LOOKING BACK.
Then you seriously suppose, doctor, that gardening is good for the
constitution?
I do. For kings, lords, and commons. Grow your own cabbages. Sow
your own turnips, and if you wish for a gray head, cultivate
carrots.
THOMAS HOOD.
Conceit is not encouraged in the country. Your level is decided for
you, and the public opinion is soon reported as something you should
know.
As a witty spinster once remarked: “It’s no use to fib about your age
in your native village. Some old woman always had a calf born the same
night you were!”
Jake Corey was refreshingly frank. He would give me a quizzical look,
shift his quid, and begin:
“Spent a sight o’ money on hens, hain’t ye? Wall, by next year I guess
you’ll find out whether ye want to quit foolin’ with hens or not. Now,
my hens doan’t git no condition powder, nor sun-flower seeds, nor no
such nonsense, and I ain’t got no bone cutter nor fancy fountains for
’em; but I let ’em scratch for themselves and have their liberty, and
mine look full better’n your’n. I’ll give ye one p’int. You could save
a lot by engagin’ an old hoss that’s got to be killed. I’m allers
looking round in the fall of the year for some old critter just ready
to drop. Wait till cold weather, and then, when he’s killed, hang half
of him up in the hen house and see how they’ll pick at it. It’s the
best feed going for hens, and makes ’em lay right along. Doan’t cost
nothin’ either.”
I had been asked to give a lecture in a neighboring town, and, to
change the subject, inquired if he thought many would attend. Jake
looked rather blank, took off his cap, scratched his head, and then
said:
“I dunno. Ef you was a Beecher or a Gough you could fill the hall, or
may be ef your more known like, and would talk to ’em free, you might
git ’em, or if you’s going to sing or dress up to make ’em larf; but
_as ’tis_, I dunno.” After the effort was over I tried to sound him as
to my success. He was unusually reticent, and would only say: “Wall,
the only man I heard speak on’t, said ’twas different from anything
he ever heard.” This reminded me of a capital story told me by an old
family doctor many years ago. It was that sort of anecdote now out of
fashion with _raconteurs_—a long preamble, many details, a gradual
increase of interest, and a vivid climax, and when told by a sick bed
would sometimes weary the patient. A man not especially well known had
given a lecture in a New Hampshire town without rousing much enthusiasm
in his audience, and as he rode away on the top of the stage coach
next morning he tried to get some sort of opinion from Jim Barker, the
driver. After pumping in vain for a compliment the gentleman inquired:
“Did you hear nothing about my lecture from any of the people? I should
like very much to get some idea of how it was received.”
“Wall, no, stranger, I can’t say as I heerd much. I guess the folks was
purty well pleased. No one seemed to be ag’in it but Square Lothrop.”
“And may I ask what he said?”
“Wall, I wouldn’t mind it, if I’se you, what he said. He says just what
he thinks—right out with it, no matter who’s hurt—and he usually gets
the gist on’t. But I wouldn’t mind what he said, the public was purty
generally pleased.” And the long whip lash cracks and Jim shouts, “Get
an, Dandy.”
“Yes,” persisted the tortured man; “but I do want very much to know
what Squire Lothrop’s opinion was.”
“Now, stranger, I wouldn’t think any more about the Square. He’s got
good common sense and allers hits the nail on the head, but as I said,
you pleased ’em fust rate.”
“Yes, but I must know what Squire Lothrop did say.”
“Wall, if you will have it, he did say (and he’s apt to get the gist
on’t) he did say that _he_ thought ’twas _awful shaller_!”
Many epigrammatic sayings come back to me, and one is too good to be
omitted, An old woman was fiercely criticising a neighbor and ended
in this way: “Folks that pretend to be somebody, and don’t act like
nobody, ain’t anybody!”
Another woman reminded me of Mrs. Partington. She told blood-curdling
tales of the positive reappearance of departed spirits, and when I
said, “Do you really believe all this?” she replied, “Indeed, I do, and
yet I’m not an _imaginary_ woman!” Her dog was provoked into a conflict
with my setters, and she exclaimed: “Why, I never saw him so completely
_ennervated_.”
Then the dear old lady who said she was a free thinker and wasn’t
ashamed of it; guessed she knew as much as the minister ’bout this
world or the next; liked nothing better than to set down Sunday
afternoons after she’d fed her hens and read Ingersoll. “What books of
his have you?” I asked.
She handed me a small paper-bound volume which did not look like any of
“Bob’s” productions. It was a Guide Book through Picturesque Vermont by
Ernest Ingersoll!
And I must not omit the queer sayings of a simple-hearted hired man on
a friend’s farm.
Oh, for a photo of him as I saw him one cold, rainy morning tending
Jason Kibby’s dozen cows. He had on a rubber coat and cap, but
his trouser legs were rolled above the knee and he was barefoot,
“Hannibal,” I shouted, “you’ll take cold with your feet in that wet
grass!”
“Gueth not, Marm,” he lisped back cheerily. “I never cared for shooth
mythelf.”
He was always shouting across the way to inquire if “_thith_ wath hot
enough or cold enough to thute _me_?” As if I had expressed a strong
desire for phenomenal extremes of temperature. One morning he suddenly
departed. I met him trudging along with three hats jammed on to his
head and a rubber coat under his arm, for ’twas a fine day.
“Why, Hanny!” I exclaimed, “where are you going in such haste?”
“Mithter Kibby told me to go to Halifax, and—I’m going!”
Next, the man who was anxious to go into partnership with me. He
would work my farm at halves, or I could buy his farm, cranberry bog,
and woodland, and he would live right on there and run that place at
halves; urged me to buy twelve or fourteen cows cheap in the fall and
start a milk route, he to be the active partner; then he had a chance
to buy a lot of “essences” cheap, and if I’d purchase a peddling-wagon,
he’d put in his old horse, and we’d go halves on that business, or I
could buy up a lot of calves or young pigs and he’d feed ’em and we’d
go halves.
But I will not take you through my entire picture-gallery, as I have
two good stories to tell you before saying good-by.
Depressing remarks have reached me about my “lakelet,” which at first
was ridiculed by every one. The struggle of evolution from the “spring
hole” was severe and protracted. Experts were summoned, their estimates
of cost ranging from four hundred to one thousand dollars, and no one
thought it worth while to touch it. It was discouraging. Venerable and
enormous turtles hid in its muddy depths and snapped at the legs of
the ducks as they dived, adding a limp to the waddle; frogs croaked
there dismally; mosquitoes made it a camping ground and head center;
big black water snakes often came to drink and lingered by the edge;
the ugly horn pout was the only fish that could live there. Depressing,
in contrast with my rosy dreams! But now the little lake is a charming
reality, and the boat is built and launched. Turtles, pout, lily roots
as big as small trees, and two hundred loads of “alluvial deposit” are
no longer “in it,” while carp are promised me by my friend Commissioner
Blackford. The “Tomtoolan”[2] is not a large body of water—one hundred
and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide—but it is a delight to me
and has been grossly traduced by ignorant or envious outsiders. The
day after the “Katy-Did” was christened (a flat-bottomed boat, painted
prettily with blue and gold) I invited a lady to try it with me. Flags
were fluttering from stem and stern. We took a gayly colored horn to
toot as we went, and two dippers to bail, if necessary. It was not
exactly “Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm,” but we were very
jolly and not a little proud.
[Footnote 2: Named in honor of the amateur engineers.]
A neglected knot-hole soon caused the boat to leak badly. We had made
but one circuit, when we were obliged to “hug the shore” and devote
our entire energies to bailing. “Tip her a little more,” I cried, and
the next instant we were both rolled into the water. It was an absurd
experience, and after scrambling out, our clothes so heavy we could
scarcely step, we vowed, between hysteric fits of laughter, to keep our
tip-over a profound secret.
But the next time I went to town, friends began to smile mysteriously,
asked me if I had been out on the lake yet, made sly and jocose
allusions to a sudden change to Baptistic faith, and if I cordially
invited them to join me in a row, would declare a preference for
surf and salt water, or, if pressed, would murmur in the meanest way
something about having a bath-tub at home.
It is now nearly a year since that little adventure, but it is still a
subject of mirth, even in other towns. A friend calling yesterday told
me the version he had just heard at Gillford, ten miles away!
“You bet they have comical goings-on at that woman’s farm by the
Gooseville depot! She got a regular menagerie, fust off—everything she
see or could hear of. Got sick o’ the circus bizness, and went into
potatoes deep. They say she was actually up and outdoors by day-break,
working and worrying over the tater bugs!
“She’s a red-headed, fleshy woman, and some of our folks going by
in the cars would tell of seeing her tramping up and down the long
furrows, with half a dozen boys hired to help her. Soon as she’d
killed most of her own, a million more just traveled over from the
field opposite where they had had their own way and cleaned out most
everything. Then, what the bugs spared, the long rains rotted. So I
hear she’s giv’ up potatoes.
“Then she got sot on scooping out a seven by nine mud hole to make a
pond, and had a boat built to match.
“Well, by darn, she took a stout woman in with her, and, as I heerd it,
that boat just giv’ one groan, and sunk right down!”
As to the potatoes, I might never have escaped from that terrific
thralldom, if a city friend, after hearing my woful experience, had not
inquired quietly:
“Why have potatoes? It’s much cheaper to buy all you need!”
I had been laboring under a strange spell—supposed I _must_ plant
potatoes; the relief is unspeakable.
Jennie June once said, “The great art of life is to _eliminate_.” I
admired the condensed wisdom of this, but, like experience, it only
serves to illume the path over which I have passed.
One little incident occurred this spring which is too funny to
withhold. Among the groceries ordered from Boston was a piece of extra
fine cheese. A connoisseur in cheese had advised me to try it. It
recommended itself so strongly that I placed it carefully under glass,
in a place all by itself. It _was_ strong—strong enough to sew buttons
on, strong as Sampson, strong enough to walk away alone. One warm
morning it seemed to have gained during the night. Its penetrating,
permeating power was something, almost supernatural. I carried it from
one place to another, each time more remote. It would not be lonely if
segregrated, doubtless it had ample social facilities within itself!
At last I became desperate. “Ellen,” I exclaimed, “just bring in that
cheese and burn it. It comes high, too high. I can not endure it.”
She opened the top of the range and, as the cremation was going on, I
continued my comments. “Why, in all my life, I never knew anything like
it; wherever I put it—in pantry, swing cupboard, on the cellar stairs,
in a tin box, on top of the refrigerator—way out on that—” Just then
Tom opened the door and said:
“Miss, your fertilizer’s come!”
I have told you of my mistakes, failures, losses, but have you any idea
of my daily delights, my lasting gains?
From invalidism to health, from mental depression to exuberant spirits,
that is the blessed record of two years of amateur farming. What has
done this? Exercise, actual hard work, digging in the dirt. We are made
of dust, and the closer our companionship with Mother Earth in summer
time the longer we shall keep above ground. Then the freedom from
conventional restraints of dress; no necessity for “crimps,” no need of
foreign hirsute adornment, no dresses with tight arm holes and trailing
skirts, no high-heeled slippers with pointed toes, but comfort, clear
comfort, indoors and out.
Plenty of rocking chairs, lounges that make one sleepy just to look
at them, open fires in every room, and nothing too fine for the sun
to glorify; butter, eggs, cream, vegetables, poultry—simply perfect,
and the rare, ecstatic privilege of eating onions—onions raw, boiled,
baked, and fried at any hour or all hours. I said comfort; it is luxury!
Dr. Holmes says: “I have seen respectability and amiability grouped
over the air-tight stove, I have seen virtue and intelligence hovering
over the register, but I have never seen true happiness in a family
circle where the faces were not illuminated by the blaze of an open
fireplace.” And nature! I could fill pages with glowing descriptions
of Days Outdoors. In my own homely pasture I have found the dainty
wild rose, the little field strawberries so fragrant and spicy, the
blue berries high and low, so desirable for “pie-fodder,” and daisies
and ferns in abundance, and, in an adjoining meadow by the brookside,
the cardinal flower and the blue gentian. All these simple pleasures
seem better to me than sitting in heated, crowded rooms listening to
interminable music, or to men or women who never know when to stop,
or rushing round to gain more information on anything and everything
from Alaska to Zululand, and wildly struggling to catch up with “social
duties.”
City friends, looking at the other side of the shield, marvel at my
contentment, and regard me as buried alive. But when I go back for a
short time to the old life I am fairly homesick. I miss my daily visit
to the cows and the frolic with the dogs. All that has been unpleasant
fades like a dream.
I think of the delicious morning hours on the broad vine-covered
piazza, the evenings with their starry splendor or witching moonlight,
the nights of sound sleep and refreshing rest, the all-day picnics, the
jolly drives with friends as charmed with country life as myself, and I
weary of social functions and overpowering intellectual privileges, and
every other advantage of the metropolis, and long to migrate once more
from Gotham to Gooseville.
“Dear country life of child and man!
For both the best, the strongest,
That with the earliest race began,
And hast outlived the longest,
Their cities perished long ago;
Who the first farmers were we know.”
THE END.