Somebody has sent me a new sort of hoe, with the wish that I should
speak favorably of it, if I can consistently. I willingly do so, but
with the understanding that I am to be at liberty to speak just as
courteously of any other hoe which I may receive. If I understand
religious morals, this is the position of the religious press
with regard to bitters and wringing-machines. In some cases, the
responsibility of such a recommendation is shifted upon the wife of
the editor or clergy-man. Polly says she is entirely willing to make a
certificate, accompanied with an affidavit, with regard to this hoe; but
her habit of sitting about the garden walk, on an inverted flower-pot,
while I hoe, some what destroys the practical value of her testimony.
As to this hoe, I do not mind saying that it has changed my view of
the desirableness and value of human life. It has, in fact, made life
a holiday to me. It is made on the principle that man is an upright,
sensible, reasonable being, and not a groveling wretch. It does away
with the necessity of the hinge in the back. The handle is seven and a
half feet long. There are two narrow blades, sharp on both edges, which
come together at an obtuse angle in front; and as you walk along with
this hoe before you, pushing and pulling with a gentle motion, the weeds
fall at every thrust and withdrawal, and the slaughter is immediate and
widespread. When I got this hoe I was troubled with sleepless mornings,
pains in the back, kleptomania with regard to new weeders; when I went
into my garden I was always sure to see something. In this disordered
state of mind and body I got this hoe. The morning after a day of using
it I slept perfectly and late. I regained my respect for the eighth
commandment. After two doses of the hoe in the garden, the weeds
entirely disappeared. Trying it a third morning, I was obliged to throw
it over the fence in order to save from destruction the green things
that ought to grow in the garden. Of course, this is figurative
language. What I mean is, that the fascination of using this hoe is such
that you are sorely tempted to employ it upon your vegetables, after the
weeds are laid low, and must hastily withdraw it, to avoid unpleasant
results. I make this explanation, because I intend to put nothing into
these agricultural papers that will not bear the strictest scientific
investigation; nothing that the youngest child cannot understand and cry
for; nothing that the oldest and wisest men will not need to study with
care.
I need not add that the care of a garden with this hoe becomes the
merest pastime. I would not be without one for a single night. The only
danger is, that you may rather make an idol of the hoe, and somewhat
neglect your garden in explaining it, and fooling about with it.
I almost think that, with one of these in the hands of an ordinary
day-laborer, you might see at night where he had been working.
Let us have peas. I have been a zealous advocate of the birds. I have
rejoiced in their multiplication. I have endured their concerts at four
o'clock in the morning without a murmur. Let them come, I said, and eat
the worms, in order that we, later, may enjoy the foliage and the fruits
of the earth. We have a cat, a magnificent animal, of the sex which
votes (but not a pole-cat),--so large and powerful that, if he were in
the army, he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposition,
the most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat, and a
splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation, but in
gathering in rats, mice, flying-squirrels, and also birds. When he first
brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to convince
him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong; for he is a
reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the
binomial theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no
effect. The killing of birds went on, to my great regret and shame.
The other day I went to my garden to get a mess of peas. I had seen,
the day before, that they were just ready to pick. How I had lined the
ground, planted, hoed, bushed them! The bushes were very fine,--seven
feet high, and of good wood. How I had delighted in the growing, the
blowing, the podding! What a touching thought it was that they had all
podded for me! When I went to pick them, I found the pods all split
open, and the peas gone. The dear little birds, who are so fond of the
strawberries, had eaten them all. Perhaps there were left as many as I
planted: I did not count them. I made a rapid estimate of the cost of
the seed, the interest of the ground, the price of labor, the value of
the bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watchfulness. I looked about me
on the face of Nature. The wind blew from the south so soft and
treacherous! A thrush sang in the woods so deceitfully! All Nature
seemed fair. But who was to give me back my peas? The fowls of the air
have peas; but what has man?
I went into the house. I called Calvin. (That is the name of our cat,
given him on account of his gravity, morality, and uprightness. We
never familiarly call him John). I petted Calvin. I lavished upon him
an enthusiastic fondness. I told him that he had no fault; that the one
action that I had called a vice was an heroic exhibition of regard for
my interests. I bade him go and do likewise continually. I now saw how
much better instinct is than mere unguided reason. Calvin knew. If he
had put his opinion into English (instead of his native catalogue), it
would have been: “You need not teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” It
was only the round of Nature. The worms eat a noxious something in the
ground. The birds eat the worms. Calvin eats the birds. We eat--no, we
do not eat Calvin. There the chain stops. When you ascend the scale of
being, and come to an animal that is, like ourselves, inedible, you
have arrived at a result where you can rest. Let us respect the cat. He
completes an edible chain.
I have little heart to discuss methods of raising peas. It occurs to
me that I can have an iron peabush, a sort of trellis, through which
I could discharge electricity at frequent intervals, and electrify the
birds to death when they alight: for they stand upon my beautiful
brush in order to pick out the peas. An apparatus of this kind, with
an operator, would cost, however, about as much as the peas. A neighbor
suggests that I might put up a scarecrow near the vines, which would
keep the birds away. I am doubtful about it: the birds are too much
accustomed to seeing a person in poor clothes in the garden to care much
for that. Another neighbor suggests that the birds do not open the pods;
that a sort of blast, apt to come after rain, splits the pods, and the
birds then eat the peas. It may be so. There seems to be complete unity
of action between the blast and the birds. But, good neighbors, kind
friends, I desire that you will not increase, by talk, a disappointment
which you cannot assuage.