Prince, if you would taste them, say
The word and on my bended knees
I'll offer, without thought of pay,
The poems growing on my trees.
_Sept. 26._--It is many years since I cut corn before, and I don't care
if it is many years before I cut corn again. It is slugging hard work
from the first hill to the last. One doesn't even get a rest when tying
the shocks, for the brittle stalks break until a fellow's temper is all
frazzled. What's that you say? "It ought to be hauled straight from the
field without shocking, and put in a silo!" Don't I know it! I've
probably read more bulletins of the Department of Agriculture than you
have, and, besides, I take two agricultural papers. I know what ought to
be done with corn just as well as you do, so don't interrupt me, for I
am sore from head to foot, and not in the best of humour. It is all
right to talk about scientific methods, but there are times when one has
to do things as best he can. I know there are machines for cutting corn,
but one of them would cost more than the whole crop is worth, and there
isn't one in the neighbourhood that can be hired. When the time came for
the corn to be cut, I just had to cut it as my fathers had to cut it
before me, and perhaps the Indians cut it in the same way before them.
You have to cut your corn according to your patch, just as surely as you
cut your coat according to your cloth. But I am not going to defend
myself. A man doesn't defend himself unless he knows he is in the wrong,
and I am not in the wrong. All I wanted to say when I started was that
cutting corn is hard work. It doesn't appeal to me even as a form of
exercise, but what a man sows--or plants--that he must reap; and having
planted corn in the joyous springtime, I had to cut it when the
melancholy days had come, the saddest of the year. The one consolation
about it is that it will yield chicken and cow feed for the whole
winter.
As a form of exercise, cutting corn combines most of the motions of
wrestling, skipping the rope, and tossing the caber. You begin by
getting a half-Nelson on a hill of corn, then you strike at it with a
hoe, and the same skill is needed to keep from hitting your toes that is
used in skipping. When you have tucked between your legs all the stalks
you can sprawl along with, you take the unruly bundle in your arms and
jam it against the shock. Then you take up the hoe and resume the
original exercise. I think it would do very well as part of the training
of a prize-fighter, though it might be too exhausting. I have no doubt
that a hoe that has had its handle docked and its blade dished by a
blacksmith is the best instrument to use, for most other cutting tools
have been tried and rejected. I have seen everything used, from a
carpenter's adze to a hay-knife, and none of them seemed to make the
work easier. The Cuban machete, which is used for cutting sugar-cane in
times of peace, and for carving the oppressors in time of war, always
looked to me as if it would make a very plausible corn-cutter, but I
never saw it tried. For some of the stalks I struck, I think a butcher's
bone-saw would be best, though I suppose a strong man might cut them
with a sharp axe. I am inclined to think it would be a good idea for a
man who is cutting corn to have a caddie, the same as they have when
playing golf. The boy could carry all kinds of cutting tools in a bag,
and when you had sized up your hill of corn you could pick out the tool
that seemed best in your judgment, and go at it. This is a sportsmanlike
way of doing the work that should appeal to gentleman-farmers
everywhere, but it would hardly do to let the hired man go at it in that
way. The artistic side of work is not supposed to appeal to him, and he
usually has the brute strength, or should have it, to plod along with a
hoe, and cut the amount he should in a day. As I forgot to ask some one
how much corn an able-bodied man is supposed to cut in a day, I shall
not be definite on this point for fear I should expose myself to
unfeeling laughter. Suffice it to say that, somehow, during the last
couple of weeks in September, I cut five acres of corn in what Bill Nye
would call "a rambling, desultory way." Of course, I didn't work at it
all the time. Not at all. I spent a lot of time letting the ache get out
of my bones and doctoring the cracks in my fingers.
_Sept. 27._--There are eight little pigs in one pen, little white
beauties, and from time to time it falls to my lot to feed them. I
always undertake the task cheerfully, because I like to look at them.
They are still at the tender age of the little pigs we sometimes see in
restaurant windows with apples in their mouths and "their vests
unbuttoned." Not one of them but deserves the description of Charles
Lamb:
"I speak not of your grown porkers--things between pig and pork--those
hobbledehoys--but a young and tender suckling--guiltless as yet of the
sty; his childish voice as yet not broken, but something between a
childish treble and a grumble--the mild forerunner, or præludium of a
grunt."
When I went to visit them this morning, they were all lying in the sun,
in the little plot of pasture that has been fenced off for them. I did
not blame them in the least for their indolence, for these are the days
when everybody loves to lie in the sunshine, though, of course, it is a
dreadful waste of time, except on Sunday afternoons, after church. I
approached them quietly, and while I stood admiring their white
plumpness, delicately touched with pink, I was glad to notice that
Mother Goose was a true observer. She sang joyously:
"The little pigs sleep with their tails curled up."
Their eight little tails were twisted into eight curls so tight that I
felt sure another twist would have lifted their hind feet off the
ground. An unguarded step roused them, and then what excitement there
was. Eight little voices were at once raised in protest at my slowness.
Carefully spilling a little of the skim-milk "mash" into one end of the
trough, I stepped back hastily and distributed the remainder evenly
along the rest of it. The taste I had given them, however, was enough to
get them all into action and reveal their characters. Really, one can't
help liking little pigs. They are so human. For a moment I imagined
myself a Professor Garner, and felt that I understood their language.
"Whee! whee! Willie got more than I did! Whee! Whee!
"Make Susie take her elbows--I mean, feet--out of my part of the
trough!"
One little bully who did not like the table manners of his next
neighbour jumped at him, and started to chew his ear. It was all a
hurried scramble, and then a couple of them discovered that they were at
the wrong end of the trough. Without a sound, they started to gobble the
feed, while the others were still quarrelling and fighting. Right there
I realised that I was not the first to observe the habit of pigs. There
is a world of truth in the old saying we so often apply to men: "It is
the still pig that gets the swill." Fortunately, the others soon noticed
what was going on, and stopped squabbling to get their share. What
pushing and gobbling there was then! It reminded me of the stock
exchange, with a bull market in progress. They took no more interest in
me than children do in their hostess at a birthday party after the
ice-cream has been served, the human little rascals.
Some day I hope to have the leisure to write an adequate "Defence of the
Pig." Now that Judge Jeffreys and Nero have been whitewashed and given
good-conduct cards by the historians, I think that some one should speak
a good word for the pigs. They have been very much maligned. And perhaps
this is the right time to do it--after the pigs, both live and
dressed--have been dragged through the mire of politics. To begin with,
the pig is no more gross in his appetite than that much applauded "tame
villatick fowl," the hen. As for cleanliness, give him a chance, and see
how clean he can be. His dirtiness is due to the people who pen him up
so that he can hardly stir. "Seek other cause 'gainst Rhoderick Dhu!"
Then, consider how important the work of the pig has been in the making
of Canada. He deserves a place in the gallery of the Makers of Canada,
because the pioneers would have had a much harder time of it had they
not been supported by plentiful supplies of fat pork. If the pig had his
rights, he would be our national emblem, instead of the beaver. What has
the beaver done for us, anyway? The pig, on the other hand, sustained
our fathers in their fight against the wilderness, and yet his name is a
name of scorn. Even the poets, in whom fair play is intuitive, have done
scant justice to the pig. As a matter of fact, I can recall only one bit
of poetry about the pig in Canadian literature, and that is McIntyre's
epigram "On a hog exhibited at the Western Fair, which weighed 1000
pounds, and measured five-foot-nine from tip to tip":
"Pig had to do some routine work
To make a thousand pounds of pork;
But our stomach it doth not incline
To eat a hog five-foot-nine;
Let others eat enormous swine."
In clearing the country of snakes, the pig has been a veritable animal
St. Patrick. Even the rattlesnake had to go down before him. Because of
this, he deserves a place in heraldry second only to St. George the
dragon-killer. In history, the pig has received frequent mention from
the time of the prodigal son. Even to-day the reigning family of Servia
proudly claims its descent from a militant swineherd, and do not both
the United States and Canada boast of many pork-packing millionaires,
who prove the importance of the pig to modern society? These are only a
few of the points that might be developed in a "Defence of the Pig," and
as the subject is one of the few on which a book has not yet been
written, we may expect to have it written by some one before long.
I never think of pigs without remembering a dark night, many years ago,
when they used to run half-wild, instead of being penned and fed
scientifically. I was coming home late, and took a short-cut through the
dark woods. I was whistling to keep my courage up, for even though I
knew that there were no wolves or bears, there was something uncanny
about the deep shadows. At last I came to a huge elm tree that had been
cut down for a coon in the brave days when the coon-skin was worth more
than a tree three feet in diameter and the labour it took to chop it
down. It was late in the fall, and there were deep drifts of leaves
beside every log. Climbing to the top of the fallen giant, I jumped down
into a great drift--and then yelled with terror. The earth seemed to
spring up under me and around me, as a drove of half-grown pigs that had
taken shelter from the cold in the dry leaves began to scatter,
squealing and "whoofing." They were every bit as scared as I was, and as
they rushed about blindly they bowled me off my feet. My first thought
was of wolves and bears, about which I had heard so much in my boyhood,
but I soon realised what the trouble was. And yet, in the few seconds
when I didn't know what I had tumbled into, I got a scare that made me
wear my hair à la pompadour for weeks afterwards. Since then I have at
different times tripped over a sleeping pig at night when walking past a
straw stack, but I never got such a scare as I did in the woods. Perhaps
that is because these modern pigs haven't so much steam in them as did
the grunters we had when the saying "root hog or die" had an actual
application. They had to root for their livings, and I have no doubt
that there are still neighbourhoods that keep up feuds that were started
by the predatory pigs of the early settlers. It was no easy matter to
make rail-fences "horse-high and hog-tight," when they had to be built
over cradle-holes, and those eager, hungry pigs could be depended on to
find a hole if there was one; and if there wasn't, they were not beyond
making one. Those pigs didn't pose before cameras and get their pictures
in the agricultural papers, but if an acorn fell within half a mile of
them, they would hear it, and get to it in time to catch it on the first
bounce. We shall never see their like again.
And now to come back to our eight--did you ever see anything more
contented-looking? Every one of them looks as snug as the cat after he
has eaten the canary, and even a cat couldn't put more contentment into
his purring than they do into their grunting. A couple of them are lying
sprawled on their stomachs in the sun in an attitude which I would not
hesitate to condemn as unnatural if I saw it in a picture. One is
chewing a blade of grass, and no doubt meditating on the weather and the
prospects of the food supply for the winter. Others are doing their best
to do a little rooting in the baked ground, no doubt in the hope of
getting a place to wallow in. Vain hope! Just look at the little fellow
scratching himself against the end of the trough. He positively looks to
be smiling, and the tone of his grunting tells clearly that he agrees
with Josh Billings, who said: "The discomfort of itching is more than
half made up by the pleasure of scratching." Taken altogether, these
little pigs make as interesting and pretty a picture as the farm
affords. And looking at them from a practical point of view, is there
anything about the place that will better repay feeding and attention,
with pork at the present price? But don't let us think of that. It is
too tragic to think of these happy little fellows being turned into
Wiltshire bacon. Let them enjoy the swill and sunshine and other good
things of life while they may. It would not be such a bad thing if some
of the rest of us could do the same.
_Sept. 30._--I should have known better, and, in fact, I did know
better. I have known better for a long time. Yet I went to town to get
empty apple boxes without putting on a waggon box or a hayrack. But I
was going to bring home only a dozen boxes, and, when I went to hitch
the driver to the one-horse waggon, I thought the cordwood rack it was
provided with would carry the little load all right. I didn't even take
the trouble to hunt up the stakes, so what I had with me was
practically a platform with a stake at each corner. Still I was going
to bring home only twelve empty boxes that would not weigh more than
fifty pounds. I would manage all right. There was no need being fussy,
especially as I was in a hurry. But when I got to the post office I
found a postcard telling me that eighteen crates of honey pails were
waiting at the station. I felt a vague uneasiness on getting this news,
but concluded that I could bring them home with the apple boxes. I got
the boxes first. It was amazing the amount of room they took compared
with their weight. They covered the whole bottom of my rack.
Nevertheless I piled them on, and started on a trot for the station. I
didn't trot far. Those light boxes seemed to feel the jolting far worse
than I did. Every time I struck a pebble they would bounce into the air,
and, in spite of that law of physics which states that an object thrown
up from a moving object will fall on the place from which it started, or
words to that effect, those boxes never came down in the same spot.
Before I had gone ten rods I had to stop to trim my load. When I had
straightened the boxes so that they would ride I let the mare walk, and
tried to figure out some way to pile on eighteen crates that would
probably be very little heavier and every bit as slippery as what I had
on.
The crates of honey pails were wide and flat, and took up about twice as
much room as the apple boxes. I couldn't put two rows side by side. I
had to pile them on top of one another, and I knew that there was
trouble ahead. Moreover, I had to pile the apple boxes two deep, and I
had had enough experience with them to know what that would mean. But
having started I was going to see the thing through. I made a fairly
neat job of the loading, and tried to hope that everything would be all
right. Then I started. Two hundred and sixteen honey pails began to
rattle with the first turn of the wheels. Not being used to such a
racket the driver jumped. Two hundred and sixteen honey pails clanged
and the wrestling began. By the time I got her under control, my pretty
load looked as if it had been struck by a cyclone. It had shifted in
about seven different directions. An apple box had fallen against a
wheel, and the crates of pails looked as if they had been spilled
aboard. As soon as the mare was quiet, I righted the load as well as I
could without taking it all off and starting again from the bottom. By
the time I had done this I had figured out that the only way I could
keep the load straight would be to lie on top of it, wrap my legs around
the hind end, my arms around the front end, and do the driving with my
teeth. Of course, it would be a ridiculous sight for the village folk,
who have a keen appreciation of everything of the kind, but I didn't
care for that. However, I didn't put my plan into practice. After
examining the lines I decided that I would not like the taste of them.
When the driver was entirely quiet, I started her gently and crawled
along the main street. Three times before I got to the home road I had
to stop and fix my load. In doing this I lost my daily paper, and, by
the time I had turned the corner, I was feeling real peevish.
When I had turned off the stone road I thought everything would be all
right, but I was mistaken again. As the road has been graded and people
drive to one side instead of on the middle, I found that the waggon was
tilted just enough to start my ticklish load slipping. There was nothing
for it but to let the horse walk at her own pleasure, while I devoted
myself to pushing back the crates and boxes as they threatened to slip
overboard. Now, the driver at her best is not a fast walker, but when
allowed to take her own time you would need to sight on a couple of
posts to see whether we were moving. She would swing her head around to
bite a fly--and come to a full stop. When she started again she would
swing her foot up to knock a fly off her belly--and stop again. I don't
think I ever knew flies to be so plentiful. She was biting at them or
striking at them all the time. But the slow motion had its advantages.
The boxes and crates stopped slipping, and presently I resigned myself
to my fate and began to look about me. After all a slow drive is best
when one is trying to enjoy the country. It was a perfect autumn day,
hoarfrost in the morning and midsummer heat at noon. The sky was
cloudless, and not a breath of air was stirring. I had the road and the
fields all to myself.
My enjoyment was suddenly disturbed by the appearance in the distance of
what I took to be an automobile. These overgrown "road-lice" usually
give the driver hysterics, and with the honey pails to bang and scatter
we would probably have a wild time. Fortunately it turned out to be a
waggon, and we got around the home corner safely. Then we came to the
railway, and, as we crossed it, the waggon rolled forward and the mare
started to trot. By talking gently and tugging on the lines I got her
stopped before the load slipped off. I trimmed the boxes again and then
crawled the rest of the distance home. When we reached the barn yard two
crates slipped off, but I didn't mind much--in fact I felt triumphant
because I had kept them from falling off sooner. I was an hour late for
dinner and had to explain to every one just what had kept me, and how I
managed to lose the daily paper. And when peace was restored, I made up
my mind that the next time I go after light boxes of this kind I shall
take a waggon and hayrack, even if I am going to bring home only one
box.