children and his wife. I do not care how he gets out and shows himself
off as a great man and a good citizen. He might get an overwhelming vote
for Congress or Governor, but God will judge him more by the votes of
father, mother, son, daughter, wife! To me there can be nothing more
beautiful than the best relation between a man of middle years and his
aged parents. Perhaps the latter are feeble and not well-to-do. When
they can sit in their son’s home happy and comfortable, knowing that
the entire family has been taught to put them first of all in family
regard, you have struck about the finest test of a man’s character that
good citizenship can offer. When the children chase their father about
and, out of their own thought, run to anticipate his wants, you can
make up your mind that in that family are being trained men and women
who can go out and absorb education and financial power which will be
used for the true benefit of humanity. Most of us can never hope to be
great men or to handle large public affairs, but we can make our family
a training school for good citizenship. I have no thought that in this
group of bright-eyed youngsters lined up by my fire we are to have any
great statesmen or authors or merchant princes or big folk generally. On
the whole I hope not, as it would seem to me that the great man has a
rather lonely life. I do expect, however, that these children will always
remember Hope Farm, and that in future years when the world may turn a
very cold side to them they will remember this stormy day and will feel
the warmth of this kindly fire.
I have wandered away from what I wanted to say about Lincoln and his
power over the people. It was this family feeling which made him strong,
and if you want your boy or girl to be really worth while you must give
them and their mother the best family surroundings you can possibly
secure. The man who taps the spring or the well and sends the water
running through his house does far more for his country than he who runs
for Congress and taps the public pocket-book.
But here comes Mother again, with “Come now, dinner’s ready. Don’t let it
get cold!” Get cold? The children are already at the table! I wish you
could come right along with me. I would put two sausage cakes on your
plate and fill it up with mealy potatoes and yellow turnips. Then you
would have rice in another dish. There is a dish of thick, brown gravy
and nothing would suit me better than to have you call for an egg—fried
or boiled. The Reds are laying well now. There are two kinds of bread and
plenty of butter, and we will take a family vote as to whether we shall
take peaches, strawberries, Kieffer pears, cherries or raspberries off
the pantry shelves. I vote for Crosby peaches, but you will have a free
choice and all you can eat. Surely the table makes a very strong family
tie. Come on!
UNCLE ED’S PHILOSOPHY
Uncle Ed had his home in Florida, but spent the Summer working at Hope
Farm. At the time I speak of we were hoeing corn at the top of our hill.
We had just planted the apple orchard, and we both realized the long
and weary years of toilsome waiting before there could be any fruit. It
was a hot day, and at the end of the row we stopped to rest under the
big cherry tree where the stone wall is broad and thick. It was a clear
day, and far off across the rolling country to the East we could see
the sparkle of the sun on some gilded-top building in New York. It gave
one a curious feeling to stand in that shady retreat on $50 land in a
lonely neighborhood, practically untouched by modern development, and
glance across to the millions and the might crowded at the mouth of the
Hudson. Most of us feel a sort of pride on viewing the evidence of wealth
and power, even though we have no share in it, or even when we know it
means blood money taken from our own lives. I felt something of this as
I pointed it out to Uncle Ed, and told him how probably the overflow of
that great city would some day make an acre of our orchard worth more
than a farm in Florida.
This did not seem to impress him greatly. He ran his eye over the glowing
prospect and then slowly filled his pipe for a smoke. I am no friend of
tobacco, but I confess that sometimes I enjoy seeing a man like Uncle Ed
slowly fill his pipe. I feel that some sort of homely philosophy is sure
to be smoked out.
“The trouble with you folks up in this country,” said Uncle Ed, “is that
you work too hard. You get so that there is nothing in you but work and
save. And for what? How many of you ever get the benefit of your own
work? Down where I live we don’t exist for the mere sake of working. I
have known the time when I got up determined to do a good day’s work
cultivating. I got the horse all harnessed, only to find that my neighbor
on the south had borrowed the cultivator, and I couldn’t do that. Then
I thought I’d hoe, but the boys lost the hoe in the brush and couldn’t
find it. Then there was the woodpile to be cut up, but my neighbor on the
north had borrowed the ax.
“Now up in this country if fate challenged a man like that he would
start picking up stones and making a stone wall. Here is one now that
we are resting against. I’ll bet some old owner of this farm piled up
this heap of stones because he was determined that the boys never should
play or go fishing. It is now the most useless thing you have on your
farm. If, instead of picking up stones and building this useless wall,
that old-timer had quit when fate gave him the sign, taken a day off and
let the boys go fishing or play ball, this farm would be worth far more
than it is today. Down in my country when the cultivator and the hoe and
the ax all get away from us we accept it as a voice from some higher
authority, and we _drop everything and go fishing_. After that I notice
things straighten out and work goes right. You fellows work too hard, and
don’t know it. But this won’t buy the woman a dress—we must hoe this
corn out.”
The rows ran to the south, and as we hoed on I could see, far away, that
bright sparkle on the gilding of the big city. And I answered with the
old familiar argument:
“You have just told in a few words why there are more savings of the poor
and middle-class people in that big city yonder than there are in the
entire State of Florida.” That was 16 years ago and the statement was
probably true at the time. Florida has gained since then.
“Up in this country we believe that the Lord gives every man of decent
mind and reasonable body a chance to provide for himself and family
before he is 45. If he doesn’t do it by that time, he isn’t likely to do
it at all. We think that there are three ways of getting money. You can
earn it through labor, steal it, or have it given to you. For most of
us there is only one way—that is to dig it out by the hardest work, and
then practice self-denial in order to hold it. Up in this country the men
who quit and go fishing when conditions turn against them, spend their
declining years without any bait. That money off there where you see that
sparkle was produced by men who did not go fishing when conditions turned
against them.”
As I look back upon it now that seems pretty cheap talk, but it was the
way we looked at it in those days.
“I know,” said Uncle Ed, “but how much better off are they when you sum
it all up? I claim that the man who goes fishing gets something that the
man who built that stone wall never knew. Who piled up all that money
in the big city? Some of mine is there. The interest I have paid on my
mortgage has come into one of these big buildings for investment. The
profit on many a box of oranges I shipped before the freeze never got
away from New York. It stuck there and you can’t get it out. And that’s
just what I mean. You fellows work your fingers stiff and make a little
money, and then you put it into some bank or big company or into stocks
or bonds. In the end it all gets away from you and runs down hill to that
big city. The hired man took $25 to the county fair. Ten dollars of it
went for beer and rum. The local saloonkeeper passed the $10 on to the
wholesaler, he to the brewer and he sent part of it to Germany and the
rest to Wall Street. The other $15 mostly went in chance games or petty
gambling. He lost $5 betting that he could find the little red ball under
the hat. The man who won his $5 lost it that night playing poker. The
gambler who won it lost it a few nights later in a gambling house. The
gambling house man bought bogus oil and mining stocks and lost it that
way. The oil stock man had sense enough to salt it down in respectable
securities, and there it is now under that bright sparkle in the big
city. You and the rest of you do pretty much the same. This man who built
your stone wall did it. The money he made was not invested here. If it
had been you never could have bought this farm. It is off there under
that bright sparkle—and the boys and girls run after it. _You fellows
work too hard!_”
I undertook to come back with that text about the man who provideth
not for his family—but I never was good at remembering texts. That is
probably because I do not study them as I ought to. But at any rate I
undertook to argue that it is a man’s first duty to provide for his
family and also for his own “rainy day.” “_The night cometh, when no man
can work._”
“Down where I live,” said Uncle Ed, “we don’t have such rainy days as you
do up here. Life is simple and straight and old people are cared for.
We want them to live with us—we are not waiting for them to pass off
and leave their money. Off in that big city where your money is turning
over and over, thousands of human lives get under it and are crushed
out of all shape. Down there under that sparkle only the poor know what
neighbors are. Many a man lives his life in some tenement or apartment
house never knowing or caring what goes on in the room on the other side
of the wall. There may be joy or sorrow, death or life, virtue or crime.
He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care, because this never-ending grind of
work has changed sympathy into selfishness. And in the end that is what
all those dollars which you folks dump into the big city come to. If
the habit is so strong that you’ve got to work and try to catch up with
the man who has a little more than you have, why not invest your money
at home and in the farm? Those fellows off under that sparkle will come
chasing after your money if you invest it here, and you would be boss
instead of servant! _Am I right?_”
That was 16 years ago, and many things have happened since then. Uncle Ed
has passed away—after many troubles and misfortunes. The world has been
shaken up by the war and by great discoveries, so that we hardly know it.
Yet there is a brighter sparkle than ever on the gilded roofs of the big
city—greater wealth and more blinding poverty crouching beneath it. The
hill where we hoed corn is now covered with big apple trees. Where then
Bob and Jerry toiled slowly along with half a ton of fruit the truck now
flashes down the hard, smooth road with two tons. But sitting on the old
stone wall of a Sunday afternoon in late August I look across the valley
and wonder how much there really is in Uncle Ed’s philosophy after all.
What do _you_ think?
A GOD-FORSAKEN PLACE
James and William Hardy were twins—born and bred on a New Hampshire
farm. The family dated far back to pioneer times, when John Hardy and
Henry Graham, with their young wives, went into the wilderness as the
advance guard of civilization. It came to be a common understanding that
a Hardy should always marry a Graham, and through four generations at
least this family law had been observed until there had been developed
one of those fine, purebred New England families which represent just
about the highest type of the American. As the father of these twins
married a Graham girl you had a right to expect them to be as much alike
as two peas in the family pod—both in appearance and in character. Here
you surely might expect one of those cases where the twins are always
being mixed up, when not even their mother could be sure which was Jim
and which was Bill. In truth, however, the boys were distinctly different
from the day they were born—different in size, in appearance and in
character.
These twins innocently brought to the surface a sad spot of family
history which both the Grahams and the Hardys hoped had been buried too
far down ever to show itself. Far back in the French and Indian war a
band of raiders from Canada burst out of the forest and carried off
a dozen prisoners. Among them was the pride of the Graham family—a
beautiful girl of 16. The settlers, hiding in their blockhouse, could
only look on and see their relatives start on the long march to Canada.
The next year some of these prisoners were ransomed, and came back to say
that the girl had married a young Frenchman. She was happy, and sent word
to her parents that she preferred to stay with her husband. Years went
by, until one night there came to Henry Graham’s house a Canadian ranger
and a young girl. It was their granddaughter and her father. The mother
had died and had begged her husband to take her daughter back to the old
folks as her offering of love. The father delivered his message, bade his
daughter farewell and silently vanished into the forest. They never saw
him again, but they realized that he had given full measure of devotion
to his dead wife. The girl grew up to be a beautiful creature much like
her mother, only darker, and at times there was a bright glitter in her
eyes. She married a Hardy and settled down as a farmer’s wife. She was
dutiful and kind, but sometimes her husband would see her standing at
the door—looking off into the Northern forests with a look which made
him shake his head. Years went by, and this spot on the family history
had been forgotten until these twins uncovered it! Their mother knew in
her heart that the spirit of the restless Frenchman was watching her
from the cradle through the black shiny eyes of her strange baby. James,
the light-haired, steady, purebred infant, slept calmly or acted just
as a good Hardy should, but the wild spirit of the forest had jumped
three generations right into the cradle, where this black-haired little
changeling stared at her!
There never were two children more unlike than these twins. Jim was
solid, sound, a little slow, but absolutely trustworthy—“a born Hardy” as
they said. Bill was bright, quick, restless, full of plans and visions.
He did not like to work, and had no respect for the family skeleton. This
was a mortgage, which for many years had sunk its claws into the rocky
little farm. The truth was that this farm never should have been cleared
and settled. It was rocky and sandy; farther out of date than the old
mill rotting unused by the old mill pond. The mortgage hung like a wolf
at the back door, demanding its due, which came out of the little farm
like blood money. Jim Hardy, like his father and grandfather, grew up to
regard that mortgage as a fixed and sacred institution. It was a family
heirloom or tradition—something like the old musket which an older Hardy
carried at Bunker Hill, or like grandmother’s old spinning-wheel. As for
the poor, rocky farm, Jim and his father would stay and grind themselves
away in a hopeless struggle just because the Hardys who went before them
had done so. It was different with Bill. He had no use for the mortgage
or for the rocky pastures, for the dash of French blood had put rubber,
or yeast, into the covering of the stern New England thought. His father
never could understand him and one day, when Bill was 17, the blood of
the “changeling” burst into open mutiny. The father knew of only one way
to act. He ordered the boy around behind the barn and took the horsewhip
to him. As a Hardy, Bill was expected to stand and take his punishment
without a murmur. As the descendant of a wild forest ranger he could only
resent the blows. What he did was to catch his father’s arms and hold
them like a vice. Neither spoke a word. They just looked at each other.
The older man struggled, but he was powerless—he knew that his son was
the master. He dropped the whip from his hand and bowed his head. The boy
released him, broke the whip in two, and threw it away. The father walked
to the house, a dazed and broken man. Bill watched him and then walked
out to the back lot where Jim, the steady and faithful, was building a
fence.
“Good-bye, Jim,” he said. “I’m off. It had to come. I’m different, and
yet the same, as you will see. You stay here and look after father and
mother. I will help some day.” It was the Hardy in both the boys which
made it impossible for them to come any closer in feeling. Bill walked on
over the pasture hill; at the top he paused to wave his hand. Then he was
gone.
Bill was clean and sound at heart, and the French blood had given him
a quick active brain. Instead of striking for the wilderness he headed
for New York and he prospered. The old French ancestor drove him on
with tireless energy, and the long line of clean farm breeding kept him
true to his purpose to go back some day and show the old folks that he
was still a Hardy. Years passed, until one day there came to Bill an
uncontrollable longing to go home. Just a few brief, unresponsive letters
had passed between him and Jim, but the time came when Bill longed with
a great longing to see the old farm once more. And so, the next day, a
well-dressed, prosperous man walked into the old yard and looked about
him. There was Jim, the same old Jim, walking in from the barn with the
night’s milk. Father was cutting wood at the wood pile and mother stood
at the kitchen door—just the same home picture which Bill knew so well.
Bill did great things during his short stay. He paid that mortgage,
ordered a new barn built and left capital for Jim to improve the farm.
He did everything that a Hardy ought to do—and more—and yet he could not
satisfy himself. It all seemed so small and narrow. He had hoped to find
great music in the wind among the pines, but it filled him with a great
loneliness, which he could not overcome. He had hoped to find peace and
rest, but these were for the untried farm boy—not for the restless and
worried business man. It broke out of him at night on the second day,
when he and Jim were on the pasture hill looking for the sheep. The
loneliness of the early Fall day fairly entered his heart.
“_Jim_,” he said, “_old fellow, I don’t see how you live in such a
God-forsaken place_!”
“Why, Bill,” said Jim, “New York must be like Paradise to beat the old
homestead.”
“Better a week on Broadway than a lifetime on these lonely hills.”
“I’d like to try it and see!” said Jim.
So Jim Hardy, the plain farmer, went to New York to visit Brother Bill.
He had everything he could call for. Bill lived in a beautiful apartment,
and he gave Jim a white card to see and do what he wanted. Bill was too
busy to go around much, but Jim made his way. For a couple of days it
was fine—then somehow Jim, just like Bill at the old farm, began to grow
lonesome and oppressed. Right through the wall of Bill’s apartment house
was a family with one child. The janitor told him the child was sick,
so Jim knocked at the door to sympathize with the neighbors. They froze
him with a few words and got rid of him. He saw a man on the street and
stopped to converse with him. “Get out!” said the stranger. “You can’t
bunco me.” Day after day Jim Hardy, the farmer, saw the fierce, selfish
struggle for life in the big city. The great buildings, the theaters,
Broadway at night—they were all splendid, but behind and under them lay
the meanness, the selfish spirit, the lack of neighborly feeling, which
galled the farmer to the heart. On the third night Bill took his brother
to a great reception. Just as they walked into the brilliant room Jim
glanced from the window and saw a policeman throw a weak and sickly man
out of a public room where he was trying to get warm.
“What did I tell you, Jim?” said Bill. “Isn’t this worth a year on your
old hills?” And Jim could only think of one thing to say:
“_Bill, old fellow, I don’t see how you can live in such a God-forsaken
place!_”
What do you make of it? One brother thinks God has forsaken the country,
while the other says He has forsaken the city! To me they prove that God
is everywhere. Some may not find Him, since they look for Him only in
things which are agreeable to them, and those are rarely the places in
which to look. I think, too, that, like Jim and Bill, all children come
into the world with natural tendencies and inclinations which, if worthy,
should be encouraged rather than repressed. Both Jim and Bill are needed
in American life.
LOUISE
“_How is Louise now?_”
“_She seems a little better!_”
That message came over the ’phone on Friday evening, just as the members
of the Hope Farm family were separating for the night. Early in the year
we had a letter from a woman in the West who came back to the paper after
15 years’ absence. As a girl she lived in New York State. Father took the
paper and she remembered the talks about the Bud, Scion and Graft. “What
has become of those children?” she asked. “Since I left home I have lost
track of them. Now that I have a home and children of my own I would like
to know what they came to.”
These were the names given to the four children of our first brood. We
had one little girl of our own whom I called the Bud. Her mother did not
want her brought up alone, so we took in a small boy—a little fellow of
an uncertain age. We did not adopt him, but he was treated just like
our own child, and “grew up” in our home. I called him the Seedling! A
noted botanist argued with me to prove that these names should have been
transposed—but I let them go, for we tried to graft good things upon the
Seedling. Then came two other little ones—Mother’s niece and nephew,
needing home and protection. We took them in, and I called them Graft
and Scion. These names may not have betrayed any great knowledge of
botany, but they seemed to fit the children, although as the little ones
grew up we were glad to let those names drop.
This quartette of little ones grew and thrived. It was at times rather
hard sledding for the Hope Farmers in those early years, but youth
greases the runners with hope, and kids never know the true taste of
tough mutton. They grew on through sickness, the wilfulness of childhood,
powers of heredity and all the things which confront common children. For
they always seemed to me just kids of very common clay, though Mother
would at times come back from places where other children “behaved” and
say: “You must understand that we have some very superior youngsters!” Of
course I realized that the “Bud” would most likely be pretty much what
her parents were, and it was a long-time hope that she would throw out
our many undesirable qualities and concentrate upon the few good ones.
Now comes our friend asking what has become of them—and I will try to
answer for all! The Bud is a senior at one of the great Women’s Colleges;
the Graft is with an engineering party running a new railroad through the
Arizona wilderness; the Seedling is a captain in the Salvation Army—the
Scion! ah! That is why I am writing this!
Louise grew up a small, rather delicate young woman, ambitious,
clear-brained and with a quick, active mind. There came a time when
greater family responsibilities came upon us all. Her father died, and
her mother became hopelessly ill, and four younger brothers and sisters
came to us to form what we call our second brood. Even as a young girl
Louise began to realize the stern responsibilities of life for those
little ones. When she finished high school her ambition to be of service
to this family group became fixed. She wanted to become self-supporting
and to have a hand in helping with these younger children. Teaching
is the great resource of educated women who are naturally fitted for
the work, and Louise saw in the schoolroom her best chance for useful
service. I think this was one of the rare cases where women are willing
to work and prepare themselves for true unselfish service. Louise was
timid and naturally nervous—not strong or with great dominating power. I
do not think any of us understood how much it really meant to her to face
direct responsibility and force her way through.
Mother and I have always felt that if any of our children show real,
self-sacrificing desire for an education we will practise any form
of needed self-denial that the child may be college-trained. For an
education worked out in that way will become a glory and an honor to all
who have to do with it. So we felt it no burden, but rather a privilege,
to send Louise to the Normal School. How well and faithfully she worked
no one can ever realize. I often think that most reputations for bravery
in this world are not fairly earned. Some strong, well-bred, naturally
optimistic character, with health and heritage from a long line of
dominating ancestors pushes and smashes his way through obstacles and
acquires a great reputation for courage. I think such are far less
deserving than women like Louise, small and delicate and nervous, who
conquer natural timidity and force themselves to endure the battle.
It is even harder to win confidence in yourself—to conquer the inside
forces—than to fight the outside ones.