"You need to turn the little chap loose in the country," was the
doctor's verdict, given in a low tone that didn't--thank
Heaven!--attract Paul's attention, though if the child hadn't been
absorbed for the moment in driving a brood of imaginary chickens into an
imaginary coop under a real parlor table this indiscreet reference would
have caused a scene. The doctor had been cautioned not to do or say
anything that would arouse suspicion in the mind of our offspring as to
the real nature of his visit, so he should have known better, but of
course he couldn't know what a dread Paul had of sometime having to go
somewhere without his parents.
Marion sank weakly into a chair, then sat up very straight and braced
herself for what was coming; I made a frantic pantomimic appeal to the
doctor for temporary silence, then I grabbed Paul by the arm, pointing
out the fiction that the chickens had escaped around the end of the
table into the hall. When he had darted out in pursuit I shut the door,
turning in time to hear Marion say with a piteous break in her voice:
"Doctor, tell us the worst--is it his lungs?"
His tone, to our over-anxious ears, had suggested a fear that he was
about to break the news that our precious boy was doomed to an early
grave, and it was a relief to see him not only smile, but look as if he
would enjoy a hearty laugh. "Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Carton," he said
cheerily. "He's a delicate little fellow, but spry as a cricket and
quite sound. Send him to the country for six months,--and--ha ha!--don't
coddle him so much."
Send our little Paul to the country! Even in her half-allayed anxiety
Marion smiled at the idea. Paul, who had never been away from her tender
care for one hour, who had howled with dismay when he gathered from our
unguarded conversation that when little boys went to school they didn't
take their parents too! Now Paul, up to this time, fortunately for our
peace of mind, had been spared the ordinary illnesses and accidents of
childhood; indeed, so carefully had he been guarded, that at the age of
six he had never tasted unboiled water, unsterilized milk or unhygienic
bread, and although he had learned to walk upstairs by himself, had
never descended alone except when an anxious parent stood breathlessly
at the foot of the stairs ready to break a possible fall. An ordinary
child might have rebelled or evaded our watchfulness, but Paul was not
an ordinary child, and he was preternaturally anxious to avoid danger
and keep us up to the mark. His active little mind ferreted out
supposititious disasters with alarming realism until our nerves were
unstrung by the constant effort to guard against the possible calamities
that he suggested.
Send _Paul_ to the country? _Send_ him--to the _country_! A likely
thing, indeed!--and leave us to be tortured by mental visions of his
dear little incapable feet projecting out of a water barrel or being
mowed off by an overgrown lawn-mower, his helpless form impaled upon the
horns of a bull or dangling from the mouth of a vicious horse.
That evening, after Paul was safely asleep, we talked the whole matter
over. We had previously toyed with nebulous schemes of living in the
country, but the doctor's opinion transformed what had seemed an
impracticable but entrancingly delightful castle-in-the-air to a
definite consideration of how we could make it an actuality. As Marion
said, it was our plain duty to do what was best for Paul, even if we had
to sacrifice a few extraneous luxuries in carrying it out, and when she
used the word duty I knew that, come what would, we were going to live
in the country. Duty is Marion's strong point; mine also, in a sort of
second-hand way, for I have learned to obey the dictates of her
conscience with an amazing alacrity. With her, the principle involved in
the most trivial act is a matter of vital importance, while I am
inclined to act first, and from that action deduce a principle to
justify the course I have taken. Her mind is intensely analytical, and
she believes rigidly what she ought to believe; I am, perhaps, a trifle
more imaginative, more easily swayed by passing enthusiasms, more given
to believing what I want to believe, less inclined to see a clear-cut
difference between black and white.
It is not strange, therefore, that our opinions often differ, but in
this case we were of one mind from the first, the only difficulty that
faced us being the question of ways and means, and on this point Marion
was, strange to say, more optimistic than I.
"I have a feeling, a presentiment," she said, in a tone of fervent
conviction, "that if we make up our minds hard enough it will become
possible. We've been talking about this for years, and I never felt
until this moment that it was really going to be true."
For a moment her calm certainty influenced my hopes, then I shook my
head doubtfully. "You forget," I rejoined, "that there's no other
opening in sight, and as long as I'm doing 'Music and Drama' for the
_Observer_ I must stay in the city. If I had regular hours, if I were a
bank clerk, for instance, we might live in the suburbs, but----"
"We've been over all that hundreds of times," she interrupted, "and you
know that if you had been a bank clerk I wouldn't have married you.
You're not going to give up journalism, but I'm sure something will
happen to let us live where we want to live. And as for the suburbs, it
seems to me it would be better to get a real farm in the real country.
If we could find a good comfortable farm-house near the railroad with
plenty of land around it, I don't believe it would cost us any more than
one of those flimsy cottages with a garden plot attached that we looked
at last year."
I found, as we talked the matter over, that Marion's imagination had
been fired by the idea of some quaint old-fashioned homestead with
gabled roof, open fireplaces and latticed windows, surrounded by ancient
shade-trees and a straggling apple-orchard. All these accessories I
could appreciate, and, in comparison, an ordinary suburban cottage, one
of many others exactly alike, began to seem quite out of the question.
There were delightful possibilities about buying a real farm, not to
mention the inviting prospect of running it afterward.
"That's a capital idea!" I exclaimed, in eager approval. "I could raise
a couple of hundred dollars to make the first payment, then we could
give a mortgage for the balance and pay it off with the proceeds of the
first year's crop. Then we could soon make enough money to----"
I stopped short, for I became aware that my wife was regarding me with a
smile of loving toleration. "There you are again, Henry," she said, with
a merry laugh. "What a lot of money we'd save if I let you carry out a
few of your wild schemes! We're not going to raise one dollar to make a
first payment; we're not going to give a mortgage, so you'll not be able
to pay it off with the first year's crop."
"But it was your proposal," I protested, "you said----"
"I didn't say we might _buy_ a farm, but I think we might be able to
rent one for less than we pay for this house, and I'm sure we can live
more cheaply in the country than in the city, if we make up our minds
not to spend money needlessly."
It didn't seem to me that a rented farm without a mortgage could be as
attractive as the one I had imagined, but I reluctantly admitted that
Marion's plan might be more economical than mine. If I hadn't done so
she certainly would have reminded me of some of my errors of judgment.
"And now," she continued, "the next thing to consider is how much money
we can afford not to spend on the farm."
At that moment I had mentally unloaded a car of farm implements,
resplendent in green and red paint, with the same feeling of delightful
excitement that accompanies the unpacking of a Noah's ark. In fact, I
had them arranged on the station platform and was directing my hired men
how to load the wagons. "Can afford not to spend," I repeated
abstractedly.
There was silence. When I awoke from my reverie I discovered that my
wife was gazing at me with a curious expression, her lips tightly
compressed. I stood to attention at once.
"Yes, Marion," I went on briskly. "I was just thinking about that. I
was just calculating how many implements we could buy."
"Indeed? And have you decided whether you would rather go in for
horse-raising or thoroughbred cattle?"
"No, I haven't got that far; but I think a herd of Jerseys would do to
start with, then----"
"Then you _are_ like other men! I wonder if any city man ever farmed
without losing his common-sense. Can't you see, Henry, that we'd be
hopelessly in debt if we started in that way? Why, even if we were
wealthy the money would soon be all gone at that rate of spending. How
many otherwise level-headed men do you know who have squandered fortunes
in farming for pleasure?"
"Well, there's Judge Davis, and old Hamilton, and--oh, lots of
them--but, you see, they didn't know how to manage, and I would profit
by their mistakes. I wouldn't borrow five hundred dollars, for instance,
to invest in Jerseys, without seeing my way clear to double the money
in a year or two by selling gilt-edged butter."
"Now listen, Henry," said my wife, with the indulgent yet unrelenting
smile of a mother who pushes a fragile vase beyond the reach of her
infant's grasp; "you're not going to borrow _one_ dollar; you're not
going to have a herd of Jerseys; you're not going to buy reapers and
threshing machines, horses and wagons and windmills. How much would a
spade, a rake, and a hoe cost?"
I gasped. "A _spade_--a _rake_!----" I began incredulously, then I
smiled a smile of feeble intelligence to conceal the fact that I failed
to see the point: I know what it feels like to perpetrate a pointless
joke.
"And a hoe," continued Marion, earnestly. "How much would they cost?"
"About two dollars," I replied, in vague wonderment.
"Then that settles it! You may spend two dollars in implements, but not
another cent. And as for drains----"
"Perhaps you would allow three for them," I interjected, with a derisive
laugh. "Judge Davis spent _three thousand_ in underdraining his farm."
"Then we'll do without underdrains. Do you begin to see now what I mean
by deciding how much money we can afford not to spend."
"I believe I do," I answered, amused yet fascinated by her idea. "It
will total a large amount if you keep on, but I don't see how a farm can
be made to pay without investing money in it. Why, you've got to put
money into anything, even into a gold mine, before you can get returns."
It was an unfortunate illustration, as I learned from Marion's pitying
look. I winced; I knew what was coming. "Henry," she said, and in her
face I saw that she was responding to the call of duty, "I don't grudge
one dollar of that money you put into the Emperor shares last year, even
if the lesson is wasted on you, as it seems to be; for that experience
made me determine that I would never trust your judgment about
investments again when my common-sense tells me you are wrong. Aunt
Sophy says that all men who haven't been brought up on a farm are
attacked by an insane belief, at some period of their lives, that they
can make money by farming. She says Uncle Philip had made a hundred
thousand dollars in the grocery business when he retired and bought a
farm. She implored him not to do it, but he persisted, saying there was
heaps of money in farming if properly managed, and he could run a farm
on business principles and make it pay. But when he died she found he
had left only forty thousand dollars for her to live on, and she is
convinced that if he hadn't been taken away so suddenly she would have
been altogether penniless. Poor Aunt Sophy! She weeps more over that
money than over Uncle Philip, and the worst of it is that some
semi-religious novel she has read has unsettled her old-fashioned ideas
about heaven so that she is afraid that when her turn comes she'll find
him at it again. The thought has hardened her so that I shouldn't be
surprised if she married old Mr. Fairman and renounced Uncle Philip."
I had been about to say that I felt myself to be peculiarly fitted to
illustrate paying methods of farming, but I desisted. I had been
inclined to resent Marion's taunt about the unlucky mining venture, but
the serious recital of the woes of her uncle and aunt moved me to
laughter. I jocularly declared I would go around to the bank to see if
the money we had saved by not buying a farm had been placed to my
credit, but her anxiety that I should understand her theory checked my
innocent levity.
"You wouldn't make light of this matter," she said, reproachfully, "if
you understood its importance. Now listen: what I mean is, that instead
of calculating how much money we might be able to spend on the farm we
should try to see how much we can do without spending. I am sure that is
the right way to avoid making a farm not pay. For example, if you think
you want to buy an electric potato-digger you ought to save up the money
and then----"
"And then you'll decide that I can afford not to buy it!"
"Probably--but don't you see the money would then be clear profit, and
you would have it instead of a useless machine."
"It wouldn't be useless--it would dig potatoes."
"It _might_ dig potatoes, but Aunt Sophy says you can't depend on any of
these contrivances, so the chances are that it _would_ be useless;
besides, you said the Emperor shares would dig gold, and they
swallowed----"
The thought of mining shares is distasteful to me; to have them dragged
into the conversation is distracting; to look forward to having every
budding plan nipped by the chilling reminders of bygone mistakes that my
temperament would allow me to forget was not to be endured. "Marion," I
interrupted, hastily, "it's a capital plan! I'll agree to try it if we
ever have a farm, if you'll promise never to do or say anything to
remind me of that stroke of bad luck."
"Don't you mean bad management?" she asked, gayly. "You have a
dreadfully lax memory about these things, and I know you would have
forgotten the Emperor shares long ago if I hadn't reminded you.
However, you know it's for your own good and----"
"It isn't," I protested, with vehemence. "It dulls my sensibilities and
hardens my heart."
Marion shook her head dubiously, but she promised.
I do not believe in my own presentiments, for I never have any, unless
the ever-present optimistic belief that everything I undertake is going
to turn out well is a presentiment, but I have learned by experience to
place a certain amount of dependence upon Marion's. Therefore, for a few
days after our conversation I confidently expected something to turn up,
and every day when I returned home from the office I saw by her
inquiring expectant glance that she was looking for the fulfilment of
her prediction. As time passed, however, I began to think she had been
mistaken, though I did not say so, for I know how annoying it is to have
one's mistakes pointed out when one is most keenly conscious of them.
Besides, to refrain made me feel magnanimous, and that feeling, perhaps,
caused a shade of pitying magnanimity to creep into my tone when we
discussed the project; so Marion, who is intensely susceptible to
inflections, was perfectly well aware that I was practising one of the
higher virtues, as well as showing a delicate consideration for her
feelings that she might well copy in regard to mine. Of course, we could
do nothing but make plans during the winter; but as spring approached,
without any prospect of a change that would give me regular hours of
work, it seemed as if we should have to give up, for a time, the
prospect of moving to the country.
It was one morning early in March that the unexpected did happen. I was
at my desk reading a batch of indignant letters taking me to task for an
opinion I had expressed in an article on musical culture when a summons
arrived from the editor-in-chief. Up to that moment I had been amused by
the denials of my assertion that the performance of a Bach fugue on the
piano as part of a concert programme should be condemned as provocative
of snobbish pretence; that the giving out of the theme by the performer
had become the signal for the audience to assume an air of intense and
exalted intellectual enjoyment, though not one person in a hundred could
appreciate the logical development of such a composition or distinguish
anything but a confused intermingling of the parts; but the summons from
the editor made me regard the matter more seriously. I hurriedly looked
over the article to see if I had laid myself open to reproof for
indiscretion. Yes, I had! At the very end the statement glared at me
that musicians listened to a fugue with the strained intentness of
jugglers watching a fellow-performer keeping three balls in the air; I
had committed the fatal oversight of not saying _some_ musicians.
Probably an irate deputation representing the profession so notoriously
sensitive to truthful criticism had waited upon the editor to demand a
public retraction of the libel.
"Sit down, Carton," said the editor, as I entered. "You've been doing
'Music and Drama' for two years now," he said musingly, laying down his
pen, "and I don't think I have expressed my opinion of your work to you
personally."