and help hoe my potatoes for the privilege of using my vegetable
total-depravity figure about the snake-grass, or quack-grass, as some
call it; and those two did not bring hoes. There seems to be a lack of
disposition to hoe among our educated clergy. I am bound to say that
these two, however, sat and watched my vigorous combats with the weeds,
and talked most beautifully about the application of the snake-grass
figure. As, for instance, when a fault or sin showed on the surface of a
man, whether, if you dug down, you would find that it ran back and into
the original organic bunch of original sin within the man. The only
other clergyman who came was from out of town--a half-Universalist, who
said he wouldn't give twenty cents for my figure. He said that the
snake-grass was not in my garden originally, that it sneaked in under
the sod, and that it could be entirely rooted out with industry and
patience. I asked the Universalist-inclined man to take my hoe and try
it; but he said he hadn't time, and went away.
But, _jubilate_, I have got my garden all hoed the first time! I feel as
if I had put down the rebellion. Only there are guerrillas left here and
there, about the borders and in corners, unsubdued--Forest docks, and
Quantrell grass, and Beauregard pigweeds. This first hoeing is a
gigantic task: it is your first trial of strength with the
never-sleeping forces of Nature. Several times in its progress I was
tempted to do as Adam did, who abandoned his garden on account of the
weeds. (How much my mind seems to run upon Adam, as if there had been
only two really moral gardens--Adam's and mine!) The only drawback to my
rejoicing over the finishing of the first hoeing is, that the garden now
wants hoeing a second time. I suppose if my garden were planted in a
perfect circle, and I started round it with a hoe, I should never see an
opportunity to rest. The fact is, that gardening is the old fable of
perpetual labor; and I, for one, can never forgive Adam Sisyphus, or
whoever it was, who let in the roots of discord. I had pictured myself
sitting at eve with my family, in the shade of twilight, contemplating a
garden hoed. Alas! it is a dream not to be realized in this world.
My mind has been turned to the subject of fruit and shade trees in a
garden. There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much
and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something
in this; but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun
glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring from my face, I should
be grateful for shade. What is a garden for? The pleasure of man. I
should take much more pleasure in a shady garden. Am I to be sacrificed,
broiled, roasted, for the sake of the increased vigor of a few
vegetables? The thing is perfectly absurd. If I were rich, I think I
would have my garden covered with an awning, so that it would be
comfortable to work in it. It might roll up and be removable, as the
great awning of the Roman Colosseum was--not like the Boston one, which
went off in a high wind. Another very good way to do, and probably not
so expensive as the awning, would be to have four persons of foreign
birth carry a sort of canopy over you as you hoed. And there might be a
person at each end of the row with some cool and refreshing drink.
Agriculture is still in a very barbarous stage. I hope to live yet to
see the day when I can do my gardening, as tragedy is done, to slow and
soothing music, and attended by some of the comforts I have named. These
things come so forcibly into my mind sometimes as I work, that perhaps,
when a wandering breeze lifts my straw hat or a bird lights on a near
currant-bush and shakes out a full-throated summer song, I almost expect
to find the cooling drink and the hospitable entertainment at the end
of the row. But I never do. There is nothing to be done but to turn
round and hoe back to the other end.
Speaking of those yellow squash-bugs, I think I disheartened them by
covering the plants so deep with soot and wood-ashes that they could not
find them; and I am in doubt if I shall ever see the plants again. But I
have heard of another defense against the bugs. Put a fine wire screen
over each hill, which will keep out the bugs and admit the rain. I
should say that these screens would not cost much more than the melons
you would be likely to get from the vines if you bought them; but then,
think of the moral satisfaction of watching the bugs hovering over the
screen, seeing but unable to reach the tender plants within. That is
worth paying for.
I left my own garden yesterday and went over to where Polly was getting
the weeds out of one of her flower-beds. She was working away at the bed
with a little hoe. Whether women ought to have the ballot or not (and I
have a decided opinion on that point, which I should here plainly give
did I not fear that it would injure my agricultural influence), I am
compelled to say that this was rather helpless hoeing. It was patient,
conscientious, even pathetic hoeing; but it was neither effective nor
finished. When completed, the bed looked somewhat as if a hen had
scratched it; there was that touching unevenness about it. I think no
one could look at it and not be affected. To be sure, Polly smoothed it
off with a rake and asked me if it wasn't nice; and I said it was. It
was not a favorable time for me to explain the difference between
puttering hoeing and the broad, free sweep of the instrument which kills
the weeds, spares the plants, and loosens the soil without leaving it in
holes and hills. But, after all, as life is constituted, I think more of
Polly's honest and anxious care of her plants than of the most finished
gardening in the world.
SIXTH WEEK
Somebody has sent me a new sort of hoe, with the wish that I should
speak favorably of it, if I can consistently. I willingly do so, but
with the understanding that I am to be at liberty to speak just as
courteously of any other hoe which I may receive. If I understand
religious morals, this is the position of the religious press with
regard to bitters and wringing machines. In some cases, the
responsibility of such a recommendation is shifted upon the wife of the
editor or clergyman. Polly says she is entirely willing to make a
certificate, accompanied with an affidavit, with regard to this hoe; but
her habit of sitting about the garden walk on an inverted flower-pot
while I hoe somewhat destroys the practical value of her testimony.
As to this hoe, I do not mind saying that it has changed my view of the
desirableness and value of human life. It has, in fact, made life a
holiday to me. It is made on the principle that man is an upright,
sensible, reasonable being, and not a groveling wretch. It does away
with the necessity of the hinge in the back. The handle is seven and a
half feet long. There are two narrow blades, sharp on both edges, which
come together at an obtuse angle in front; and as you walk along with
this hoe before you, pushing and pulling with a gentle motion, the weeds
fall at every thrust and withdrawal, and the slaughter is immediate and
widespread. When I got this hoe, I was troubled with sleepless mornings,
pains in the back, kleptomania with regard to new weeders; when I went
into my garden I was always sure to see something. In this disordered
state of mind and body I got this hoe. The morning after a day of using
it I slept perfectly and late. I regained my respect for the Eighth
Commandment. After two doses of the hoe in the garden the weeds entirely
disappeared. Trying it a third morning, I was obliged to throw it over
the fence in order to save from destruction the green things that ought
to grow in the garden. Of course, this is figurative language. What I
mean is, that the fascination of using this hoe is such that you are
sorely tempted to employ it upon your vegetables after the weeds are
laid low, and must hastily withdraw it to avoid unpleasant results. I
make this explanation because I intend to put nothing into these
agricultural papers that will not bear the strictest scientific
investigation; nothing that the youngest child cannot understand and cry
for; nothing that the oldest and wisest men will not need to study with
care.
I need not add that the care of a garden with this hoe becomes the
merest pastime. I would not be without one for a single night. The only
danger is, that you may rather make an idol of the hoe, and somewhat
neglect your garden in explaining it and fooling about with it. I almost
think that, with one of these in the hands of an ordinary day-laborer,
you might see at night where he had been working.
Let us have peas. I have been a zealous advocate of the birds. I have
rejoiced in their multiplication. I have endured their concerts at four
o'clock in the morning without a murmur. Let them come, I said, and eat
the worms, in order that we, later, may enjoy the foliage and the fruits
of the earth. We have a cat, a magnificent animal, of the sex which
votes (but not a pole-cat)--so large and powerful that if he were in the
army he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposition, the
most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat, and a
splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation, but in
gathering in rats, mice, flying-squirrels, and also birds. When he first
brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to convince
him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong; for he is a
reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the
binomial theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no
effect. The killing of birds went on to my great regret and shame.
The other day I went to my garden to get a mess of peas. I had seen the
day before that they were just ready to pick. How I had lined the
ground, planted, hoed, bushed them! The bushes were very fine--seven
feet high, and of good wood. How I had delighted in the growing, the
blowing, the podding! What a touching thought it was that they had all
podded for me! When I went to pick them I found the pods all split open
and the peas gone. The dear little birds, who are so fond of the
strawberries, had eaten them all. Perhaps there were left as many as I
planted; I did not count them. I made a rapid estimate of the cost of
the seed, the interest of the ground, the price of labor, the value of
the bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watchfulness. I looked about me on
the face of nature. The wind blew from the south so soft and
treacherous! A thrush sang in the woods so deceitfully! All nature
seemed fair. But who was to give me back my peas? The fowls of the air
have peas; but what has man?
I went into the house. I called Calvin (that is the name of our cat,
given him on account of his gravity, morality, and uprightness. We never
familiarly call him John). I petted Calvin. I lavished upon him an
enthusiastic fondness. I told him that he had no fault; that the one
action that I had called a vice was an heroic exhibition of regard for
my interest. I bade him go and do likewise continually. I now saw how
much better instinct is than mere unguided reason. Calvin knew. If he
had put his opinion into English (instead of his native catalogue), it
would have been, "You need not teach your grandmother to suck eggs." It
was only the round of nature. The worms eat a noxious something in the
ground. The birds eat the worms. Calvin eats the birds. We eat--no, we
do not eat Calvin. There the chain stops. When you ascend the scale of
being, and come to an animal that is, like ourselves, inedible, you have
arrived at a result where you can rest. Let us respect the cat: he
completes an edible chain.
I have little heart to discuss methods of raising peas. It occurs to me
that I can have an iron pea-bush, a sort of trellis, through which I
could discharge electricity at frequent intervals and electrify the
birds to death when they alight; for they stand upon my beautiful bush
in order to pick out the peas. An apparatus of this kind, with an
operator, would cost, however, about as much as the peas. A neighbor
suggests that I might put up a scarecrow near the vines, which would
keep the birds away. I am doubtful about it; the birds are too much
accustomed to seeing a person in poor clothes in the garden to care much
for that. Another neighbor suggests that the birds do not open the pods;
that a sort of blast, apt to come after rain, splits the pods, and the
birds then eat the peas. It may be so. There seems to be complete unity
of action between the blast and the birds. But good neighbors, kind
friends, I desire that you will not increase, by talk, a disappointment
which you cannot assuage.
CROWDED
Chauncey Depew says: In the Berkshire Hills there was a funeral, and as
the friends and mourners gathered in the little parlor, there came the
typical New England female who mingles curiosity with her sympathy, and,
as she glanced around the darkened room, she said to the bereaved widow:
"Where did you get that new eight-day clock?"
"We ain't got no new eight-day clock," was the reply.
"You ain't? What's that in the corner there?"
"Why, no, that's not an eight-day clock; that's the deceased. We stood
him on end to make room for the mourners."
* * * * *
A young wife who lost her husband by death telegraphed the sad tidings
to her father in these succinct words: "Dear John died this morning at
ten. Loss fully covered by insurance."
THE ALARMED SKIPPER
"It was an Ancient Mariner"
Many a long, long year ago,
Nantucket skippers had a plan
Of finding out, though "lying low,"
How near New York their schooners ran.
They greased the lead before it fell,
And then, by sounding through the night,
Knowing the soil that stuck, so well,
They always guessed their reckoning right.
A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,
Could tell, by _tasting_, just the spot,
And so below he'd "dowse the glim"--
After, of course, his "something hot."
Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock,
This ancient skipper might be found;
No matter how his craft would rock,
He slept--for skippers' naps are sound!
The watch on deck would now and then
Run down and wake him, with the lead;
He'd up, and taste, and tell the men
How many miles they went ahead.
One night, 'twas Jotham Marden's watch,
A curious wag--the peddler's son----
And so he mused (the wanton wretch),
"To-night I'll have a grain of fun.
"We're all a set of stupid fools
To think the skipper knows by _tasting_
What ground he's on--Nantucket schools
Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!"
And so he took the well-greased lead
And rubbed it o'er a box of earth
That stood on deck--a parsnip-bed----
And then he sought the skipper's berth.
"Where are we now, sir? Please to taste."
The skipper yawned, put out his tongue,
Then ope'd his eyes in wondrous haste,
And then upon the floor he sprung!
The skipper stormed and tore his hair,
Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden,
_"Nantucket's sunk, and here we are_
_Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!"_
JAMES T. FIELDS.
* * * * *
THE WEDDING JOURNEY
_He_: Dearest, if I had known this tunnel was so long, I'd have given
you a jolly hug.
_She_: Didn't you? Why, somebody did!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE
Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in newspapers
under the title, "From Our Foreign Correspondent," does any harm? Why,
no, I don't know that it does. I suppose it doesn't really deceive
people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or "Gulliver's Travels" do.
Sometimes the writers compile _too_ carelessly, though, and mix up facts
out of geographies and stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead
those who are desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the
papers the other day which contains a number of improbabilities and, I
suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you would
like to hear it. Ah, this is it; it is headed
"OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE
"This island is now the property of the Stamford family--having been
won, it is said, in a raffle by Sir ---- Stamford, during the
stock-gambling mania of the South Sea scheme. The history of this
gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions
(unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.'
This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a
large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for
their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm
weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South Sea bubbles. The
summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but
this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason,
the mercury in these latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern
regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in winter.
"The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper tree
and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly produced, a
benevolent society was organized in London during the last century for
supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an addition to that
delightful condiment. (Note received from Dr. D. P.) It is said,
however, that, as the oysters were of the kind called _natives_ in
England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct,
refused to touch them, and confined themselves entirely to the crew of
the vessel in which they were brought over. This information was
received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and
exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to be very skilful in
the _cuisine_ peculiar to the island.
"During the season of gathering pepper, the persons employed are subject
to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and
long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of
these attacks that the unfortunate subjects of them are often driven
backward for great distances at immense speed, on the well-known
principle of the æolipile. Not being able to see where they are going,
these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks, or are
precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost
annually. As during the whole pepper harvest they feed exclusively on
this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury
is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the
_pepper-fever_, as it is called, cudgeled another most severely for
appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only
pacified by having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species
of swine called the _Peccavi_ by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well
known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mohammedan
Buddhists.
"The bread tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to Europe
and America under the familiar name of _maccaroni_. The smaller twigs
are called _vermicelli_. They have a decided animal flavor, as may be
observed in the soups containing them. Maccaroni, being tubular, is the
favorite habitat of a very dangerous insect, which is rendered
peculiarly ferocious by being boiled. The government of the island,
therefore, never allows a stick of it to be exported without being
accompanied by a piston with which its cavity may at any time be
thoroughly swept out. These are commonly lost or stolen before the
maccaroni arrives among us. It, therefore, always contains many of these
insects, which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that
accidents from this source are comparatively rare.
"The fruit of the bread tree consists principally of hot rolls. The
buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoanut
palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoanut exuding from the
hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so
as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with
cold----"
There--I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many of these
statements are highly improbable. No, I shall not mention the
paper.--_The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table._
MUSIC-POUNDING
The old Master was talking about a concert he had been to hear.
--I don't like your chopped music anyway. That woman--she had more sense
in her little finger than forty medical societies--Florence
Nightingale--says that the music you _pour_ out is good for sick folks,
and the music you _pound_ out isn't. Not that exactly, but something
like it. I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman,
with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has
rings, that did it. She gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed
down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed
up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then
she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and
spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much
cover the keyboard, from the growling end to the little squeaky one.
Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a
couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black-and-white sheep, and
the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead
stop--so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and
another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of
'em at once, and then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps,
up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede
of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a
woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they
hammer out of their wood-and-ivory anvils--don't talk to me; I know the
difference between a bullfrog and a wood-thrush.--_The Poet at the
Breakfast Table._
* * * * *
"That is rather a shabby pair of trousers you have on, for a man in your
position."
"Yes, sir; but clothes do not make the man. What if my trousers are
shabby and worn? They cover a warm heart, sir."
FREDERICK S. COZZENS
LIVING IN THE COUNTRY
It is a good thing to live in the country. To escape from the
prison-walls of the metropolis--the great brickery we call "the
city"--and to live amid blossoms and leaves, in shadow and sunshine, in
moonlight and starlight, in rain, mist, dew, hoarfrost, and drought, out
in the open campaign and under the blue dome that is bounded by the
horizon only. It is a good thing to have a well with dripping buckets, a
porch with honey-buds and sweet-bells, a hive embroidered with nimble
bees, a sun-dial mossed over, ivy up to the eaves, curtains of dimity, a
tumbler of fresh flowers in your bedroom, a rooster on the roof, and a
dog under the piazza.
When Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I moved into the country, with our heads full
of fresh butter, and cool, crisp radishes for tea; with ideas entirely
lucid respecting milk, and a looseness of calculation as to the number
in family it would take a good laying hen to supply with fresh eggs
every morning; when Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I moved into the country, we
found some preconceived notions had to be abandoned, and some departures
made from the plans we had laid down in the little back parlor of Avenue
G.
One of the first achievements in the country is early rising: with the
lark--with the sun--while the dew is on the grass, "under the opening
eye-lids of the morn," and so forth. Early rising! What can be done with
five or six o'clock in town? What may not be done at those hours in the
country? With the hoe, the rake, the dibble, the spade, the
watering-pot? To plant, prune, drill, transplant, graft, train, and
sprinkle! Mrs. S. and I agreed to rise _early_ in the country.
Richard and Robin were two pretty men,
They laid in bed till the clock struck ten;
Up jumped Richard and looked at the sky;
O, Brother Robin, the sun's _very_ high!
Early rising in the country is not an instinct; it is a sentiment, and
must be cultivated.