Perhaps, after all, it is not what you get out of a garden, but what you
put into it, that is the most remunerative. What is a man? A question
frequently asked, and never, so far as I know, satisfactorily answered.
He commonly spends his seventy years, if so many are given him, in
getting ready to enjoy himself. How many hours, how many minutes, does
one get of that pure content which is happiness? I do not mean laziness,
which is always discontent; but that serene enjoyment, in which all the
natural senses have easy play, and the unnatural ones have a holiday.
There is probably nothing that has such a tranquilizing effect, and
leads into such content as gardening. By gardening, I do not mean that
insane desire to raise vegetables which some have; but the philosophical
occupation of contact with the earth, and companionship with gently
growing things and patient processes; that exercise which soothes the
spirit, and develops the deltoid muscles.
In half an hour I can hoe myself right away from this world, as we
commonly see it, into a large place, where there are no obstacles. What
an occupation it is for thought! The mind broods like a hen on eggs.
The trouble is, that you are not thinking about anything, but are really
vegetating like the plants around you. I begin to know what the joy of
the grape-vine is in running up the trellis, which is similar to that of
the squirrel in running up a tree. We all have something in our nature
that requires contact with the earth. In the solitude of garden-labor,
one gets into a sort of communion with the vegetable life, which makes
the old mythology possible. For instance, I can believe that the dryads
are plenty this summer: my garden is like an ash-heap. Almost all the
moisture it has had in weeks has been the sweat of honest industry.
The pleasure of gardening in these days, when the thermometer is at
ninety, is one that I fear I shall not be able to make intelligible to
my readers, many of whom do not appreciate the delight of soaking in
the sunshine. I suppose that the sun, going through a man, as it will
on such a day, takes out of him rheumatism, consumption, and every other
disease, except sudden death--from sun-stroke. But, aside from this,
there is an odor from the evergreens, the hedges, the various plants
and vines, that is only expressed and set afloat at a high temperature,
which is delicious; and, hot as it may be, a little breeze will come
at intervals, which can be heard in the treetops, and which is an
unobtrusive benediction. I hear a quail or two whistling in the ravine;
and there is a good deal of fragmentary conversation going on among
the birds, even on the warmest days. The companionship of Calvin, also,
counts for a good deal. He usually attends me, unless I work too long
in one place; sitting down on the turf, displaying the ermine of his
breast, and watching my movements with great intelligence. He has a
feline and genuine love for the beauties of Nature, and will establish
himself where there is a good view, and look on it for hours. He always
accompanies us when we go to gather the vegetables, seeming to be
desirous to know what we are to have for dinner. He is a connoisseur
in the garden; being fond of almost all the vegetables, except the
cucumber,--a dietetic hint to man. I believe it is also said that the
pig will not eat tobacco. These are important facts. It is singular,
however, that those who hold up the pigs as models to us never hold us
up as models to the pigs.
I wish I knew as much about natural history and the habits of animals
as Calvin does. He is the closest observer I ever saw; and there are
few species of animals on the place that he has not analyzed. I think he
has, to use a euphemism very applicable to him, got outside of every one
of them, except the toad. To the toad he is entirely indifferent; but I
presume he knows that the toad is the most useful animal in the garden.
I think the Agricultural Society ought to offer a prize for the finest
toad. When Polly comes to sit in the shade near my strawberry-beds, to
shell peas, Calvin is always lying near in apparent obliviousness; but
not the slightest unusual sound can be made in the bushes, that he is
not alert, and prepared to investigate the cause of it. It is this habit
of observation, so cultivated, which has given him such a trained mind,
and made him so philosophical. It is within the capacity of even the
humblest of us to attain this.
And, speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men
whose society is more to be desired for this quality than that of
plumbers. They are the most agreeable men I know; and the boys in the
business begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it
is, that they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain
became disabled: the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with the
implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a
good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found
the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,--talk by
the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious;
and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their
way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job.
The work dragged a little, as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers
had occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon
arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would
go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would
await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and
talk,--always by the hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have
something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and
always willing to stop and talk about the job, or anything else, when I
went near them. Nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said
to be the bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it said,
that I never observed anything of it in them. They can afford to wait.
Two of them will sometimes wait nearly half a day while a comrade goes
for a tool. They are patient and philosophical. It is a great pleasure
to meet such men. One only wishes there was some work he could do for
them by the hour. There ought to be reciprocity. I think they have very
nearly solved the problem of Life: it is to work for other people, never
for yourself, and get your pay by the hour. You then have no anxiety,
and little work. If you do things by the job, you are perpetually
driven: the hours are scourges. If you work by the hour, you gently sail
on the stream of Time, which is always bearing you on to the haven of
Pay, whether you make any effort, or not. Working by the hour tends to
make one moral. A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew a rusty,
refractory nut, in a cramped position, where the tongs continually
slipped off, would swear; but I never heard one of them swear, or
exhibit the least impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour.
Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How sweet the flight of
time seems to his calm mind!