I have never been able to discover why it is that things always happen
Sunday morning. We mean to get to church. We speak of it almost every
Sunday, unless there is a steady downpour that puts it quite out of the
question. But, somehow, between nine and ten o'clock on a Sunday morning
seems to be the farm's busiest time. If there are new broods of
chickens, they appear then; if there is a young calf coming, it is his
birthday; if the gray cat--an uninvited resident of the barn--must go
forth on marauding expeditions, he chooses this day for his evil work,
and the air is rent with shrieks of robins, or of cat-birds, or of
phoebes, and there is a wrecked nest, and scattered young ones,
half-fledged, that have to be gathered into a basket and hung up in the
tree again by our united efforts. And always there is the same
conversation:
"Well, what about church?"
"Church! It's half-past ten now."
"We can't do it. Too bad!"
"Now, if it hadn't been for that cat!"--or that hen--or that calf!
There are many Sunday morning stories that might be told, but one must
be told.
It was a hot, still Sunday in July. The hens sought the shade early, and
stood about with their beaks half open and a distant look in their eyes,
as if they saw you but chose to look just beyond you. It always
irritates me to see the hens do that. It makes me feel hotter. Such a
day it was. But things on the farm seemed propitious, and we said at
breakfast that we would go.
"I've just got to take that two-year-old Devon down to the lower
pasture," said Jonathan, "and then I'll harness. We ought to start
early, because it's too hot to drive Kit fast."
"Do you think you'd better take the cow down this morning?" I said,
doubtfully. "Couldn't you wait until we come back?"
"No; that upper pasture is getting burned out, and she ought to get into
some good grass this morning. I meant to take her down last night."
"Well, do hurry." I still felt dubious.
"Oh, it's only five minutes' walk down the road," said Jonathan easily.
"I'm all ready for church, except for these shoes. I'll have the
carriage at the door before you're dressed."
I said no more, but went upstairs, while Jonathan started for the
barnyard. A few minutes later I heard from that direction the sounds of
exhortation such as are usually employed towards "critters." They seemed
to be coming nearer. I glanced out of a front window, and saw Jonathan
and his cow coming up the road past the house.
"Where are you taking her?" I called. "I thought you meant to go the
other way."
"So I did," he shouted, in some irritation. "But she swung up to the
right as she went out of the gate, and I couldn't head her off in time.
Oh, there's Bill Russell. Head her round, will you, Bill? There, now
we're all right."
"I'll be back in ten minutes," he called up at my window as he
repassed.
I watched them go back up the road. At the big farm gate the cow made a
break for the barnyard again, but the two men managed to turn her. Just
beyond, at the fork in the road, I saw Bill turn down towards the
cider-mill, while Jonathan kept on with his convoy over the hill. I
glanced at the clock. It was not yet nine. There was plenty of time, of
course.
At half-past nine I went downstairs again, and wandered out toward the
big gate. It seemed to me time for Jonathan to be back. In the Sunday
hush I thought I heard sounds of distant "hi-ing." They grew louder;
yes, surely, there was the cow, just appearing over the hill and
trotting briskly along the road towards home. And there was Jonathan,
also trotting briskly. He looked red and warm. I stepped out into the
road to keep the cow from going past, but there was no need. She swung
cheerfully in at the big gate, and fell to cropping the long grass just
inside the fence.
Jonathan slowed down beside me, and, pulling out his handkerchief, began
flapping the dust off his trousers while he explained:--
"You see, I got her down there all right, but I had to let down the
bars, and while I was doing that she went along the road a bit, and
when she saw me coming she just kicked up her heels and galloped."
"How did you stop her?" I asked.
"I didn't. The Maxwells were coming along with their team, and they
headed her back for me. Then they went on. Only by that time, you see,
she was a bit excited, and when we came along back to those bars she
shot right past them, and never stopped till she got here."
I looked at her grazing quietly inside the fence. "She doesn't look as
though she had done so much,"--and then, as I glanced at Jonathan, I
could not forbear saying,--"but you do."
"I suppose I do." He gave his trousers a last flick, and, putting up his
handkerchief, shifted his stick to his right hand.
"Well, put her back in the inner yard," I said, "and this afternoon I'll
help you."
"Put her back!" said Jonathan. "Not much! You don't think I'd let a cow
beat me that way!"
"But Jonathan, it's half-past nine!"
"What of it? I'll just work her slowly--she's quiet now, you see, and
the bars are open. There won't be any trouble."
"Oh, I wish you wouldn't," I said. But, seeing he was firm, "Well, if
you _will_ go, I'll harness."
Jonathan looked at me ruefully. "That's too bad--you're all dressed." He
wavered, but I would take no concessions based on feminine equipment.
"Oh, that doesn't matter. I'll get my big apron. First you start her
out, and I'll keep her from going towards the house or down to the
mill."
Jonathan sidled cautiously through the gate and around the grazing cow.
Then, with a gentle and ingratiating "Hi there, Bossie!" he managed to
turn her, still grazing, towards the road. While the grass held out she
drifted along easily enough, but when she reached the dirt of the
roadway she raised her head, flicked her tail, and gave a little hop
with her hind quarters that seemed to me indicative of an unquiet
spirit. But I stood firm and Jonathan was gently urgent, and we managed
to start her on the right road once more. She was not, however, going as
slowly as Jonathan had planned, and it was with some misgivings that I
donned my apron and went in to harness Kit. I led her around to the
carriage-house and put her into the buggy, and still he had not
returned. I got out the lap robe, shook it, and folded it neatly on the
back of the seat. No Jonathan! There was nothing more for me to do, so I
took off my apron and climbed into the carriage to wait. The
carriage-house was as cool a place as one could have found. Both its big
sliding doors were pushed back, one opening out toward the front gate,
the other, opposite, opening into the inner barnyard. I sat and looked
out over the rolling, sunny country and felt the breeze, warm, but fresh
and sweet, and listened to the barn swallows in the barnyard behind me,
and wondered, as I have wondered a thousand times, why in New England
the outbuildings always have so much better views than the house.
Ten o'clock! Where _was_ Jonathan? The Morehouses drove past, then the
Elkinses; they went to the Baptist. Ten minutes past! There went the
O'Neils--they belonged to our church--and the Scrantons, and Billy
Howard and his sister, driving fast as usual; they were always late.
Quarter-past ten! Well, we might as well give up church. I thought of
unharnessing, but I was very comfortable where I was, and Kit seemed
contented as she stood looking out of the door. Hark! What was that? It
sounded like the beat of hoofs in the lane--the cattle wouldn't come up
at this hour! I stood up to see past the inner barnyard and off down the
lane. "What on earth!" I said to myself. For--yes--surely--that was the
two-year-old Devon coming leisurely up the lane towards the yard. In a
few moments Jonathan's head appeared, then his shoulders, then his
entire dusty, discouraged self. Yes, somehow or other, they must have
made the round trip. As this dawned upon me, I smiled, then I laughed,
then I sat down and laughed again till I was weak and tearful. It was
cruel, and by the time Jonathan had reached the carriage-house and sunk
down on its threshold I had recovered enough to be sorry for him. But I
was unfortunate in my first remark. "Why, Jonathan," I gasped, "what
_have_ you been doing with that cow?"
Jonathan mopped his forehead. "Having iced tea under the trees.
Couldn't you see that to look at me?" he replied, almost savagely.
"You poor thing! I'll make you some when we go in. But do tell me, how
did you _ever_ get around here again from the back of the farm that
way?"
"Easy enough," said Jonathan. "I drove her along to the pasture in great
shape, only we were going a little fast. She tried to dodge the bars,
but I turned her in through them all right. But some idiot had left the
bars down at the other end of the pasture--between that and the back
lots, you know--and that blamed cow went for that opening, just as
straight--"
I began to shake again. "Oh, that brought you out by the huckleberry
knoll, and the ledges! Why, she could go anywhere!"
"She could, and she did," said Jonathan grimly. He leaned back against
the doorpost, immersed in bitter reminiscence. "She--certainly--did. I
chased her up the ledges and through the sumachs and down through the
birches and across the swamp. Oh, we did the farm, the whole blamed
farm. What time is it?"
"Half-past ten," I said gently; and added, "What are you going to do
with her now?"
His jaw set in a fashion I knew.
"I'm going to put her in that lower pasture."
I saw it was useless to protest. Church was a vanished dream, but I
began to fear that Sunday dinner was also doomed. "Do you want me to
help?" I asked.
"Oh, no," said Jonathan. "I'll put her in the barn till I can get a
rope, and then I'll lead her."
However, I did help get her into the barn. Then while he went for his
rope I unharnessed. When he came back, he had changed into a flannel
shirt and working trousers. He entered the barn and in a few moments
emerged, pulling hard on the rope. Nothing happened.
"Go around the other way," he called, "and take a stick, and poke that
cow till she starts."
I went in at the back door, slid between the stanchions into the cow
stall, and gingerly poked at the animal's hind quarters and said, "Hi!"
until at last, with a hunching of hips and tossing of head, she bounded
out into the sunny barnyard.
"She'll be all right now," said Jonathan.
I watched them doubtfully, but they got through the bars and as far as
the road without incident. At the road she suddenly balked. She twisted
her horns and set her front legs. I hurried down from my post of
observation in the carriage-house door, and said "Hi!" again.
"That's no good," panted Jonathan; "get your stick again. Now, when I
pull, you hit her behind, and she'll come. I guess she hasn't been
taught to lead yet."
"If she has, she has apparently forgotten," I replied. "Now, then, you
pull!"
The creature moved on grudgingly, with curious and unlovely sidewise
lunges and much brandishing of horns, where the rope was tied.
"Hit her again, now!" said Jonathan. "Oh, _hit_ her! Hit her harder! She
doesn't feel that. _Hit_ her! There! Now, she's coming."
Truly, she did come. But I am ashamed to think how I used that stick. As
we progressed up the road, over the hill, and down to the lower
pasture, there kept repeating themselves over and over in my head the
lines:--
"The sergeant pushed and the corporal pulled,
And the three they wagged along."
But I did not quote these to Jonathan until afterwards. There was
something else, too, that I did not quote until afterwards. This was the
remark of a sailor uncle of mine: "A man never tackled a job yet that he
didn't have to have a woman to hold on to the slack."
* * * * *
So much for Sunday business. But it should not for a moment be supposed
that Sunday is full of these incidents. It is only for a little while in
the morning. After the church hour, about eleven o'clock or earlier, the
farm settles down. The "critters" are all attended to, the chicks are
stowed, the cat has disappeared, the hens have finished all their
important business and are lying on their sides in their favorite
dirt-holes enjoying their dust-baths, so still, yet so disheveled that I
used to think they were dead, and poke them to see--with what cacklings
and flutterings resulting may be imagined. I have often wished for the
hen's ability to express indignation.
Yes, the farm is at peace, and as we sit under the big maples it seems
to be reproaching us--"See how quiet everything is! And you couldn't
even manage church!"
Other people seem to manage it very comfortably and quite regularly. On
Sunday morning our quiet little road, unfrequented even by the
ubiquitous automobile, is gay with church-goers. "Gay" may seem the
wrong word, but it is quite the right one. In the city church-going is
rather a sober affair. People either walk or take cars. They wear a
certain sort of clothes, known as "church clothes," which represent a
sort of hedging compromise between their morning and their afternoon
wear. They approach the church in decorous silence; as they emerge they
exchange subdued greetings, walk a block or two in little companies,
then scatter to their homes and their Sunday dinners.
But in the country everybody but the village people drives, and the
roads are full of teams,--buggies, surreys, phaetons,--the carriages
newly washed, the horses freshly groomed, the occupants scrupulously
dressed in the prettiest things they own--their "Sunday-go-to-meeting"
ones, which means something quite different from "church clothes." As
one nears the village there is some friendly rivalry between horses,
there is the pleasure of "catching up" with neighbors' teams, or of
being caught up with, and at the church door there is the business of
alighting and hitching the horses, and then, if it is early, waiting
about outside for the "last bell" before going in.
Even in the church itself there is more freedom and variety than in our
city tabernacles. In these there are always the same memorial windows to
look at,--except perhaps once in ten years when somebody dies and a new
one goes in,--but in the country stained glass is more rare. In many it
has not even gained place at all, and the panes of clear glass let in a
glory of blueness and whiteness and greenness to rejoice the heart of
the worshiper. In others, more ambitious, alas! there is ground glass
with tinted borders; but this is not very disturbing, especially when
the sashes are set open aslant, and the ivy and Virginia creeper
cluster just outside, in bright greens and dark, or cast their shifting
shadows on the glass, a dainty tracery of gray on silver.
And at the altar there are flowers--not florist flowers, contracted for
by the year, but neighborhood flowers. There are Mrs. Cummings's
peonies--she always has such beauties; and Mrs. Hiram Brown's
roses--nobody else has any of just that shade of yellow; and Mary Lord's
foxgloves and larkspur--what a wonder of yellow and white and blue! Each
in its season, the flowers are full of personal significance. The choir,
too, is made up of our friends. There is Hiram Brown, and Jennie Sewall,
and young Mrs. Harris, back for three weeks to visit her mother, and
little Sally Winter, a shy new recruit, very pink over her promotion.
The singing is perhaps not as finished as that of a paid quartette, but
it is full of life and sweetness, and it makes a direct human appeal
that the other often misses.
After the service people go out slowly, waiting for this friend and
that, and in the vestibule and on the steps and in the church-yard they
gather in groups. The men saunter off to the sheds to get the horses,
and the women chat while they wait. Then the teams come up, as many as
the roadway will hold, and there is the bustle of departure, the taking
of seats, the harsh grinding of wheels against the wagon body as the
driver "cramps" to turn round, then good-byes, and one after another the
teams start off, out into the open country for another week of quiet,
busy farm life.
Yes, church is distinctively a social affair, and very delightful, and
when our cows and hens and calves and other "critters" do not prevent,
we are glad to have our part in it all. When they do, we yet feel that
we have a share in it simply through seeing "the folks" go by. It is a
distinct pleasure to see our neighbors trundling along towards the
village. And then, if luck has been against us and we cannot join them,
it is a pleasure to lie in the grass and listen to the quiet. After the
last church-goers have passed, the road is deserted for two hours, until
they begin to return. The neighboring farms are quiet, the "folks" are
away, or, if some of the men are at home, they are sitting on their
doorsteps smoking.
If there is no wind, or if it is in the right quarter, we can hear the
church bells, faintly now, and now very clear; there is the First Church
bell, and the Baptist; there is St. John's, on a higher note, and
Trinity, a little lower. After a time even the bells cease, and there is
no sound but the wind in the big maples and the bees as they drone among
the flower heads.
Sunday, at least Sunday on a Connecticut farm, has a distinct quality of
its own. I can hardly say what it means to me--no one, I suppose, could
say all that it means. To call it a day of rest does not individualize
it enough. It has to be described not so much in terms of rest as of
balance and height. I think of the week as a long, sweeping curve, like
the curve of a swift, deep wave at sea, and Sunday is the crest, the
moment of poise, before one is drawn down into the next great concave,
then up again, to pause and look off, and it is Sunday once more.
The weather does not matter. If it rains, you get one kind of pause and
outlook--the intimate, indoor kind. If the sun shines, you get another
kind--wide and bright. And what you do does not matter so long as it is
different from the week, and so long as it expresses and develops that
peculiar Sunday quality of balance and height. I can imagine nothing
drearier than seven days all alike, and seven more, and seven more!
Sundays are the big beads on the chain. They need not be all of the same
color, but there must be the big beads to satisfy the eye and the
finger-tip.
And a New England Sunday always is different. Whatever changes may have
come or may be coming elsewhere, in New England Sunday has its own
atmosphere. Over the fields and woods and rocks there is a sense of
poise between reminiscence and expectancy. The stir of the morning
church-going brightens but does not mar this. It adds the human
note--rather not a note, but a quiet chord of many tones. And after it
comes a hush. The early afternoon of a New England Sunday is the most
absolutely quiet thing imaginable. It is the precise middle of the wave
crest, the moment when motion ceases.
From that point time begins to stir again. Life resumes. There is a
certain amount of desultory intercourse between farm and farm. If
people are engaged, or mean to be, they drive out together; if they are
married, they go home to "his folks" or "her folks." Friends walk
together, farmers saunter along the road or back on the farms to "take a
look" at things. Consciously or not, and usually not, there is a kind of
synthesis taking place, a gathering together of the scattered threads of
many interests, a vague sense of the wholeness of life.
At five o'clock the cows turn towards home, and graze their leisurely
way along the barnyard lanes. And with the cows come duties,--
chore-time,--then the simple, cold supper, then the short, quiet
evening, and off we swing into the night that sweeps us away from the
crest down into the long, blind hollow of the week.