, I found the\nfence broken down and the cow-yard empty. From what Harriet said, the\nbrown cow must have been gone since early morning. I knew, of course,\nwhat that meant, and straightway I took a stout stick and set off over\nthe hill, tracing the brown cow as far as I could by her tracks. She had\nmade way toward a clump of trees near Horace's wood lot, where I\nconfidently expected to find her. But as fate would have it, the pasture\ngate, which is rarely used, stood open and the tracks led outward into\nan old road. I followed rapidly, half pleased that I had not found her\nwithin the wood. It was a promise of new adventure which I came to with\ndownright enjoyment (confidentially--I should have been cultivating\ncorn!). I peered into every thicket as I passed: once I climbed an old\nfence and, standing on the top rail, intently surveyed my neighbour's\npasture. No brown cow was to be seen. At the crossing of the brook I\nshouldered my way from the road down a path among the alders, thinking\nthe brown cow might have gone that way to obscurity.\n\nIt is curious how, in spite of domestication and training, Nature in her\ngreat moments returns to the primitive and instinctive! My brown cow,\nnever having had anything but the kindest treatment, is as gentle an\nanimal as could be imagined, but she had followed the nameless,\nages-old law of her breed: she had escaped in her great moment to the\nmost secret place she knew. It did not matter that she would have been\nsafer in my yard--both she and her calf--that she would have been surer\nof her food; she could only obey the old wild law. So turkeys will hide\ntheir nests. So the tame duck, tame for unnumbered generations, hearing\nfrom afar the shrill cry of the wild drake, will desert her quiet\nsurroundings, spread her little-used wings and become for a time the\nwildest of the wild.\n\nSo we think--you and I--that we are civilised! But how often, how often,\nhave we felt that old wildness which is our common heritage, scarce\nshackled, clamouring in our blood!\n\nI stood listening among the alders, in the deep cool shade. Here and\nthere a ray of sunshine came through the thick foliage: I could see it\nwhere it silvered the cobweb ladders of those moist spaces. Somewhere in\nthe thicket I heard an unalarmed catbird trilling her exquisite song, a\nstartled frog leaped with a splash into the water; faint odours of some\nblossoming growth, not distinguishable, filled the still air. It was\none of those rare moments when one seems to have caught Nature unaware.\nI lingered a full minute, listening, looking; but my brown cow had not\ngone that way. So I turned and went up rapidly to the road, and there I\nfound myself almost face to face with a ruddy little man whose\ncountenance bore a look of round astonishment. We were both surprised. I\nrecovered first.\n\n\"Have you seen a brown cow?\" I asked.\n\nHe was still so astonished that he began to look around him; he thrust\nhis hands nervously into his coat pockets and pulled them out again.\n\n\"I think you won't find her in there,\" I said, seeking to relieve his\nembarrassment.\n\nBut I didn't know, then, how very serious a person I had encountered.\n\n\"No--no,\" he stammered, \"I haven't seen your cow.\"\n\nSo I explained to him with sobriety, and at some length, the problem I\nhad to solve. He was greatly interested and inasmuch as he was going my\nway he offered at once to assist me in my search. So we set off\ntogether. He was rather stocky of build, and decidedly short of breath,\nso that I regulated my customary stride to suit his deliberation. At\nfirst, being filled with the spirit of my adventure, I was not\naltogether pleased with this arrangement. Our conversation ran something\nlike this:\n\nSTRANGER: Has she any spots or marks on her?\n\nMYSELF: No, she is plain brown.\n\nSTRANGER: How old a cow is she?\n\nMYSELF: This is her first calf.\n\nSTRANGER: Valuable animal?\n\nMYSELF: _(fencing):_ I have never put a price on her; she is a promising\nyoung heifer.\n\nSTRANGER: Pure blood?\n\nMYSELF: No, grade.\n\nAfter a pause:\n\nSTRANGER: Live around here?\n\nMYSELF: Yes, half a mile below here. Do you?\n\nSTRANGER: Yes, three miles above here. My name's Purdy.\n\nMYSELF: Mine is Grayson.\n\nHe turned to me solemnly and held out his hand. \"_I'm_ glad to meet you,\nMr. Grayson,\" he said. \"And I'm glad,\" I said, \"to meet you, Mr. Purdy.\"\n\nI will not attempt to put down all we said: I couldn't. But by such\ndevices is the truth in the country made manifest.\n\nSo we continued to walk and look. Occasionally I would unconsciously\nincrease my pace until I was warned to desist by the puffing of Mr.\nPurdy. He gave an essential impression of genial timidity: and how he\n_did_ love to talk!\n\nWe came at last to a rough bit of land grown up to scrubby oaks and\nhazel brush.\n\n\"This,\" said Mr. Purdy, \"looks hopeful.\"\n\nWe followed the old road, examining every bare spot of earth for some\nevidence of the cow's tracks, but without finding so much as a sign. I\nwas for pushing onward but Mr. Purdy insisted that this clump of woods\nwas exactly such a place as a cow would like. He developed such a\ncapacity for argumentation and seemed so sure of what he was talking\nabout that I yielded, and we entered the wood.\n\n\"We'll part here,\" he said: \"you keep over there about fifty yards and\nI'll go straight ahead. In that way we'll cover the ground. Keep\na-shoutin'.\"\n\nSo we started and I kept a-shoutin'. He would answer from time to time:\n\"Hulloo hulloo!\"\n\nIt was a wild and beautiful bit of forest. The ground under the trees\nwas thickly covered with enormous ferns or bracken, with here and there\npatches of light where the sun came through the foliage. The low spots\nwere filled with the coarse green verdure of skunk cabbage. I was so\nsceptical about finding the cow in a wood where concealment was so easy\nthat I confess I rather idled and enjoyed the surroundings. Suddenly,\nhowever, I heard Mr. Purdy's voice, with a new note in it:\n\n\"Hulloo, hulloo----\"\n\n\"What luck?\"\n\n\"Hulloo, hulloo----\"\n\n\"I'm coming--\" and I turned and ran as rapidly as I could through the\ntrees, jumping over logs and dodging low branches, wondering what new\nthing my friend had discovered. So I came to his side.\n\n\"Have you got trace of her?\" I questioned eagerly.\n\n\"Sh!\" he said, \"over there. Don't you see her?\"\n\n\"Where, where?\"\n\nHe pointed, but for a moment I could see nothing but the trees and the\nbracken. Then all at once, like the puzzle in a picture, I saw her\nplainly. She was standing perfectly motionless, her head lowered, and in\nsuch a peculiar clump of bushes and ferns that she was all but\nindistinguishable. It was wonderful, the perfection with which her\ninstinct had led her to conceal herself.\n\nAll excitement, I started toward her at once. But Mr. Purdy put his hand\non my arm.\n\n\"Wait,\" he said, \"don't frighten her. She has her calf there.\"\n\n\"No!\" I exclaimed, for I could see nothing of it.\n\nWe went, cautiously, a few steps nearer. She threw up her head and\nlooked at us so wildly for a moment that I should hardly have known her\nfor my cow. She was, indeed, for the time being, a wild creature of the\nwood. She made a low sound and advanced a step threateningly.\n\n\"Steady,\" said Mr. Purdy, \"this is her first calf. Stop a minute and\nkeep quiet. She'll soon get used to us.\"\n\nMoving to one side cautiously, we sat down on an old log. The brown\nheifer paused, every muscle tense, her eyes literally blazing, We sat\nperfectly still. After a minute or two she lowered her head, and with\ncurious guttural sounds she began to lick her calf, which lay quite\nhidden in the bracken.\n\n\"She has chosen a perfect spot,\" I thought to myself, for it was the\nwildest bit of forest I had seen anywhere in this neighbourhood. At one\nside, not far off, rose a huge gray rock, partly covered on one side\nwith moss, and round about were oaks and a few ash trees of a poor\nscrubby sort (else they would long ago have been cut out). The earth\nunderneath was soft and springy with leaf mould.--\n\nMr. Purdy was one to whom silence was painful; he fidgeted about,\nevidently bursting with talk, and yet feeling compelled to follow his\nown injunction of silence. Presently he reached into his capacious\npocket and handed me a little paper-covered booklet. I took it, curious,\nand read the title:\n\n\"Is There a Hell?\"\n\nIt struck me humorously. In the country we are always--at least some of\nus are--more or less in a religious ferment, The city may distract\nitself to the point where faith is unnecessary; but in the country we\nmust, perforce, have something to believe in. And we talk about it, too!\nI read the title aloud, but in a low voice:\n\n\"Is There a Hell?\" Then I asked: \"Do you really want to know?\"\n\n\"The argument is all there,\" he replied.\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"I can tell you off-hand, out of my own experience, that\nthere certainly is a hell----\"\n\nHe turned toward me with evident astonishment, but I proceeded with\ntranquillity:\n\n\"Yes, sir, there's no doubt about it. I've been near enough myself\nseveral times to smell the smoke. It isn't around here,\" I said.\n\nAs he looked at me his china-blue eyes grew larger, if that were\npossible, and his serious, gentle face took on a look of pained\nsurprise.\n\n\"Before you say such things,\" he said, \"I beg you to read my book.\"\n\nHe took the tract from my hands and opened it on his knee.\n\n\"The Bible tells us,\" he said, \"that in the beginning God created the\nheavens and the earth, He made the firmament and divided the waters.\nBut does the Bible say that He created a hell or a devil? Does it?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Well, then!\" he said triumphantly, \"and that isn't all, either. The\nhistorian Moses gives in detail a full account of what was made in six\ndays. He tells how day and night were created, how the sun and the moon\nand the stars were made; he tells how God created the flowers of the\nfield, and the insects, and the birds, and the great whales, and said,\n'Be fruitful and multiply,' He accounts for every minute of the time in\nthe entire six days--and of course God rested on the seventh--and there\nis not one word about hell. Is there?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"Well then--\" exultantly, \"where is it? I'd like to have any man, no\nmatter how wise he is, answer that. Where is it?\"\n\n\"That,\" I said, \"has troubled me, too. We don't always know just where\nour hells are. If we did we might avoid them. We are not so sensitive to\nthem as we should be--do you think?\"\n\nHe looked at me intently: I went on before he could answer:\n\n\"Why, I've seen men in my time living from day to day in the very\natmosphere of perpetual torment, and actually arguing that there was no\nhell. It is a strange sight, I assure you, and one that will trouble you\nafterwards. From what I know of hell, it is a place of very loose\nboundaries. Sometimes I've thought we couldn't be quite sure when we\nwere in it and when we were not.\"\n\nI did not tell my friend, but I was thinking of the remark of old\nSwedenborg: \"The trouble with hell is we shall not know it when we\narrive.\"\n\nAt this point Mr. Purdy burst out again, having opened his little book\nat another page.\n\n\"When Adam and Eve had sinned,\" he said, \"and the God of Heaven walked\nin the garden in the cool of the evening and called for them and they\nhad hidden themselves on account of their disobedience, did God say to\nthem: Unless you repent of your sins and get forgiveness I will shut you\nup in yon dark and dismal hell and torment you (or have the devil do it)\nfor ever and ever? Was there such a word?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n[Illustration: \"He reached into his pocket and handed me a little\npaper-covered booklet\"]\n\n\"No, sir,\" he said vehemently, \"there was not.\"\n\n\"But does it say,\" I asked, \"that Adam and Eve had not themselves been\nusing their best wits in creating a hell? That point has occurred to me.\nIn my experience I've known both Adams and Eves who were most adroit in\ntheir capacity for making places of torment--and afterwards of getting\ninto them. Just watch yourself some day after you've sown a crop of\ndesires and you'll see promising little hells starting up within you\nlike pigweeds and pusley after a warm rain in your garden. And our\nheavens, too, for that matter--they grow to our own planting: and how\nsensitive they are too! How soon the hot wind of a passion withers them\naway! How surely the fires of selfishness blacken their perfection!\"\n\nI'd almost forgotten Mr. Purdy--and when I looked around, his face wore\na peculiar puzzled expression not unmixed with alarm. He held up his\nlittle book eagerly almost in my face.\n\n\"If God had intended to create a hell,\" he said, \"I assert without fear\nof successful contradiction that when God was there in the Garden of\nEden it was the time for Him to have put Adam and Eve and all their\nposterity on notice that there was a place of everlasting torment. It\nwould have been only a square deal for Him to do so. But did He?\"\n\nI shook my head.\n\n\"He did not. If He had mentioned hell on that occasion I should not now\ndispute its existence. But He did not. This is what He said to Adam--the\nvery words: 'In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou\nreturn unto the ground: for out of it thou wast taken: for dust thou\nart, and unto dust shalt thou return.' You see He did not say 'Unto hell\nshalt thou return.' He said, 'Unto dust.' That isn't hell, is it?\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"there are in my experience a great many different kinds\nof hells. There are almost as many kinds of hells as there are men and\nwomen upon this earth. Now, your hell wouldn't terrify me in the least.\nMy own makes me no end of trouble. Talk about burning pitch and\nbrimstone: how futile were the imaginations of the old fellows who\nconjured up such puerile torments. Why, I can tell you of no end of\nhells that are worse--and not half try. Once I remember, when I was\nyounger----\"\n\nI happened to glance around at my companion. He sat there looking at me\nwith horror--fascinated horror.\n\n\"Well, I won't disturb your peace of mind by telling _that_ story,\" I\nsaid.\n\n\"Do you believe that we shall go to hell?\" he asked in a low voice.\n\n\"That depends,\" I said. \"Let's leave out the question of 'we'; let's be\nmore comfortably general in our discussion. I think we can safely say\nthat some go and some do not. It's a curious and noteworthy thing,\" I\nsaid, \"but I've known of cases--There are some people who aren't really\nworth good honest tormenting--let alone the rewards of heavenly bliss.\nThey just haven't anything to torment! What is going to become of such\nfolks? I confess I don't know. You remember when Dante began his journey\ninto the infernal regions----\"\n\n\"I don't believe a word of that Dante,\" he interrupted excitedly; \"it's\nall a made up story. There isn't a word of truth in it; it is a\nblasphemous book. Let me read you what I say about it in here.\"\n\n\"I will agree with you without argument,\" I said, \"that it is not _all_\ntrue. I merely wanted to speak of one of Dante's experiences as an\nillustration of the point I'm making. You remember that almost the first\nspirits he met on his journey were those who had never done anything in\nthis life to merit either heaven or hell. That always struck me as being\nabout the worst plight imaginable for a human being. Think of a creature\nnot even worth good honest brimstone!\"\n\nSince I came home, I've looked up the passage; and it is a wonderful\none. Dante heard wailings and groans and terrible things said in many\ntongues. Yet these were not the souls of the wicked. They were only\nthose \"who had lived without praise or blame, thinking of nothing but\nthemselves.\" \"Heaven would not dull its brightness with those, nor would\nlower hell receive them.\"\n\n\"And what is it,\" asked Dante, \"that makes them so grievously suffer?\"\n\n\"Hopelessness of death,\" said Virgil, \"Their blind existence here, and\nimmemorable former life, make them so wretched that they envy every\nother lot. Mercy and Justice alike disdain them. Let us speak of them\nno more. Look, and pass!\"\n\nBut Mr. Purdy, in spite of his timidity, was a man of much persistence.\n\n\"They tell me,\" he said, \"when they try to prove the reasonableness of\nhell, that unless you show sinners how they're goin' to be tormented,\nthey'd never repent. Now, I say that if a man has to be scared into\nreligion, his religion ain't much good.\"\n\n\"There,\" I said, \"I agree with you completely.\"\n\nHis face lighted up, and he continued eagerly:\n\n\"And I tell 'em: You just go ahead and try for heaven; don't pay any\nattention to all this talk about everlasting punishment.\"\n\n\"Good advice!\" I said.\n\nIt had begun to grow dark. The brown cow was quiet at last. We could\nhear small faint sounds from the calf. I started slowly through the\nbracken. Mr. Purdy hung at my elbow, stumbling sideways as he walked,\nbut continuing to talk eagerly. So we came to the place where the calf\nlay. I spoke in a low voice:\n\n\"So boss, so boss.\"\n\nI would have laid my hand on her neck but she started back with a wild\ntoss of her horns. It was a beautiful calf! I looked at it with a\npeculiar feeling of exultation, pride, ownership. It was red-brown, with\na round curly pate and one white leg. As it lay curled there among the\nferns, it was really beautiful to look at. When we approached, it did\nnot so much as stir. I lifted it to its legs, upon which the cow\nuttered a strange half-wild cry and ran a few steps off, her head thrown\nin the air. The calf fell back as though it had no legs.\n\n\"She is telling it not to stand up,\" said Mr. Purdy.\n\nI had been afraid at first that something was the matter!\n\n\"Some are like that,\" he said. \"Some call their calves to run. Others\nwon't let you come near 'em at all; and I've even known of a case where a\ncow gored its calf to death rather than let anyone touch it.\"\n\nI looked at Mr. Purdy not without a feeling of admiration. This was a\nthing he knew: a language not taught in the universities. How well it\nbecame him to know it; how simply he expressed it! I thought to myself:\nThere are not many men in this world, after all, that it will not pay\nus to go to school to--for something or other.\n\nI should never have been able, indeed, to get the cow and calf home,\nlast night at least, if it had not been for my chance friend. He knew\nexactly what to do and how to do it. He wore a stout coat of denim,\nrather long in the skirts. This he slipped off, while I looked on in\nsome astonishment, and spread it out on the ground. He placed my staff\nunder one side of it and found another stick nearly the same size for\nthe other side. These he wound into the coat until he had made a sort of\nstretcher. Upon this we placed the unresisting calf. What a fine one it\nwas! Then, he in front and I behind, we carried the stretcher and its\nburden out of the wood. The cow followed, sometimes threatening,\nsometimes bellowing, sometimes starting off wildly, head and tail in the\nair, only to rush back and, venturing up with trembling muscles, touch\nher tongue to the calf, uttering low maternal sounds.\n\n\"Keep steady,\" said Mr. Purdy, \"and everything'll be all right.\"\n\nWhen we came to the brook we stopped to rest. I think my companion would\nhave liked to start his argument again, but he was too short of breath.\n\nIt was a prime spring evening! The frogs were tuning up. I heard a\ndrowsy cowbell somewhere over the hills in the pasture. The brown cow,\nwith eager, outstretched neck, was licking her calf as it lay there on\nthe improvised stretcher. I looked up at the sky, a blue avenue of\nheaven between the tree tops; I felt the peculiar sense of mystery which\nnature so commonly conveys.\n\n\"I have been too sure!\" I said. \"What do we know after all! Why may\nthere not be future heavens and hells--'other heavens for other earths'?\nWe do not know--we do not _know_--\"\n\nSo, carrying the calf, in the cool of the evening, we came at last to my\nyard. We had no sooner put the calf down than it jumped nimbly to its\nfeet and ran, wobbling absurdly, to meet its mother.\n\n\"The rascal,\" I said, \"after all our work.\"\n\n\"It's the nature of the animal,\" said Mr. Purdy, as he put on his coat.\n\nI could not thank him enough. I invited him to stay with us to supper,\nbut he said he must hurry home.\n\n\"Then come down soon to see me,\" I said, \"and we will settle this\nquestion as to the existence of a hell.\"\n\nHe stepped up close to me and said, with an appealing note in his voice:\n\n\"You do not really believe in a hell, do you?\"\n\nHow human nature loves collusiveness: nothing short of the categorical\nwill satisfy us! What I said to Mr. Purdy evidently appeased him, for he\nseized my hand and shook and shook.\n\n\"We haven't understood each other,\" he said eagerly. \"You don't believe\nin eternal damnation any more than I do.\" Then he added, as though some\nnew uncertainty puzzled him, \"Do you?\"\n\nAt supper I was telling Harriet with gusto of my experiences. Suddenly\nshe broke out:\n\n\"What was his name?\"\n\n\"Purdy.\"\n\n\"Why, he's the infidel that Mrs. Horace tells about!\"\n\n\"Is that possible?\" I said, and I dropped my knife and fork. The\nstrangest sensation came over me.\n\n\"Why,\" I said, \"then I'm an infidel too!\"\n\nSo I laughed and I've been laughing gloriously ever since--at myself, at\nthe infidel, at the entire neighbourhood. I recalled that delightful\ncharacter in \"The Vicar of Wakefield\" (my friend the Scotch Preacher\nloves to tell about him), who seasons error by crying out \"Fudge!\"\n\n\"Fudge!\" I said.\n\nWe're all poor sinners!\n\n\n\nXI\n\n\nTHE COUNTRY DOCTOR\n\n_Sunday afternoon, June 9._\n\nWe had a funeral to-day in this community and the longest funeral\nprocession, Charles Baxter says, he has seen in all the years of his\nmemory among these hills. A good man has gone away--and yet remains. In\nthe comparatively short time I have been here I never came to know him\nwell personally, though I saw him often in the country roads, a ruddy\nold gentleman with thick, coarse, iron-gray hair, somewhat stern of\ncountenance, somewhat shabby of attire, sitting as erect as a trooper in\nhis open buggy, one muscular hand resting on his knee, the other holding\nthe reins of his familiar old white horse. I said I did not come to know\nhim well personally, and yet no one who knows this community can help\nknowing Doctor John North. I never so desired the gift of moving\nexpression as I do at this moment, on my return from his funeral, that I\nmay give some faint idea of what a good man means to a community like\nours--as the more complete knowledge of it has come to me to-day.\n\nIn the district school that I attended when a boy we used to love to\nleave our mark, as we called it, wherever our rovings led us. It was a\nbit of boyish mysticism, unaccountable now that we have grown older and\nwiser (perhaps); but it had its meaning. It was an instinctive\noutreaching of the young soul to perpetuate the knowledge of its\nexistence upon this forgetful earth. My mark, I remember, was a notch\nand a cross. With what secret fond diligence I carved it in the gray\nbark of beech trees, on fence posts, or on barn doors, and once, I\nremember, on the roof-ridge of our home, and once, with high imaginings\nof how long it would remain, I spent hours chiseling it deep in a\nhard-headed old boulder in the pasture, where, if man has been as kind\nas Nature, it remains to this day. If you should chance to see it you\nwould not know of the boy who carved it there.\n\nSo Doctor North left his secret mark upon the neighbourhood--as all of\nus do, for good or for ill, upon _our_ neighbourhoods, in accordance\nwith the strength of that character which abides within us. For a long\ntime I did not know that it was he, though it was not difficult to see\nthat some strong good man had often passed this way. I saw the mystic\nsign of him deep-lettered in the hearthstone of a home; I heard it\nspeaking bravely from the weak lips of a friend; it is carved in the\nplastic heart of many a boy. No, I do not doubt the immortalities of the\nsoul; in this community, which I have come to love so much, dwells more\nthan one of John North's immortalities--and will continue to dwell. I,\ntoo, live more deeply because John North was here.\n\nHe was in no outward way an extraordinary man, nor was his life\neventful. He was born in this neighbourhood: I saw him lying quite still\nthis morning in the same sunny room of the same house where he first saw\nthe light of day. Here among these common hills he grew up, and save for\nthe few years he spent at school or in the army, he lived here all his\nlife long. In old neighbourhoods and especially farm neighbourhoods\npeople come to know one another--not clothes knowledge, or money\nknowledge--but that sort of knowledge which reaches down into the hidden\nsprings of human character. A country community may be deceived by a\nstranger, too easily deceived, but not by one of its own people. For it\nis not a studied knowledge; it resembles that slow geologic uncovering\nbefore which not even the deep buried bones of the prehistoric saurian\nremain finally hidden.\n\nI never fully realised until this morning what a supreme triumph it is,\nhaving grown old, to merit the respect of those who know us best. Mere\ngreatness offers no reward to compare with it, for greatness compels\nthat homage which we freely bestow upon goodness. So long as I live I\nshall never forget this morning. I stood in the door-yard outside of\nthe open window of the old doctor's home. It was soft, and warm, and\nvery still--a June Sunday morning. An apple tree not far off was still\nin blossom, and across the road on a grassy hillside sheep fed\nunconcernedly. Occasionally, from the roadway where the horses of the\ncountryside were waiting, I heard the clink of a bit-ring or the low\nvoice of some new-comer seeking a place to hitch. Not half those who\ncame could find room in the house: they stood uncovered among the trees.\nFrom within, wafted through the window, came the faint odour of flowers,\nand the occasional minor intonation of someone speaking--and finally our\nown Scotch Preacher! I could not see him, but there lay in the cadences\nof his voice a peculiar note of peacefulness, of finality. The day\nbefore he died Dr. North had said:\n\n\"I want McAlway to conduct my funeral, not as a minister but as a man.\nHe has been my friend for forty years; he will know what I mean.\"\n\nThe Scotch Preacher did not say much. Why should he? Everyone there\n_knew_: and speech would only have cheapened what we knew. And I do not\nnow recall even the little he said, for there was so much all about me\nthat spoke not of the death of a good man, but of his life. A boy who\nstood near me--a boy no longer, for he was as tall as a man--gave a more\neloquent tribute than any preacher could have done. I saw him stand his\nground for a time with that grim courage of youth which dreads emotion\nmore than a battle: and then I saw him crying behind a tree! He was not\na relative of the old doctor's; he was only one of many into whose deep\nlife the doctor had entered.\n\nThey sang \"Lead, Kindly Light,\" and came out through the narrow doorway\ninto the sunshine with the coffin, the hats of the pallbearers in a row\non top, and there was hardly a dry eye among us.\n\nAnd as they came out through the narrow doorway, I thought how the\nDoctor must have looked out daily through so many, many years upon this\nbeauty of hills and fields and of sky above, grown dearer from long\nfamiliarity--which he would know no more. And Kate North, the Doctor's\nsister, his only relative, followed behind, her fine old face gray and\nset, but without a tear in her eye. How like the Doctor she looked: the\nsame stern control!\n\nIn the hours which followed, on the pleasant winding way to the\ncemetery, in the groups under the trees, on the way homeward again, the\ncommunity spoke its true heart, and I have come back with the feeling\nthat human nature, at bottom, is sound and sweet. I knew a great deal\nbefore about Doctor North, but I knew it as knowledge, not as emotion,\nand therefore it was not really a part of my life.\n\nI heard again the stories of how he drove the country roads, winter and\nsummer, how he had seen most of the population into the world and had\nheld the hands of many who went out! It was the plain, hard life of a\ncountry doctor, and yet it seemed to rise in our community like some\ngreat tree, its roots deep buried in the soil of our common life, its\nbranches close to the sky. To those accustomed to the outward\nexcitements of city life it would have seemed barren and uneventful. It\nwas significant that the talk was not so much of what the Doctor did as\nof _how_ he did it, not so much of his actions as of the natural\nexpression of his character. And when we come to think of it, goodness\n_is_ uneventful. It does not flash, it glows. It is deep, quiet and very\nsimple. It passes not with oratory, it is commonly foreign to riches,\nnor does it often sit in the places of the mighty: but may be felt in\nthe touch of a friendly hand or the look of a kindly eye.\n\nOutwardly, John North often gave the impression of brusqueness. Many a\nwoman, going to him for the first time, and until she learned that he\nwas in reality as gentle as a girl, was frightened by his manner. The\ncountry is full of stories of such encounters. We laugh yet over the\nadventure of a woman who formerly came to spend her summers here. She\ndressed very beautifully and was \"nervous.\" One day she went to call on\nthe Doctor. He made a careful examination and asked many questions.\nFinally he said, with portentous solemnity:\n\n\"Madam, you're suffering from a very common complaint.\"\n\nThe Doctor paused, then continued, impressively:\n\n\"You haven't enough work to do. This is what I would advise. Go home,\ndischarge your servants, do your own cooking, wash your own clothes and\nmake your own beds. You'll get well.\"\n\nShe is reported to have been much offended, and yet to-day there was a\nwreath of white roses in Doctor North's room sent from the city by that\nwoman.\n\nIf he really hated anything in this world the Doctor hated whimperers.\nHe had a deep sense of the purpose and need of punishment, and he\ndespised those who fled from wholesome discipline.\n\nA young fellow once went to the Doctor--so they tell the story--and\nasked for something to stop his pain.\n\n\"Stop it!\" exclaimed the Doctor: \"why, it's good for you. You've done\nwrong, haven't you? Well, you're being punished; take it like a man.\nThere's nothing more wholesome than good honest pain.\"\n\nAnd yet how much pain he alleviated in this community--in forty years!\n\nThe deep sense that a man should stand up to his fate was one of the\nkey-notes of his character; and the way he taught it, not only by word\nbut by every action of his life, put heart into many a weak man and\nwoman, Mrs. Patterson, a friend of ours, tells of a reply she once had\nfrom the Doctor to whom she had gone with a new trouble. After telling\nhim about it she said:\n\n\"I've left it all with the Lord.\"\n\n\"You'd have done better,\" said the Doctor, \"to keep it yourself. Trouble\nis for your discipline: the Lord doesn't need it.\"\n\nIt was thus out of his wisdom that he was always telling people what\nthey knew, deep down in their hearts, to be true. It sometimes hurt at\nfirst, but sooner or later, if the man had a spark of real manhood in\nhim, he came back, and gave the Doctor an abiding affection.\n\nThere were those who, though they loved him, called him intolerant. I\nnever could look at it that way. He _did_ have the only kind of\nintolerance which is at all tolerable, and that is the intolerance of\nintolerance. He always set himself with vigour against that unreason and\nlack of sympathy which are the essence of intolerance; and yet there was\na rock of conviction on many subjects behind which he could not be\ndriven. It was not intolerance: it was with him a reasoned certainty of\nbelief. He had a phrase to express that not uncommon state of mind in\nthis age particularly, which is politely willing to yield its foothold\nwithin this universe to almost any reasoner who suggests some other\nuniverse, however shadowy, to stand upon. He called it a \"mush of\nconcession.\" He might have been wrong in his convictions, but he, at\nleast, never floundered in a \"mush of concession.\" I heard him say once:\n\n\"There are some things a man can't concede, and one is, that a man who\nhas broken a law, like a man who has broken a leg, has got to suffer for\nit.\"\n\nIt was only with the greatest difficulty that he could be prevailed upon\nto present a bill. It was not because the community was poor, though\nsome of our people are poor, and it was certainly not because the Doctor\nwas rich and could afford such philanthropy, for, saving a rather\nunproductive farm which during the last ten years of his life lay wholly\nuncultivated, he was as poor as any man in the community. He simply\nseemed to forget that people owed him.\n\nIt came to be a common and humorous experience for people to go to the\nDoctor and say:\n\n\"Now, Doctor North, how much do I owe you? You remember you attended my\nwife two years ago when the baby came--and John when he had the\ndiphtheria----\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said the Doctor, \"I remember.\"\n\n\"I thought I ought to pay you.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll look it up when I get time.\"\n\nBut he wouldn't. The only way was to go to him and say:\n\n\"Doctor, I want to pay ten dollars on account.\"\n\n\"All right,\" he'd answer, and take the money.\n\nTo the credit of the community I may say with truthfulness that the\nDoctor never suffered. He was even able to supply himself with the best\ninstruments that money could buy. To him nothing was too good for our\nneighbourhood. This morning I saw in a case at his home a complete set\nof oculist's instruments, said to be the best in the county--a very\nunusual equipment for a country doctor. Indeed, he assumed that the\nresponsibility for the health of the community rested upon him. He was a\nsort of self-constituted health officer. He was always sniffing about\nfor old wells and damp cellars--and somehow, with his crisp humour and\nsound sense, getting them cleaned. In his old age he even grew\nquerulously particular about these things--asking a little more of human\nnature than it could quite accomplish. There were innumerable other\nways--how they came out to-day all glorified now that he is gone!--in\nwhich he served the community.\n\nHorace tells how he once met the Doctor driving his old white horse in\nthe town road.\n\n\"Horace,\" called the Doctor, \"why don't you paint your barn?\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Horace, \"it _is_ beginning to look a bit shabby.\"\n\n\"Horace,\" said the Doctor, \"you're a prominent citizen. We look to you\nto keep up the credit of the neighbourhood.\"\n\nHorace painted his barn.\n\nI think Doctor North was fonder of Charles Baxter than of anyone else,\nsave his sister. He hated sham and cant: if a man had a single _reality_\nin him the old Doctor found it; and Charles Baxter in many ways exceeds\nany man I ever knew in the downright quality of genuineness. The Doctor\nwas never tired of telling--and with humour--how he once went to Baxter\nto have a table made for his office. When he came to get it he found\nthe table upside clown and Baxter on his knees finishing off the under\npart of the drawer slides. Baxter looked up and smiled in the engaging\nway he has, and continued his work. After watching him for some time the\nDoctor said:\n\n\"Baxter, why do you spend so much time on that table? Who's going to\nknow whether or not the last touch has been put on the under side of\nit?\"\n\nBaxter straightened up and looked at the Doctor in surprise.\n\n\"Why, I will,\" he said.\n\nHow the Doctor loved to tell that story! I warrant there is no boy who\never grew up in this country who hasn't heard it.\n\nIt was a part of his pride in finding reality that made the Doctor such\na lover of true sentiment and such a hater of sentimentality. I prize\none memory of him which illustrates this point. The district school gave\na \"speaking\" and we all went. One boy with a fresh young voice spoke a\n\"soldier piece\"--the soliloquy of a one-armed veteran who sits at a\nwindow and sees the troops go by with dancing banners and glittering\nbayonets, and the people cheering and shouting. And the refrain went\nsomething like this:\n\n\"Never again call 'Comrade'\n  To the men who were comrades for years;\nNever again call 'Brother'\n  To the men we think of with tears.\"\n\nI happened to look around while the boy was speaking, and there sat the\nold Doctor with the tears rolling unheeded down his ruddy face; he was\nthinking, no doubt, of _his_ war time and the comrades _he_ knew.\n\nOn the other hand, how he despised fustian and bombast. His \"Bah!\"\ndelivered explosively, was often like a breath of fresh air in a stuffy\nroom. Several years ago, before I came here--and it is one of the\nhistoric stories of the county--there was a semi-political Fourth of\nJuly celebration with a number of ambitious orators. One of them, a\nyoung fellow of small worth who wanted to be elected to the legislature,\nmade an impassioned address on \"Patriotism.\" The Doctor was present, for\nhe liked gatherings: he liked people. But he did not like the young\norator, and did not want him to be elected. In the midst of the speech,\nwhile the audience was being carried through the clouds of oratory, the\nDoctor was seen to be growing more and more uneasy. Finally he burst\nout:\n\n\"Bah!\"\n\nThe orator caught himself, and then swept on again.\n\n\"Bah!\" said the Doctor.\n\nBy this time the audience was really interested. The orator stopped. He\nknew the Doctor, and he should have known better than to say what he\ndid. But he was very young and he knew the Doctor was opposing him.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" he remarked sarcastically, \"the Doctor can make a better\nspeech than I can.\"\n\nThe Doctor rose instantly, to his full height--and he was an\nimpressive-looking man.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" he said, \"I can, and what is more, I will.\" He stood up on a\nchair and gave them a talk on Patriotism--real patriotism--the\npatriotism of duty done in the small concerns of life. That speech,\nwhich ended the political career of the orator, is not forgotten to-day.\n\nOne thing I heard to-day about the old Doctor impressed me deeply. I\nhave been thinking about it ever since: it illuminates his character\nmore than anything I have heard. It is singular, too, that I should not\nhave known the story before. I don't believe it was because it all\nhappened so long ago; it rather remained untold out of deference to a\nsort of neighbourhood delicacy.\n\nI had, indeed, wondered why a man of such capacities, so many qualities\nof real greatness and power, should have escaped a city career. I said\nsomething to this effect to a group of men with whom I was talking this\nmorning. I thought they exchanged glances; one said:\n\n\"When he first came out of the army he'd made such a fine record as a\nsurgeon that everyone-urged him to go to the city and practice----\"\n\nA pause followed which no one seemed inclined to fill.\n\n\"But he didn't go,\" I said.\n\n\"No, he didn't go. He was a brilliant young fellow. He _knew_ a lot, and\nhe was popular, too. He'd have had a great success----\"\n\nAnother pause.\n\n\"But he didn't go?\" I asked promptingly.\n\n\"No; he staid here. He was better educated than any man in this county.\nWhy, I've seen him more'n once pick up a book of Latin and read it _for\npleasure_.\"\n\nI could see that all this was purposely irrelevant, and I liked them for\nit. But walking home from the cemetery Horace gave me the story; the\ncommunity knew it to the last detail. I suppose it is a story not\nuncommon among men, but this morning, told of the old Doctor we had just\nlaid away, it struck me with a tragic poignancy difficult to describe.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Horace, \"he was to have been married, forty years ago, and\nthe match was broken off because he was a drunkard.\"\n\n\"A drunkard!\" I exclaimed, with a shock I cannot convey.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said Horace, \"one o' the worst you ever see. He got it in\nthe army. Handsome, wild, brilliant--that was the Doctor. I was a little\nboy but I remember it mighty well.\"\n\nHe told me the whole distressing story. It was all a long time ago and\nthe details do not matter now. It was to be expected that a man like the\nold Doctor should love, love once, and love as few men do. And that is\nwhat he did--and the girl left him because he was a drunkard!\n\n\"They all thought,\" said Horace, \"that he'd up an' kill himself. He\nsaid he would, but he didn't. Instid o' that he put an open bottle on\nhis table and he looked at it and said: 'Which is stronger, now, you or\nJohn North? We'll make that the test,' he said, 'we'll live or die by\nthat.' Them was his exact words. He couldn't sleep nights and he got\nhaggard like a sick man, but he left the bottle there and never touched\nit.\"\n\nHow my heart throbbed with the thought of that old silent struggle! How\nmuch it explained; how near it brought all these people around him! It\nmade him so human. It is the tragic necessity (but the salvation) of\nmany a man that he should come finally to an irretrievable experience,\nto the assurance that everything is lost. For with that moment, if he be\nstrong, he is saved. I wonder if anyone ever attains real human sympathy\nwho has not passed through the fire of some such experience. Or to\nhumour either! For in the best laughter do we not hear constantly that\ndeep minor note which speaks of the ache in the human heart? It seems to\nme I can understand Doctor North!\n\nHe died Friday morning. He had been lying very quiet all night;\nsuddenly he opened his eyes and said to his sister: \"Good-bye, Kate,\"\nand shut them again. That was all. The last call had come and he was\nready for it. I looked at his face after death. I saw the iron lines of\nthat old struggle in his mouth and chin; and the humour that it brought\nhim in the lines around his deep-set eyes.\n\n----And as I think of him this afternoon, I can see him--curiously, for\nI can hardly explain it--carrying a banner as in battle right here among\nour quiet hills. And those he leads seem to be the people we know, the\nmen, and the women, and the boys! He is the hero of a new age. In olden\ndays he might have been a pioneer, carrying the light of civilisation to\na new land; here he has been a sort of moral pioneer--a pioneering far\nmore difficult than any we have ever known. There are no heroics\nconnected with it, the name of the pioneer will not go ringing down the\nages; for it is a silent leadership and its success is measured by\nvictories in other lives. We see it now, only too dimly, when he is\ngone. We reflect sadly that we did not stop to thank him. How busy we\nwere with our own affairs when he was among us! I wonder is there\nanyone here to take up the banner he has laid down!\n\n----I forgot to say that the Scotch Preacher chose the most impressive\ntext in the Bible for his talk at the funeral:\n\n\"He that is greatest among you, let him be ... as he that doth serve.\"\n\nAnd we came away with a nameless, aching sense of loss, thinking how,\nperhaps, in a small way, we might do something for somebody else--as the\nold Doctor did.\n\n\n\nXII\n\n\nAN EVENING AT HOME\n\n\"How calm and quiet a delight\n  Is it, alone,\nTo read and meditate and write,\n  By none offended, and offending none.\nTo walk, ride, sit or sleep at one's own ease,\n  And, pleasing a man's self, none other to displease.\"\n\n--_Charles Cotton, a friend of Izaak Walton_, 1650\n\n\nDuring the last few months so many of the real adventures of life have\nbeen out of doors and so much of the beauty, too, that I have scarcely\nwritten a word about my books. In the summer the days are so long and\nthe work so engrossing that a farmer is quite willing to sit quietly on\nhis porch after supper and watch the long evenings fall--and rest his\ntired back, and go to bed early. But the winter is the true time for\nindoor enjoyment!\n\nDays like these! A cold night after a cold day! Well wrapped, you have\nmade arctic explorations to the stable, the chicken-yard and the\npig-pen; you have dug your way energetically to the front gate, stopping\nevery few minutes to beat your arms around your shoulders and watch the\nwhite plume of your breath in the still air--and you have rushed in\ngladly to the warmth of the dining-room and the lamp-lit supper. After\nsuch a day how sharp your appetite, how good the taste of food!\nHarriet's brown bread (moist, with thick, sweet, dark crusts) was never\nquite so delicious, and when the meal is finished you push back your\nchair feeling like a sort of lord.\n\n\"That was a good supper, Harriet,\" you say expansively.\n\n\"Was it?\" she asks modestly, but with evident pleasure.\n\n\"Cookery,\" you remark, \"is the greatest art in the world----\"\n\n\"Oh, you were hungry!\"\n\n\"Next to poetry,\" you conclude, \"and much better appreciated. Think how\neasy it is to find a poet who will turn you a presentable sonnet, and\nhow very difficult it is to find a cook who will turn you an edible\nbeefsteak----\"\n\nI said a good deal more on this subject which I shall not attempt to\nrepeat. Harriet did not listen through it all. She knows what I am\ncapable of when I really get started; and she has her well-defined\nlimits. A practical person, Harriet! When I have gone about so far, she\nbegins clearing the table or takes up her mending--but I don't mind it\nat all. Having begun talking, it is wonderful how pleasant one's own\nvoice becomes. And think of having a clear field--and no interruptions!\n\nMy own particular room, where I am permitted to revel in the desert of\nmy own disorder, opens comfortably off the sitting-room. A lamp with a\ngreen shade stands invitingly on the table shedding a circle of light on\nthe books and papers underneath, but leaving all the remainder of the\nroom in dim pleasantness. At one side stands a comfortable big chair\nwith everything in arm's reach, including my note books and ink bottle.\nWhere I sit I can look out through the open doorway and see Harriet near\nthe fireplace rocking and sewing. Sometimes she hums a little tune which\nI never confess to hearing, lest I miss some of the unconscious\ncadences. Let the wind blow outside and the snow drift in piles around\nthe doorway and the blinds rattle--I have before me a whole long\npleasant evening.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat a convenient and delightful world is this world of books!--if you\nbring to it not the obligations of the student, or look upon it as an\nopiate for idleness, but enter it rather with the enthusiasm of the\nadventurer! It has vast advantages over the ordinary world of daylight,\nof barter and trade, of work and worry. In this world every man is his\nown King--the sort of King one loves to imagine, not concerned in such\npetty matters as wars and parliaments and taxes, but a mellow and\nmoderate despot who is a true patron of genius--a mild old chap who has\nin his court the greatest men and women in the world--and all of them\nvying to please the most vagrant of his moods! Invite any one of them to\ntalk, and if your highness is not pleased with him you have only to put\nhim back in his corner--and bring some jester to sharpen the laughter of\nyour highness, or some poet to set your faintest emotion to music!\n\nI have marked a certain servility in books. They entreat you for a\nhearing: they cry out from their cases--like men, in an eternal struggle\nfor survival, for immortality.\n\n\"Take me,\" pleads this one, \"I am responsive to every mood. You will\nfind in me love and hate, virtue and vice. I don't preach: I give you\nlife as it is. You will find here adventures cunningly linked with\nromance and seasoned to suit the most fastidious taste. Try _me_.\"\n\n\"Hear such talk!\" cries his neighbour. \"He's fiction. What he says never\nhappened at all. He tries hard to make you believe it, but it isn't\ntrue, not a word of it. Now, I'm fact. Everything you find in me can be\ndepended upon.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" responds the other, \"but who cares! Nobody wants to read you,\nyou're dull.\"\n\n\"You're false!\"\n\nAs their voices grow shriller with argument your highness listens with\nthe indulgent smile of royalty when its courtiers contend for its\nfavour, knowing that their very life depends upon a wrinkle in your\naugust brow.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAs for me I confess to being a rather crusty despot. When Horace was\nover here the other evening talking learnedly about silos and ensilage I\nadmit that I became the very pattern of humility, but when I take my\nplace in the throne of my arm-chair with the light from the green-shaded\nlamp falling on the open pages of my book, I assure you I am decidedly\nan autocratic person. My retainers must distinctly keep their places! I\nhave my court favourites upon whom I lavish the richest gifts of my\nattention. I reserve for them a special place in the worn case nearest\nmy person, where at the mere outreaching of an idle hand I can summon\nthem to beguile my moods. The necessary slavies of literature I have\narranged in indistinct rows at the farther end of the room where they\ncan be had if I require their special accomplishments.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHow little, after all, learning counts in this world either in books or\nin men. I have often been awed by the wealth of information I have\ndiscovered in a man or a book: I have been awed and depressed. How\nwonderful, I have thought, that one brain should hold so much, should be\nso infallible in a world of fallibility. But I have observed how soon\nand completely such a fount of information dissipates itself. Having\nonly things to give, it comes finally to the end of its things: it is\nempty. What it has hived up so painfully through many a studious year\ncomes now to be common property. We pass that way, take our share, and\ndo not even say \"Thank you.\" Learning is like money; it is of prodigious\nsatisfaction to the possessor thereof, but once given forth it diffuses\nitself swiftly.\n\n\"What have you?\" we are ever asking of those we meet. \"Information,\nlearning, money?\"\n\nWe take it cruelly and pass onward, for such is the law of material\npossessions.\n\n\"What have you?\" we ask. \"Charm, personality, character, the great gift\nof unexpectedness?\"\n\nHow we draw you to us! We take you in. Poor or ignorant though you may\nbe, we link arms and loiter; we love you not for what you have or what\nyou give us, but for what you are.\n\nI have several good friends (excellent people) who act always as I\nexpect them to act. There is no flight! More than once I have listened\nto the edifying conversation of a certain sturdy old gentleman whom I\nknow, and I am ashamed to say that I have thought:\n\n\"Lord! if he would jump up now and turn an intellectual handspring, or\nslap me on the back (figuratively, of course: the other would be\nunthinkable), or--yes, swear! I--think I could love him.\"\n\nBut he never does--and I'm afraid he never will!\n\nWhen I speak then of my books you will know what I mean. The chief charm\nof literature, old or new, lies in its high quality of surprise,\nunexpectedness, spontaneity: high spirits applied to life. We can fairly\nhear some of the old chaps you and I know laughing down through the\ncenturies. How we love 'em! They laughed for themselves, not for us!\n\nYes, there must be surprise in the books that I keep in the worn case at\nmy elbow, the surprise of a new personality perceiving for the first\ntime the beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the greatness of\ntruth. It doesn't matter at all whether the writer is a poet, a\nscientist, a traveller, an essayist or a mere daily space-maker, if he\nhave the God-given grace of wonder.\n\n\"What on _earth_ are you laughing about?\" cries Harriet from the\nsitting-room.\n\nWhen I have caught my breath, I say, holding up my book:\n\n\"This absurd man here is telling of the adventures of a certain\nchivalrous Knight.\"\n\n\"But I can't see how you can laugh out like that, sitting all alone\nthere. Why, it's uncanny.\"\n\n\"You don't know the Knight, Harriet, nor his squire Sancho.\"\n\n\"You talk of them just as though they were real persons.\"\n\n\"Real!\" I exclaim, \"real! Why they are much more real than most of the\npeople we know. Horace is a mere wraith compared with Sancho.\"\n\nAnd then I rush out.\n\n\"Let me read you this,\" I say, and I read that matchless chapter wherein\nthe Knight, having clapped on his head the helmet which Sancho has\ninadvertently used as a receptacle for a dinner of curds and, sweating\nwhey profusely, goes forth to fight two fierce lions. As I proceed with\nthat prodigious story, I can see Harriet gradually forgetting her\nsewing, and I read on the more furiously until, coming to the point of\nthe conflict wherein the generous and gentle lion, having yawned, \"threw\nout some half yard of tongue wherewith he licked and washed his face,\"\nHarriet begins to laugh.\n\n\"There!\" I say triumphantly.\n\nHarriet looks at me accusingly.\n\n\"Such foolishness!\" she says. \"Why should any man in his senses try to\nfight caged lions!\"\n\n\"Harriet,\" I say, \"you are incorrigible.\"\n\nShe does not deign to reply, so I return with meekness to my room.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe most distressing thing about the ordinary fact writer is his\ncock-sureness. Why, here is a man (I have not yet dropped him out of\nthe window) who has written a large and sober book explaining life. And\ndo you know when he gets through he is apparently much discouraged about\nthis universe. This is the veritable moment when I am in love with my\noccupation as a despot! At this moment I will exercise the prerogative\nof tyranny:\n\n\"Off with his head!\"\n\nI do not believe this person though he have ever so many titles to\njingle after his name, nor in the colleges which gave them, if they\nstand sponsor for that which he writes, I do not believe he has\ncompassed this universe. I believe him to be an inconsequent being like\nmyself--oh, much more learned, of course--and yet only upon the\nthreshold of these wonders. It goes too deep--life--to be solved by\nfifty years of living. There is far too much in the blue firmament, too\nmany stars, to be dissolved in the feeble logic of a single brain. We\nare not yet great enough, even this explanatory person, to grasp the\n\"scheme of things entire.\" This is no place for weak pessimism--this\nuniverse. This is Mystery and out of Mystery springs the fine\nadventure! What we have seen or felt, what we think we know, are\ninsignificant compared with that which may be known.\n\nWhat this person explains is not, after all, the Universe--but himself,\nhis own limited, faithless personality. I shall not accept his\nexplanation. I escape him utterly!\n\nNot long ago, coming in from my fields, I fell to thinking of the\nsupreme wonder of a tree; and as I walked I met the Professor.\n\n\"How,\" I asked, \"does the sap get up to the top of these great maples\nand elms? What power is there that should draw it upward against the\nforce of gravity?\"\n\nHe looked at me a moment with his peculiar slow smile.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he said.\n\n\"What!\" I exclaimed, \"do you mean to tell me that science has not solved\nthis simplest of natural phenomena?\"\n\n\"We do not know,\" he said. \"We explain, but we do not know.\"\n\nNo, my Explanatory Friend, we do not know--we do not know the why of the\nflowers, or the trees, or the suns; we do not even know why, in our own\nhearts, we should be asking this curious question--and other deeper\nquestions.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNo man becomes a great writer unless he possesses a highly developed\nsense of Mystery, of wonder. A great writer is never _blas\u00e9_; everything\nto him happened not longer ago than this forenoon.\n\nThe other night the Professor and the Scotch Preacher happened in here\ntogether and we fell to discussing, I hardly know how, for we usually\ntalk the neighbourhood chat of the Starkweathers, of Horace and of\nCharles Baxter, we fell to discussing old Izaak Walton--and the nonsense\n(as a scientific age knows it to be) which he sometimes talked with such\ndelightful sobriety.\n\n\"How superior it makes one feel, in behalf of the enlightenment and\nprogress of his age,\" said the Professor, \"when he reads Izaak's\nextraordinary natural history.\"\n\n\"Does it make you feel that way?\" asked the Scotch Preacher. \"It makes\nme want to go fishing.\"\n\nAnd he took the old book and turned the leaves until he came to page\n54.\n\n\"Let me read you,\" he said, \"what the old fellow says about the\n'fearfulest of fishes.'\"\n\n\"'... Get secretly behind a tree, and stand as\nfree from motion as possible; then put a grasshopper\non your hook, and let your hook hang a quarter of\na yard short of the water, to which end you must rest\nyour rod on some bough of a tree; but it is likely\nthat the Chubs will sink down towards the bottom\nof the water at the first shadow of your rod, for a\nChub is the fearfulest of fishes, and will do so if but\na bird flies over him and makes the least shadow\non the water; but they will presently rise up to the\ntop again, and there lie soaring until some shadow\naffrights them again; I say, when they lie upon the\ntop of the water, look at the best Chub, which you,\ngetting yourself in a fit place, may very easily see,\nand move your rod as slowly as a snail moves, to\nthat Chub you intend to catch, let your bait fall\ngently upon the water three or four inches before\nhim, and he will infallibly take the bait, and you\nwill be as sure to catch him.... Go your way\npresently, take my rod, and do as I bid you, and I\nwill sit down and mend my tackling till you return\nback----'\"\n\n\"Now I say,\" said the Scotch Preacher, \"that it makes me want to go\nfishing.\"\n\n\"That,\" I said, \"is true of every great book: it either makes us want\nto do things, to go fishing, or fight harder or endure more\npatiently--or it takes us out of ourselves and beguiles us for a time\nwith the friendship of completer lives than our own.\"\n\nThe great books indeed have in them the burning fire of life;\n\n.... \"nay, they do preserve, as in a violl,\nthe purest efficacie and extraction of that living\nintellect that bred them. I know they are as lively,\nand as vigorously productive, as those fabulous\nDragon's teeth; which being sown up and down, may\nchance to spring up armed men.\"\n\nHow soon we come to distinguish the books of the mere writers from the\nbooks of real men! For true literature, like happiness, is ever a\nby-product; it is the half-conscious expression of a man greatly engaged\nin some other undertaking; it is the song of one working. There is\nsomething inevitable, unrestrainable about the great books; they seemed\nto come despite the author. \"I could not sleep,\" says the poet Horace,\n\"for the pressure of unwritten poetry.\" Dante said of his books that\nthey \"made him lean for many days.\" I have heard people say of a writer\nin explanation of his success:\n\n\"Oh, well, he has the literary knack.\"\n\nIt is not so! Nothing is further from the truth. He writes well not\nchiefly because he is interested in writing, or because he possesses any\nespecial knack, but because he is more profoundly, vividly interested in\nthe activities of life and he tells about them--over his shoulder. For\nwriting, like farming, is ever a tool, not an end.\n\nHow the great one-book men remain with us! I can see Marcus Aurelius\nsitting in his camps among the far barbarians writing out the\nreflections of a busy life. I see William Penn engaged in great\nundertakings, setting down \"Some of the Fruits of Solitude,\" and Abraham\nLincoln striking, in the hasty paragraphs written for his speeches, one\nof the highest notes in our American literature.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"David?\"\n\n\"Yes, Harriet.\"\n\n\"I am going up now; it is very late.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You will bank the fire and see that the doors are locked?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nAfter a pause: \"And, David, I didn't mean--about the story you read. Did\nthe Knight finally kill the lions?\"\n\n\"No,\" I said with sobriety, \"it was not finally necessary.\"\n\n\"But I thought he set out to kill them.\"\n\n\"He did; but he proved his valour without doing it.\"\n\nHarriet paused, made as if to speak again, but did not do so.\n\n\"Valour\"--I began in my hortatory tone, seeing a fair opening, but at\nthe look in her eye I immediately desisted.\n\n\"You won't stay up late?\" she warned.\n\n\"N-o,\" I said.\n\nTake John Bunyan as a pattern of the man who forgot himself into\nimmortality. How seriously he wrote sermons and pamphlets, now happily\nforgotten! But it was not until he was shut up in jail (some writers I\nknow might profit by his example) that he \"put aside,\" as he said, \"a\nmore serious and important work\" and wrote \"Pilgrim's Progress.\" It is\nthe strangest thing in the world--the judgment of men as to what is\nimportant and serious! Bunyan says in his rhymed introduction:\n\n    \"I only thought to make\nI knew not what: nor did I undertake\nThereby to please my neighbour; no, not I:\nI did it my own self to gratify.\"\n\nAnother man I love to have at hand is he who writes of Blazing Bosville,\nthe Flaming Tinman, and of The Hairy Ones.\n\nHow Borrow escapes through his books! His object was not to produce\nliterature but to display his erudition as a master of language and of\noutlandish custom, and he went about the task in all seriousness of\ndemolishing the Roman Catholic Church. We are not now so impressed with\nhis erudition that we do not smile at his vanity and we are quite\ncontented, even after reading his books, to let the church survive; but\nhow shall we spare our friend with his inextinguishable love of life,\nhis pugilists, his gypsies, his horse traders? We are even willing to\nplow through arid deserts of dissertation in order that we may enjoy the\nperfect oases in which the man forgets himself!\n\nReading such books as these and a hundred others, the books of the worn\ncase at my elbow.\n\n\"The bulged and the bruised octavos,\nThe dear and the dumpy twelves----\"\n\nI become like those initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries who, as\nCicero tells us, have attained \"the art of living joyfully and of dying\nwith a fairer hope.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is late, and the house is still. A few bright embers glow in the\nfireplace. You look up and around you, as though coming back to the\nworld from some far-off place. The clock in the dining-room ticks with\nsolemn precision; you did not recall that it had so loud a tone. It has\nbeen a great evening, in this quiet room on your farm, you have been\nable to entertain the worthies of all the past!\n\nYou walk out, resoundingly, to the kitchen and open the door. You look\nacross the still white fields. Your barn looms black in the near\ndistance, the white mound close at hand is your wood-pile, the great\ntrees stand like sentinels in the moonlight; snow has drifted upon the\ndoorstep and lies there untracked. It is, indeed, a dim and untracked\nworld: coldly beautiful but silent--and of a strange unreality! You\nclose the door with half a shiver and take the real world with you up to\nbed. For it is past one o'clock.\n\n[Illustration: \"The beauty, the wonder, the humour, the tragedy, the\ngreatness of truth\"]\n\n\n\nXIII\n\n\nTHE POLITICIAN\n\nIn the city, as I now recall it (having escaped), it seemed to be the\ninstinctive purpose of every citizen I knew not to get into politics but\nto keep out. We sedulously avoided caucuses and school-meetings, our\ntime was far too precious to be squandered in jury service, we forgot to\nregister for elections, we neglected to vote. We observed a sort of\naristocratic contempt for political activity and then fretted and fumed\nover the low estate to which our government had fallen--and never saw\nthe humour of it all.\n\nAt one time I experienced a sort of political awakening: a \"boss\" we\nhad was more than ordinarily piratical. I think he had a scheme to steal\nthe city hall and sell the monuments in the park (something of that\nsort), and I, for one, was disturbed. For a time I really wanted to bear\na man's part in helping to correct the abuses, only I did not know how\nand could not find out.\n\nIn the city, when one would learn anything about public matters, he\nturns, not to life, but to books or newspapers. What we get in the city\nis not life, but what someone else tells us about life. So I acquired a\nreally formidable row of works on Political Economy and Government (I\nadmire the word \"works\" in that application) where I found Society laid\nout for me in the most perfect order--with pennies on its eyes. How\noften, looking back, I see myself as in those days, read my learned\nbooks with a sort of fury of interest!--\n\nFrom the reading of books I acquired a sham comfort. Dwelling upon the\nexcellent theory of our institutions, I was content to disregard the\nrealities of daily practice. I acquired a mock assurance under which I\nproceeded complacently to the polls, and cast my vote without knowing a\nsingle man on the ticket, what he stood for, or what he really intended\nto do. The ceremony of the ballot bears to politics much the\nrelationship that the sacrament bears to religion: how often, observing\nthe formality, we yet depart wholly from the spirit of the institution.\n\nIt was good to escape that place of hurrying strangers. It was good to\nget one's feet down into the soil. It was good to be in a place where\nthings _are_ because they _grow_, and politics, not less than corn! Oh,\nmy friend, say what you please, argue how you like, this crowding\ntogether of men and women in unnatural surroundings, this haste to be\nrich in material things, this attempt to enjoy without production, this\nremoval from first-hand life, is irrational, and the end of it is ruin.\nIf our cities were not recruited constantly with the fresh, clean blood\nof the country, with boys who still retain some of the power and the\nvision drawn from the soil, where would they be!\n\n\"We're a great people,\" says Charles Baxter, \"but we don't always work\nat it.\"\n\n\"But we talk about it,\" says the Scotch Preacher.\n\n\"By the way,\" says Charles Baxter, \"have you seen George Warren? He's up\nfor supervisor.\"\n\n\"I haven't yet.\"\n\n\"Well, go around and see him. We must find out exactly what he intends\nto do with the Summit Hill road. If he is weak on that we'd better look\nto Matt Devine. At least Matt is safe.\"\n\nThe Scotch Preacher looked at Charles Baxter and said to me with a note\nof admiration in his voice:\n\n\"Isn't this man Baxter getting to be intolerable as a political boss!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBaxter's shop! Baxter's shop stands close to the road and just in the\nedge of a grassy old apple orchard. It is a low, unpainted building,\nwith generous double doors in front, standing irresistibly open as you\ngo by. Even as a stranger coming here first from the city I felt the\ncall of Baxter's shop. Shall I ever forget! It was a still morning--one\nof those days of warm sunshine--and perfect quiet in the country--and\nbirds in the branches--and apple trees all in bloom. Baxter whistling\nat his work in the sunlit doorway of his shop, in his long, faded apron,\nmuch worn at the knees. He was bending to the rhythmic movement of his\nplane, and all around him as he worked rose billows of shavings. And oh,\nthe odours of that shop! the fragrant, resinous odour of new-cut pine,\nthe pungent smell of black walnut, the dull odour of oak wood--how they\nstole out in the sunshine, waylaying you as you came far up the road,\nbeguiling you as you passed the shop, and stealing reproachfully after\nyou as you went onward down the road.\n\nNever shall I forget that grateful moment when I first passed Baxter's\nshop--a failure from the city--and Baxter looking out at me from his\ndeep, quiet, gray eyes--eyes that were almost a caress!\n\nMy wayward feet soon took me, unintroduced, within the doors of that\nshop, the first of many visits. And I can say no more in appreciation of\nmy ventures there than that I came out always with more than I had when\nI went in.\n\nThe wonders there! The long bench with its huge-jawed wooden vises, and\nthe little dusty windows above looking out into the orchard, and the\nbrown planes and the row of shiny saws, and the most wonderful pattern\nsquares and triangles and curves, each hanging on its own peg; and\nabove, in the rafters, every sort and size of curious wood. And oh! the\nold bureaus and whatnots and high-boys in the corners waiting their turn\nto be mended; and the sticky glue-pot waiting, too, on the end of the\nsawhorse. There is family history here in this shop--no end of it--the\nsmall and yet great (because intensely human) tragedies and humours of\nthe long, quiet years among these sunny hills. That whatnot there, the\none of black walnut with the top knocked off, that belonged in the old\ndays to----\n\n\"Charles Baxter,\" calls my friend Patterson from the roadway, \"can you\nfix my cupboard?\"\n\n\"Bring it in,\" says Charles Baxter, hospitably, and Patterson brings it\nin, and stops to talk--and stops--and stops--There is great talk in\nBaxter's shop--the slow-gathered wisdom of the country, the lore of\ncrops and calves and cabinets. In Baxter's shop we choose the next\nPresident of these United States!\n\nYou laugh! But we do--exactly that. It is in the Baxters' shops (not in\nBroadway, not in State Street) where the presidents are decided upon. In\nthe little grocery stores you and I know, in the blacksmithies, in the\nschoolhouses back in the country!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nForgive me! I did not intend to wander away. I meant to keep to my\nsubject--but the moment I began to talk of politics in the country I was\nbeset by a compelling vision of Charles Baxter coming out of his shop in\nthe dusk of the evening, carrying his curious old reflector lamp and\nleading the way down the road to the schoolhouse. And thinking of the\nlamp brought a vision of the joys of Baxter's shop, and thinking of the\nshop brought me naturally around to politics and presidents; and here I\nam again where I started!\n\nBaxter's lamp is, somehow, inextricably associated in my mind with\npolitics. Being busy farmers, we hold our caucuses and other meetings in\nthe evening and usually in the schoolhouse. The schoolhouse is\nconveniently near to Baxter's shop, so we gather at Baxter's shop.\nBaxter takes his lamp down from the bracket above his bench, reflector\nand all, and you will see us, a row of dusky figures, Baxter in the\nlead, proceeding down the roadway to the schoolhouse. Having arrived,\nsome one scratches a match, shields it with his hand (I see yet the\nsudden fitful illumination of the brown-bearded, watchful faces of my\nneighbours!) and Baxter guides us into the schoolhouse--with its shut-in\ndusty odours of chalk and varnished desks and--yes, leftover lunches!\n\nBaxter's lamp stands on the table, casting a vast shadow of the chairman\non the wall.\n\n\"Come to order,\" says the chairman, and we have here at this moment in\noperation the greatest institution in this round world: the institution\nof free self-government. Great in its simplicity, great in its\nunselfishness! And Baxter's old lamp with its smoky tin reflector, is\nnot that the veritable torch of our liberties?\n\nThis, I forgot to say, though it makes no special difference--a caucus\nwould be the same--is a school meeting.\n\nYou see, ours is a prolific community. When a young man and a young\nwoman are married they think about babies; they want babies, and what\nis more, they have them! and love them afterward! It is a part of the\ncomplete life. And having babies, there must be a place to teach them to\nlive.\n\nWithout more explanation you will understand that we needed an addition\nto our schoolhouse. A committee reported that the amount required would\nbe $800. We talked it over. The Scotch Preacher was there with a plan\nwhich he tacked up on the blackboard and explained to us. He told us of\nseeing the stone-mason and the carpenter, he told us what the seats\nwould cost, and the door knobs and the hooks in the closet. We are a\ncareful people; we want to know where every penny goes!\n\n\"If we put it all in the budget this year what will that make the rate?\"\ninquires a voice from the end of the room.\n\nWe don't look around; we know the voice. And when the secretary has\ncomputed the rate, if you listen closely you can almost hear the buzz of\nmultiplications and additions which is going on in each man's head as he\ncalculates exactly how much the addition will mean to him in taxes on\nhis farm, his daughter's piano his wife's top-buggy.\n\nAnd many a man is saying to himself:\n\n\"If we build this addition to the schoolhouse, I shall have to give up\nthe new overcoat I have counted upon, or Amanda won't be able to get the\nnew cooking-range.\"\n\nThat's _real_ politics: the voluntary surrender of some private good for\nthe upbuilding of some community good. It is in such exercises that the\nfibre of democracy grows sound and strong. There is, after all, in this\nworld no real good for which we do not have to surrender something. In\nthe city the average voter is never conscious of any surrender. He never\nrealises that he is giving anything himself for good schools or good\nstreets. Under such conditions how can you expect self-government? No\nservice, no reward!\n\nThe first meeting that I sat through watching those bronzed farmers at\nwork gave me such a conception of the true meaning of self-government as\nI never hoped to have.\n\n\"This is the place where I belong,\" I said to myself.\n\nIt was wonderful in that school meeting to see how every essential\nelement of our government was brought into play. Finance? We discussed\nwhether we should put the entire $800 into the next year's budget or\ndivide it paying part in cash and bonding the district for the\nremainder. The question of credit, of interest, of the obligations of\nthis generation and the next, were all discussed. At one time long ago I\nwas amazed when I heard my neighbours arguing in Baxter's shop about the\nissuance of certain bonds by the United States government: how\ncompletely they understood it! I know now where they got that\nunderstanding. Right in the school meetings and town caucuses where they\nraise money yearly for the expenses of our small government! There is\nnothing like it in the city.\n\nThe progress of a people can best be judged by those things which they\naccept as matters-of-fact. It was amazing to me, coming from the city,\nand before I understood, to see how ingrained had become some of the\nprinciples which only a few years ago were fiercely-mooted problems. It\ngave me a new pride in my country, a new appreciation of the steps in\ncivilisation which we have already permanently gained. Not a question\nhave I ever heard in any school meeting of the necessity of educating\nevery American child--at any cost. Think of it! Think how far we have\ncome in that respect, in seventy--yes, fifty--years. Universal education\nhas become a settled axiom of our life.\n\nAnd there was another point--so common now that we do not appreciate the\nsignificance of it. I refer to majority rule. In our school meeting we\nwere voting money out of men's pockets--money that we all needed for\nprivate expenses--and yet the moment the minority, after full and honest\ndiscussion, failed to maintain its contention in opposition to the new\nbuilding, it yielded with perfect good humour and went on with the\ndiscussion of other questions. When you come to think of it, in the\nlight of history, is not that a wonderful thing?\n\nOne of the chief property owners in our neighbourhood is a rather\ncrabbed old bachelor. Having no children and heavy taxes to pay, he\nlooks with jaundiced eye on additions to schoolhouses. He will object\nand growl and growl and object, and yet pin him down as I have seen the\nScotch Preacher pin him more than once, he will admit that children (\"of\ncourse,\" he will say, \"certainly, of course\") must be educated.\n\n\"For the good of bachelors as well as other people?\" the Scotch\nPreacher will press it home.\n\n\"Certainly, of course.\"\n\nAnd when the final issue comes, after full discussion, after he has\ntried to lop off a few yards of blackboard or order cheaper desks or\ndispense with the clothes-closet, he votes for the addition with the\nrest of us.\n\nIt is simply amazing to see how much grows out of these discussions--how\nmuch of that social sympathy and understanding which is the very\ntap-root of democracy. It's cheaper to put up a miserable shack of an\naddition. Why not do it? So we discuss architecture--blindly, it is\ntrue; we don't know the books on the subject--but we grope for the big\ntrue things, and by our own discussion we educate ourselves to know why\na good building is better than a bad one. Heating and ventilation in\ntheir relation to health, the use of \"fad studies\"--how I have heard\nthose things discussed!\n\nHow Dr. North, who has now left us forever, shone in those meetings, and\nCharles Baxter and the Scotch Preacher--broad men, every one--how they\nhave explained and argued, with what patience have they brought into\nthat small schoolhouse, lighted by Charles Baxter's lamp, the grandest\nconceptions of human society--not in the big words of the books, but in\nthe simple, concrete language of our common life.\n\n\"Why teach physiology?\"\n\nWhat a talk Dr. North once gave us on that!\n\n\"Why pay a teacher $40 a month when one can be had for $30?\"\n\nYou should have heard the Scotch Preacher answer that question! Many a\none of us went away with some of the education which we had come,\nsomewhat grudgingly, to buy for our children.\n\nThese are our political bosses: these unknown patriots, who preach the\ninvisible patriotism which expresses itself not in flags and oratory,\nbut in the quiet daily surrender of private advantage to the public\ngood.\n\nThere is, after all, no such thing as perfect equality; there must be\nleaders, flag-bearers, bosses--whatever you call them. Some men have a\ngenius for leading; others for following; each is necessary and\ndependent upon the other. In cities, that leadership is often perverted\nand used to evil ends. Neither leaders nor followers seem to\nunderstand. In its essence politics is merely a mode of expressing human\nsympathy. In the country many and many a leader like Baxter works\nfaithfully year in and year out, posting notices of caucuses, school\nmeetings and elections, opening cold schoolhouses, talking to\ncandidates, prodding selfish voters--and mostly without reward.\nOccasionally they are elected to petty offices where they do far more\nwork than they are paid for (we have our eyes on 'em); often they are\nrewarded by the power and place which leadership gives them among their\nneighbours, and sometimes--and that is Charles Baxter's case--they\nsimply like it! Baxter is of the social temperament: it is the natural\nexpression of his personality. As for thinking of himself as a patriot,\nhe would never dream of it. Work with the hands, close touch with the\ncommon life of the soil, has given him much of the true wisdom of\nexperience. He knows us and we know him; he carries the banner, holds it\nas high as he knows how, and we follow.\n\nWhether there can be a real democracy (as in a city) where there is not\nthat elbow knowledge, that close neighbourhood sympathy, that conscious\nsurrender of little personal goods for bigger public ones, I don't know.\n\nWe haven't many foreigners in our district, but all three were there on\nthe night we voted for the addition. They are Polish. Each has a farm\nwhere the whole family works--and puts on a little more Americanism each\nyear. They're good people. It is surprising how much all these Poles,\nItalians, Germans and others, are like us, how perfectly human they are,\nwhen we know them personally! One Pole here, named Kausky, I have come\nto know pretty well, and I declare I have forgotten that he _is_ a Pole.\nThere's nothing like the rub of democracy! The reason why we are so\nsuspicious of the foreigners in our cities is that they are crowded\ntogether in such vast, unknown, undigested masses. We have swallowed\nthem too fast, and we suffer from a sort of national dyspepsia.\n\nHere in the country we promptly digest our foreigners and they make as\ngood Americans as anybody.\n\n\"Catch a foreigner when he first comes here,\" says Charles Baxter, \"and\nhe takes to our politics like a fish to water.\"\n\nThe Scotch Preacher says they \"gape for education,\" And when I see\nKausky's six children going by in the morning to school, all their\nround, sleepy, fat faces shining with soap, I believe it! Baxter tells\nwith humour how he persuaded Kausky to vote for the addition to the\nschoolhouse. It was a pretty stiff tax for the poor fellow to pay, but\nBaxter \"figgered children with him,\" as he said. With six to educate,\nBaxter showed him that he was actually getting a good deal more than he\npaid for!\n\nBe it far from me to pretend that we are always right or that we have\narrived in our country at the perfection of self-government. I do not\nwish to imply that all of our people are interested, that all attend the\ncaucuses and school-meetings (some of the most prominent never come\nnear--they stay away, and if things don't go right they blame Charles\nBaxter!) Nor must I over-emphasise the seriousness of our public\ninterest. But we certainly have here, if anywhere in this nation, real\nself-government. Growth is a slow process. We often fail in our election\nof delegates to State conventions; we sometimes vote wrong in national\naffairs. It is an easy thing to think school district; difficult,\nindeed, to think State or nation. But we grow. When we make mistakes,\nit is not because we are evil, but because we don't know. Once we get a\nclear understanding of the right or wrong of any question you can depend\nupon us--absolutely--to vote for what is right. With more education we\nshall be able to think in larger and larger circles--until we become,\nfinally, really national in our interests and sympathies. Whenever a man\ncomes along who knows how simple we are, and how much we really want to\ndo right, if we can be convinced that a thing _is_ right--who explains\nhow the railroad question, for example, affects us in our intimate daily\nlives, what the rights and wrongs of it are, why, we can understand and\ndo understand--and we are ready to act.\n\nIt is easy to rally to a flag in times of excitement. The patriotism of\ndrums and marching regiments is cheap; blood is material and cheap;\nphysical weariness and hunger are cheap. But the struggle I speak of is\nnot cheap. It is dramatised by few symbols. It deals with hidden\nspiritual qualities within the conscience of men. Its heroes are yet\nunsung and unhonoured. No combats in all the world's history were ever\nfought so high upward in the spiritual air as these; and, surely, not\nfor nothing!\n\nAnd so, out of my experience both in city and country, I feel--yes, I\n_know_--that the real motive power of this democracy lies back in the\nlittle country neighbourhoods like ours where men gather in dim\nschoolhouses and practice the invisible patriotism of surrender and\nservice.\n\n\n\nXIV\n\n\nTHE HARVEST\n\n\"Oh, Universe, what thou wishest, I wish.\"\n\n--_Marcus Aurelius_\n\nI come to the end of these Adventures with a regret I can scarcely\nexpress. I, at least, have enjoyed them. I began setting them down with\nno thought of publication, but for my own enjoyment; the possibility of\na book did not suggest itself until afterwards. I have tried to relate\nthe experiences of that secret, elusive, invisible life which in every\nman is so far more real, so far more important than his visible\nactivities--the real expression of a life much occupied in other\nemployment.\n\nWhen I first came to this farm, I came empty-handed. I was the veritable\npattern of the city-made failure. I believed that life had nothing more\nin store for me. I was worn out physically, mentally and, indeed,\nmorally. I had diligently planned for Success; and I had reaped defeat.\nI came here without plans. I plowed and harrowed and planted, expecting\nnothing. In due time I began to reap. And it has been a growing marvel\nto me, the diverse and unexpected crops that I have produced within\nthese uneven acres of earth. With sweat I planted corn, and I have here\na crop not only of corn but of happiness and hope. My tilled fields have\nmiraculously sprung up to friends!\n\nThis book is one of the unexpected products of my farm. It is this way\nwith the farmer. After the work of planting and cultivating, after the\nrain has fallen in his fields, after the sun has warmed them, after the\nnew green leaves have broken the earth--one day he stands looking out\nwith a certain new joy across his acres (the wind bends and half turns\nthe long blades of the corn) and there springs up within him a song of\nthe fields. No matter how little poetic, how little articulate he is,\nthe song rises irrepressibly in his heart, and he turns aside from his\ntask with a new glow of fulfillment and contentment. At harvest time in\nour country I hear, or I imagine I hear, a sort of chorus rising over\nall the hills, and I meet no man who is not, deep down within him, a\nsinger! So song follows work: so art grows out of life!\n\nAnd the friends I have made! They have come to me naturally, as the corn\ngrows in my fields or the wind blows in my trees. Some strange potency\nabides within the soil of this earth! When two men stoop (there must be\nstooping) and touch it together, a magnetic current is set up between\nthem: a flow of common understanding and confidence. I would call the\nattention of all great Scientists, Philosophers, and Theologians to this\nphenomenon: it will repay investigation. It is at once the rarest and\nthe commonest thing I know. It shows that down deep within us, where we\nreally live, we are all a good deal alike. We have much the same\ninstincts, hopes, joys, sorrows. If only it were not for the outward\nthings that we commonly look upon as important (which are in reality not\nat all important) we might come together without fear, vanity, envy, or\nprejudice and be friends. And what a world it would be! If civilisation\nmeans anything at all it means the increasing ability of men to look\nthrough material possessions, through clothing, through differences of\nspeech and colour of skin, and to see the genuine man that abides within\neach of us. It means an escape from symbols!\n\nI tell this merely to show what surprising and unexpected things have\ngrown out of my farm. All along I have had more than I bargained for.\nFrom now on I shall marvel at nothing! When I ordered my own life I\nfailed; now that I work from day to day, doing that which I can do best\nand which most delights me, I am rewarded in ways that I could not have\nimagined. Why, it would not surprise me if heaven were at the end of all\nthis!\n\nNow, I am not so foolish as to imagine that a farm is a perfect place.\nIn these Adventures I have emphasised perhaps too forcibly the joyful\nand pleasant features of my life. In what I have written I have\nnaturally chosen only those things which were most interesting and\ncharming. My life has not been without discouragement and loss and\nloneliness (loneliness most of all). I have enjoyed the hard work; the\nlittle troubles have troubled me more than the big ones. I detest\nunharnessing a muddy horse in the rain! I don't like chickens in the\nbarn. And somehow Harriet uses an inordinate amount of kindling wood.\nBut once in the habit, unpleasant things have a way of fading quickly\nand quietly from the memory.\n\nAnd you see after living so many years in the city the worst experience\non the farm is a sort of joy!\n\nIn most men as I come to know them--I mean men who dare to look\nthemselves in the eye--I find a deep desire for more naturalness, more\ndirectness. How weary we all grow of this fabric of deception which is\ncalled modern life. How passionately we desire to escape but cannot see\nthe way! How our hearts beat with sympathy when we find a man who has\nturned his back upon it all and who says \"I will live it no longer.\" How\nwe flounder in possessions as in a dark and suffocating bog, wasting\nour energies not upon life but upon _things_. Instead of employing our\nhouses, our cities, our gold, our clothing, we let these inanimate\nthings possess and employ us--to what utter weariness. \"Blessed be\nnothing,\" sighs a dear old lady of my knowledge.\n\nOf all ways of escape I know, the best, though it is far from\nperfection, is the farm. There a man may yield himself most nearly to\nthe quiet and orderly processes of nature. He may attain most nearly to\nthat equilibrium between the material and spiritual, with time for the\nexactions of the first, and leisure for the growth of the second, which\nis the ideal of life.\n\nIn times past most farming regions in this country have suffered the\ndisadvantages of isolation, the people have dwelt far distant from one\nanother and from markets, they have had little to stimulate them\nintellectually or socially. Strong and peculiar individuals and families\nwere often developed at the expense of a friendly community life:\nneighbourhood feuds were common. Country life was marked with the\nrigidity of a hard provincialism. All this, however, is rapidly\nchanging. The closer settlement of the land, the rural delivery of\nmails (the morning newspaper reaches the tin box at the end of my lane\nat noon), the farmer's telephone, the spreading country trolleys, more\nschools and churches, and cheaper railroad rates, have all helped to\nbring the farmer's life well within the stimulating currents of world\nthought without robbing it of its ancient advantages. And those\nadvantages are incalculable: Time first for thought and reflection\n(narrow streams cut deep) leading to the growth of a sturdy freedom of\naction--which is, indeed, a natural characteristic of the man who has\nhis feet firmly planted upon his own land.\n\nA city hammers and polishes its denizens into a defined model: it\nworships standardisation; but the country encourages differentiation, it\nloves new types. Thus it is that so many great and original men have\nlived their youth upon the land. It would be impossible to imagine\nAbraham Lincoln brought up in a street of tenements. Family life on the\nfarm is highly educative; there is more discipline for a boy in the\ncontinuous care of a cow or a horse than in many a term of school.\nIndustry, patience, perseverance are qualities inherent in the very\natmosphere of country life. The so-called manual training of city\nschools is only a poor makeshift for developing in the city boy those\nhabits which the country boy acquires naturally in his daily life. An\nhonest, hard-working country training is the best inheritance a father\ncan leave his son.\n\nAnd yet a farm is only an opportunity, a tool. A cornfield, a plow, a\nwoodpile, an oak tree, will cure no man unless he have it in himself to\nbe cured. The truth is that no life, and least of all a farmer's life,\nis simple--unless it is simple. I know a man and his wife who came out\nhere to the country with the avowed purpose of becoming, forthwith,\nsimple. They were unable to keep the chickens out of their summer\nkitchen. They discovered microbes in the well, and mosquitoes in the\ncistern, and wasps in the garret. Owing to the resemblance of the seeds,\ntheir radishes turned out to be turnips! The last I heard of them they\nwere living snugly in a flat in Sixteenth Street--all their troubles\nsolved by a dumb-waiter.\n\nThe great point of advantage in the life of the country is that if a man\nis in reality simple, if he love true contentment, it is the place of\nall places where he can live his life most freely and fully, where he\ncan _grow_. The city affords no such opportunity; indeed, it often\ndestroys, by the seductiveness with which it flaunts its carnal graces,\nthe desire for the higher life which animates every good man.\n\nWhile on the subject of simplicity it may be well to observe that\nsimplicity does not necessarily, as some of those who escape from the\ncity seem to think, consist in doing without things, but rather in the\nproper use of things. One cannot return, unless with affectation, to the\ncrudities of a former existence. We do not believe in Diogenes and his\ntub. Do you not think the good Lord has given us the telephone (that we\nmay better reach that elbow-rub of brotherhood which is the highest of\nhuman ideals) and the railroad (that we may widen our human knowledge\nand sympathy)--and even the motor-car? (though, indeed, I have sometimes\nimagined that the motor-cars passing this way had a different origin!).\nHe may have given these things to us too fast, faster than we can bear;\nbut is that any reason why we should denounce them all and return to\nthe old, crude, time-consuming ways of our ancestors? I am no\nreactionary. I do not go back. I neglect no tool of progress. I am too\neager to know every wonder in this universe. The motor-car, if I had\none, could not carry me fast enough! I must yet fly!\n\nAfter my experience in the country, if I were to be cross-examined as to\nthe requisites of a farm, I should say that the chief thing to be\ndesired in any sort of agriculture, is good health in the farmer. What,\nafter all, can touch that! How many of our joys that we think\nintellectual are purely physical! This joy of the morning that the poet\ncarols about so cheerfully, is often nothing more than the exuberance\nproduced by a good hot breakfast. Going out of my kitchen door some\nmornings and standing for a moment, while I survey the green and\nspreading fields of my farm, it seems to me truly as if all nature were\nmaking a bow to me. It seems to me that there never was a better cow\nthan mine, never a more really perfect horse, and as for pigs, could any\nin this world herald my approach with more cheerful gruntings and\nsquealings!\n\nBut there are other requisites for a farm. It must not be too large,\nelse it will keep you away from your friends. Provide a town not too far\noff (and yet not too near) where you can buy your flour and sell your\ngrain. If there is a railroad convenient (though not so near that the\nwhistling of the engines reaches you), that is an added advantage.\nDemand a few good old oak trees, or walnuts, or even elms will do. No\nwell-regulated farm should be without trees; and having secured the\noaks--buy your fuel of your neighbours. Thus you will be blessed with\nbeauty both summer and winter.\n\nAs for neighbours, accept those nearest at hand; you will find them\nsurprisingly human, like yourself. If you like them you will be\nsurprised to find how much they all like you (and will upon occasion\nlend you a spring-tooth harrow or a butter tub, or help you with your\nplowing); but if you hate them they will return your hatred with\ninterest. I have discovered that those who travel in pursuit of better\nneighbours never find them.\n\nSomewhere on every farm, along with the other implements, there should\nbe a row of good books, which should not be allowed to rust with\ndisuse: a book, like a hoe, grows brighter with employment. And no farm,\neven in this country where we enjoy the even balance of the seasons,\nrain and shine, shine and rain, should be devoid of that irrigation from\nthe currents of the world's thought which is so essential to the\ncomplete life. From the papers which the postman puts in the box flow\nthe true waters of civilisation. You will find within their columns how\nto be good or how to make pies: you will get out of them what you look\nfor! And finally, down the road from your farm, so that you can hear the\nbell on Sunday mornings, there should be a little church. It will do you\ngood even though, like me, you do not often attend. It's a sort of Ark\nof the Covenant; and when you get to it, you will find therein the True\nSpirit--if you take it with you when you leave home. Of course you will\nlook for good land and comfortable buildings when you buy your farm:\nthey are, indeed, prime requisites. I have put them last for the reason\nthat they are so often first. I have observed, however, that the joy of\nthe farmer is by no means in proportion to the area of his arable land.\nIt is often a nice matter to decide between acres and contentment: men\nperish from too much as well as from too little. And if it be possible\nthere should be a long table in the dining-room and little chairs around\nit, and small beds upstairs, and young voices calling at their play in\nthe fields--if it be possible.\n\nSometimes I say to myself: I have grasped happiness! Here it is; I have\nit. And yet, it always seems at that moment of complete fulfillment as\nthough my hand trembled, that I might not take it!\n\nI wonder if you recall the story of Christian and Hopeful, how, standing\non the hill Clear (as we do sometimes--at our best) they looked for the\ngates of the Celestial City (as we look--how fondly!):\n\n\"Then they essayed to look, but the remembrance\nof that last thing that the shepherds had showed them\nmade their hands shake, by means of which impediment\nthey could not look steadily through the glass:\nyet they thought they saw something like the gate, and\nalso some of the glory of the place.\"\n\nHow often I have thought that I saw some of the glory of the place\n(looking from the hill Clear) and how often, lifting the glass, my hand\nhas trembled!","title":"Adventures in Contentment","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":45739}