"Nice little farm you have here."
"It's enough for me," I replied. I did not especially like the
"little." One is human.
Then I had an absurd inspiration: he stood there so trim and jaunty
and prosperous. So rich! I had a good look at him. He was dressed in a
woolen jacket coat, knee-trousers and leggings; on his head he wore a
jaunty, cocky little Scotch cap; a man, I should judge, about fifty
years old, well-fed and hearty in appearance, with grayish hair and a
good-humored eye. I acted on my inspiration:
"You've arrived," I said, "at the psychological moment."
"How's that?"
"Take hold here and help me lift this axle and steady it. I'm having a
hard time of it."
The look of astonishment in his countenance was beautiful to see.
For a moment failure stared me in the face. His expression said with
emphasis: "Perhaps you don't know who I am." But I looked at him with
the greatest good feeling and my expression said, or I meant it to
say: "To be sure I don't: and what difference does it make, anyway!"
"You take hold here," I said, without waiting for him to catch his
breath, "and I'll get hold here. Together we can easily get the wheel
off."
Without a word he set his cane against the barn and bent his back; up
came the axle and I propped it with a board.
"Now," I said, "you hang on there and steady it while I get the wheel
off"--though, indeed, it didn't really need much steadying.
As I straightened up, whom should I see but Harriet standing stock
still in the pathway half way down to the barn, transfixed with
horror. She had recognized John Starkweather and had heard at least
part of what I said to him, and the vision of that important man
bending his back to help lift the axle of my old wagon was too
terrible! She caught my eye and pointed and mouthed. When I smiled
and nodded, John Starkweather straightened up and looked around.
"Don't, on your life," I warned, "let go of that axle."
He held on and Harriet turned and retreated ingloriously. John
Starkweather's face was a study!
"Did you ever grease a wagon?" I asked him genially.
"Never," he said.
"There's more of an art in it than you think," I said, and, as I
worked, I talked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed him
exactly how to put it on--neither too much nor too little, and so that
it would distribute itself evenly when the wheel was replaced.
"There's a right way of doing everything," I observed.
"That's so," said John Starkweather, "if I could only get workmen that
believed it."
By that time I could see that he was beginning to be interested. I put
back the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on the nut. He helped
me with the other end of the axle with all good humor.
"Perhaps," I said, as engagingly as I knew how, "you'd like to try the
art yourself? You take the grease this time and I'll steady the
wagon."
"All right," he said, laughing, "I'm in for anything."
He took the grease box and the paddle--less gingerly than I thought he
would.
"Is that right?" he demanded, and so he put on the grease. And oh, it
was good to see Harriet in the doorway!
"Steady there," I said, "not so much at the end; now put the box down
on the reach."
And so together we greased the wagon, talking all the time in the
friendliest way. I actually believe that he was having a pretty good
time. At least it had the virtue of unexpectedness. He wasn't bored!
When he had finished, we both straightened our backs and looked at
each other. There was a twinkle in his eye; then we both laughed.
"He's all right," I said to myself. I held up my hands, then he held
up his; it was hardly necessary to prove that wagon-greasing was not a
delicate operation.
"It's a good, wholesome sign," I said, "but it'll come off. Do you
happen to remember a story of Tolstoi's called, 'Ivan the Fool?'"
("What is a farmer doing quoting Tolstoi!" remarked his
countenance--though he said not a word.)
"In the kingdom of Ivan, you remember," I said, "it was the rule that
whoever had hard places on his hands came to table, but whoever had
not must eat what the others left."
Thus I led him up the back steps and poured him a basin of hot
water--which I brought myself from the kitchen, Harriet having
marvelously and completely disappeared. We both washed our hands,
talking with great good humor.
When we had finished I said: "Sit down, friend, if you've time, and
let's talk."
So he sat down on one of the logs of my woodpile: a solid sort of man,
rather warm after his recent activities. He looked me over with some
interest and, I thought, friendliness.
"Why does a man like you," he asked finally, "waste himself on a
little farm back here in the country?"
For a single instant I came nearer to being angry than I have been for
a long time. _Waste_ myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had
a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest
sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh, well," I
thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he doesn't know." So I said:
"What would you have me be--a millionaire?"
He smiled, but with a sort of sincerity.
"You might be," he said; "who can tell!"
I laughed outright; the humor of it struck me as delicious. Here I had
been, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, rather gloating
over him as a poor suffering millionaire (of course millionaires _are_
unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying
_me_ for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious,
this human nature of ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling!
So I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed my legs.
I felt as though I had set foot in a new country.
"Would you really advise me," I asked, "to start in to be a
millionaire?"
He chuckled: "Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to
a star; but begin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend.
When I began--"
He stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did not know
who he was.
"Of course," I said, "I understand that."
"A man must begin small"--he was on pleasant ground--"and anywhere he
likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must
save, he must be both bold and cautious. I know a man who began when
he was about your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good
digestion. He's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in
the city, a place in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes.
He has so arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and
he draws the dividends--and all in a little more than twenty years. I
made every single cent--but, as I said, it's a penny business to start
with. The point is, I like to see young men ambitious."
"Ambitious," I asked, "for what?"
"Why, to rise in the world; to get ahead."
"I know you'll pardon me," I said, "for appearing to cross-examine
you, but I'm tremendously interested in these things. What do you mean
by rising? And who am I to get ahead of?"
He looked at me in astonishment, and with evident impatience at my
consummate stupidity.
"I am serious," I said. "I really want to make the best I can of my
life. It's the only one I've got."
"See here," he said, "let us say you clear up five hundred a year from
this farm--"
"You exaggerate--" I interrupted.
"Do I?" he laughed; "that makes my case all the better. Now, isn't it
possible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand or five
thousand or even fifty thousand a year?"
It seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars!
"I suppose I might," I said, "but do you think I'd be any better off
or happier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? You see, I like
all these surroundings better than any other place I ever knew. That
old green hill over there with the oak on it is an intimate friend of
mine. I have a good corn-field in which every year I work miracles.
I've a cow and a horse and a few pigs. I have a comfortable home. My
appetite is perfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep
every night like a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to
disturb me. I enjoy the mornings here in the country; and the evenings
are pleasant. Some of my neighbors have come to be my good friends. I
like them and I am pretty sure they like me. Inside the house there I
have the best books ever written and I have time in the evenings to
read them--I mean _really_ read them. Now the question is, would I be
any better off, or any happier, if I had fifty thousand a year?"
John Starkweather laughed.
"Well, sir," he said, "I see I've made the acquaintance of a
philosopher."
"Let us say," I continued, "that you are willing to invest twenty
years of your life in a million dollars." ("Merely an illustration,"
said John Starkweather.) "You have it where you can put it in the bank
and take it out again, or you can give it form in houses, yachts, and
other things. Now twenty years of my life--to me--is worth more than a
million dollars. I simply can't afford to sell it for that. I prefer
to invest it, as somebody or other has said, unearned in life. I've
always had a liking for intangible properties."
"See here," said John Starkweather, "you are taking a narrow view of
life. You are making your own pleasure the only standard. Shouldn't a
man make the most of the talents given him? Hasn't he a duty to
society?"
"Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the question of
personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me
ask you: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be
plowed and cultivated?"
"Yes, but--"
"Isn't it honest and useful work?"
"Of course."
"Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?"
"Certainly."
"It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good farmer."
"But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties applied
to other things yield better and bigger results?"
"That is a problem, of course," I said. "I tried money-making once--in
a city--and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am both successful
and happy. I suppose I was one of the young men who did the work while
some millionaire drew the dividends." (I was cutting close, and I
didn't venture to look at him.) "No doubt he had his houses and yachts
and went to Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs--back--where
there wasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill,
or a brook; only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord be
thanked for my escape! Sometimes I think that Success has formed a
silent conspiracy against Youth. Success holds up a single glittering
apple and bids Youth strip and run for it; and Youth runs and Success
still holds the apple."
John Starkweather said nothing.
"Yes," I said, "there are duties. We realize, we farmers, that we must
produce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or burn. We realize
that we are the foundation; we connect human life with the earth. We
dig and plant and produce, and, having eaten at the first table
ourselves, we pass what is left to the bakers and millionaires. Did
you ever think, stranger, that most of the wars of the world have been
fought for the control of this farmer's second table? Have you thought
that the surplus of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads
are struggling to carry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and
mills; a little of it gathered in cash makes a millionaire. But we
farmers, we sit back comfortably after dinner, and joke with our wives
and play with our babies, and let the rest of you fight for the crumbs
that fall from our abundant tables. If once we really cared and got up
and shook ourselves, and said to the maid: 'Here, child, don't waste
the crusts; gather 'em up and tomorrow we'll have a cottage pudding,'
where in the world would all the millionaires be?"
Oh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Starkweather, or
any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionaire is
better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of
the millionaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with
the symbols of life, whether cash or houses. Any day the symbols may
change; a little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue
or a western breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't
scattering as many crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but
I've noticed that the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat)
and then what happens to your millionaire? Not knowing how to produce
anything himself, he would starve to death if there were not always,
somewhere, a farmer to take him up to the table."
"You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather.
"Strong!" I said. "It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society
a few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a
man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to
dislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, a farmer is like an oak, his
roots strike deep in the soil, he draws a sufficiency of food from the
earth itself, he breathes the free air around him, his thirst is
quenched by heaven itself--and there's no tax on sunshine."