woman, but homely enough to stop a clock. Her father left her the farm,
and she got to be quite an old maid. We all thought she had settled
down for such when she up and married the hired man, a nice man, but
no farmer, and no property except a cough and an old aunt mighty nigh
bed-ridden. Then the husband died and left the old lady on her hands. She
might have sent the old thing to the poorhouse—ain’t no kin of hers—but
just because her husband promised to keep her, Mrs. Fairchild has kept
the old lady on. There the two women live on one of the best farms in the
county.”
“It’s the best because the Lord has blessed it.” That came from the wife
on the back seat. She had tried to get in a word before.
“No, no! Farms are made good by hard work and judgment. The minister went
and talked to her about it, but all he got out of her was ‘And Ruth said,
Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee: for
whither thou goest I will go.’”
“But, Henry, ain’t you ’shamed to call her homely?”
“No, because it’s the truth. It wouldn’t be about you, now, but I told
the minister that once. He has to be diplomatic and he hemmed and hawed
and finally said, ‘She has a strong face.’ He’s right! Mighty strong!”
If you ever acted in the capacity of _donatee_ at such a party you know
the feeling. The big house was filled. Out in the kitchen the women
sorted out the food and arranged it for supper. In the front room, beside
a little table, sat “the hired man’s old aunt,” a beautiful old lady with
white hair and a sweet, patient face. On the table stood a few house
plants in pots. One geranium had opened a flower.
“The only one in the neighborhood for Christmas,” said the old lady.
“You don’t know how proud I am of it. It has been such a joy to me to
see it slowly grow, and, oh, think of what it means to have it come at
Christmas!”
But the donatee has little time for small talk. He always earns his
donation, and whatever happened to it later, I earned it that night.
They finally stopped me for supper. The minister alluded to it as “the
bounteous repast which we are now asked to enjoy.” My friend the trustee
stood by the door and shouted:
“Hoe in—help yourself!”
It was getting on toward Christmas Day when I stood up in the corner
to end the entertainment. I had intended to end with Irwin Russell’s
“Christmas Night in the Quarters,” with negro dialect, but as I was about
to start my eye fell upon a group by that little table. The “old aunt”
sat looking at me, and by her side stood the “homely” woman, her hand
resting upon the older woman’s shoulder. I wonder if you have ever had a
vision come to you at Christmas—or any other time! A great, mysterious,
beautiful vision, in which you look forward into the years and are given
to see some great thing which is hidden from most men until too late. It
came to me as I watched those women that the finest test of character,
the noblest part of the Christmas spirit, was not the glory of caring for
helpless childhood, but the higher sacrifice of love and duty for the
aged.
And so, almost before I knew it, I found myself reciting Will Carleton’s
poem, “Over the Hill to the Poorhouse!” What a sentiment to bring into a
happy Christmas party—by the donatee at that—one who had been hired “to
make them laugh”!
I knew it all, yet my mind jumped across the long miles and I thought
of my own mother growing old and waiting in silence that I might have
opportunity!
“Over the hill to the poorhouse
I’m trudging my weary way.
I a woman of sixty,
Only a trifle gray,
I who am smart and chipper.
For all the years I’ve told,
As many another woman
Only one-half as old.
“Over the hill to the poorhouse!
I can’t quite make it clear;
Over the hill to the poorhouse,
It seems so horrid queer!
Many’s the journey I’ve taken,
Traveling to and fro,
But over the hill to the poorhouse
I never once thought I’d go!”
It was a great 10 minutes. It is worth a good many years to have 600
ticks of the clock pass by like that. Could all of us have lived, for 10
years with that 10-minute feeling—what a neighborhood that would have
been. I was looking at those two women by the table. I saw their hands
come together. It is true that the trustee had not done great injustice
to her appearance, but as she stood there by “the hired man’s old aunt”
there came upon her face a beauty such as God alone can bring upon the
face of those who are beloved by Him. A light from within illuminated
her life story, and I could read it on her face. A love that endures
after death—until life! And when I stopped I was _done_. The power had
all gone from me. Not so with my manager, the trustee. He could sense
a psychological moment even if he could not spell it, and he got his
hat into action before the rich spirit of that crowd could get to the
poorhouse. I saw him coming with the hat full—there were surely several
bills there. Say, did you ever spend money before you got your fingers on
it? I never have since that night. I know better. As I saw that money I
figured on several Christmas presents, a new coat and at least one term
at college. The trustee cleared his throat for a few remarks and I stood
there pleasantly expectant, anticipating a few compliments—and the money.
“Now, friends, we thank you one and all for your generous gift, and we
thank our talented young friend here for the great assistance he has
given us. He will rejoice when he learns the full amount, for, my dear
friends, _this money belongs to the Sunday school_!”
And he proceeded forthwith to gather up the money and stuff it into his
pockets, leaving me with my mouth half open, and my hand half extended.
What could you do? There was a roar of protest from several farmers who
demanded their money back, though they never got it. Happily the humor of
it struck me. The first thing that came into my mind was an old song I
had often heard:
“_Thou art so near and yet so far!_”
There is nothing like being a good sport, and so I bowed and smiled and
took my medicine, although I am sure the party would have ended in a
fight if I had said the word. But the “old aunt” looked at me for a
moment and then cut off that geranium bloom, tied two leaves on it and
handed it to me without a word. And the woman with the shining face took
my hand in both hers and said: “Do not get discouraged. I know you will
win out.”
I rode home with a farmer who, with his two big sons, roared profanely
at what they called the “injustice of that miser.” They vowed to get up
another donation, which they did later. They offered to go and “lick
the trustee” and take the money from him. I think they were a little
disappointed when I told them that he needed it more than I did.
“Why, from the way you talk, anybody’d think you had fallen heir to a big
thing!”
I had. That little flower in my pocket carried a Christmas spirit and a
Christmas lesson that the whole world could not buy. The thing paying the
largest dividend, the finest companion that ever walked with one along
the roadway of life—unselfish love, and sacrifice.
“COLUMBUS DAY”
I would like to know where you are tonight, and what you have been doing
all through this “Liberty Day.” With us the day has been cloudy and
wet, and just as the sun went down Nature took the liberty of sending a
cold, penetrating rain. So here I am before my big fire with a copy of
Washington Irving’s “Life of Christopher Columbus.” That seems the proper
way to end Columbus Day, for in trying to tell the children about him I
found that I did not really know much more than they do about the great
discoverer. So here I am back some 400 years in history wondering if
any of these pompous and bigoted ways of seeking for new worlds or new
methods can be applied to modern life in New Jersey.
My back aches, for I have been digging potatoes all day—and I thought I
had graduated from that job some years ago. Perhaps you will say that we
should have been out selling Liberty bonds or parading. Personally, I am
a poor salesman, and we all subscribed for our bonds some days ago. There
are eight bondholders in this family. The influenza has left us without
labor except for the children while the school is closed. There are
still over 100 barrels of apples to pick, potatoes to dig, plowing and
seeding to be done, and a dozen other jobs all pressing. So I decided to
celebrate Liberty Day by digging those Bible School potatoes. We planted
a patch of potatoes between rows of young peach trees and promised the
crop to the Bible Teachers’ Training School. Last year we tried this, and
I put in a few of the latest scientific touches which the experts told
us about. The plant lice came in a swarm and ruined the patch. We had a
few potatoes about the size of marbles. This year we avoided scientific
advice, and just planted potatoes in the old-fashioned way. They were not
cultivated in the best possible manner, but they made a good crop. So
when Liberty Day dawned with a thick, gray mist over the land I decided
to get those potatoes out instead of going on the march or singing “The
Star Spangled Banner.” From what I read of Columbus I imagine he would
have chosen the parade and left the digging to others. The world has
taken on new ideas about labor since then.
So, after breakfast, Cherry-top and I took our forks and started digging.
The soil was damp and the air full of mist and meanness which made me
sneeze and cough as we worked on. Happily, out on our hills we are not
fined $20 for sneezing outside of a handkerchief, as is the case in New
York. If anyone has discovered any poetry or philosophy in the job of
digging potatoes he may have the floor. I call it about the most menial
job on the farm, and therefore fine discipline for “Liberty Day.” While
we were working Philip and the larger boy went by with the team to seed
rye. They have thrashed out enough grain by hand, and this is not only
ideal weather, but about the last limit for seeding. The land was plowed
some two weeks ago, a big crop of ragweed and grass being turned under.
If we only had the labor this ground would have been disked twice and
then harrowed. As it is, we can only work it once with the spring-tooth.
Then Philip goes ahead seeding in the rye by hand, while the boy follows
with the Acme harrow to cover the grain. It is rough seeding and would
not answer for wheat, but rye is tough and enduring, and it will imitate
Columbus and discover a new world in that decaying mass of ragweed. So
I watch the seed sowers travel slowly along the hillside as I dig, and
wonder what was doing on this farm 427 years ago, and what will be doing
here 100 years hence! Such reflections were the most cheerful mental
accompaniment I could find for digging potatoes. They are impractical,
while digging is the most practical thing on earth!
As we dug on a man and woman came up the lane. They came after apples,
having engaged them before. The boy went down to attend to them, while I
kept on digging. Then the boy came back with two more apple customers.
The trouble with us is that we have more customers than apples this
year, but these were old patrons, and they were served. The boy finally
came back with $41.80 as a result of his trading, and we went at our
job with new vigor. As we dug along we noticed a curious thing about
those potatoes. Here and there was a vine large and strong, and still
perfectly green. The great majority of the hills were dead, but those
green ones were as vigorous as they were in June. The variety was Green
Mountain, and we soon found that on the average these big green vines
were producing twice as much as the dead hills. Some of these living
vines carried three or four big potatoes. Others had a dozen, with seven
or eight of market size, while others had about 16 tubers, mostly small.
Just why these vines should act in this way I do not know. There are so
many possible reasons that I should have to guess at it, as Columbus
did when, as his ship sailed on and on into the west, the compass began
to vary. The boy and I decided that here was where we might discover a
good strain of Green Mountain on Columbus Day. So we have selected 15
of the best hills. They will be planted, hill by hill, next year and
still further selection made. We discarded the hills with only a few big
potatoes and also those with many small ones, and selected those with a
good number of medium-sized tubers. It may come to nothing, but we will
try it. Experience and careful figures show that an ordinary crop of
potatoes in this country does not pay. The same is true of a flock of
ordinary poultry, or a drove of scrub pigs. There is no profit except
in well-bred, selected stock. That’s what we think we have in pigs and
poultry—perhaps we may get something of the same thing in potatoes.
But there is one sure thing about digging potatoes—you work up a great
appetite. At noon there came a most welcome parade up the lane. It was
not a woman suffrage procession, but Mother, Aunt Eleanor, Rose and the
little girls bringing the picnic dinner in baskets and pails. The boy had
built a fire up above the Spring and piled stones up around it. By the
time I had washed my hands and face in the brook Mother had a frying pan
over this fire with slices of bacon sizzling and giving up their fat.
When this bacon was brown the slices were taken out and the fat kept on
bubbling and dancing. Then Aunt Eleanor cut up slices of Baldwin apples
and dropped them into this fat. They tell me Ben Davis is best for this
fried-apple performance, but I found no fault with Baldwin as it jumped
out of that fat. The chemist will no doubt explain how the bacon fat
combined with the acid of the apple, etc., etc., etc. Let him talk; it
does him good—but have another fried apple! Men may come and men may go,
but they will seldom find more appetizing food or a more perfect balanced
ration than the Hope Farmers discovered around that fire. There were
bread and butter, fried bacon, fried apple, pot cheese and several of our
choice Red hen’s eggs boiled hard and chopped fine with a little onion.
Of course, eggs are worth good and great money just now, but nothing
is too good for an occasion like this. And so, on that cheerless day,
sitting around our fire, we all concluded that Columbus did a great thing
when he discovered America.
But our job was not to be ended by eating fried apples and bacon,
pleasant as that occupation is, and when I put out my hand I was obliged
to admit that the first faint evidence of rain was beginning. The larger
boy went back to his rye seeding, and very soon Tom and Broker could be
seen on the lower farm pounding back and forth over the field like gray
giants hauling up the guns. All hands went to picking up potatoes. Mother
picked two bushels and then had to go back to her housework. Little Rose
claimed that she picked up 20 potatoes. Her chief job was to hold on to
her throat and ask if it was not time to eat one more of those sweet
throat tablets I had in my pocket. The rain slowly developed from mist to
good-sized drops. I know what it means to get wet, and in any other cause
I would have left the job, but we were there to finish those potatoes,
and we stayed by it until they were all picked up. The last barrel or two
came up out of the mud, and our hands and feet were surely plastered with
common clay—but we finished our job. Then came the boys with Broker and
the fruit wagon to carry the crop to the barn. One of these boys had on
a rubber coat—the other a sack over his shoulders. They went on up the
hill to get a load of apples and on their way back brought down the Bible
potatoes, where they will dry out and be ready for delivery. When we got
to the barn there was another party after apples.
We finished it all at last, dried off before the fire and found ourselves
none the worse for the day. In the present condition of my back I would
not from choice go to a dance tonight, but that will limber out in time.
The fire roars away, the rain taps at the window, and we are safe and
warm. We have had our supper, and I suppose I could tell where Aunt
Eleanor has hidden a pan of those famous ginger cookies. I will make it a
one to five chance that I can also find a pan of baked apples. I think I
will not reveal the secret publicly at this time. The Food Administrator
might accuse her of using too much ginger or sweetening! School has been
closed on account of the influenza, but the children are still working
their “examples,” and I give them a few original sums to work out. Little
Rose listens to all this, and finally proposes this one of her own:
“If a woman paid three cents at a hospital for a baby, how much would a
horse cost?”
Personally, I will give that up, and go back to the “Life of Columbus.”
The most interesting thing to me is the account of the council of wise
men to whom Columbus tried to explain his theories. They told him that
since the old philosophers and wise men had not discovered any new world,
it was great presumption for an ordinary man to claim that there remained
any great discovery for him to make. Seems to me I have heard that same
argument ever since I was able to read and understand. Perhaps it is well
that all who come, like Columbus, with a theory and vision of new worlds
must fight and endure and suffer before the slow and prejudiced public
will give them a chance. But here comes a message for me to come upstairs
and see a strange thing. Little Rose cannot have her own way, and she has
gone into a passion altogether too big for her little frame. She will not
even let me come near her, and back I come a little sadly to my book and
my fire. They are not quite so satisfying as before. But who comes here?
It is Mother carrying a very pink and repentant morsel of humanity—little
Rose. She hunts up my electric hearing device and with the ear piece at
my ear I hear a trembly little voice saying:
“_I’s awful sorry!_”
And that is a fine ending for Liberty Day. Perhaps, like Columbus on that
fateful night at the end of his voyage, this little one sees the first
faint light of a new world! Who knows?
THE COMMENCEMENT
You could hardly have crowded another human into the great hall. From
the gowned and decorated dignitaries on the stage to the great orchestra
in the upper gallery every square foot of floor space was packed, as the
president of the great woman’s college arose to open the commencement
exercises. This followed one of the most impressive scenes I have ever
witnessed. The great audience had been waiting long beyond the appointed
time for starting, when suddenly the orchestra started a slow and stately
march and we all rose. A dignified woman in cap and gown, with soft gray
hair, marched slowly up the aisle, and following her came long lines of
“sweet girl graduates,” as Tennyson puts it. The woman walked to the
steps which led to the stage, and standing there reviewed the long lines
of girls as they filed silently in and occupied the seats reserved for
them. In their black gowns and white bands they seemed, as they were,
a trained and steadfast army. As they seated themselves and rose again
it seemed like the swelling of a great ocean tide. And following them
came men and women who had gained distinction in education or public
life. They, too, were in cap and gown, with bands of red, purple, white,
green or brown, to designate their college or their studies. The bright
sunshine flooded in at the open windows. Outside, the beautiful green
college campus stretched away in gently rolling mounds and little
valleys. I noticed a robin perched on a tree with his head on one side,
calmly viewing the great professor who with the bright red band across
his breast was delivering the address. Very likely this wise bird was
saying, “You should not be too proud of that dash of red on your gown.
There are others! Your red badge is man made. It will not appear on your
children, and it may even be taken from you. The red on my breast is a
finger-print of Nature, and cannot be removed.”
I know that there are those who would call this impressive service
mere pomp and vain parade, yet, to the plain man and woman sitting in
the front row of the balcony, it all seemed a noble part of a great
proceeding, and a great pride for them. Just where the balcony curved
around like a horseshoe this gray-haired couple sat—just like hundreds of
other men and women who, in other places, with strange thought in mind,
were watching their boys and girls pass out of training into the race of
life. The Hope Farm man is supposed to be a farmer, and “as the husband
so the wife is.” He worked out as hired man for some years and otherwise
qualified for the position, while Mother probably never saw a working
farm before she was married. But at any rate there they were—like the
hundreds of other plain men and women, while down below them the best
work of their lives was coming to fruition. For the daughter was part of
that army in cap and gown and was about to receive her certificate of
education!
To me one of the most interesting characters in the universe is “the
hen with one chicken”! These women with one child of their own! Having
added just one volume to the book of life it is their duty and privilege
to regard it as a masterpiece. When you come to think of it, what a day,
what a moment, that must have been for a woman like Mother. Here was her
only child, a girl who, from the cradle, had never given her a moment’s
uneasiness or a single lapse of confidence, now standing up big and
straight and fine to take her college degree. It had been the dream of
Mother’s girlhood to go through this same great college, but that had
been denied her. Yet the years had swung around in their relentless march
and here was her daughter, big, trained, fine and unspoiled, making noble
use of the opportunity which failed to knock at her mother’s door! Many
of you women who read this will know that there can be no prouder moment
in a woman’s life. Is it any wonder that there was a very suspicious
moisture on Mother’s glasses as the minister read the 25th chapter of St.
Matthew?
“_And I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth._”
Would you not, as she did, have sung with all your power when that great
audience rose like a mighty wave to sing “The Star Spangled Banner”? The
members of the orchestra stood up to play the tune. As you know, a group
of musicians will usually show a large proportion of European faces, but
all these markings of foreign blood faded away as they played, and there
came upon each countenance the light of what we call _Americanism_.
But what about “father” at such a time and place? Where does _he_
come in? At a woman’s college he stays out—he is a mere incident, and
properly so. If he is wise he will accept the situation. For this big
girl marching in line has his shoulders and head; she walks as he does,
and people are kind enough to remark, “How much your daughter looks like
you!” Now this is no fly in the ointment of Mother’s pride and joy,
unless you refer to it too much. Far better take a back seat and let the
good lady take full pride in her daughter. I confess that when those 200
girls sat together at the front of the room, all in cap and gown, and
most of them with their hair arranged alike, I could not be sure of my
own girl until her name was called! My mind was back in the years busy
with many memories. More than a full generation ago at an agricultural
college I walked up to receive my “certificate.” I remember that I had on
some clothes which had been discarded by two other men. I played the part
of tailor to clean and press them into service. There were no be-gowned
and decorated dignitaries on the platform—just a few farmers, several of
them right out of the harvest field. I remember how two of these tired
men fell asleep through our class “orations.” I had in my pocket just
enough money to get me to a farm where I had agreed to cut corn. And
this proud and happy lady beside me! At just about the same time she was
graduating from a normal college at the South. She was then a mere slip
of a pretty girl, not out of her ’teens, with a plain white dress and a
bright ribbon, and no “graduation present” but the bare price of a ticket
home. And within a few weeks she was off, giving the acid test to her
certificate of education by teaching school in Texas! What a world it all
is anyway! The years had ironed out the rather poor scientific farmer and
the smart girl teacher into the parents of this young woman who, as we
fondly hope, has adopted the good qualities of both sides of the house
and cast out the poor ones. A great world, certainly a good world, and
probably a wise one!