"If we could only live in the country," said my wife, "how much easier
it would be to live!"
"And how much cheaper!" said I.
"To have a little place of our own, and raise our own things!" said my
wife. "Dear me! I am heartsick when I think of the old place at home,
and father's great garden. What peaches and melons we used to have!
what green peas and corn! Now one has to buy every cent's worth of
these things--and how they taste! Such wilted, miserable corn! Such
peas! Then, if we lived in the country, we should have our own cow,
and milk and cream in abundance; our own hens and chickens. We could
have custard and ice-cream every day."
"To say nothing of the trees and flowers, and all that," said I.
The result of this little domestic duet was that my wife and I began
to ride about the city of ---- to look up some pretty, interesting
cottage, where our visions of rural bliss might be realized. Country
residences, near the city, we found to bear rather a high price; so
that it was no easy matter to find a situation suitable to the length
of our purse; till, at last, a judicious friend suggested a happy
expedient.
"Borrow a few hundred," he said, "and give your note; you can save
enough, very soon, to make the difference. When you raise everything
you eat, you know it will make your salary go a wonderful deal
further."
"Certainly it will," said I. "And what can be more beautiful than to
buy places by the simple process of giving one's note?--'tis so neat,
and handy, and convenient!"
"Why," pursued my friend, "there is Mr. B., my next-door neighbor--'tis
enough to make one sick of life in the city to spend a week out on his
farm. Such princely living as one gets! And he assures me that it
costs him very little--scarce anything perceptible, in fact."
"Indeed!" said I; "few people can say that."
"Why," said my friend, "he has a couple of peach-trees for every
month, from June till frost, that furnish as many peaches as he, and
his wife, and ten children can dispose of. And then he has grapes,
apricots, etc.; and last year his wife sold fifty dollars' worth from
her strawberry patch, and had an abundance for the table besides. Out
of the milk of only one cow they had butter enough to sell three or
four pounds a week, besides abundance of milk and cream; and madam has
the butter for her pocket money. This is the way country people
manage."
"Glorious!" thought I. And my wife and I could scarcely sleep, all
night, for the brilliancy of our anticipations!
To be sure our delight was somewhat damped the next day by the
coldness with which my good old uncle, Jeremiah Standfast, who
happened along at precisely this crisis, listened to our visions.
"You'll find it pleasant, children, in the summer time," said the
hard-fisted old man, twirling his blue-checked pocket-handkerchief;
"but I'm sorry you've gone in debt for the land."
"Oh, but we shall soon save that--it's so much cheaper living in the
country!" said both of us together.
"Well, as to that, I don't think it is, to city-bred folks."
Here I broke in with a flood of accounts of Mr. B.'s peach-trees, and
Mrs. B.'s strawberries, butter, apricots, etc., etc.; to which the old
gentleman listened with such a long, leathery, unmoved quietude of
visage as quite provoked me, and gave me the worst possible opinion of
his judgment. I was disappointed, too; for as he was reckoned one of
the best practical farmers in the county, I had counted on an
enthusiastic sympathy with all my agricultural designs.
"I tell you what, children," he said, "a body can live in the country,
as you say, amazin' cheap; but then a body must _know how_,"--and my
uncle spread his pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully out upon his knees,
and shook his head gravely.
I thought him a terribly slow, stupid old body, and wondered how I had
always entertained so high an opinion of his sense.
"He is evidently getting old," said I to my wife; "his judgment is not
what it used to be."
At all events, our place was bought, and we moved out, well pleased,
the first morning in April, not at all remembering the ill savor of
that day for matters of wisdom. Our place was a pretty cottage, about
two miles from the city, with grounds that had been tastefully laid
out. There was no lack of winding paths, arbors, flower borders, and
rosebushes, with which my wife was especially pleased. There was a
little green lot, strolling off down to a brook, with a thick grove of
trees at the end, where our cow was to be pastured.
The first week or two went on happily enough in getting our little new
pet of a house into trimness and good order; for as it had been long
for sale, of course there was any amount of little repairs that had
been left to amuse the leisure hours of the purchaser. Here a doorstep
had given way, and needed replacing; there a shutter hung loose, and
wanted a hinge; abundance of glass needed setting; and as to painting
and papering, there was no end to that. Then my wife wanted a door cut
here, to make our bedroom more convenient, and a china closet knocked
up there, where no china closet before had been. We even ventured on
throwing out a bay-window from our sitting-room, because we had
luckily lighted on a workman who was so cheap that it was an actual
saving of money to employ him. And to be sure our darling little
cottage did lift up its head wonderfully for all this garnishing and
furbishing. I got up early every morning, and nailed up the
rosebushes, and my wife got up and watered geraniums, and both
flattered ourselves and each other on our early hours and thrifty
habits. But soon, like Adam and Eve in Paradise, we found our little
domain to ask more hands than ours to get it into shape. So says I to
my wife, "I will bring out a gardener when I come next time, and he
shall lay the garden out, and get it into order; and after that I can
easily keep it by the work of my leisure hours."
Our gardener was a very sublime sort of man,--an Englishman, and of
course used to laying out noblemen's places,--and we became as
grasshoppers in our own eyes when he talked of Lord This and That's
estate, and began to question us about our carriage drive and
conservatory; and we could with difficulty bring the gentleman down to
any understanding of the humble limits of our expectations; merely to
dress out the walks, and lay out a kitchen garden, and plant potatoes,
turnips, beets and carrots, was quite a descent for him. In fact, so
strong were his aesthetic preferences, that he persuaded my wife to let
him dig all the turf off from a green square opposite the bay window,
and to lay it out into divers little triangles, resembling small
pieces of pie, together with circles, mounds, and various other
geometrical ornaments, the planning and planting of which soon
engrossed my wife's whole soul. The planting of the potatoes, beets,
carrots, etc., was intrusted to a raw Irishman; for as to me, to
confess the truth, I began to fear that digging did not agree with me.
It is true that I was exceedingly vigorous at first, and actually
planted with my own hands two or three long rows of potatoes; after
which I got a turn of rheumatism in my shoulder, which lasted me a
week. Stooping down to plant beets and radishes gave me a vertigo, so
that I was obliged to content myself with a general superintendence
of the garden; that is to say, I charged my Englishman to see that my
Irishman did his duty properly, and then got on to my horse and rode
to the city. But about one part of the matter, I must say, I was not
remiss; and that is, in the purchase of seed and garden utensils. Not
a day passed that I did not come home with my pockets stuffed with
choice seeds, roots, etc.; and the variety of my garden utensils was
unequaled. There was not a priming hook of any pattern, not a hoe,
rake, or spade great or small, that I did not have specimens of; and
flower seeds and bulbs were also forthcoming in liberal proportions.
In fact, I had opened an account at a thriving seed store; for when a
man is driving business on a large scale, it is not always convenient
to hand out the change for every little matter, and buying things on
account is as neat and agreeable a mode of acquisition as paying bills
with one's notes.
"You know we must have a cow," said my wife, the morning of our second
week. Our friend the gardener, who had now worked with us at the rate
of two dollars a day for two weeks, was at hand in a moment in our
emergency. We wanted to buy a cow, and he had one to sell--a wonderful
cow, of a real English breed. He would not sell her for any money,
except to oblige particular friends; but as we had patronized him, we
should have her for forty dollars. How much we were obliged to him!
The forty dollars were speedily forthcoming, and so also was the cow.
"What makes her shake her head in that way?" said my wife, apprehensively,
as she observed the interesting beast making sundry demonstrations with
her horns. "I hope she's gentle."
The gardener fluently demonstrated that the animal was a pattern of
all the softer graces, and that this head-shaking was merely a little
nervous affection consequent on the embarrassment of a new position.
We had faith to believe almost anything at this time, and therefore
came from the barn yard to the house as much satisfied with our
purchase as Job with his three thousand camels and five hundred yoke
of oxen. Her quondam master milked her for us the first evening, out
of a delicate regard to her feelings as a stranger, and we fancied
that we discerned forty dollars' worth of excellence in the very
quality of the milk.
But alas! the next morning our Irish girl came in with a most rueful
face. "And is it milking that baste you'd have me be after?" she said;
"sure, and she won't let me come near her."
"Nonsense, Biddy!" said I; "you frightened her, perhaps; the cow is
perfectly gentle;" and with the pail on my arm I sallied forth. The
moment madam saw me entering the cow yard, she greeted me with a very
expressive flourish of her horns.
"This won't do," said I, and I stopped. The lady evidently was serious
in her intentions of resisting any personal approaches. I cut a
cudgel, and, putting on a bold face, marched towards her, while Biddy
followed with her milking stool. Apparently the beast saw the
necessity of temporizing, for she assumed a demure expression, and
Biddy sat down to milk. I stood sentry, and if the lady shook her head
I shook my stick; and thus the milking operation proceeded with
tolerable serenity and success.
"There!" said I, with dignity, when the frothing pail was full to the
brim. "That will do, Biddy," and I dropped my stick. Dump! came
madam's heel on the side of the pail, and it flew like a rocket into
the air, while the milky flood showered plentifully over me, and a new
broadcloth riding-coat that I had assumed for the first time that
morning. "Whew!" said I, as soon as I could get my breath from this
extraordinary shower bath; "what's all this?" My wife came running
towards the cow yard, as I stood with the milk streaming from my hair,
filling my eyes, and dropping from the tip of my nose; and she and
Biddy performed a recitative lamentation over me in alternate
strophes, like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Such was our first
morning's experience; but as we had announced our bargain with some
considerable flourish of trumpets among our neighbors and friends, we
concluded to hush the matter up as much as possible.
"These very superior cows are apt to be cross," said I; "we must bear
with it as we do with the eccentricities of genius; besides, when she
gets accustomed to us, it will be better."
Madam was therefore installed into her pretty pasture lot, and my wife
contemplated with pleasure the picturesque effect of her appearance,
reclining on the green slope of the pasture lot, or standing ankle
deep in the gurgling brook, or reclining under the deep shadows of the
trees. She was, in fact, a handsome cow, which may account, in part,
for some of her sins; and this consideration inspired me with some
degree of indulgence towards her foibles.
But when I found that Biddy could never succeed in getting near her in
the pasture, and that any kind of success in the milking operations
required my vigorous personal exertions morning and evening, the
matter wore a more serious aspect, and I began to feel quite pensive
and apprehensive. It is very well to talk of the pleasures of the
milkmaid going out in the balmy freshness of the purple dawn; but
imagine a poor fellow pulled out of bed on a drizzly, rainy morning,
and equipping himself for a scamper through a wet pasture lot, rope in
hand, at the heels of such a termagant as mine! In fact, madam
established a regular series of exercises, which had all to be gone
through before she would suffer herself to be captured; as, first, she
would station herself plump in the middle of a marsh, which lay at the
lower part of the lot, and look very innocent and absent-minded, as if
reflecting on some sentimental subject. "Suke! Suke! Suke!" I
ejaculate, cautiously tottering along the edge of the marsh, and
holding out an ear of corn. The lady looks gracious, and comes
forward, almost within reach of my hand. I make a plunge to throw the
rope over her horns, and away she goes, kicking up mud and water into
my face in her flight, while I, losing my balance, tumble forward into
the marsh. I pick myself up, and, full of wrath, behold her placidly
chewing her cud on the other side, with the meekest air imaginable, as
who should say, "I hope you are not hurt, sir." I dash through swamp
and bog furiously, resolving to carry all by a _coup de main_. Then
follows a miscellaneous season of dodging, scampering, and bopeeping,
among the trees of the grove, interspersed with sundry occasional
races across the bog aforesaid. I always wondered how I caught her
every day; and when I had tied her head to one post and her heels to
another, I wiped the sweat from my brow, and thought I was paying dear
for the eccentricities of genius. A genius she certainly was, for
besides her surprising agility, she had other talents equally
extraordinary. There was no fence that she could not take down;
nowhere that she could not go. She took the pickets off the garden
fence at her pleasure, using her horns as handily as I could use a
claw hammer. Whatever she had a mind to, whether it were a bite in the
cabbage garden, or a run in the corn patch, or a foraging expedition
into the flower borders, she made herself equally welcome and at home.
Such a scampering and driving, such cries of "Suke here" and "Suke
there," as constantly greeted our ears, kept our little establishment
in a constant commotion. At last, when she one morning made a plunge
at the skirts of my new broadcloth frock coat, and carried off one
flap on her horns, my patience gave out, and I determined to sell
her.
As, however, I had made a good story of my misfortunes among my
friends and neighbors, and amused them with sundry whimsical accounts
of my various adventures in the cow-catching line, I found, when I
came to speak of selling, that there was a general coolness on the
subject, and nobody seemed disposed to be the recipient of my
responsibilities. In short, I was glad, at last, to get fifteen
dollars for her, and comforted myself with thinking that I had at
least gained twenty-five dollars worth of experience in the
transaction, to say nothing of the fine exercise.
I comforted my soul, however, the day after, by purchasing and
bringing home to my wife a fine swarm of bees.
"Your bee, now," says I, "is a really classical insect, and breathes
of Virgil and the Augustan age,--and then she is a domestic, tranquil,
placid creature. How beautiful the murmuring of a hive near our
honeysuckle of a calm, summer evening! Then they are tranquilly and
peacefully amassing for us their stores of sweetness, while they lull
us with their murmurs. What a beautiful image of disinterested
benevolence!"
My wife declared that I was quite a poet, and the beehive was duly
installed near the flower plots, that the delicate creatures might
have the full benefit of the honeysuckle and mignonette. My spirits
began to rise. I bought three different treatises on the rearing of
bees, and also one or two new patterns of hives, and proposed to rear
my bees on the most approved model. I charged all the establishment to
let me know when there was any indication of an emigrating spirit,
that I might be ready to receive the new swarm into my patent
mansion.
Accordingly, one afternoon, when I was deep in an article that I was
preparing for the "North American Review," intelligence was brought me
that a swarm had risen. I was on the alert at once, and discovered, on
going out, that the provoking creatures had chosen the top of a tree
about thirty feet high to settle on. Now my books had carefully
instructed me just how to approach the swarm and cover them with a
new hive; but I had never contemplated the possibility of the swarm
being, like Haman's gallows, forty cubits high. I looked despairingly
upon the smooth-bark tree, which rose, like a column, full twenty
feet, without branch or twig. "What is to be done?" said I, appealing
to two or three neighbors. At last, at the recommendation of one of
them, a ladder was raised against the tree, and, equipped with a shirt
outside of my clothes, a green veil over my head, and a pair of
leather gloves on my hands, I went up with a saw at my girdle to saw
off the branch on which they had settled, and lower it by a rope to a
neighbor, similarly equipped, who stood below with the hive.
As a result of this manoeuvre the fastidious little insects were at
length fairly installed at housekeeping in my new patent hive, and,
rejoicing in my success, I again sat down to my article.
That evening my wife and I took tea in our honeysuckle arbor, with our
little ones and a friend or two, to whom I showed my treasures, and
expatiated at large on the comforts and conveniences of the new patent
hive.
But alas for the hopes of man! The little ungrateful wretches--what
must they do but take advantage of my oversleeping myself, the next
morning, to clear out for new quarters without so much as leaving me a
P. P. C.! Such was the fact; at eight o'clock I found the new patent
hive as good as ever; but the bees I have never seen from that day to
this!
"The rascally little conservatives!" said I; "I believe they have
never had a new idea from the days of Virgil down, and are entirely
unprepared to appreciate improvements."
Meanwhile the seeds began to germinate in our garden, when we found,
to our chagrin, that, between John Bull and Paddy, there had occurred
sundry confusions in the several departments. Radishes had been
planted broadcast, carrots and beets arranged in hills, and here and
there a whole paper of seed appeared to have been planted bodily. My
good old uncle, who, somewhat to my confusion, made me a call at this
time, was greatly distressed and scandalized by the appearance of our
garden. But by a deal of fussing, transplanting, and replanting, it
was got into some shape and order. My uncle was rather troublesome, as
careful old people are apt to be--annoying us by perpetual inquiries
of what we gave for this and that, and running up provoking
calculations on the final cost of matters; and we began to wish that
his visits might be as short as would be convenient.
But when, on taking leave, he promised to send us a fine young cow of
his own raising, our hearts rather smote us for our impatience.
"'Tain't any of your new breeds, nephew," said the old man, "yet I can
say that she's a gentle, likely young crittur, and better worth forty
dollars than many a one that's cried up for Ayrshire or Durham; and
you shall be quite welcome to her."
We thanked him, as in duty bound, and thought that if he was full of
old-fashioned notions, he was no less full of kindness and good will.
And now, with a new cow, with our garden beginning to thrive under the
gentle showers of May, with our flower borders blooming, my wife and I
began to think ourselves in Paradise. But alas! the same sun and rain
that warmed our fruit and flowers brought up from the earth, like
sulky gnomes, a vast array of purple-leaved weeds, that almost in a
night seemed to cover the whole surface of the garden beds. Our
gardeners both being gone, the weeding was expected to be done by
me--one of the anticipated relaxations of my leisure hours.
"Well," said I, in reply to a gentle intimation from my wife, "when my
article is finished, I'll take a day and weed all up clean."
Thus days slipped by, till at length the article was dispatched, and I
proceeded to my garden. Amazement! Who could have possibly foreseen
that anything earthly could grow so fast in a few days! There were no
bounds, no alleys, no beds, no distinction of beet and carrot, nothing
but a flourishing congregation of weeds nodding and bobbing in the
morning breeze, as if to say, "We hope you are well, sir--we've got
the ground, you see!" I began to explore, and to hoe, and to weed. Ah!
did anybody ever try to clean a neglected carrot or beet bed, or bend
his back in a hot sun over rows of weedy onions! He is the man to feel
for my despair! How I weeded, and sweat, and sighed! till, when high
noon came on, as the result of all my toils, only three beds were
cleaned! And how disconsolate looked the good seed, thus unexpectedly
delivered from its sheltering tares, and laid open to a broiling July
sun! Every juvenile beet and carrot lay flat down wilted, and
drooping, as if, like me, they had been weeding, instead of being
weeded.
"This weeding is quite a serious matter," said I to my wife; "the fact
is, I must have help about it!"
"Just what I was myself thinking," said my wife. "My flower borders
are all in confusion, and my petunia mounds so completely overgrown,
that nobody would dream what they were meant for!"
In short, it was agreed between us that we could not afford the
expense of a full-grown man to keep our place; yet we must reinforce
ourselves by the addition of a boy, and a brisk youngster from the
vicinity was pitched upon as the happy addition. This youth was a
fellow of decidedly quick parts, and in one forenoon made such a
clearing in our garden that I was delighted. Bed after bed appeared to
view, all cleared and dressed out with such celerity that I was quite
ashamed of my own slowness, until, on examination, I discovered that
he had, with great impartiality, pulled up both weeds and vegetables.
This hopeful beginning was followed up by a succession of proceedings
which should be recorded for the instruction of all who seek for help
from the race of boys. Such a loser of all tools, great and small;
such an invariable leaver-open of all gates, and letter-down of bars;
such a personification of all manner of anarchy and ill luck, had
never before been seen on the estate. His time, while I was gone to
the city, was agreeably diversified with roosting on the fence,
swinging on the gates, making poplar whistles for the children,
hunting eggs, and eating whatever fruit happened to be in season, in
which latter accomplishment he was certainly quite distinguished.
After about three weeks of this kind of joint gardening, we concluded
to dismiss Master Tom from the firm, and employ a man.
"Things must be taken care of," said I, "and I cannot do it. 'Tis out
of the question." And so the man was secured.
But I am making a long story, and may chance to outrun the sympathies
of my readers. Time would fail me to tell of the distresses manifold
that fell upon me--of cows dried up by poor milkers; of hens that
wouldn't set at all, and hens that, despite all law and reason, would
set on one egg; of hens that, having hatched families, straightway led
them into all manner of high grass and weeds, by which means numerous
young chicks caught premature colds and perished; and how, when I,
with manifold toil, had driven one of these inconsiderate gadders into
a coop, to teach her domestic habits, the rats came down upon her and
slew every chick in one night; how my pigs were always practicing
gymnastic exercises over the fence of the sty, and marauding in the
garden. I wonder that Fourier never conceived the idea of having his
garden land ploughed by pigs; for certainly they manifest quite a
decided elective attraction for turning up the earth.
When autumn came, I went soberly to market, in the neighboring city,
and bought my potatoes and turnips like any other man; for, between
all the various systems of gardening pursued, I was obliged to confess
that my first horticultural effort was a decided failure. But though
all my rural visions had proved illusive, there were some very
substantial realities. My bill at the seed store, for seeds, roots,
and tools, for example, had run up to an amount that was perfectly
unaccountable; then there were various smaller items, such as
horseshoeing, carriage mending--for he who lives in the country and
does business in the city must keep his vehicle and appurtenances. I
had always prided myself on being an exact man, and settling every
account, great and small, with the going out of the old year; but this
season I found myself sorely put to it. In fact, had not I received a
timely lift from my good old uncle, I should have made a complete
break down. The old gentleman's troublesome habit of ciphering and
calculating, it seems, had led him beforehand to foresee that I was
not exactly in the money-making line, nor likely to possess much
surplus revenue to meet the note which I had given for my place; and,
therefore, he quietly paid it himself, as I discovered, when, after
much anxiety and some sleepless nights, I went to the holder to ask
for an extension of credit.
"He was right, after all," said I to my wife; "'to live cheap in the
country, a body must know how.'"