There is a story about an artist who espied a picturesque old man and
wished to paint him. At the time appointed the model arrived--new-shaven,
new-washed, freshly attired, with all the delicious and incommunicable
flavor of the years irretrievably lost! Doubtless there are many such
stories; doubtless the thing has happened many, many times. And I am
sorrier for the artist now than I used to be, because it is happening to
me.
Only it is not an old man--it is the farm, the blessed old farm,
unkempt, unshorn, out at the elbows. In spite of itself, in spite of me,
in spite of everybody, the farm is being groomed.
It is nobody's fault, of course. Like most hopelessly disastrous things,
it has all been done with the best possible intentions, perhaps it has
even been necessary, but it is none the less deplorable.
It began, I think, with the sheds. They had in ages past been added one
after another by a method of almost unconscious accretion, as the
chambered nautilus makes his shell. They looked as if they had been, not
exactly built, but rather laid together in the desultory, provisional
fashion of the farmer, and held by an occasional nail, or the natural
adhesion of the boards themselves. They leaned confidingly against the
great barn and settled comfortably among the bare faces of rock in the
barnyard, as if they had always been there, as, indeed, they had been
there longer than any one now living can remember. Neither they nor the
barn had ever been painted, and they had all weathered to a
silver-gray--not the gray of any paint or stain ever made, but the gray
that comes only to certain kinds of wood when it has lived out in the
rain and the sunshine for fifty, seventy, a hundred years. It is to an
old building what white hair is to an old lady. And as not all white
hair is beautiful, so not all gray buildings are beautiful. But these
were beautiful. When it rained, they grew dark and every knot-hole
showed. When the sun came out and baked them dry, they paled to silver,
and the smooth, rain-worn grooves and hollows of the boards glistened
like a rifle barrel.
The sheds were, I am afraid, not very useful. One, they said, had been
built to hold ploughs, another for turkeys, another for ducks. One, the
only one that was hen-tight, we used for the incarceration of confirmed
"setters," and it thus gained the title of "Durance Vile." The rest were
nameless, the abode of cobwebs and rats and old grain-bags and stolen
nests and surprise broods of chickens, who dropped through cracks
between loose boards and had to be extracted by Jonathan with much
difficulty. Perhaps it was this that set him against them. At all
events, he decided that they must go. I protested faintly, trying to
think of some really sensible argument.
"But Durance Vile," I said. "We need that. Where shall we put the
setters?"
"No, we don't. That isn't the way to treat setters, anyway. They should
be cooped and fed on meat."
"I suppose you read that in one of those agricultural experiment station
pamphlets," I said.
Many things that I consider disasters on the farm can be traced to one
or another of these little pamphlets, and when a new one arrives I
regard it with resignation but without cordiality.
The sheds went, and I missed them. Possibly the hens missed them too.
They wandered thoughtfully about the barnyard, stepping rather higher
than usual, cocking their heads and regarding me with their red-rimmed
eyes as if they were cluckfully conjuring up old associations. Did they
remember Durance Vile? Perhaps, but probably not. For all their
philosophic airs and their attitudinizing, I know nobody who thinks less
than a hen, or, at all events, their thinking is contemplative rather
than practical.
Jonathan also surveyed the raw spot. But Jonathan's mind is practical
rather than contemplative.
"Just the place for a carriage-house," he remarked.
And the carriage-house was perpetrated. Perhaps a hundred years from now
it will have been assimilated, but at present it stands out absolutely
undigested in all its uncompromising newness of line and color. Its
ridgepole, its roof edges, its corners, look as if they had been drawn
with a ruler, where those of the old barn were sketched freehand. The
barn and the sheds had settled into the landscape, the carriage-house
cut into it.
Even Jonathan saw it. "We'll paint it the old-fashioned red to make it
more in keeping," he said apologetically.
But old-fashioned red is apparently not to be had in new-fashioned cans.
And the farm remained implacable: it refused to digest the
carriage-house. I felt rather proud of the farm for being so firm.
The next blow was a heavy one. In the middle of the cowyard there was a
wonderful gray rock, shoulder high, with a flat top and three sides
abrupt, the other sloping. I used to sit on this rock and feed the hens
and watch the "critters" come into the yard at milking-time. I like
"critters," but when there are more than two or three in the yard,
including some irresponsible calves, I like to have some vantage-point
from which to view them--and be viewed. Our cattle are always gentle,
but some of them are, to use a colloquial word that seems to me richly
descriptive, so "nose-y."
Of course a rock like this did not belong in a well-planned barnyard.
Nowhere, except in New England, or perhaps in Switzerland, would one
occur. But in our part of New England they occur so thickly that they
are hard to dodge, even in building a house. I remember an entry in an
old ledger discovered in the attic: "To blasten rocks in my
sollor--L0 3 6."
Without doubt the rock was in the way. Jonathan used to speak about it
in ungentle terms every time he drove in and turned around. But this
gave me no anxiety, because I felt sure that it had survived much
stronger language than his. I did not think about dynamite. Probably
when the Psalmist wrote about the eternal hills he did not think about
dynamite either.
And dynamite did the deed. It broke my pretty rock into little pieces as
one might break up a chunk of maple sugar with a pair of scissors. It
made a beautiful barnyard, but I missed my refuge, my stronghold.
But this was only the beginning. Back of the barns lay the farm
itself--scores of acres, chiefly rocks and huckleberry bushes, with
thistles and mullein and sumac. There were dry, warm slopes, where the
birches grew; not the queenly paper birch of the North, but the girlish
little gray birch with its veil of twinkling leaves and its glimmer of
slender stems. There were rugged ledges, deep-shadowed with oak and
chestnut; there were hot, open hillsides thick-set with cat-brier and
blackberry canes, where one could never go without setting a brown
rabbit scampering. It was a delectable farm, but not, in the ordinary
sense, highly productive, and its appeal was rather to the contemplative
than to the practical mind.
Jonathan was from the first infected with the desire of making the farm
more productive--in the ordinary sense; and one day, when I wandered up
to a distant corner, oh, dismay! There was a slope of twinkling
birches--no longer twinkling--prone! Cut, dragged, and piled up in
masses of white stems and limp green leafage and tangled red-brown
twigs! It was a sorry sight. I walked about it much, perhaps, as my
white hens had walked about the barnyard, and to as little purpose. For
the contemplative mind is no match for the practical. I knew this, yet I
could not forbear saying, later:--
"Jonathan, I was up near the long meadow to-day."
"Were you?"
"O Jonathan! Those birches!"
"What about them?"
"All cut!"
"Oh, yes. We need that piece for pasturage."
"Oh, dear! We might as well not have a farm if we cut down all the
birches."
"We might as well not have a farm if we don't cut them down. They'll run
us out in no time."
"They don't look as if they would run anybody out--the dears!"
"Why, I didn't know you felt that way about them. We'll let that other
patch stand, if you like."
"_If_ I like!"
I saved the birches, but other things kept happening. I went out one day
and found one of our prettiest fence lines reduced to bare bones, all
its bushes and vines--clematis, elderberry, wild cherry, sweet-fern,
bitter-sweet--all cut, hacked, torn away. It looked like a collie dog in
the summer when his long yellow fur has been sheared off. And, another
day, it was a company of red lilies escaped along a bank above the
roadside. There were weeds mixed in, to be sure, and some bushes, a
delightful tangle--and all snipped, shaved to the skin!
When I spoke about it, Jonathan said: "I'm sorry. I suppose Hiram was
just making the place shipshape."
"Shipshape! This farm shipshape! You could no more make this farm
shipshape than you could make a woodchuck look as though he had been
groomed. The farm isn't a ship."
"I hope it isn't a woodchuck, either," said Jonathan.
During the haying season there was always a lull. The hand of the
destroyer was stayed. Rather, every one was so busy cutting the hay that
there was no time to cut anything else. One day in early August I took a
pail and sauntered up the lane in the peaceful mood of the
berry-picker--a state of mind as satisfactory as any I know. One is
conscious of being useful--for what more useful than the accumulating of
berries for pies? One has suitable ideals--the ideal of a happy home,
since in attaining a happy home berry pies are demonstrably helpful. And
one is also having a beautiful time. On my way I turned down the side
lane to see how the blackberries were coming on. There lay my blackberry
canes--lay, not stood--their long stems thick-set with fruit just
turning from light red to dark. I do not love blackberries as I do
birches; it was rather the practical than the contemplative part of me
that protested that time, but it was with a lagging step that I went on,
over the hill, to the berry patches. There another shock awaited me.
Where I expected to see green clumps of low huckleberries there were
great blotches of black earth and gray ashy stems, and in the midst a
heap of brush still sending up idle streamers and puffs of blue smoke.
Desolation of desolations! That they should do this thing to a harmless
berry patch!
They were not all burned. Only the heart of the patch had been taken,
and after the first shock I explored the edges to see what was left,
but with no courage for picking. I came home with an empty pail and a
mind severe.
"Jonathan," I said that night, "I thought you liked pies?"
"I do," he said expectantly.
"Well, what do you like in them?"
"Berries, preferably."
"Oh, I thought perhaps you preferred cinders or dried briers."
Jonathan looked up inquiringly, then a light broke. "Oh, you mean those
blackberry bushes. Didn't I tell you about that? That was a mistake."
"So I thought," I said, unappeased.
"I mean, I didn't mean them to be cut. It was that fool hobo I gave work
to last week. I told him to cut the brush in the lane. Idiot! I thought
he knew a blackberry bush!"
"With the fruit on it, too," I added, relenting toward Jonathan a
little. Then I stiffened again. "How about the huckleberry patch? Was
that a mistake, too?"
Jonathan looked guilty, but held himself as a man should.
"Why, no," he said; "that is, Hiram thought we needed more ground to
plough up next year, and that's as good a piece as there is--no big
rocks or trees, you know. And we must have crops, you know."
"Bless the rocks!" I burst out. "I wish there were more of them! If it
weren't for the rocks the farm would be _all_ crops!"
Jonathan laughed, then we both laughed.
"You talk as though that would be a misfortune," he said.
"It would be simply unendurable," I replied.
"Jonathan," I added, "I am afraid you have not a proper subordination of
values. I have heard of one farmer--just one--who had."
"What is it?--and who was he?" said Jonathan, submissively.
I think he was relieved that the huckleberry question was not being
followed up.
"I believe he was your great-uncle by marriage. They say that there was
a certain field that was full of butterfly-weed--you know, gorgeous
orange stuff--"
"I know," said he. "What about it?"
"Well, there was a meadow that was full of it, just in its glory when
the grass was ready to cut. Jonathan, what would you have done?"
"Go on," said Jonathan.
"Well, he always mowed that field himself, and when he came to a clump
of butterfly-weed, he always _mowed around_ it."
"Very pretty," said Jonathan, in an impersonal way.
"And that," I added, "is what I call having a proper subordination of
values."
"I see," said he.
"And now," I went on, with almost too ostentatious sweetness, "if you
will tell me where to find a huckleberry patch that is not already
reduced to cinders, I will go out to-morrow and get some for pies."
Jonathan knew, and so did I, that there were still plenty of berry
bushes left. Nevertheless, he was moved.
"Now, see here," he began seriously, "I don't want to spoil the farm for
you. Only I don't know which things you like. If you'll just tell me the
places you don't want touched, I'll speak to Hiram about them."
"Really?" I exclaimed. "Why, I'll tell you now, right away. There's the
lane--you know, that mustn't be touched; and the ledges--but you
couldn't do anything to those, of course, anyway."
"No, even the hobo wouldn't tackle them," said Jonathan grimly.
"And the birches, the ones that are left. You promised me those, you
know. And the swamp, of course, and the cedar knoll where the high-bush
blueberries grow, and then--oh, yes--that lovely hillside beyond the
long meadow where the sumac is, and the dogwood, and everything. And, of
course, the rest of the huckleberries--"
"The rest of the huckleberries!" said he. "That means all the farm.
There isn't a spot as big as your hat where you can't show me some sort
of a huckleberry bush."
"So much the better," I said contentedly.
"Oh, come now," he protested. "Be reasonable. Even your wonderful farmer
that you tell about did a little mowing. He mowed around the
butterfly-weed, but he mowed. You're making the farm into solid
butterfly-weed, and there'll be no mowing at all."
"Why, Jonathan, I've left you the long meadow, and the corner meadow,
and the hill orchard, and then there's the ten-acre lot for corn and
potatoes--only I wish you wouldn't plant potatoes."
"What's the matter with potatoes?"
"Oh, I don't know. First, they are too neat and green, and then they are
all covered with potato-bug powder, and then they wither up and lie all
around, and then they are dug, and the field is a sight! Now, rye and
corn! They're lovely from beginning to end."
Jonathan ruminated. "I seem to see myself expressing these ideas to
Hiram," he remarked dryly.
"I suppose it all comes down to the simple question, What is the farm
for?" I said.
"I am afraid that is what Hiram would think," said Jonathan.
"Never mind about Hiram," I said severely. "Now really, away down deep,
haven't you yourself a sneaking desire for--oh, for crops, and for
having things look shipshape, as you call it? Now, haven't you?"
"I wonder," said Jonathan, as though we were talking about a third
person.
"I don't wonder; I know. The trouble with men," I went on, "is that
when they want to make a thing look well, all they can think of is
cutting and chopping. Look at a man when he goes to a party, or to have
his picture taken! He always dashes to the barber's first--that is,
unless there's a woman around to interfere. Do you remember Jack Mason
when he was married? Face and neck the color of raw beef from sunburn,
and hair cropped so close it made his head look like a drab egg!"
"I didn't notice," said Jonathan.
"No, I suppose not. You would have done the same thing--you're all
alike. Look at horses! When men want to make a horse look stylish, why,
chop off his tail, of course! And they are only beginning to learn
better. When a man builds a house, what does he do? Cuts down every
tree, every bush and twig, and makes it 'shipshape,' as you call it. And
then the women have to come along and plant everything all over again."
"But things need cutting now and then," said Jonathan. "You wouldn't
like it, you know, if a man never went to the barber's. He'd look like a
woodchuck."
"There are worse-looking things than woodchucks. Still, of course,
there's a medium. Possibly the woodchuck carries neglect to excess."
The discussion rested there. I do not know whether Jonathan expressed
any of these ideas to Hiram, but the grooming process appeared to be
temporarily suspended. Then one day my turn came. It was dusk, and I was
sitting on an old log at the back of the orchard, looking out over the
little swamp, all a-twinkle with fireflies. Jonathan had been up the
lane, prowling about, as he often does at nightfall, "to take a look at
the farm." I heard his step in the lane, and he jumped over the bars at
the far end of the orchard. There was a pause, then a vehement
exclamation--too vehement to print. Jonathan's remarks do not usually
need editing, and I listened to these in the dusk in some degree of
wonder, if not of positive enjoyment.