To all of you who have begun to gaze pensively at railway posters, to
furrow your brows over maps and guide-books, or hover sheepishly about
the inquiry offices of Holiday Touring Agencies, I would whisper: "Go
to a small farm and bask."
You will note that I say a _small_ farm. A large farm has much that is
pleasant and pungent about it, but to my mind you cannot bask properly
on a large farm. You are too much in the way. The medley of barns,
byres, styes, rods, poles and perches is a hive of restless energy.
Unless you are walking about with a bucket or prodding something with
a stick you feel you have no right to be there. On a large farm you
are expected to accompany your host across a couple of ten-acre fields
to look at his young wheat. Some people can tell what is the matter
with a field of young wheat by merely leaning on a gate and glancing
at it. Unless I can feel its pulse or take its temperature I cannot
tell whether young wheat is suffering from whooping-cough or
nasal catarrh. All I can do is to nod my head sagely and say that,
considering the sort of Government we have got, it looks pretty
flourishing. Then my host remarks that he has got a young bull in
Bodger's Paddock (about three miles across country) that it will do
my heart good to see. That is the worst of a large farm; anything you
want is sure to be several fields away from you.
Now at the small farm which I recommend, but the address of which I am
not going to give away, you may lie and bask by the duck pond and be
quite in the picture. Further, if a sudden irresistible desire for
something--a hoe or a cow, for example--should come over you, you have
only to put out your hand and grab it. There is a compactness about
the place. They do not put the cattle in odd fields five miles apart,
but leave them to lounge round the duck pond or sit in the front
garden, where they can be collected without effort. There are
no energetic squads of farm-labourers; no bustling battalions of
land-girls with motor-plough attachments. The outdoor staff is
generally to be found sitting on a bucket by the duck pond rubbing at
a bit of harness and looking decently rural. When he has rubbed the
harness he stands up and looks at the young wheat. Then he turns
round and glances at the mangel-wurzel field. If the appearance of it
displeases him he reaches out for a rake and puts it right. Then he
sits on the bucket again and has lunch.
When you go to bed at this farm you knock your head against the lintel
of the sitting-room with a force corresponding to your height and
vitality. Then you hit your head a second time when ascending the
stairs and again on entering the bedroom. If you are a heavy breather
you sweep the ceiling clear of flies and cobwebs while you sleep.
At dawn, or possibly an hour or so before (for he is a nervously
conscientious bird), the farm cock steps off the roof of the cow-shed
on to your window-sill and bursts into enthusiastic admiration
of himself and things in general. Some people of an egoistic and
unimaginative temperament get up at once, in order that they may spend
the rest of the day telling you how much they enjoyed the sunrise and
what a fool you were to miss it. The true basker, on the other hand,
declines to be a party to a procedure which destroys the whole poetry
of dawn and reduces the proud chanticleer to the sordid status of an
alarum-clock. He simply pushes the bird off the window-sill with his
foot, turns over and goes to sleep. And later on, when the sound of
other people knocking their heads against various portions of the
building arouses him, he goes to sleep again.
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[Illustration: _Shopman._ "ARE YOU SURE ONE WILL BE SUFFICIENT?"
_Member of the New Plutocracy._ "WELL, I'VE ONLY ONE NECK, AIN'T
I?"]
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"COUNTRY JOINER Wanted."
_Advt. in Provincial Paper._
To work on the Channel Tunnel?
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