AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
THE READERS' LIBRARY
Uniform with this Volume
BELLOC, H.
AVRIL. Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance
BIRRELL, AUGUSTINE
ORBITER DICTA
BOURNE, GEORGE
MEMOIRS OF A SURREY LABOURER
BROOKS, STOPFORD A.
STUDIES IN POETRY. Essays on Blake, Scott, Shelley, Keats, etc.
EVERETT, W.
ITALIAN POETS SINCE DANTE
GALSWORTHY, JOHN
A COMMENTARY
HUDSON, W. H.
GREEN MANSIONS. A Romance of the Tropical Forest
THE PURPLE LAND. Descriptive Romance
JEFFERIES, RICHARD
AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
BEVIS. The Story of a Boy
AFTER LONDON
MCCABE, JOSEPH
ST. AUGUSTINE AND HIS AGE
NEVINSON, H. W.
ESSAYS IN FREEDOM
STEPHEN, SIR LESLIE
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND SOCIETY
IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. First Series. Two Volumes
STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER. Second Series. Two Volumes
WITTE, DR. CARL
ESSAYS ON DANTE
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE
THE STRENUOUS LIFE. Essays and Addresses
ECKENSTEIN, LINA
COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN NURSERY RHYMES: Essays in a Branch of Folklore
CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM, R. B.
PROGRESS, and other Sketches
Additional Volumes will be announced from time to time
AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
BY
RICHARD JEFFERIES
AUTHOR OF "THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME," "AFTER LONDON," "WOOD MAGIC; A
FABLE," "BEVIS," ETC.
"Our day is but a finger: bring large cups."
ALCÆUS.
[Illustration]
LONDON
DUCKWORTH AND CO.
3, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
Reissued 1904
Reprinted in Readers Library 1911
_All rights reserved_
=Dedicated=
TO
CHARLES PRESTWICH SCOTT.
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTION.[1]
"THE book is not a novel" is a phrase often in the mouth of critics, who
on second thoughts might, perhaps, add with less emphasis, "It does not
conform to the common type of novel." Fortified, however, with that
sense of rectitude that dictates conformity to our neighbours and a safe
acquiescence in the mysterious movements of public taste, the critics
have exclaimed with touching unanimity--"What a pity Jefferies tried to
write novels! Why didn't he stick to essays in natural history!"
What a pity Jefferies should have given us "Amaryllis at the Fair," and
"After London"!--this opinion has been propagated with such fervency
that it seems almost a pity to disturb it by inquiring into the nature
of these his achievements. Certainly the critics, and their critical
echoes, are united. "He wrote some later novels of indifferent merit,"
says a critic in "Chambers' Encyclopædia." "Has anyone ever been able to
write with free and genuine appreciation of even the later novels?"
asks or echoes a lady, Miss Grace Toplis, writing on Jefferies. "In
brief, he was an essayist and not a novelist at all," says Mr. Henry
Salt. "It is therefore certain that his importance for posterity will
dwindle, if it has not already dwindled, to that given by a bundle of
descriptive selections. But these will occupy a foremost place on their
particular shelf, the shelf at the head of which stands Gilbert White
and Gray," says Mr. George Saintsbury. "He was a reporter of genius, and
he never got beyond reporting. Mr. Besant has the vitalising imagination
which Jefferies lacked," says Mr. Henley in his review of Walter
Besant's "Eulogy of Richard Jefferies"; and again, "They are not novels
as he (Walter Besant) admits, they are a series of pictures. . . . That
is the way he takes Jefferies at Jefferies' worst." Yes, it is very
touching this unanimity, and it is therefore a pleasure for this critic
to say that in his judgment "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the very
few later-day novels of English country life that are worth putting on
one's shelf, and that to make room for it he would turn out certain
highly-praised novels by Hardy which do not ring quite true, novels
which the critics and the public, again with touching unanimity, have
voted to be of high rank. But what is a novel? the reader may ask. A
novel, says the learned Charles Annandale, is "a fictitious prose
narrative, involving some plot of greater or less intricacy, and
professing to give a picture of real life, generally exhibiting the
passions and sentiments, in a state of great activity, and especially
the passion of love." Well, "Amaryllis at the Fair" is a fictitious
prose narrative professing to give a picture of real life, and involving
a plot of little intricacy. Certainly it exhibits the passions and
sentiments in a state of great activity. But Mr. Henry Salt, whose
little book on Jefferies is the best yet published, further remarks:
"Jefferies was quite unable to give any vivid dramatic life to his
stories . . . his instinct was that of the naturalist who observes and
moralizes rather than that of the novelist who penetrates and
interprets; and consequently his rustic characters, though strongly and
clearly drawn, do not live, as, for example, those of Thomas Hardy
live. . . . Men and animals are alike mere figures in his landscapes."
* * * * *
So far the critics. Jefferies being justly held to be "no ordinary
novelist," it is inferred by most that something is wrong with
"Amaryllis the Fair," and the book has been passed over in silence. But
we do not judge every novel by the same test. We do not judge "Tristram
Shandy," for example, by its intricate plot, or by its "vivid drama," we
judge it simply as an artistic revelation of human life and by its
humorous insight into human character. And judged by the same simple
test "Amaryllis at the Fair," we contend, is a living picture of life, a
creative work of imagination of a high order. Iden, the unsuccessful
farmer who "built for all time, and not for the circumstances of the
hour," is a masterly piece of character drawing. But Iden is a personal
portrait, the reader may object, Well, what about Uncle Toby? From what
void did he spring? Iden, to our mind, is almost as masterly a
conception, as broadly human a figure as Uncle Toby. And Mrs. Iden,
where will you find this type of nervous, irritable wife, full of
spiteful disillusioned love for her dilatory husband better painted than
by Jefferies? But Mrs. Iden is a type, not an individual, the reader may
say. Excellent reader! and what about the Widow Wadman? She is no less
and no more of an individual than is Mrs. Iden. It was a great feat of
Sterne to create so cunningly the atmosphere of the Shandy household,
but Jefferies has accomplished an artistic feat also in drawing the
relations of the Idens, father, mother, and daughter. How true, how
unerringly true to human nature is this picture of the Iden household;
how delicately felt and rendered to a hair is his picture of the
father's sluggish, masculine will, pricked ineffectually by the waspish
tongue of feminine criticism. Further, we not only have the family's
idiosyncrasies, their habits, mental atmosphere, and domestic story
brought before us in a hundred pages, easily and instinctively by the
hand of the artist, but we have the whole book steeped in the breath of
English spring, the restless ache of spring that thrills through the
nerves, and stirs the sluggish winter blood; we have the spring feeling
breaking from the March heavens and the March earth in copse, meadow,
and ploughland, as it has scarcely been rendered before by English
novelist. The description of Amaryllis running out into the March wind
to call her father from his potato planting to see the daffodil; the
picture of Iden pretending to sleep in his chair that he may watch the
mice; the description of the girl Amaryllis watching the crowd of plain,
ugly men of the countryside flocking along the road to the fair; the
description of Amadis the invalid, in the old farm kitchen among the
stalwart country folk--all these pictures and a dozen others in the book
are painted with a masterly hand. Pictures! the critical reader may
complain. Yes, pictures of living men and women. What does it matter
whether a revelation of human life is conveyed to us by pictures or by
action so long as it is conveyed? Mr. Saintsbury classes Jefferies with
Gray, presumably because both writers have written of the English
landscape. With Gray! Jefferies in his work as a naturalist and observer
of wild life may be classed merely for convenience with Gilbert White.
But this classification only applies to one half of Jefferies' books. By
his "Wild Life in a Southern County" he stands beside Gilbert White; by
his "Story of My Heart" he stands by himself, a little apart from the
poets, and by "Amaryllis at the Fair" he stands among the half-dozen
country writers of the century whose work is racy of the English soil
and of rural English human nature. We will name three of these writers,
Barnes, Cobbett, Waugh, and our attentive readers can name the other
three.
To come back to "Amaryllis at the Fair," why is it so masterly, or,
further, wherein is it so masterly, the curious reader may inquire? "Is
it not full of digressions? Granted that the first half of the 'novel'
is beautiful in style, does not Jefferies suddenly break his method,
introduce his own personality, intersperse abrupt disquisitions on food,
illness, and Fleet Street? Is not that description of Iden's dinner a
little--well, a little unusual? In short, is not the book a disquisition
on life from the standpoint of Jefferies' personal experiences? And if
this is so, how can the book be so fine an achievement?" Oh, candid
reader, with the voice of authority sounding in your ears (and have we
not Mr. Henley and Mr. Saintsbury bound in critical amity against us), a
book may break the formal rules, and yet it may yield to us just that
salt of life which we may seek for vainly in the works of more faultless
writers. The strength of "Amaryllis at the Fair" is that its beauty
springs naturally from the prosaic earthly facts of life it narrates,
and that, in the natural atmosphere breathed by its people, the prose
and the poetry of their life are one. In the respect of the artistic
naturalness of its homely picture, the book is very superior to, say
"The Mayor of Casterbridge," where we are conscious that the author has
been at work arranging and rearranging his charming studies and
impressions of the old-world people of Casterbridge into the pattern of
an exciting plot. Now it is precisely in the artificed dramatic story of
"The Mayor of Casterbridge"--and we cite this novel as characteristic,
both in its strength and weakness, of its distinguished author,--that we
are brought to feel that we have not been shown the characters of
Casterbridge going their way in life naturally, but that they have been
moved about, kaleidoscopically, to suit the exigencies of the plot, and
that the more this is so the less significance for us have their
thoughts and actions. Watching the quick whirling changes of Farfrae and
Lucetta, Henchard and Newson in the matrimonial mazes of the story, and
listening to the chorus of the rustics in the wings, we perceive indeed
whence comes that atmosphere of stage crisis and stage effect which
suddenly introduces a disillusioning sense of unreality, and mars the
artistic unity of this charming picture, so truthful in other respects
to English rural life. Plot is Mr. Hardy's weakness, and perfect indeed
and convincing would have been his pictures, if he could have thrown his
plots and his rustic choruses to the four winds. May we not be thankful,
therefore, that Jefferies was no hand at elaborating a plot, and that in
"Amaryllis at the Fair," the scenes, the descriptions, the conversations
are spontaneous as life, and that Jefferies' commentary on them is like
Fielding's commentary, a medium by which he lives with his characters.
The author's imagination, memory, and instinctive perception are,
indeed, all working together; and so his picture of human life in
"Amaryllis" brings with it as convincing and as fresh a breath of life
as we find in Cobbett's, Waugh's and Barnes' country writings. When a
writer arrives at being perfectly natural in his atmosphere, his style
and his subject seem to become one. He moves easily and surely. Out of
the splintered mass of ideas and emotions, out of the sensations, the
observations and revelations of his youth, and the atmosphere familiar
to him through long feeling, he builds up a subtle and cunning picture
for us, a complete illusion of life more true than the reality. For what
prosaic people call the reality is merely the co-ordination in their own
minds of perhaps a thousandth part of aspects of the life around them;
and only this thousandth part they have noticed. But the creative mind
builds up a living picture out of the thousands of aspects most of us
are congenitally blind to. This is what Jefferies has done in "Amaryllis
at the Fair." The book is rich in the contradictory forces of life, in
its quick twists and turns: we feel in it there is nature working alike
in the leaves of grass outside the Idens' house, in the blustering winds
round the walls, and in the minds of the characters indoors; and the
style has the freshness of the April wind. Everything is growing,
changing, breathing in the book. But the accomplished critics do not
notice these trivial strengths. It is enough for them that Jefferies was
not a novelist! Indeed, Mr. Saintsbury apparently thinks that Jefferies
made a mistake in drawing his philosophy from an open-air study of
nature, for he writes: "Unfortunately for Jefferies his philosophic
background was not like Wordsworth's clear and cheerful, but wholly
vague and partly gloomy." It was neither vague nor gloomy, we may
remark, parenthetically, but we may admit that Jefferies saw too deeply
into nature's workings, and had too sensuous a joy in life to interpret
all Nature's doings, à la Wordsworth, and lend them a portentously moral
significance.
The one charge that may with truth be brought against "Amaryllis at the
Fair" is that its digressions damage the artistic illusion of the whole.
The book shows the carelessness, the haste, the roughness of a sketch, a
sketch, moreover, which Jefferies was not destined to carry to the end
he had planned, but we repeat, let us be thankful that its artistic
weaknesses are those of a sketch direct from nature, rather than those
of an ambitious studio picture. And these digressions are an integral
part of the book's character, just as the face of a man has its own
blemishes: they are one with the spirit of the whole, and so, if they
break somewhat the illusion of the scenes, they do not damage its
spiritual unity. It is this spiritual unity on which we must insist,
because "Amaryllis" is indeed Jefferies' last and complete testament on
human life. He wrote it, or rather dictated it to his wife, as he lay in
pain, slowly dying, and he has put into it the frankness of a dying man.
How real, how solid, how deliciously sweet seemed those simple earthly
joys, those human appetites of healthy, vigorous men to him! how intense
is his passion and spiritual hunger for the beauty of earth! Like a
flame shooting up from the log it is consuming, so this passion for the
green earth, for the earth in wind and rain and sunshine, consumes the
wasted, consumptive body of the dying man. The reality, the solidity of
the homely farmhouse life he describes spring from the intensity with
which he clings to all he loves, the cold March wind buffeting the face,
the mating cries of the birds in the hot spring sunshine. Life is so
terribly strong, so deliciously real, so full of man's unsatisfied
hungry ache for happiness; and sweet is the craving, bitter the
knowledge of the unfulfilment. So, inspiring and vivifying the whole, in
every line of "Amaryllis" is Jefferies' philosophy of life. Jefferies
"did not understand human nature," say the accomplished critics. Did he
not? "Amaryllis at the Fair" is one of the truest criticisms of human
life, oh reader, you are likely to meet with. The mixedness of things,
the old, old human muddle, the meanness and stupidity and
shortsightedness of humanity, the good salty taste of life in the
healthy mouth, the spirituality of love, the strong earthy roots of
appetite, man's lust of life, with circumstances awry, and the sharp
wind blowing alike on the just and the unjust--all is there on the
printed page of "Amaryllis at the Fair." The song of the wind and the
roar of London unite and mingle therein for those who do not bring the
exacting eye of superiority to this most human book.
EDWARD GARNETT.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Reprinted in part from "The Academy" of April 4th, 1903.
[Illustration]
AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR.
CHAPTER I.
AMARYLLIS found the first daffodil flowering by the damask rose, and
immediately ran to call her father to come and see it.
There are no damask roses now, like there used to be in summer at Coombe
Oaks. I have never seen one since I last gathered one from that very
bush. There are many grand roses, but no fragrance--the fragrance is
gone out of life. Instinctively as I pass gardens in summer I look under
the shade of the trees for the old roses, but they are not to be found.
The dreary nurseries of evergreens and laurels--cemeteries they should
be called, cemeteries in appearance and cemeteries of taste--are
innocent of such roses. They show you an acre of what they call roses
growing out of dirty straw, spindly things with a knob on the top,
which even dew can hardly sweeten. "No call for damask roses--wouldn't
pay to grow they. Single they was, I thinks. No good. These be cut every
morning and fetched by the flower-girls for gents' button-holes and
ladies' jackets. You won't get no damask roses; they be died out."
I think in despite of the nurseryman, or cemetery-keeper, that with
patience I could get a damask rose even now by inquiring about from
farmhouse to farmhouse. In time some old farmer, with a good old taste
for old roses and pinks, would send me one; I have half a mind to try.
But, alas! it is no use, I have nowhere to put it; I rent a house which
is built in first-rate modern style, though small, of course, and there
is a "garden" to it, but no place to put a damask rose. No place,
because it is not "home," and I cannot plant except round "home." The
plot or "patch" the landlord calls "the garden"--it is about as wide as
the border round a patch, old style--is quite vacant, bare, and contains
nothing but mould. It is nothing to me, and I cannot plant it.
Not only are there no damask roses, but there is no place for them
now-a-days, no "home," only villas and rented houses. Anything rented in
a town can never be "home."
Farms that were practically taken on a hundred and twenty, or fifty, or
perhaps two hundred years' leases were "homes." Consequently they had
damask roses, bees, and birds about them.
There had been daffodils in that spot at least a century, opening every
March to the dry winds that shrivel up the brown dead leaves of winter,
and carry them out from the bushes under the trees, sending them across
the meadow--fleeing like a routed army before the bayonets of the East.
Every spring for a century at least the daffodils had bloomed there.
Amaryllis did not stay to think of the century, but ran round the corner
of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her
with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were
blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of
her shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched against the red
brick wall. She laughed, but the strong gale filled her throat as if a
hand had been thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife under
her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs, and seemed as if it would
scoop them out; her eyes were wet with involuntary tears; her lips dried
up and parched in a moment. The wind went through her thick stockings as
if the wool was nothing. She lifted her hand to defend her eyes, and the
skin of her arm became "goosey" directly. Had she worn hat or bonnet it
would have flown. Stooping forwards, she pushed step by step, and
gradually reached the shelter of the high garden wall; there she could
stand upright, and breathe again.
Her lips, which had been whitened by the keen blast, as if a storm of
ice particles had been driven against them, now resumed their scarlet,
but her ears were full of dust and reddened, and her curly dark hair was
dry and rough and without gloss. Each separate hair separated itself
from the next, and would not lie smooth--the natural unctuous essence
which usually caused them to adhere was dried up.
The wind had blown thus round that corner every March for a century, and
in no degree abated its bitter force because a beautiful human child,
full of the happiness of a flower, came carelessly into its power.
Nothing ever shows the least consideration for human creatures.
The moss on the ridge of the wall under which she stood to breathe
looked shrivelled and thin, the green tint dried out of it. A sparrow
with a straw tried hard to reach the eaves of the house to put it in his
nest, but the depending straw was caught by the breeze as a sail, and
carried him past.
Under the wall was a large patch recently dug, beside the patch a grass
path, and on the path a wheelbarrow. A man was busy putting in potatoes;
he wore the raggedest coat ever seen on a respectable back. As the wind
lifted the tails it was apparent that the lining was loose and only hung
by threads, the cuffs were worn through, there was a hole beneath each
arm, and on each shoulder the nap of the cloth was gone; the colour,
which had once been grey, was now a mixture of several soils and
numerous kinds of grit. The hat he had on was no better; it might have
been made of some hard pasteboard, it was so bare. Every now and then
the wind brought a few handfuls of dust over the wall from the road, and
dropped it on his stooping back.
The way in which he was planting potatoes was wonderful, every potato
was placed at exactly the right distance apart, and a hole made for it
in the general trench; before it was set it was looked at and turned
over, and the thumb rubbed against it to be sure that it was sound, and
when finally put in, a little mould was delicately adjusted round to
keep it in its right position till the whole row was buried. He carried
the potatoes in his coat pocket--those, that is, for the row--and took
them out one by one; had he been planting his own children he could not
have been more careful. The science, the skill, and the experience
brought to this potato-planting you would hardly credit; for all this
care was founded upon observation, and arose from very large abilities
on the part of the planter, though directed to so humble a purpose at
that moment.
So soon as Amaryllis had recovered breath, she ran down the grass path
and stood by the wheelbarrow, but although her shadow fell across the
potato row, he would not see her.
"Pa," she said, not very loud. "Pa," growing bolder. "Do come--there's a
daffodil out, the very, very first."
"Oh," a sound like a growl--"oh," from the depth of a vast chest
heaving out a doubtful note.
"It is such a beautiful colour!"
"Where is your mother?" looking at her askance and still stooping.
"Indoors--at least--I think--no----"
"Haven't you got no sewing? Can't you help her? What good be you on?"
"But this is such a lovely daffodil, and the very first--now do come!"
"Flowers bean't no use on; such trumpery as that; what do'ee want
a-messing about arter thaay? You'll never be no good on; you ain't never
got a apron on."
"But--just a minute now."
"Go on in, and be some use on."
Amaryllis' lip fell; she turned and walked slowly away along the path,
her head drooping forward.
Did ever anyone have a beautiful idea or feeling without being repulsed?
She had not reached the end of the path, however, when the father began
to change his attitude; he stood up, dropped his "dibbler," scraped his
foot on his spade, and, grumbling to himself, went after her. She did
not see or hear him till he overtook her.
"Please, I'll go and do the sewing," she said.
"Where be this yer flower?" gruffly.
"I'll show you," taking his ragged arm, and brightening up immediately.
"Only think, to open in all this wind, and so cold--isn't it beautiful?
It's much more beautiful than the flowers that come in the summer."
"Trumpery rubbish--mean to dig 'em all up--would if I had time,"
muttered the father. "Have 'em carted out and drowed away--do for ashes
to drow on the fields. Never no good on to nobody, thaay thengs. You
can't eat 'em, can you, like you can potatoes?"
"But it's lovely. Here it is," and Amaryllis stepped on the patch
tenderly, and lifted up the drooping face of the flower.
"Ah, yes," said Iden, putting his left hand to his chin, a habit of his
when thinking, and suddenly quite altering his pronunciation from that
of the country folk and labourers amongst whom he dwelt to the correct
accent of education. "Ah, yes; the daffodil was your great-uncle's
favourite flower."
"Richard?" asked Amaryllis.
"Richard," repeated Iden. And Amaryllis, noting how handsome her
father's intellectual face looked, wandered in her mind from the flower
as he talked, and marvelled how he could be so rough sometimes, and why
he talked like the labourers, and wore a ragged coat--he who was so full
of wisdom in his other moods, and spoke, and thought, and indeed acted
as a perfect gentleman.
"Richard's favourite flower," he went on. "He brought the daffodils down
from Luckett's; every one in the garden came from there. He was always
reading poetry, and writing, and sketching, and yet he was such a
capital man of business; no one could understand that. He built the
mill, and saved heaps of money; he bought back the old place at
Luckett's, which belonged to us before Queen Elizabeth's days; indeed,
he very nearly made up the fortunes Nicholas and the rest of them got
rid of. He was, indeed, a man. And now it is all going again--faster
than he made it. He used to take you on his knee and say you would walk
well, because you had a good ankle."
Amaryllis blushed and smoothed her dress with her hands, as if that
would lengthen the skirt and hide the ankles which Richard, the
great-uncle, had admired when she was a child, being a man, but which
her feminine acquaintances told her were heavy.
"Here, put on your hat and scarf; how foolish of you to go out in this
wind without them!" said Mrs. Iden, coming out. She thrust them into
Amaryllis' unwilling hands, and retired indoors again immediately.
"He was the only one of all the family," continued her father, "who
could make money; all the rest could do nothing but spend it. For ten
generations he was the only money-maker and saver, and yet he was as
free and liberal as possible. Very curious, wasn't it?--only one in ten
generations--difficult to understand why none of the others--why----" He
paused, thinking.
Amaryllis, too, was silent, thinking--thinking how easily her papa could
make money, great heaps of money. She was sure he could if he tried,
instead of planting potatoes.
"If only another Richard would rise up like him!" said Iden.
This was a very unreasonable wish, for, having had one genius in the
family, and that, too, in the memory of man, they could not expect
another. Even vast empires rarely produce more than one great man in all
the course of their history. There was but one Cæsar in the thousand
years of Rome; Greece never had one as a nation, unless we except
Themistocles, or unless we accept Alexander, who was a Macedonian;
Persia had a Cyrus; there was a Tamerlane somewhere, but few people know
anything of the empire he overshadows with his name; France has had two
mighty warriors, Charlemagne and Napoleon--unfortunate France! As for
ourselves, fortunate islanders! we have never had a great man so
immensely great as to overtop the whole, like Charlemagne in his day.
Fortunate for us, indeed, that it has been so. But the best example to
the point is the case of the immense empire of Russia, which has had one
Peter the Great, and one only. Great-uncle Richard was the Peter the
Great of his family, whose work had been slowly undone by his
successors.
"I wonder whether any of us will ever turn out like Richard," continued
Iden. "No one could deny him long; he had a way of persuading and
convincing people, and always got his own will in the end. Wonderful
man!" he pondered, returning towards his work.
Suddenly the side door opened, and Mrs. Iden just peered out, and cried,
"Put your hat and scarf on directly."
Amaryllis put the hat on, and wound the scarf very loosely about her
neck. She accompanied her father to the potato patch, hoping that he
would go on talking, but he was quickly absorbed in the potatoes. She
watched him stooping till his back was an arch; in fact, he had stooped
so much that now he could not stand upright, though still in the prime
of life; if he stood up and stretched himself, still his back was bowed
at the shoulders. He worked so hard--ever since she could remember she
had seen him working like this; he was up in the morning while it was
yet dark tending the cattle; sometimes he was up all night with them,
wind or weather made no difference. Other people stopped indoors if it
rained much, but it made no difference to her father, nor did the deep
snow or the sharp frosts. Always at work, and he could talk so cleverly,
too, and knew everything, and yet they were so short of money. How could
this be?
What a fallacy it is that hard work is the making of money; I could show
you plenty of men who have worked the whole of their lives as hard as
ever could possibly be, and who are still as far off independence as
when they began. In fact, that is the rule; the winning of independence
is rarely the result of work, else nine out of ten would be well-to-do.
[Illustration]