There are so many bright spots in the life of a farm-boy, that I
sometimes think I should like to live the life over again; I should
almost be willing to be a girl if it were not for the chores. There is a
great comfort to a boy in the amount of work he can get rid of doing. It
is sometimes astonishing how slow he can go on an errand,--he who leads
the school in a race. The world is new and interesting to him, and there
is so much to take his attention off, when he is sent to do anything.
Perhaps he himself couldn't explain why, when he is sent to the
neighbor's after yeast, he stops to stone the frogs; he is not exactly
cruel, but he wants to see if he can hit 'em. No other living thing can
go so slow as a boy sent on an errand. His legs seem to be lead, unless
he happens to espy a woodchuck in an adjoining lot, when he gives chase
to it like a deer; and it is a curious fact about boys, that two will
be a great deal slower in doing anything than one, and that the more you
have to help on a piece of work the less is accomplished. Boys have
a great power of helping each other to do nothing; and they are so
innocent about it, and unconscious. “I went as quick as ever I could,”
says the boy: his father asks him why he didn't stay all night, when he
has been absent three hours on a ten-minute errand. The sarcasm has no
effect on the boy.
Going after the cows was a serious thing in my day. I had to climb a
hill, which was covered with wild strawberries in the season. Could any
boy pass by those ripe berries? And then in the fragrant hill pasture
there were beds of wintergreen with red berries, tufts of columbine,
roots of sassafras to be dug, and dozens of things good to eat or to
smell, that I could not resist. It sometimes even lay in my way to climb
a tree to look for a crow's nest, or to swing in the top, and to try if
I could see the steeple of the village church. It became very
important sometimes for me to see that steeple; and in the midst of my
investigations the tin horn would blow a great blast from the farmhouse,
which would send a cold chill down my back in the hottest days. I knew
what it meant. It had a frightfully impatient quaver in it, not at all
like the sweet note that called us to dinner from the hay-field. It
said, “Why on earth doesn't that boy come home? It is almost dark, and
the cows ain't milked!” And that was the time the cows had to start into
a brisk pace and make up for lost time. I wonder if any boy ever drove
the cows home late, who did not say that the cows were at the very
farther end of the pasture, and that “Old Brindle” was hidden in the
woods, and he couldn't find her for ever so long! The brindle cow is the
boy's scapegoat, many a time.
No other boy knows how to appreciate a holiday as the farm-boy does;
and his best ones are of a peculiar kind. Going fishing is of course one
sort. The excitement of rigging up the tackle, digging the bait, and the
anticipation of great luck! These are pure pleasures, enjoyed because
they are rare. Boys who can go a-fishing any time care but little
for it. Tramping all day through bush and brier, fighting flies and
mosquitoes, and branches that tangle the line, and snags that break the
hook, and returning home late and hungry, with wet feet and a string of
speckled trout on a willow twig, and having the family crowd out at the
kitchen door to look at 'em, and say, “Pretty well done for you, bub;
did you catch that big one yourself?”--this is also pure happiness,
the like of which the boy will never have again, not if he comes to be
selectman and deacon and to “keep store.”
But the holidays I recall with delight were the two days in spring and
fall, when we went to the distant pasture-land, in a neighboring town,
maybe, to drive thither the young cattle and colts, and to bring them
back again. It was a wild and rocky upland where our great pasture was,
many miles from home, the road to it running by a brawling river, and up
a dashing brook-side among great hills. What a day's adventure it was!
It was like a journey to Europe. The night before, I could scarcely
sleep for thinking of it! and there was no trouble about getting me
up at sunrise that morning. The breakfast was eaten, the luncheon
was packed in a large basket, with bottles of root beer and a jug of
switchel, which packing I superintended with the greatest interest;
and then the cattle were to be collected for the march, and the horses
hitched up. Did I shirk any duty? Was I slow? I think not. I was willing
to run my legs off after the frisky steers, who seemed to have an idea
they were going on a lark, and frolicked about, dashing into all gates,
and through all bars except the right ones; and how cheerfully I did
yell at them.
It was a glorious chance to “holler,” and I have never since heard
any public speaker on the stump or at camp-meeting who could make more
noise. I have often thought it fortunate that the amount of noise in a
boy does not increase in proportion to his size; if it did, the world
could not contain it.
The whole day was full of excitement and of freedom. We were away from
the farm, which to a boy is one of the best parts of farming; we saw
other farms and other people at work; I had the pleasure of marching
along, and swinging my whip, past boys whom I knew, who were picking up
stones. Every turn of the road, every bend and rapid of the river, the
great bowlders by the wayside, the watering-troughs, the giant pine that
had been struck by lightning, the mysterious covered bridge over the
river where it was, most swift and rocky and foamy, the chance eagle in
the blue sky, the sense of going somewhere,--why, as I recall all these
things I feel that even the Prince Imperial, as he used to dash on
horseback through the Bois de Boulogne, with fifty mounted hussars
clattering at his heels, and crowds of people cheering, could not have
been as happy as was I, a boy in short jacket and shorter pantaloons,
trudging in the dust that day behind the steers and colts, cracking my
black-stock whip.
I wish the journey would never end; but at last, by noon, we reach the
pastures and turn in the herd; and after making the tour of the lots to
make sure there are no breaks in the fences, we take our luncheon from
the wagon and eat it under the trees by the spring. This is the supreme
moment of the day. This is the way to live; this is like the Swiss
Family Robinson, and all the rest of my delightful acquaintances in
romance. Baked beans, rye-and-indian bread (moist, remember), doughnuts
and cheese, pie, and root beer. What richness! You may live to dine
at Delmonico's, or, if those Frenchmen do not eat each other up, at
Philippe's, in Rue Montorgueil in Paris, where the dear old Thackeray
used to eat as good a dinner as anybody; but you will get there neither
doughnuts, nor pie, nor root beer, nor anything so good as that luncheon
at noon in the old pasture, high among the Massachusetts hills! Nor
will you ever, if you live to be the oldest boy in the world, have any
holiday equal to the one I have described. But I always regretted that I
did not take along a fishline, just to “throw in” the brook we passed. I
know there were trout there.