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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under +the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or +online at http://www.gutenberg.org/license + + + +Title: More Jonathan Papers + +Author: Elisabeth Woodbridge + +Release Date: December 19, 2006 [Ebook #20141] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 +--> + +<!DOCTYPE TEI.2 SYSTEM "http://www.gutenberg.org/tei/marcello/0.4/dtd/pgtei.dtd"> + +<TEI.2 lang="en"> + +<teiHeader> + <fileDesc> + <titleStmt> + <title>More Jonathan Papers</title> + <author><name reg="Woodbridge, Elisabeth">Elisabeth Woodbridge</name></author> + </titleStmt> + <editionStmt> + <edition n="1">Edition 1</edition> + </editionStmt> + <publicationStmt> + <publisher>Project Gutenberg</publisher> + <date value="2006-12-19">December 19, 2006</date> + <idno type="etext-no">20141</idno> + <idno type='DPid'>projectID453cb97c88c09</idno> + <availability> + <p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and + with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it + away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg + License online at www.gutenberg.org/license</p> + </availability> + </publicationStmt> + <sourceDesc> + <bibl> + <title>More Jonathan Papers</title> + <author>Elisabeth Woodbridge</author> + <imprint> + <publisher>The Riverside Press</publisher> + <pubPlace>Cambridge</pubPlace> + <date>1915</date> + </imprint> + </bibl> + </sourceDesc> + </fileDesc> + <encodingDesc> + <projectDesc> + <p>Produced by Roland Schlenker + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at + <http://www.pgdp.net/c>.</p> + <p>Page-images available at + <http://www.pgdp.net/projects/projectID453cb97c88c09/></p> + </projectDesc> + <editorialDecl> + <p>The Proofreading and Formatting Guidelines Version 1.9.c, + generated January 1, 2006 at <http://www.pgdp.net/> were + used to transcribe this text.</p> + <p>Corrections were made when it was obvious a mistake was made in the + original text. An errata is supplied to locate these corrections.</p> + <p>Normalizations were made to representation of time, 10.38 to 10:38. + An errata is supplied to locate these normalizations.</p> + <p>Contractions of the form would n't have be changed to wouldn't. No + information has been kept as to the location of these changes.</p> + <p>Contractions of the forms; 't and 'em; have not been changed.</p> + <p>Quotation marks have been changed to TEI + encoding <q> and </q>.</p> + <p>Hyphenated words at the end of line or end of page have had + their hyphens removed. The second part of the hyphenated word + has been moved to the previous line or page. No information + has been kept as to the location of these changes.</p> + <p>Characters not in ASCII 7-bit have been changed to TEI entities.</p> + </editorialDecl> + <classDecl> + <taxonomy id="lc"> + <bibl> + <title>Library of Congress Classification</title> + </bibl> + </taxonomy> + </classDecl> + </encodingDesc> + <profileDesc> + <langUsage> + <language id="en">English</language> + </langUsage> + <textClass> + <classCode scheme="lc">PS</classCode> + <classCode scheme="lc">PZ</classCode> + <keywords scheme="lc"> + <list> + <item>American literature -- + By period -- 20th century</item> + <item>American literature -- + Individual authors -- 1900-1960</item> + <item>Fiction and juvenile belles lettres -- + Fiction in English</item> + </list> + </keywords> + </textClass> + </profileDesc> + <revisionDesc> + <change> + <date value="2006-12-19">December 19, 2006</date> + <respStmt> + <name>Roland Schlenker and<lb /></name> + <name>Online Distributed Proofreading Team</name> + </respStmt> + <item>Project Gutenberg Edition</item> + </change> + </revisionDesc> +</teiHeader> + +<text lang="en"> + +<front> + <div> + <divGen type="pgheader" /> + </div> + + <div> + <divGen type="encodingDesc" /> + </div> + + <titlePage rend="page-break-before: right; text-align: center"> + <pb n="iiii"/><anchor id="Pgiiii"/> + <docTitle> + <titlePart type="main" rend="font-size: xx-large"> + More Jonathan Papers<lb/> + <lb/> + </titlePart> + </docTitle> + <byline rend="font-size: large">By<lb/> + <docAuthor>Elisabeth Woodbridge</docAuthor><lb/> + <lb/> + </byline> + <docImprint> + BOSTON AND NEW YORK<lb/> + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<lb/> + The Riverside Press Cambridge<lb/> + </docImprint> + <docDate>1915</docDate> + </titlePage> + + <div rend="page-break-before: always; text-align: center; font-size: x-small" + type="verso"> + <pb n="v"/><anchor id="Pgv"/> + <p>COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY ELISABETH WOODBRIDGE MORRIS<lb/> + <lb/> + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED<lb/> + <lb/> + <hi rend="font-style: italic">Published November 1915</hi></p> + </div> + + <div rend="page-break-before: right" type="dedication"> + <pb n="vi"/><anchor id="Pgvi"/> + <p rend="text-align: center">TO<lb/> + JONATHAN</p> + </div> + + <!-- <pb n="vii"/><anchor id="Pgvii"/> + Blank Page --> + + <div rend="page-break-before: right"> + <pb n="viii"/><anchor id="Pgviii"/> + <index index="pdf"/> + <head rend="text-align: center">Contents</head> + <divGen type="toc"/> + </div> + + <!-- <pb n="ix"/><anchor id="Pgix"/> + Blank Page --> +</front> + +<body> + +<div rend="page-break-before: right" id="chapter01"> +<pb n="001"/><anchor id="Pg001"/> +<index index="toc" level1="I. The Searchings of Jonathan"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="I. The Searchings of Jonathan"/> +<head type="sub"><hi rend="font-size: xx-large">More Jonathan Papers</hi></head> +<head rend="text-align: center">I</head> +<head type="sub">The Searchings of Jonathan</head> + +<p><q>What I find it hard to understand is, why a +person who can see a spray of fringed gentian +in the middle of a meadow can’t see a book on +the sitting-room table.</q></p> + +<p><q>The reason why I can see the gentian,</q> +said Jonathan, <q>is because the gentian is +there.</q></p> + +<p><q>So is the book,</q> I responded.</p> + +<p><q>Which table?</q> he asked.</p> + +<p><q>The one with the lamp on it. It’s a red +book, about <hi rend="font-style: italic">so</hi> big.</q></p> + +<p><q>It isn’t there; but, just to satisfy you, +I’ll look again.</q></p> + +<p>He returned in a moment with an argumentative +expression of countenance. <q>It +isn’t there,</q> he said firmly. <q>Will anything +else do instead?</q></p> +<pb n="002"/><anchor id="Pg002"/> + +<p><q>No, I wanted you to read that special +thing. Oh, dear! And I have all these things +in my lap! And I know it <hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> +there.</q></p> + +<p><q>And I <hi rend="font-style: italic">know</hi> it +isn’t.</q> He stretched himself +out in the hammock and watched me as +I rather ostentatiously laid down thimble, +scissors, needle, cotton, and material and set +out for the sitting-room table. There were a +number of books on it, to be sure. I glanced +rapidly through the piles, fingered the lower +books, pushed aside a magazine, and pulled +out from beneath it the book I wanted. I +returned to the hammock and handed it over. +Then, after possessing myself, again rather +ostentatiously, of material, cotton, needle, +scissors, and thimble, I sat down.</p> + +<p><q>It’s the second essay I specially thought +we’d like,</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>Just for curiosity,</q> said Jonathan, with +an impersonal air, <q>where did you find it?</q></p> + +<p><q>Find what?</q> I asked innocently.</p> + +<p><q>The book.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh! On the table.</q></p> + +<p><q>Which table?</q></p> + +<p><q>The one with the lamp on it.</q></p> + +<p><q>I should like to know where.</q></p> +<pb n="003"/><anchor id="Pg003"/> + +<p><q>Why—just there—on the table. There +was an <q>Atlantic</q> on top of it, to be sure.</q></p> + +<p><q>I saw the <q>Atlantic.</q> Blest if it looked as +though it had anything under it! Besides, +I was looking for it on top of things. You +said you laid it down there just before luncheon, +and I didn’t think it could have crawled +in under so quick.</q></p> + +<p><q>When you’re looking for a thing,</q> I said, +<q>you mustn’t think, you must look. Now +go ahead and read.</q></p> + +<p>If this were a single instance, or even if it +were one of many illustrating a common +human frailty, it would hardly be worth setting +down. But the frailty under consideration +has come to seem to me rather particularly +masculine. Are not all the Jonathans +in the world continually being sent to some +sitting-room table for something, and coming +back to assert, with more or less pleasantness, +according to their temperament, that it is not +there? The incident, then, is not isolated; it +is typical of a vast group. For Jonathan, read +Everyman; for the red book, read any particular +thing that you want Him to bring; +for the sitting-room table, read the place +<pb n="004"/><anchor id="Pg004"/> +where you know it is and Everyman says it +isn’t.</p> + +<p>This, at least, is my thesis. It is not, however, +unchallenged. Jonathan has challenged +it when, from time to time, as occasion offered, +I have lightly sketched it out for him. +Sometimes he argues that my instances are +really isolated cases and that their evidence +is not cumulative, at others he takes refuge +in a <hi rend="font-style: italic">tu quoque</hi>—in +itself a confession of weakness—and +alludes darkly to <q>top shelves</q> +and <q>bottom drawers.</q> But let us have no +mysteries. These phrases, considered as arguments, +have their origin in certain incidents +which, that all the evidence may be in, I will +here set down.</p> + +<p>Once upon a time I asked Jonathan to get +me something from the top shelf in the closet. +He went, and failed to find it. Then I went, +and took it down. Jonathan, watching over +my shoulder, said, <q>But that wasn’t the top +shelf, I suppose you will admit.</q></p> + +<p>Sure enough! There was a shelf above. +<q>Oh, yes; but I don’t count that shelf. We +never use it, because nobody can reach +it.</q></p> +<pb n="005"/><anchor id="Pg005"/> + +<p><q>How do you expect me to know which +shelves you count and which you don’t?</q></p> + +<p><q>Of course, anatomically—structurally—it +is one, but functionally it isn’t there at all.</q></p> + +<p><q>I see,</q> said Jonathan, so contentedly that +I knew he was filing this affair away for future +use.</p> + +<p>On another occasion I asked him to get +something for me from the top drawer of the +old <q>high-boy</q> in the dining-room. He was +gone a long while, and at last, growing impatient, +I followed. I found him standing on +an old wooden-seated chair, screw-driver in +hand. A drawer on a level with his head was +open, and he had hanging over his arm +a gaudy collection of ancient table-covers +and embroidered scarfs, mostly in shades of +magenta.</p> + +<p><q>She stuck, but I’ve got her open now. +I don’t see any pillow-cases, though. It’s all +full of these things.</q> He pumped his laden +arm up and down, and the table-covers +wagged gayly.</p> + +<p>I sank into the chair and laughed. <q>Oh! +Have you been prying at that all this time? +Of <hi rend="font-style: italic">course</hi> there’s nothing in +<hi rend="font-style: italic">that</hi> drawer.</q></p> +<pb n="006"/><anchor id="Pg006"/> + +<p><q>There’s where you’re wrong. There’s a +great deal in it; I haven’t taken out half. If +you want to see—</q></p> + +<p><q>I <hi rend="font-style: italic">don’t</hi> want to see! +There’s nothing I +want less! What I mean is—I never put +anything there.</q></p> + +<p><q>It’s the top drawer.</q> He was beginning +to lay back the table-covers.</p> + +<p><q>But I can’t reach it. And it’s been stuck +for ever so long.</q></p> + +<p><q>You said the top drawer.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I suppose I did. Of course what I +meant was the top one of the ones I use.</q></p> + +<p><q>I see, my dear. When you say top shelf +you don’t mean top shelf, and when you say +top drawer you don’t mean top drawer; in +fact, when you say top you don’t mean top +at all—you mean the height of your head. +Everything above that doesn’t count.</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan was so pleased with this formulation +of my attitude that he was not in the +least irritated to have put out unnecessary +work. And his satisfaction was deepened by +one more incident. I had sent him to the +bottom drawer of my bureau to get a shawl. +He returned without it, and I was puzzled. +<pb n="007"/><anchor id="Pg007"/> +<q>Now, Jonathan, it’s there, and it’s the top +thing.</q></p> + +<p><q>The real top,</q> murmured Jonathan, <q>or +just what you call top?</q></p> + +<p><q>It’s right in front,</q> I went on; <q>and I +don’t see how even a man could fail to find it.</q></p> + +<p>He proceeded to enumerate the contents +of the drawer in such strange fashion that I +began to wonder where he had been.</p> + +<p><q>I said my bureau.</q></p> + +<p><q>I went to your bureau.</q></p> + +<p><q>The bottom drawer.</q></p> + +<p><q>The bottom drawer. There was nothing +but a lot of little boxes and—</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, <hi rend="font-style: italic">I</hi> know what you did! +You went to the secret drawer.</q></p> + +<p><q>Isn’t that the bottom one?</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, yes, in a way—of course it is; but +it doesn’t exactly count—it’s not one of the +regular drawers—it hasn’t any knobs, or +anything—</q></p> + +<p><q>But it’s a perfectly good drawer.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes. But nobody is supposed to know +it’s there; it looks like a molding—</q></p> + +<p><q>But I know it’s there.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, of course.</q></p> +<pb n="008"/><anchor id="Pg008"/> + +<p><q>And you know I know it’s there.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, yes; but I just don’t think about +that one in counting up. I see what you mean, +of course.</q></p> + +<p><q>And I see what you mean. You mean that +your shawl is in the bottom one of the regular +drawers—with knobs—that can be alluded +to in general conversation. Now I think I can +find it.</q></p> + +<p>He did. And in addition he amused himself +by working out phrases about <q>when is a +bottom drawer not a bottom drawer?</q> and +<q>when is a top shelf not a top shelf?</q></p> + +<p>It is to these incidents—which I regard as +isolated and negligible, and he regards as +typical and significant—that he alludes on +the occasions when he is unable to find a red +book on the sitting-room table. In vain do I +point out that when language is variable and +fluid it is alive, and that there may be two +opinions about the structural top and the +functional top, whereas there can be but one +as to the book being or not being on the table. +He maintains a quiet cheerfulness, as of one +who is conscious of being, if not invulnerable, +at least well armed.</p> +<pb n="009"/><anchor id="Pg009"/> + +<p>For a time he even tried to make believe +that he was invulnerable as well—to set up +the thesis that if the book was really on the +table he could find it. But in this he suffered +so many reverses that only strong natural +pertinacity kept him from capitulation.</p> + +<p>Is it necessary to recount instances? Every +family can furnish them. As I allow myself to +float off into a reminiscent dream I find my +mind possessed by a continuous series of dissolving +views in which Jonathan is always +coming to me saying, <q>It isn’t there,</q> and I +am always saying, <q>Please look again.</q></p> + +<p>Though everything in the house seems to +be in a conspiracy against him, it is perhaps +with the fishing-tackle that he has most constant +difficulties.</p> + +<p><q>My dear, have you any idea where my +rod is? No, don’t get up—I’ll look if you’ll +just tell me where—</q></p> + +<p><q>Probably in the corner behind the chest +in the orchard room.</q></p> + +<p><q>I’ve looked there.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, then, did you take it in from the +wagon last night?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I remember doing it.</q></p> +<pb n="010"/><anchor id="Pg010"/> + +<p><q>What about the little attic? You might +have put it up there to dry out.</q></p> + +<p><q>No. I took my wading boots up, but that +was all.</q></p> + +<p><q>The dining-room? You came in that +way.</q></p> + +<p>He goes and returns. <q>Not there.</q> I reflect +deeply.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, are you <hi rend="font-style: italic">sure</hi> +it’s not in that corner of the orchard room?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I’m sure; but I’ll look again.</q> He +disappears, but in a moment I hear his voice +calling, <q>No! Yours is here, but not mine.</q></p> + +<p>I perceive that it is a case for me, and I get +up. <q>You go and harness. I’ll find it,</q> I call.</p> + +<p>There was a time when, under such conditions, +I should have begun by hunting in all +the unlikely places I could think of. Now I +know better. I go straight to the corner of the +orchard room. Then I call to Jonathan, just +to relieve his mind.</p> + +<p><q>All right! I’ve found it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Where?</q></p> + +<p><q>Here, in the orchard room.</q></p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Where</hi> in the orchard +room?</q></p> + +<p><q>In the corner.</q></p> +<pb n="011"/><anchor id="Pg011"/> + +<p><q>What corner?</q></p> + +<p><q>The usual corner—back of the chest.</q></p> + +<p><q>The devil!</q> Then he comes back to put +his head in at the door. <q>What are you +laughing at?</q></p> + +<p><q>Nothing. What are you talking about the +devil for? Anyway, it isn’t the devil; it’s the +brownie.</q></p> + +<p>For there seems no doubt that the things +he hunts for are possessed of supernatural +powers; and the theory of a brownie in the +house, with a special grudge against Jonathan, +would perhaps best account for the way in +which they elude his search but leap into sight +at my approach. There is, to be sure, one +other explanation, but it is one that does not +suggest itself to him, or appeal to him when +suggested by me, so there is no need to dwell +upon it.</p> + +<p>If it isn’t the rod, it is the landing-net, +which has hung itself on a nail a little to the +left or right of the one he had expected to see +it on; or his reel, which has crept into a corner +of the tackle drawer and held a ball of string +in front of itself to distract his vision; or a +bunch of snell hooks, which, aware of its protective +<pb n="012"/><anchor id="Pg012"/> +coloring, has snuggled up against the +shady side of the drawer and tucked its pink-papered +head underneath a gay pickerel-spoon.</p> + +<p>Fishing-tackle is, clearly, <q>possessed,</q> but +in other fields Jonathan is not free from +trouble. Finding anything on a bureau +seems to offer peculiar obstacles. It is perhaps +a big, black-headed pin that I want. +<q>On the pincushion, Jonathan.</q></p> + +<p>He goes, and returns with two sizes of +safety-pins and one long hat-pin.</p> + +<p><q>No, dear, those won’t do. A small, black-headed +one—at least small compared with a +hat-pin, large compared with an ordinary pin.</q></p> + +<p><q>Common or house pin?</q> he murmurs, +quoting a friend’s phrase.</p> + +<p><q>Do look again! I hate to drop this to go +myself.</q></p> + +<p><q>When a man does a job, he gets his tools +together first.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes; but they say women shouldn’t copy +men, they should develop along their own +lines. Please go.</q></p> + +<p>He goes, and comes back. <q>You don’t +want fancy gold pins, I suppose?</q></p> + +<p><q>No, no! Here, you hold this, and I’ll go.</q> +<pb n="013"/><anchor id="Pg013"/> +I dash to the bureau. Sure enough, he is right +about the cushion. I glance hastily about. +There, in a little saucer, are a half-dozen of +the sort I want. I snatch some and run back.</p> + +<p><q>Well, it wasn’t in the cushion, I bet.</q></p> + +<p><q>No,</q> I admit; <q>it was in a saucer just behind +the cushion.</q></p> + +<p><q>You said cushion.</q></p> + +<p><q>I know. It’s all right.</q></p> + +<p><q>Now, if you had said simply <q>bureau,</q> I’d +have looked in other places on it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, you’d have <hi rend="font-style: italic">looked</hi> +in other places!</q> +I could not forbear responding. There is, I +grant, another side to this question. One +evening when I went upstairs I found a partial +presentation of it, in the form of a little +newspaper clipping, pinned on my cushion. +It read as follows:—</p> + +<quote rend="display"> + <p><q>My dear,</q> said she, <q>please run and + bring me the needle from the haystack.</q></p> + + <p><q>Oh, I don’t know which haystack.</q></p> + + <p><q>Look in all the haystacks—you + can’t miss it; there’s only one needle.</q></p> +</quote> + +<p>Jonathan was in the cellar at the moment. +When he came up, he said, <q>Did I hear any +one laughing?</q></p> +<pb n="014"/><anchor id="Pg014"/> + +<p><q>I don’t know. Did you?</q></p> + +<p><q>I thought maybe it was you.</q></p> + +<p><q>It might have been. Something amused +me—I forget what.</q></p> + +<p>I accused Jonathan of having written it +himself, but he denied it. Some other Jonathan, +then; for, as I said, this is not a personal +matter, it is a world matter. Let us grant, +then, a certain allowance for those who hunt +in woman-made haystacks. But what about +pockets? Is not a man lord over his own +pockets? And are they not nevertheless as +so many haystacks piled high for his confusion? +Certain it is that Jonathan has nearly +as much trouble with his pockets as he does +with the corners and cupboards and shelves +and drawers of his house. It usually happens +over our late supper, after his day in town. +He sets down his teacup, struck with a sudden +memory. He feels in his vest pockets—first +the right, then the left. He proceeds to search +himself, murmuring, <q>I thought something +came to-day that I wanted to show you—oh, +here! no, that isn’t it. I thought I put it—no, +those are to be—what’s this? No, +that’s a memorandum. Now, where in—</q> +<pb n="015"/><anchor id="Pg015"/> +He runs through the papers in his pockets +twice over, and in the second round I watch +him narrowly, and perhaps see a corner of an +envelope that does not look like office work. +<q>There, Jonathan! What’s that? No, not +that—that!</q></p> + +<p>He pulls it out with an air of immense +relief. <q>There! I knew I had something. +That’s it.</q></p> + +<p>When we travel, the same thing happens +with the tickets, especially if they chance to +be costly and complicated ones, with all the +shifts and changes of our journey printed +thick upon their faces. The conductor appears +at the other end of the car. Jonathan +begins vaguely to fumble without lowering +his paper. Pocket after pocket is browsed +through in this way. Then the paper slides to +his knee and he begins a more thorough investigation, +with all the characteristic clapping +and diving motions that seem to be +necessary. Some pockets must always be +clapped and others dived into to discover their +contents.</p> + +<p>No tickets. The conductor is halfway up +the car. Jonathan’s face begins to grow serious. +<pb n="016"/><anchor id="Pg016"/> +He rises and looks on the seat and under +it. He sits down and takes out packet after +packet of papers and goes over them with +scrupulous care. At this point I used to become +really anxious—to make hasty calculations +as to our financial resources, immediate +and ultimate—to wonder if conductors +ever really put nice people like us off trains. +But that was long ago. I know now that +Jonathan has never lost a ticket in his life. +So I glance through the paper that he has +dropped or watch the landscape until he +reaches a certain stage of calm and definite +pessimism, when he says, <q>I must have pulled +them out when I took out those postcards in +the other car. Yes, that’s just what has happened.</q> +Then, the conductor being only a +few seats away, I beg Jonathan to look once +more in his vest pocket, where he always puts +them. To oblige me he looks, though without +faith, and lo! this time the tickets fairly +fling themselves upon him, with smiles almost +curling up their corners. Does the brownie +travel with us, then?</p> + +<p>I begin to suspect that some of the good +men who have been blamed for forgetting to +<pb n="017"/><anchor id="Pg017"/> +mail letters in their pockets have been, not +indeed blameless, but at least misunderstood. +Probably they do not forget. Probably they +hunt for the letters and cannot find them, and +conclude that they have already mailed them.</p> + +<p>In the matter of the home haystacks Jonathan’s +confidence in himself has at last been +shaken. For a long time, when he returned +to me after some futile search, he used to say, +<q>Of course you can look for it if you like, but +it is <hi rend="font-style: italic">not</hi> there.</q> +But man is a reasoning, if not +altogether a reasonable, being, and with a sufficient +accumulation of evidence, especially +when there is some one constantly at hand to +interpret its teachings, almost any set of opinions, +however fixed, may be shaken. So here.</p> + +<p>Once when we shut up the farm for the +winter I left my fountain pen behind. This +was little short of a tragedy, but I comforted +myself with the knowledge that Jonathan +was going back that week-end for a day’s +hunt.</p> + +<p><q>Be sure to get the pen first of all,</q> I said, +<q>and put it in your pocket.</q></p> + +<p><q>Where is it?</q> he asked.</p> + +<p><q>In the little medicine cupboard over the +<pb n="018"/><anchor id="Pg018"/> +fireplace in the orchard room, standing up at +the side of the first shelf.</q></p> + +<p><q>Why not on your desk?</q> he asked.</p> + +<p><q>Because I was writing tags in there, and +set it up so it would be out of the way.</q></p> + +<p><q>And it <hi rend="font-style: italic">was</hi> +out of the way. All right. I’ll +collect it.</q></p> + +<p>He went, and on his return I met him with +eager hand—<q>My pen!</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m sorry,</q> he began.</p> + +<p><q>You didn’t forget!</q> I exclaimed.</p> + +<p><q>No. But it wasn’t there.</q></p> + +<p><q>But—did you look?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I looked.</q></p> + +<p><q>Thoroughly?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes. I lit three matches.</q></p> + +<p><q>Matches! Then you didn’t get it when +you first got there!</q></p> + +<p><q>Why—no—I had the dog to attend +to—and—but I had plenty of time when I +got back, and it <hi rend="font-style: italic">wasn’t</hi> +there.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—Dear me! Did you look anywhere +else? I suppose I may be mistaken. +Perhaps I did take it back to the desk.</q></p> + +<p><q>That’s just what I thought myself,</q> said +Jonathan. <q>So I went there, and looked, and +<pb n="019"/><anchor id="Pg019"/> +then I looked on all the mantelpieces and +your bureau. You must have put it in your +bag the last minute—bet it’s there now!</q></p> + +<p><q>Bet it isn’t.</q></p> + +<p>It wasn’t. For two weeks more I was +driven to using other pens—strange and distracting +to the fingers and the eyes and the +mind. Then Jonathan was to go up again.</p> + +<p><q>Please look once more,</q> I begged, <q>and +don’t expect not to see it. I can fairly see it +myself, this minute, standing up there on the +right-hand side, just behind the machine oil +can.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, I’ll look,</q> he promised. <q>If +it’s there, I’ll find it.</q></p> + +<p>He returned penless. I considered buying +another. But we were planning to go up together +the last week of the hunting season, +and I thought I would wait on the chance.</p> + +<p>We got off at the little station and hunted +our way up, making great sweeps and jogs, as +hunters must, to take in certain spots we +thought promising—certain ravines and +swamp edges where we are always sure of +hearing the thunderous whir of partridge +wings, or the soft, shrill whistle of woodcock. +<pb n="020"/><anchor id="Pg020"/> +At noon we broiled chops and rested in the +lee of the wood edge, where, even in the late +fall, one can usually find spots that are warm +and still. It was dusk by the time we came +over the crest of the farm ledges and saw the +huddle of the home buildings below us, and +quite dark when we reached the house. Fires +had been made and coals smouldered on the +hearth in the sitting-room.</p> + +<p><q>You light the lamp,</q> I said, <q>and I’ll +just take a match and go through to see if +that pen <hi rend="font-style: italic">should</hi> +happen to be there.</q></p> + +<p><q>No use doing anything to-night,</q> said +Jonathan. <q>To-morrow morning you can +have a thorough hunt.</q></p> + +<p>But I took my match, felt my way into the +next room, past the fireplace, up to the cupboard, +then struck my match. In its first +flare-up I glanced in. Then I chuckled.</p> + +<p>Jonathan had gone out to the dining-room, +but he has perfectly good ears.</p> + +<p><q>NO!</q> he roared, and his tone of dismay, +incredulity, rage, sent me off into gales of +unscrupulous laughter. He was striding in, +candle in hand, shouting, <q>It was +<hi rend="font-style: italic">not there!</hi></q></p> + +<p><q>Look yourself,</q> I managed to gasp.</p> +<pb n="021"/><anchor id="Pg021"/> + +<p>This time, somehow, he could see it.</p> + +<p><q>You planted it! You brought it up and +planted it!</q></p> + +<p><q>I never! Oh, dear me! It pays for going +without it for weeks!</q></p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Nothing</hi> +will ever make me believe that +that pen was standing there when I looked +for it!</q> said Jonathan, with vehement finality.</p> + +<p><q>All right,</q> I sighed happily. <q>You don’t +have to believe it.</q></p> + +<p>But in his heart perhaps he does believe it. +At any rate, since that time he has adopted a +new formula: <q>My dear, it may be there, of +course, but I don’t see it.</q> And this position +I regard as unassailable.</p> + +<p>One triumph he has had. I wanted something +that was stored away in the shut-up +town house.</p> + +<p><q>Do you suppose you could find it?</q> I said, +as gently as possible.</p> + +<p><q>I can try,</q> he said.</p> + +<p><q>I think it is in a box about this shape—see?—a +gray box, in the attic closet, the +farthest-in corner.</q></p> + +<p><q>Are you sure it’s in the house? If it’s in +the house, I think I can find it.</q></p> +<pb n="022"/><anchor id="Pg022"/> + +<p><q>Yes, I’m sure of that.</q></p> + +<p>When he returned that night, his face wore +a look of satisfaction very imperfectly concealed +beneath a mask of nonchalance.</p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Good</hi> for you! +Was it where I said?</q></p> + +<p><q>No.</q></p> + +<p><q>Was it in a different corner?</q></p> + +<p><q>No.</q></p> + +<p><q>Where was it?</q></p> + +<p><q>It wasn’t in a corner at all. It wasn’t in +that closet.</q></p> + +<p><q>It wasn’t! Where, then?</q></p> + +<p><q>Downstairs in the hall closet.</q> He paused, +then could not forbear adding, <q>And it wasn’t +in a gray box; it was in a big hat-box with +violets all over it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, <hi rend="font-style: italic">Jonathan!</hi> +Aren’t you grand! How +did you ever find it? I couldn’t have done +better myself.</q></p> + +<p>Under such praise he expanded. <q>The +fact is,</q> he said confidentially, <q>I had given +it up. And then suddenly I changed my +mind. I said to myself, <q>Jonathan, don’t +be a man! Think what she’d do if she +were here now.</q> And then I got busy and +found it.</q></p> +<pb n="023"/><anchor id="Pg023"/> + +<p><q>Jonathan!</q> I could almost have wept if +I had not been laughing.</p> + +<p><q>Well,</q> he said, proud, yet rather sheepish, +<q>what is there so funny about that? I gave +up half a day to it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Funny! It isn’t funny—exactly. You +don’t mind my laughing a little? Why, you’ve +lived down the fountain pen—we’ll forget +the pen—</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, no, you won’t forget the pen either,</q> +he said, with a certain pleasant grimness.</p> + +<p><q>Well, perhaps not—of course it would +be a pity to forget that. Suppose I say, then, +that we’ll always regard the pen in the light +of the violet hat-box?</q></p> + +<p><q>I think that might do.</q> Then he had an +alarming afterthought. <q>But, see here—you +won’t expect me to do things like that often?</q></p> + +<p><q>Dear me, no! People can’t live always on +their highest levels. Perhaps you’ll +<hi rend="font-style: italic">never</hi> +do it again.</q> Jonathan looked distinctly relieved. +<q>I’ll accept it as a unique effort—like +Dante’s angel and Raphael’s sonnet.</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan,</q> I said that evening, <q>what +do you know about St. Anthony of Padua?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not much.</q></p> +<pb n="024"/><anchor id="Pg024"/> + +<p><q>Well, you ought to. He helped you to-day. +He’s the saint who helps people to find lost +articles. Every man ought to take him as +a patron saint.</q></p> + +<p><q>And do you know which saint it is who +helps people to find lost virtues—like humility, +for instance?</q></p> + +<p><q>No. I don’t, really.</q></p> + +<p><q>I didn’t suppose you did,</q> said Jonathan.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter02"> +<pb n="025"/><anchor id="Pg025"/> +<index index="toc" level1="II. Sap-Time"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="II. Sap-Time"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">II</head> +<head type="sub">Sap-Time</head> + +<p>It was a little tree-toad that began it. In a +careless moment he had come down to the +bench that connects the big maple tree with +the old locust stump, and when I went out at +dusk to wait for Jonathan, there he sat, in +plain sight. A few experimental pokes sent +him back to the tree, and I studied him there, +marveling at the way he assimilated with its +bark. As Jonathan came across the grass I +called softly, and pointed to the tree.</p> + +<p><q>Well?</q> he said.</p> + +<p><q>Don’t you see?</q></p> + +<p><q>No. What?</q></p> + +<p><q>Look—I thought you had eyes!</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, what a little beauty!</q></p> + +<p><q>And isn’t his back just like bark and +lichens! And what are those things in the tree +beside him?</q></p> + +<p><q>Plugs, I suppose.</q></p> + +<p><q>Plugs?</q></p> +<pb n="026"/><anchor id="Pg026"/> + +<p><q>Yes. After tapping. Uncle Ben used to +tap these trees, I believe.</q></p> + +<p><q>You mean for sap? Maple syrup?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes.</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan! I didn’t know these were +sugar maples.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, yes. These on the road.</q></p> + +<p><q>The whole row? Why, there are ten or +fifteen of them! And you never told me!</q></p> + +<p><q>I thought you knew.</q></p> + +<p><q>Knew! I don’t know anything—I should +think you’d know that, by this time. Do you +suppose, if I had known, I should have let all +these years go by—oh, dear—think of all +the fun we’ve missed! And syrup!</q></p> + +<p><q>You’d have to come up in February.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, then, I’ll +<hi rend="font-style: italic">come</hi> in February. Who’s +afraid of February?</q></p> + +<p><q>All right. Try it next year.</q></p> + +<p>I did. But not in February. Things happened, +as things do, and it was early April before +I got to the farm. But it had been a +wintry March, and the farmers told me that +the sap had not been running except for a few +days in a February thaw. Anyway, it was +worth trying.</p> +<pb n="027"/><anchor id="Pg027"/> + +<p>Jonathan could not come with me. He was +to join me later. But Hiram found a bundle +of elder spouts in the attic, and with these +and an auger we went out along the snowy, +muddy road. The hole was bored—a pair +of them—in the first tree, and the spouts +driven in. I knelt, watching—in fact, peering +up the spout-hole to see what might happen. +Suddenly a drop, dim with sawdust, appeared—gathered, +hesitated, then ran down +gayly and leapt off the end.</p> + +<p><q>Look! Hiram! It’s running!</q> I called.</p> + +<p>Hiram, boring the next tree, made no response. +He evidently expected it to run. +Jonathan would have acted just like that, too, +I felt sure. Is it a masculine quality, I wonder, +to be unmoved when the theoretically expected +becomes actual? Or is it that some +temperaments have naturally a certain large +confidence in the sway of law, and refuse to +wonder at its individual workings? To me the +individual workings give an ever fresh thrill +because they bring a new realization of the +mighty powers behind them. It seems to depend +on which end you begin at.</p> + +<p>But though the little drops thrilled me, I +<pb n="028"/><anchor id="Pg028"/> +was not beyond setting a pail underneath to +catch them. And as Hiram went on boring, I +followed with my pails. Pails, did I say? +Pails by courtesy. There were, indeed, a few +real pails—berry-pails, lard-pails, and water-pails—but +for the most part the sap fell into +pitchers, or tin saucepans, stew-kettles of +aluminum or agate ware, blue and gray and +white and mottled, or big yellow earthenware +bowls. It was a strange collection of receptacles +that lined the roadside when we had +finished our progress. As I looked along the +row, I laughed, and even Hiram smiled.</p> + +<p>But what next? Every utensil in the house +was out there, sitting in the road. There was +nothing left but the wash-boiler. Now, I had +heard tales of amateur syrup-boilings, and I +felt that the wash-boiler would not do. Besides, +I meant to work outdoors—no kitchen +stove for me! I must have a pan, a big, flat +pan. I flew to the telephone, and called up +the village plumber, three miles away. Could +he build me a pan? Oh, say, two feet by three +feet, and five inches high—yes, right away. +Yes, Hiram would call for it in the afternoon.</p> + +<p>I felt better. And now for a fireplace! Oh, +<pb n="029"/><anchor id="Pg029"/> +Jonathan! Why did you have to be away! +For Jonathan loves a stone and knows how +to put stones together, as witness the stone +<q>Eyrie</q> and the stile in the lane. However, +there Jonathan wasn’t. So I went out into +the swampy orchard behind the house and +looked about—no lack of stones, at any rate. +I began to collect material, and Hiram, seeing +my purpose, helped with the big stones. +Somehow my fireplace got made—two side +walls, one end wall, the other end left open +for stoking. It was not as pretty as if Jonathan +had done it, but <q>’t was enough, ’t would +serve.</q> I collected fire-wood, and there I was, +ready for my pan, and the afternoon was yet +young, and the sap was drip-drip-dripping +from all the spouts. I could begin to boil next +day. I felt that I was being borne along on +the providential wave that so often floats the +inexperienced to success.</p> + +<p>That night I emptied all my vessels into +the boiler and set them out once more. A +neighbor drove by and pulled up to comment +benevolently on my work.</p> + +<p><q>Will it run to-night?</q> I asked him.</p> + +<p><q>No—no—’t won’t run to-night. Too +<pb n="030"/><anchor id="Pg030"/> +cold. ’T won’t run any to-night. You can +sleep all right.</q></p> + +<p>This was pleasant to hear. There was a +moon, to be sure, but it was growing colder, +and at the idea of crawling along that road in +the middle of the night even my enthusiasm +shivered a little.</p> + +<p>So I made my rounds at nine, in the white +moonlight, and went to sleep.</p> + +<p>I was awakened the next morning to a consciousness +of flooding sunshine and Hiram’s +voice outside my window.</p> + +<p><q>Got anything I can empty sap into? I’ve +got everything all filled up.</q></p> + +<p><q>Sap! Why, it isn’t running yet, is it?</q></p> + +<p><q>Pails were flowin’ over when I came out.</q></p> + +<p><q>Flowing over! They said the sap wouldn’t +run last night.</q></p> + +<p><q>I guest there don’t nobody know when +sap’ll run and when it won’t,</q> said Hiram +peacefully, as he tramped off to the barn.</p> + +<p>In a few minutes I was outdoors. Sure +enough, Hiram had everything full—old +boilers, feed-pails, water-pails. But we found +some three-gallon milk-cans and used them. +A farm is like a city. There are always things +<pb n="031"/><anchor id="Pg031"/> +enough in it for all purposes. It is only a +question of using its resources.</p> + +<p>Then, in the clear April sunshine, I went +out and surveyed the row of maples. How +they did drip! Some of them almost ran. I +felt as if I had turned on the faucets of the +universe and didn’t know how to turn them +off again.</p> + +<p>However, there was my new pan. I set it +over my oven walls and began to pour in sap. +Hiram helped me. He seemed to think he +needed his feed-pails. We poured in sap and +we poured in sap. Never did I see anything +hold so much as that pan. Even Hiram was +stirred out of his usual calm to remark, <q>It +beats all, how much that holds.</q> Of course +Jonathan would have had its capacity all calculated +the day before, but my methods are +empirical, and so I was surprised as well as +pleased when all my receptacles emptied +themselves into its shallow breadths and still +there was a good inch to allow for boiling up. +Yes, Providence—my exclusive little fool’s +Providence—was with me. The pan, and +the oven, were a success, and when Jonathan +came that night I led him out with unconcealed +<pb n="032"/><anchor id="Pg032"/> +pride and showed him the pan—now +a heaving, frothing mass of sap-about-to-be-syrup, +sending clouds of white steam down +the wind. As he looked at the oven walls, +I fancied his fingers ached to get at them, +but he offered no criticism, seeing that they +worked.</p> + +<p>The next day began overcast, but Providence +was merely preparing for me a special +little gift in the form of a miniature snowstorm. +It was quite real while it lasted. It +whitened the grass and the road, it piled itself +softly among the clusters of swelling buds on +the apple trees, and made the orchard look as +though it had burst into bloom in an hour. +Then the sun came out, there were a few +dazzling moments when the world was all +blue and silver, and then the whiteness faded.</p> + +<p>And the sap! How it dripped! Once an +hour I had to make the rounds, bringing back +gallons each time, and the fire under my pan +was kept up so that the boiling down might +keep pace with the new supply.</p> + +<p><q>They do say snow makes it run,</q> shouted +a passer-by, and another called, <q>You want +to keep skimmin’!</q> Whereupon I seized my +<pb n="033"/><anchor id="Pg033"/> +long-handled skimmer and fell to work. +Southern Connecticut does not know much +about syrup, but by the avenue of the road I +was gradually accumulating such wisdom as +it possessed.</p> + +<p>The syrup was made. No worse accident +befell than the occasional overflowing of a +pail too long neglected. The syrup was made, +and bottled, and distributed to friends, and +was the pride of the household through the +year.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p><q>This time I will go early,</q> I said to Jonathan; +<q>they say the late running is never +quite so good.</q></p> + +<p>It was early March when I got up there +this time—early March after a winter whose +rigor had known practically no break. Again +Jonathan could not come, but Cousin Janet +could, and we met at the little station, where +Hiram was waiting with Kit and the surrey. +The sun was warm, but the air was keen and +the woods hardly showed spring at all yet, +even in that first token of it, the slight thickening +of their millions of little tips, through +the swelling of the buds. The city trees already +<pb n="034"/><anchor id="Pg034"/> +showed this, but the country ones still +kept their wintry penciling of vanishing lines.</p> + +<p>Spring was in the road, however. <q>There +ain’t no bottom to this road now, it’s just +dropped clean out,</q> remarked a fellow teamster +as we wallowed along companionably +through the woods. But, somehow, we +reached the farm. Again we bored our holes, +and again I was thrilled as the first bright +drops slipped out and jeweled the ends of the +spouts. I watched Janet. She was interested +but calm, classing herself at once with Hiram +and Jonathan. We unearthed last year’s +oven and dug out its inner depths—leaves +and dirt and apples and ashes—it was like +excavating through the seven Troys to get to +bottom. We brought down the big pan, now +clothed in the honors of a season’s use, and +cleaned off the cobwebs incident to a year’s +sojourn in the attic. By sunset we had a panful +of sap boiling merrily and already taking +on a distinctly golden tinge. We tasted it. It +was very syrupy. Letting the fire die down, +we went in to get supper in the utmost content +of spirit.</p> + +<p><q>It’s so much simpler than last year,</q> I +<pb n="035"/><anchor id="Pg035"/> +said, as we sat over our cozy <q>tea,</q>—<q>having +the pan and the oven ready-made, and +all—</q></p> + +<p><q>You don’t suppose anything could happen +to it while we’re in here?</q> suggested +Janet. <q>Shan’t I just run out and see?</q></p> + +<p><q>No, sit still. What could happen? The +fire’s going out.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I know.</q> But her voice was uncertain.</p> + +<p><q>You see, I’ve been all through it once,</q> I +reassured her.</p> + +<p>As we rose, Janet said, <q>Let’s go out before +we do the dishes.</q> And to humor her I agreed. +We lighted the lantern and stepped out on the +back porch. It was quite dark, and as we +looked off toward the fireplace we saw gleams +of red.</p> + +<p><q>How funny!</q> I murmured. <q>I didn’t +think there was so much fire left.</q></p> + +<p>We felt our way over, through the yielding +mud of the orchard, and as I raised the lantern +we stared in dazed astonishment. The pan +was a blackened mass, lit up by winking red +eyes of fire. I held the lantern more closely. +I seized a stick and poked—the crisp black +<pb n="036"/><anchor id="Pg036"/> +stuff broke and crumbled into an empty and +blackening pan. A curious odor arose.</p> + +<p><q>It couldn’t have!</q> gasped Janet.</p> + +<p><q>It couldn’t—but it has!</q> I said.</p> + +<p>It was a matter for tears, or rage, or +laughter. And laughter won. When we recovered +a little we took up the black shell of +carbon that had once been syrup-froth; we +laid it gently beside the oven, for a keepsake. +Then we poured water in the pan, and steam +rose hissing to the stars.</p> + +<p><q>Does it leak?</q> faltered Janet.</p> + +<p><q>Leak!</q> I said. I was on my knees now, +watching the water stream through the +parted seam of the pan bottom, down into the +ashes below.</p> + +<p><q>The question is,</q> I went on as I got up, +<q>did it boil away because it leaked, or did it +leak because it boiled away?</q></p> + +<p><q>I don’t see that it matters much,</q> said +Janet. She was showing symptoms of depression +at this point.</p> + +<p><q>It matters a great deal,</q> I said. <q>Because, +you see, we’ve got to tell Jonathan, +and it makes all the difference how we put +it.</q></p> +<pb n="037"/><anchor id="Pg037"/> + +<p><q>I see,</q> said Janet; then she added, experimentally, +<q>Why tell Jonathan?</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, Janet, you know better! I wouldn’t +miss telling Jonathan for anything. What is +Jonathan <hi rend="font-style: italic">for!</hi></q></p> + +<p><q>Well—of course,</q> she conceded. <q>Let’s +do dishes.</q></p> + +<p>We sat before the fire that evening and I +read while Janet knitted. Between my eyes +and the printed page there kept rising a vision—a +vision of black crust, with winking red +embers smoldering along its broken edges. I +found it distracting in the extreme.…</p> + +<p>At some time unknown, out of the blind +depths of the night, I was awakened by a +voice:—</p> + +<p><q>It’s beginning to rain. I think I’ll just +go out and empty what’s near the house.</q></p> + +<p><q>Janet!</q> I murmured, <q>don’t be absurd.</q></p> + +<p><q>But it will dilute all that sap.</q></p> + +<p><q>There isn’t any sap to dilute. It won’t +be running at night.</q> After a while the voice, +full of propitiatory intonations, resumed:—</p> + +<p><q>My dear, you don’t mind if I slip out. It +will only take a minute.</q></p> + +<p><q>I do mind. Go to sleep!</q></p> +<pb n="038"/><anchor id="Pg038"/> + +<p>Silence. Then:—</p> + +<p><q>It’s raining harder. I hate to think of all +that sap—</q></p> + +<p><q>You don’t <hi rend="font-style: italic">have</hi> +to think!</q> I was quite +savage. <q>Just go to sleep—and let me!</q> +Another silence. Then a fresh downpour. +The voice was pleading:—</p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Please</hi> +let me go! I’ll be back in a minute. +And it’s not cold.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, well—I’m awake now, anyway. +<hi rend="font-style: italic">I’ll</hi> +go.</q> My voice was tinged with that high +resignation that is worse than anger. Janet’s +tone changed instantly:—</p> + +<p><q>No, no! Don’t! Please don’t! I’m going. +I truly don’t mind.</q></p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">I’m</hi> +going. I don’t mind, either, not at all.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, dear! Then let’s not either of us go.</q></p> + +<p><q>That was my idea in the first place.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, then, we won’t. Go to sleep, and I +will too.</q></p> + +<p><q>Not at all! I’ve decided to go.</q></p> + +<p><q>But it’s stopped raining. Probably it +won’t rain any more.</q></p> + +<p><q>Then what are you making all this fuss +for?</q></p> +<pb n="039"/><anchor id="Pg039"/> + +<p><q>I didn’t make a fuss. I just thought I +could slip out—</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, you couldn’t. And it’s raining very +hard again. And I’m going.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, don’t! You’ll get drenched.</q></p> + +<p><q>Of course. But I can’t bear to have all +that sap diluted.</q></p> + +<p><q>It doesn’t run at night. You said it +didn’t.</q></p> + +<p><q>You said it did.</q></p> + +<p><q>But I don’t really know. You know best.</q></p> + +<p><q>Why didn’t you think of that sooner? +Anyway, I’m going.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, dear! You make me feel as if I’d +stirred you up—</q></p> + +<p><q>You have,</q> I interrupted, sweetly. <q>I +won’t deny that you +<hi rend="font-style: italic">have</hi> stirred me up. But +now that you have mentioned it</q>—I felt +for a match—<q>now that you have mentioned +it, I see that this was the one thing +needed to make my evening complete, or +perhaps it’s morning—I don’t know.</q></p> + +<p>We found the dining-room warm, and soon +we were equipped in those curious compromises +of vesture that people adopt under such +circumstances, and, with lantern and umbrella, +<pb n="040"/><anchor id="Pg040"/> +we fumbled our way out to the trees. +The rain was driving in sheets, and we +plodded up the road in the yellow circle of +lantern-light wavering uncertainly over the +puddles, while under our feet the mud gave +and sucked.</p> + +<p><q>It’s diluted, sure enough,</q> I said, as we +emptied the pails. We crawled slowly back, +with our heavy milk-can full of sap-and-rain-water, +and went in.</p> + +<p>The warm dining-room was pleasant to return +to, and we sat down to cookies and milk, +feeling almost cozy.</p> + +<p><q>I’ve always wanted to know how it would +be to go out in the middle of the night this +way,</q> I remarked, <q>and now I know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Aren’t you hateful!</q> said Janet.</p> + +<p><q>Not at all. Just appreciative. But now, +if you haven’t any +<hi rend="font-style: italic">other</hi> plan, we’ll go back +to bed.</q></p> + +<p>It was half-past eight when we waked next +morning. But there was nothing to wake up +for. The old house was filled with the rain-noises +that only such an old house knows. +On the little windows the drops pricked +sharply; in the fireplace with the straight flue +<pb n="041"/><anchor id="Pg041"/> +they fell, hissing, on the embers. On the +porch roofs the rain made a dull patter of +sound; on the tin roof of the <q>little attic</q> +over the kitchen it beat with flat resonance. +In the big attic, when we went up to see if all +was tight, it filled the place with a multitudinous +clamor; on the sides of the house it drove +with a fury that re-echoed dimly within doors.</p> + +<p>Outside, everything was afloat. We visited +the trees and viewed with consternation the +torrents of rain-water pouring into the pails. +We tried fastening pans over the spouts to +protect them. The wind blew them merrily +down the road. It would have been easy +enough to cover the pails, but how to let the +sap drip in and the rain drip out—that was +the question.</p> + +<p><q>It seems as if there was a curse on the +syrup this year,</q> said Janet.</p> + +<p><q>The trouble is,</q> I said, <q>I know just +enough to have lost my hold on the fool’s +Providence, and not enough really to take +care of myself.</q></p> + +<p><q>Superstition!</q> said Janet.</p> + +<p><q>What do you call your idea of the curse?</q> +I retorted. <q>Anyway, I have an idea! Look, +<pb n="042"/><anchor id="Pg042"/> +Janet! We’ll just cut up these enamel-cloth +table-covers here by the sink and everywhere, +and tack them around the spouts.</q></p> + +<p>Janet’s thrifty spirit was doubtful. <q>Don’t +you need them?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not half so much as the trees do. Come +on! Pull them off. We’ll have to have fresh +ones this summer, anyway.</q></p> + +<p>We stripped the kitchen tables and the +pantry and the milk-room. We got tacks and +a hammer and scissors, and out we went again. +We cut a piece for each tree, just enough to +go over each pair of spouts and protect the +pail. When tacked on, it had the appearance +of a neat bib, and as the pattern was a blue +and white check, the effect, as one looked +down the road at the twelve trees, was very +fresh and pleasing. It seemed to cheer the +people who drove by, too.</p> + +<p>But the bibs served their purpose, and the +sap dripped cozily into the pails without any +distraction from alien elements. Sap doesn’t +run in the rain, they say, but this sap did. +Probably Hiram was right, and you can’t tell. +I am glad if you can’t. The physical mysteries +of the universe are being unveiled so +<pb n="043"/><anchor id="Pg043"/> +swiftly that one likes to find something that +still keeps its secret—though, indeed, the +spiritual mysteries seem in no danger of such +enforcement.</p> + +<p>The next day the rain stopped, the floods +began to subside, and Jonathan managed to +arrive, though the roads had even less <q>bottom +to ’em</q> than before. The sun blazed out, +and the sap ran faster, and, after Jonathan +had fully enjoyed them, the blue and white +bibs were taken off. Somehow in the clear +March sunshine they looked almost shocking. +By the next day we had syrup enough to try +for sugar.</p> + +<p>For on sugar my heart was set. Syrup was +all very well for the first year, but now it +had to be sugar. Moreover, as I explained to +Janet, when it came to sugar, being absolutely +ignorant, I was again in a position to expect +the aid of the fool’s Providence.</p> + +<p><q>How much <hi rend="font-style: italic">do</hi> +you know about it?</q> asked Janet.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, just what people say. It seems to be +partly like fudge and partly like molasses +candy. You boil it, and then you beat it, and +then you pour it off.</q></p> +<pb n="044"/><anchor id="Pg044"/> + +<p><q>I’ve got more to go on than that,</q> said +Jonathan. <q>I came up on the train with the +Judge. He used to see it done.</q></p> + +<p><q>You’ve got to drive Janet over to her +train to-night; Hiram can’t,</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>All right. There’s time enough.</q></p> + +<p>We sat down to early supper, and took +turns running out to the kitchen to <q>try</q> +the syrup as it boiled down. At least we said +we would take turns, but usually we all three +went. Supper seemed distinctly a side issue.</p> + +<p><q>I’m going to take it off now,</q> said Jonathan. +<q>Look out!</q></p> + +<p><q>Do you think it’s time?</q> I demurred.</p> + +<p><q>We’ll know soon,</q> said Jonathan, with +his usual composure.</p> + +<p>We hung over him. <q>Now you beat it,</q> I +said. But he was already beating.</p> + +<p><q>Get some cold water to set it in,</q> he commanded. +We brought the dishpan with water +from the well, where ice still floated.</p> + +<p><q>Maybe you oughtn’t to stir so much—do +you think?</q> I suggested, helpfully. <q>Beat +it more—up, you know.</q></p> + +<p><q>More the way you would eggs,</q> said +Janet.</p> +<pb n="045"/><anchor id="Pg045"/> + +<p><q>I’ll show you.</q> I lunged at the spoon.</p> + +<p><q>Go away! This isn’t eggs,</q> said Jonathan, +beating steadily.</p> + +<p><q>Your arm must be tired. Let me take it,</q> +pleaded Janet.</p> + +<p><q>No, me!</q> I said. <q>Janet, you’ve got to +get your coat and things. You’ll have to start +in fifteen minutes. Here, Jonathan, you need +a fresh arm.</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m fresh enough.</q></p> + +<p><q>And I really don’t think you have the +motion.</q></p> + +<p><q>I have motion enough. This is my job. +You go and help Janet.</q></p> + +<p><q>Janet’s all right.</q></p> + +<p><q>So am I. See how white it’s getting. The +Judge said—</q></p> + +<p><q>Here come Hiram and Kit,</q> announced +Janet, returning with bag and wraps. <q>But +you have ten minutes. Can’t I help?</q></p> + +<p><q>He won’t let us. He’s that +‘sot,’</q> I murmured. <q>He’ll +make you miss your train.</q></p> + +<p><q>You <hi rend="font-style: italic">could</hi> +butter the pans,</q> he counter charged, +<q>and you haven’t.</q></p> + +<p>We flew to prepare, and the pouring began. +<pb n="046"/><anchor id="Pg046"/> +It was a thrilling moment. The syrup, or +sugar, now a pale hay color, poured out +thickly, blob-blob-blob, into the little pans. +Janet moved them up as they were needed, +and I snatched the spoon, at last, and encouraged +the stuff to fall where it should. But +Jonathan got it from me again, and scraped +out the remnant, making designs of clovers +and polliwogs on the tops of the cakes. Then +a dash for coats and hats and a rush to the +carriage.</p> + +<p>When the surrey disappeared around the +turn of the road, I went back, shivering, to +the house. It seemed very empty, as houses +will, being sensitive things. I went to the +kitchen. There on the table sat a huddle of +little pans, to cheer me, and I fell to work +getting things in order to be left in the morning. +Then I went back to the fire and waited +for Jonathan. I picked up a book and tried +to read, but the stillness of the house was +too importunate, it had to be listened to. I +leaned back and watched the fire, and the old +house and I held communion together.</p> + +<p>Perhaps in no other way is it possible to get +quite what I got that evening. It was partly +<pb n="047"/><anchor id="Pg047"/> +my own attitude; I was going away in the +morning, and I had, in a sense, no duties +toward the place. The magazines of last fall +lay on the tables, the newspapers of last fall +lay beside them. The dust of last fall was, +doubtless, in the closets and on the floors. It +did not matter. For though I was the mistress +of the house, I was for the moment even more +its guest, and guests do not concern themselves +with such things as these.</p> + +<p>If it had been really an empty house, I +should have been obliged to think of these +things, for in an empty house the dust speaks +and the house is still, dumbly imprisoned in +its own past. On the other hand, when a +house is filled with life, it is still, too; it is +absorbed in its own present. But when one +sojourns in a house that is merely resting, full +of the life that has only for a brief season left +it, ready for the life that is soon to return—then +one is in the midst of silences that are +not empty and hollow, but richly eloquent. +The house is the link that joins and interprets +the living past and the living future.</p> + +<p>Something of this I came to feel as I sat +there in the wonderful stillness. There were +<pb n="048"/><anchor id="Pg048"/> +no house noises such as generally form the +unnoticed background of one’s consciousness—the +steps overhead, the distant voices, the +ticking of the clock, the breathing of the dog +in the corner. Even the mice and the chimney-swallows +had not come back, and I missed the +scurrying in the walls and the flutter of wings +in the chimney. The fire purred low, now and +then the wind sighed gently about the corner +of the <q>new part,</q> and a loose door-latch +clicked as the draught shook it. A branch +drew back and forth across a window-pane +with the faintest squeak. And little by little +the old house opened its heart. All that it +told me I hardly yet know myself. It gathered +up for me all its past, the past that I had +known and the past that I had not known. +Time fell away. My own importance dwindled. +I seemed a very small part of the life +of the house—very small, yet wholly belonging +to it. I felt that it absorbed me as it +absorbed the rest—those before and after +me—for time was not.</p> + +<p>There was the sound of slow wheels outside, +the long roll of the carriage-house door, +and the trampling of hoofs on the flooring +<pb n="049"/><anchor id="Pg049"/> +within. Then the clinking of the lantern and +the even tread of feet on the path behind the +house, a gust of raw snow-air—and the house +fell silent so that Jonathan might come in.</p> + +<p><q>Your sugar is hardening nicely, I see,</q> +he said, rubbing his hands before the fire.</p> + +<p><q>Yes,</q> I said. <q>You know I +<hi rend="font-style: italic">told</hi> Janet +that for this part of the affair we could trust +to the fool’s Providence.</q></p> + +<p><q>Thank you,</q> said Jonathan.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter03"> +<pb n="050"/><anchor id="Pg050"/> +<index index="toc" level1="III. Evenings on the Farm"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="III. Evenings on the Farm"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">III</head> +<head type="sub">Evenings on the Farm</head> + +<epigraph> + <cit> + <quote rend="pre: none; post: none"> + <lg> + <l>I’m going out to clean the pasture spring;</l> + <l>I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away</l> + <l>(And wait to watch the water clear, I may);</l> + <l>I shan’t be gone long.—You come too.</l> + <l> </l> + <l>I’m going out to fetch the little calf</l> + <l>That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,</l> + <l>It totters when she licks it with her tongue.</l> + <l>I shan’t be gone long.—You come too.</l> + </lg> + <bibl> + <author><hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">Robert Frost</hi></author>. + </bibl> + </quote> + </cit> +</epigraph> + +<p>When we first planned to take up the farm +we looked forward with especial pleasure to +our evenings. They were to be the quiet +rounding-in of our days, full of companionship, +full of meditation. <q>We’ll do lots of +reading aloud,</q> I said. <q>And we’ll have long +walks. There won’t be much to do +<hi rend="font-style: italic">but</hi> walk +and read. I can hardly wait.</q> And I chose +our summer books with special reference to +reading aloud.</p> + +<p><q>Of course,</q> I said, as we fell to work at +our packing, <q>we’ll have to do all sorts of +things first. But the days are so long up there, +and the life is very simple. And in the evenings +<pb n="051"/><anchor id="Pg051"/> +you’ll help. We ought to be settled in a +week.</q></p> + +<p><q>Or two—or three,</q> suggested Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Three! What is there to do?</q></p> + +<p><q>Farm-life isn’t so blamed simple as you +think.</q></p> + +<p><q>But what <hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> +there to do? Now, listen! +One day for trunks, one day for boxes and +barrels, one day for closets, that’s three, one +for curtains, four, one day for—for the garret, +that’s five. Well—one day for odds and +ends that I haven’t thought of. That’s +liberal, I’m sure.</q></p> + +<p><q>Better say the rest of your life for the +odds and ends you haven’t thought of,</q> said +Jonathan, as he drove the last nail in a neatly +headed barrel.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, why are you such a pessimist?</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m not, except when you’re such an +optimist.</q></p> + +<p><q>If I’d begun by saying it would take a +month, would you have said a week?</q></p> + +<p><q>Can’t tell. Might have.</q></p> + +<p><q>Anyway, there’s nothing bad about odds +and ends. They’re about all women have +much to do with most of their lives.</q></p> +<pb n="052"/><anchor id="Pg052"/> + +<p><q>That’s what I said. And you called me a +pessimist.</q></p> + +<p><q>I didn’t call you one. I said, why were +you one.</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m sorry. My mistake,</q> said Jonathan +with the smile of one who scores.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>And so we went.</p> + +<p>One day for trunks was all right. Any one +can manage trunks. And the second day, the +boxes were emptied and sent flying out to the +barn. Curtains I decided to keep for evening +work, while Jonathan read. That left the +closets and the attic, or rather the attics, for +there was one over the main house and one +over the <q>new part,</q>—still <q>new,</q> although +now some seventy years old. They were +known as the attic and the little attic. I +thought I would do the closets first, and I began +with the one in the parlor. This was built +into the chimney, over the fireplace. It was +low, and as long as the mantelpiece itself. It +had two long shelves shut away behind three +glass doors through which the treasures within +were dimly visible. When I swung these open +it felt like opening a tomb—cold, musty +<pb n="053"/><anchor id="Pg053"/> +air hung about my face. I brushed it aside, +and considered where to begin. It was a depressing +collection. There were photographs +and photographs, some in frames, the rest of +them tied up in packages or lying in piles. A +few had names or messages written on the +back, but most gave no clue; and all of them +gazed out at me with that expression of complete +respectability that constitutes so impenetrable +a mask for the personality behind. +Most of us wear such masks, but the older +photographers seem to have been singularly +successful in concentrating attention on them. +Then there were albums, with more photographs, +of people and of <q>views.</q> There was +a big Bible, some prayer-books, and a few +other books elaborately bound with that +heavy fancifulness that we are learning to call +Victorian. One of these was on <q>The Wonders +of the Great West</q>; another was about +<q>The Female Saints of America.</q> I took it +down and glanced through it, but concluded +that one had to be a female saint, or at least +an aspirant, to appreciate it. Then there were +things made out of dried flowers, out of hair, +out of shells, out of pine-cones. There were +<pb n="054"/><anchor id="Pg054"/> +vases and other ornamental bits of china and +glass, also Victorian, looking as if they were +meant to be continually washed or dusted by +the worn, busy fingers of the female saints. As +I came to fuller realization of all these relics, +my resolution flickered out and there fell upon +me a strange numbness of spirit. I seemed +under a spell of inaction. Everything behind +those glass doors had been cherished too long +to be lightly thrown away, yet was not old +enough to be valuable nor useful enough to +keep. I spent a long day—one of the longest +days of my life—browsing through the books, +trying to sort the photographs, and glancing +through a few old letters. I did nothing in +particular with anything, and in the late afternoon +I roused myself, put them all back, and +shut the glass doors. I had nothing to show +for my day’s experience except a deep little +round ache in the back of my neck and a faint +brassy taste in my mouth. I complained of it +to Jonathan later.</p> + +<p><q>It always tasted just that way to me when +I was a boy,</q> he said, <q>but I never thought +much about it—I thought it was just a +closet-taste.</q></p> +<pb n="055"/><anchor id="Pg055"/> + +<p><q>And it isn’t only the taste,</q> I went on. +<q>It does something to me, to my state of +mind. I’m afraid to try the garret.</q></p> + +<p><q>Garrets are different,</q> said Jonathan. +<q>But I’d leave them. They can wait.</q></p> + +<p><q>They’ve waited a good while, of course,</q> +I said.</p> + +<p>And so we left the garrets. We came back +to them later, and were glad we had done so. +But that is a story by itself.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>Meanwhile, in the evenings, Jonathan +helped.</p> + +<p><q>I’m afraid you were more or less right +about the odd jobs,</q> I admitted one night. +<q>They do seem to accumulate.</q> I was holding +a candle while he set up a loose latch.</p> + +<p><q>They’ve been accumulating a good many +years,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Yes, that’s it. And so the doors all stick, +and the latches won’t latch, and the shades +are sulky or wild, and the pantry shelves—have +you noticed?—they’re all warped so +they rock when you set a dish on them.</q></p> + +<p><q>And the chairs pull apart,</q> added Jonathan.</p> +<pb n="056"/><anchor id="Pg056"/> + +<p><q>Yes. Of course after we catch up we’ll be +all right.</q></p> + +<p><q>I wouldn’t count too much on catching +up.</q></p> + +<p><q>Why not?</q> I asked.</p> + +<p><q>The farm has had a long start.</q></p> + +<p><q>But you’re a Yankee,</q> I argued; <q>the +Yankee nature fairly feeds on such jobs—‘putter +jobs,’ you know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Only, of course, you get on faster if you’re +not too particular about having the exact +tool—</q></p> + +<p>Considered as a Yankee, Jonathan’s only +fault is that when he does a job he likes to +have a very special tool to do it with. Often +it is so special that I have never heard its +name before and then I consider he is going +too far. He merely thinks I haven’t gone far +enough. Perhaps such matters must always +remain matters of opinion. But even with +this handicap we did begin to catch up, and +we could have done this a good deal faster if +it had not been for the pump.</p> + +<p>The pump was a clear case of new wine in +an old bottle. It was large and very strong. +<pb n="057"/><anchor id="Pg057"/> +The people who worked it were strong too. +But the walls and floor to which it was attached +were not strong at all. And so, one +night, when Jonathan wanted a walk I was +obliged instead to suggest the pump.</p> + +<p><q>What’s the matter there?</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, it seems to have pulled clear of its +moorings. You look at it.</q></p> + +<p>He looked, with that expression of meditative +resourcefulness peculiar to the true +Yankee countenance. <q>H’m—needs new +wood there,—and there; that stuff’ll never +hold.</q> And so the old bottle was patched with +new skin at the points of strain, and in the zest +of reconstruction Jonathan almost forgot to +regret the walk. <q>We’ll have it to-morrow +night,</q> he said: <q>the moon will be better.</q></p> + +<p>The next evening I met him below the turn of +the road. <q>Wonderful night it’s going to be,</q> +he said, as he pushed his wheel up the last hill.</p> + +<p><q>Yes—</q> I said, a little uneasily. I was +thinking of the kitchen pump. Finally I +brought myself to face it.</p> + +<p><q>There seems to be some trouble—with +the pump,</q> I said apologetically. I felt that +it was my fault, though I knew it wasn’t.</p> +<pb n="058"/><anchor id="Pg058"/> + +<p><q>More trouble? What sort of trouble?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, it wheezes and makes funny sucking +noises, and the water spits and spits, and then +bursts out, and then doesn’t come at all. It +sounds a little like a cat with a bone in its +throat.</q></p> + +<p><q>Probably just that,</q> said Jonathan: +<q>grain of sand in the valve, very likely.</q></p> + +<p><q>Shall I get a plumber?</q></p> + +<p><q>Plumber! I’ll fix it myself in three shakes +of a lamb’s tail.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well,</q> I said, relieved: <q>you can do that +after supper while I see that all the chickens +are in, and those turkeys, and then we’ll have +our walk.</q></p> + +<p>Accordingly I went off on my tour. When +I returned the pale moon-shadows were already +beginning to show in the lingering dusk +of the fading daylight. Indoors seemed very +dark, but on the kitchen floor a candle sat, +flaring and dipping.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan,</q> I called, <q>I’m ready.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, I’m not,</q> said a voice at my feet.</p> + +<p><q>Why, where are you? Oh, there!</q> I bent +down and peered under the sink at a shape +crouched there. <q>Haven’t you finished?</q></p> +<pb n="059"/><anchor id="Pg059"/> + +<p><q>Finished! I’ve just got the thing apart.</q></p> + +<p><q>I should say you had!</q> I regarded the +various pieces of iron and leather and wood as +they lay, mere dismembered shapes, about +the dim kitchen.</p> + +<p><q>It doesn’t seem as if it would ever come +together again—to be a pump,</q> I said in +some depression.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, that’s easy! It’s just a question of +time.</q></p> + +<p><q>How much time?</q></p> + +<p><q>Heaven knows.</q></p> + +<p><q>Was it the valve?</q></p> + +<p><q>It was—several things.</q></p> + +<p>His tone had the vagueness born of concentration. +I could see that this was no time to +press for information. Besides, in the field +of mechanics, as Jonathan has occasionally +pointed out to me, I am rather like a traveler +who has learned to ask questions in a foreign +tongue, but not to understand the answers.</p> + +<p><q>Well, I’ll bring my sewing out here—or +would you rather have me read to you? +There’s something in the last number of—</q></p> + +<p><q>No—get your sewing—blast that +screw! Why doesn’t it start?</q></p> +<pb n="060"/><anchor id="Pg060"/> + +<p>Evidently sewing was better than the last +number of anything. I settled myself under +a lamp, while Jonathan, in the twilight beneath +the sink, continued his mystic rites, +with an accompaniment of mildly vituperative +or persuasive language, addressed sometimes +to his tools, sometimes to the screws +and nuts and other parts, sometimes against +the men who made them or the plumbers who +put them in. Now and then I held a candle, +or steadied some perverse bit of metal while +he worked his will upon it. And at last the +phœnix did indeed rise, the pump was again +a pump,—at least it looked like one.</p> + +<p><q>Suppose it doesn’t work,</q> I suggested.</p> + +<p><q>Suppose it does,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p>He began to pump furiously. <q>Pour in +water there!</q> he directed. <q>Keep on pouring—don’t +stop—never mind if she does spout.</q> +I poured and he pumped, and there were the +usual sounds of a pump resuming activity: +gurglings and spittings, suckings and sudden +spoutings; but at last it seemed to get its +breath—a few more long strokes of the +handle, and the water poured.</p> + +<p><q>What time is it?</q> he asked.</p> +<pb n="061"/><anchor id="Pg061"/> + +<p><q>Oh, fairly late—about ten—ten minutes +past.</q></p> + +<p>Instead of our walk, we stood for a moment +under the big maples before the house +and looked out into a sea of moonlight. It +silvered the sides of the old gray barns and +washed over the blossoming apple trees beyond +the house. Is there anything more +sweetly still than the stillness of moonlight +over apple blossoms! As we went out to +the barns to lock up, even the little hencoops +looked poetic. Passing one of them, we half +roused the feathered family within and heard +muffled peepings and a smothered <hi rend="font-style: italic">clk-clk</hi>. +Jonathan was by this time so serene that I +felt I could ask him a question that had occurred +to me.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, how long <hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> +three shakes of a lamb’s tail?</q></p> + +<p><q>Apparently, my dear, it is the whole evening,</q> +he answered unruffled.</p> + +<p>The next night was drizzly. Well, we would +have books instead of a walk. We lighted a +fire, May though it was, and settled down before +it. <q>What shall we read?</q> I asked, feeling +very cozy.</p> +<pb n="062"/><anchor id="Pg062"/> + +<p>Jonathan was filling his pipe with a leisurely +deliberation good to look upon. With the +match in his hand he paused—<q>Oh, I meant +to tell you—those young turkeys of yours—they +were still out when I came through +the yard. I wonder if they went in all right.</q></p> + +<p>I have always noticed that if the turkeys +grow up very fat and strutty and suggestive +of Thanksgiving, Jonathan calls them <q>our +turkeys,</q> but in the spring, when they are +committing all the naughtinesses of wild and +silly youth, he is apt to allude to them as +<q>those young turkeys of yours.</q></p> + +<p>I rose wearily. <q>No. They never go in all +right when they get out at this time—especially +on wet nights. I’ll have to find them +and stow them.</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan got up, too, and laid down his +pipe. <q>You’ll need the lantern,</q> he said.</p> + +<p>We went out together into the May drizzle—a +good thing to be out in, too, if you are +out for the fun of it. But when you are hunting +silly little turkeys who literally don’t +know enough to go in when it rains, and when +you expected and wanted to be doing something +else, then it seems different, the drizzle +<pb n="063"/><anchor id="Pg063"/> +seems peculiarly drizzly, the silliness of the +turkeys seems particularly and unendurably +silly.</p> + +<p>We waded through the drenched grass and +the tall, dripping weeds, listening for the +faint, foolish peeping of the wanderers. Some +we found under piled fence rails, some under +burdock leaves, some under nothing more +protective than a plantain leaf. By ones and +twos we collected them, half drowned yet +shrilly remonstrant, and dropped them into +the dry shed where they belonged. Then we +returned to the house, very wet, feeling the +kind of discouragement that usually besets +those who are forced to furnish prudence to +fools.</p> + +<p><q>Nine o’clock,</q> said Jonathan, <q>and we’re +too wet to sit down. If you could just shut in +those turkeys on wet days—</q></p> + +<p><q>Shut them in! Didn’t I shut them in! +They must have got out since four o’clock.</q></p> + +<p><q>Isn’t the shed tight?</q> he asked.</p> + +<p><q>Chicken-tight, but not turkey-tight, apparently. +Nothing is turkey-tight.</q></p> + +<p><q>They’re bigger than chickens.</q></p> + +<p><q>Not in any one spot they aren’t. They’re +<pb n="064"/><anchor id="Pg064"/> +like coiled wire—when they stretch out to +get through a crack they have <hi rend="font-style: italic">no</hi> dimension +except length, their bodies are mere imaginary +points to hang feathers on. You don’t +know little turkeys.</q></p> + +<p>It might be said that, having undertaken +to raise turkeys, we had to expect them to act +like turkeys. But there were other interruptions +in our evenings where our share of responsibility +was not so plain. For example, +one wet evening in early June we had kindled +a little fire and I had brought the lamp forward. +The pump was quiescent, the little +turkeys were all tucked up in the turkey +equivalent for bed, the farm seemed to be +cuddling down into itself for the night. We +sat for a moment luxuriously regarding the +flames, listening to the sighing of the wind, +feeling the sweet damp air as it blew in +through the open windows. I was considering +which book it should be and at last rose to +possess myself of two or three.</p> + +<p><q>Sh—h—h!</q> said Jonathan, a warning +finger raised.</p> + +<p>I stood listening.</p> + +<p><q>I don’t hear anything,</q> I said.</p> +<pb n="065"/><anchor id="Pg065"/> + +<p><q>Sh—h!</q> he repeated. <q>There!</q></p> + +<p>This time, indeed, I heard faint bird-notes.</p> + +<p><q>Young robins!</q> He sprang up and made +for the back door with long strides.</p> + +<p>I peered out through the window of the +orchard room, but saw only the reflection of +the firelight and the lamp. Suddenly I heard +Jonathan whistle and I ran to the back porch. +Blackness pressed against my eyes.</p> + +<p><q>Where are you?</q> I called into it.</p> + +<p>The whistle again, quite near me, apparently +out of the air.</p> + +<p><q>Bring a lantern,</q> came a whisper.</p> + +<p>I got it and came back and down the steps +to the path, holding up my light and peering +about in search of the voice.</p> + +<p><q>Where are you? I can’t see you at all.</q></p> + +<p><q>Right here—look—here—up!</q> The +voice was almost over my head.</p> + +<p>I searched the dark masses of the tree—oh, +yes! the lantern revealed the heel of a +shoe in a crotch, and above,—yes, undoubtedly, +the rest of Jonathan, stretched out along +a limb.</p> + +<p><q>Oh! What are you doing up there?</q></p> + +<p><q>Get me a long stick—hoe—clothes-pole—anything +<pb n="066"/><anchor id="Pg066"/> +I can poke with. Quick! +The cat’s up here. I can hear her, but I can’t +see her.</q></p> + +<p>I found the rake and reached it up to him. +From the dark beyond him came a distressed +mew.</p> + +<p><q>Now the lantern. Hang it on the teeth.</q> +He drew it up to him, then, rake in one hand +and lantern in the other, proceeded to squirm +out along the limb.</p> + +<p><q>Now I see her.</q></p> + +<p>I saw her too—a huddle of yellow, +crouched close.</p> + +<p><q>I’ll have her in a minute. She’ll either +have to drop or be caught.</q></p> + +<p>And in fact this distressing dilemma was +already becoming plain to the marauder herself. +Her mewings grew louder and more +frequent. A few more contortions brought +the climber nearer his victim. A little judicious +urging with the rake and she was within +reach. The rake came down to me, and a +long, wild mew announced that Jonathan had +clutched.</p> + +<p><q>I don’t see how you’re going to get down,</q> +I said, mopping the rain-mist out of my eyes.</p> +<pb n="067"/><anchor id="Pg067"/> + +<p><q>Watch me,</q> panted the contortionist.</p> + +<p>I watched a curious mass descend the +tree, the lantern, swinging and jerking, fitfully +illumined the pair, and I could see, now +a knee and an ear, now a hand and a yellow +furry shape, now a white collar, nose, and +chin. There was a last, long, scratching slide. +I snatched the lantern, and Jonathan stood +beside me, holding by the scruff of her neck +a very much frazzled yellow cat. We returned +to the porch where her victims were—one +alive, in a basket, two dead, beside it, and +Jonathan, kneeling, held the cat’s nose close +to the little bodies while he boxed her ears—once, +twice; remonstrant mews rose wild, +and with a desperate twist the culprit backed +out under his arm and leaped into the blackness.</p> + +<p><q>Don’t believe she’ll eat young robin for a +day or two,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Is that what they were? Where were +they?</q></p> + +<p><q>Under the tree. She’d knocked them +out.</q></p> + +<p><q>Could you put this one back? He seems +all right—only sort of naked in spots.</q></p> +<pb n="068"/><anchor id="Pg068"/> + +<p><q>We’ll half cover the basket and hang it +in the tree. His folks’ll take care of him.</q></p> + +<p>Next morning early there began the greatest +to-do among the robins in the orchard. +They shrieked their comments on the affair +at the top of their lungs. They screamed +abusively at Jonathan and me as we stood +watching. <q>They say we did it!</q> said Jonathan. +<q>I call that gratitude!</q></p> + +<p>I wish I could record that from that evening +the cat was a reformed character. An +impression had indeed been made. All next +day she stayed under the porch, two glowing +eyes in the dark. The second day she came +out, walking indifferent and debonair, as cats +do. But when Jonathan took down the basket +from the tree and made her smell of it, +she flattened her ears against her head and +shot under the porch again.</p> + +<p>But lessons grow dim and temptation is +freshly importunate. It was not two weeks +before Jonathan was up another tree on the +same errand, and when I considered the number +of nests in our orchard, and the number +of cats—none of them really our cats—on +the place, I felt that the position of overruling +<pb n="069"/><anchor id="Pg069"/> +Providence was almost more than we could +undertake, if we hoped to do anything else.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>These things—tinkering of latches and +chairs, pump-mending, rescue work in the +orchard and among the poultry—filled our +evenings fairly full. Yet these are only samples, +and not particularly representative +samples either. They were the sort of things +that happened oftenest, the common emergencies +incidental to the life. But there were +also the uncommon emergencies, each occurring +seldom but each adding its own touch +of variety to the tale of our evenings.</p> + +<p>For instance, there was the time of the +great drought, when Jonathan, coming in +from a tour of the farm at dusk, said, <q>I’ve +got to go up and dig out the spring-hole +across the swamp. Everything else is dry, +and the cattle are getting crazy.</q></p> + +<p><q>Can I help?</q> I asked, not without regrets +for our books and our evening—it was +a black night, and I had had hopes.</p> + +<p><q>Yes. Come and hold the lantern.</q></p> + +<p>We went. The spring-hole had been trodden +by the poor, eager creatures into a useless +<pb n="070"/><anchor id="Pg070"/> +jelly of mud. Jonathan fell to work, +while I held the lantern high. But soon it +became more than a mere matter of holding +the lantern. There was a crashing in the +blackness about us and a huge horned head +emerged behind my shoulder, another loomed +beyond Jonathan’s stooping bulk.</p> + +<p><q>Keep ’em back,</q> he said. <q>They’ll have +it all trodden up again—Hi! You! Ge’ +back ’ere!</q> There is as special a lingo for +talking to cattle as there is for talking to +babies. I used it as well as I could. I swung +the lantern in their faces, I brandished the +hoe-handle at them, I jabbed at them recklessly. +They snorted and backed and closed +in again,—crazy, poor things, with the +smell of the water. It was an evening’s battle +for us. Jonathan dug and dug, and then laid +rails, and the precious water filled in slowly, +grew to a dark pool, and the thirsty creatures +panted and snuffed in the dark just outside +the radius of the hoe-handle, until at last we +could let them in. I had forgotten my books, +for we had come close to the earth and the +creatures of the earth. The cows were our +sisters and the steers our brothers that night.</p> +<pb n="071"/><anchor id="Pg071"/> + +<p>Sometimes the emergency was in the barn—a +broken halter and trouble among the +horses, or perhaps a new calf. Sometimes a +stray creature,—cow or horse,—grazing +along the roadside, got into our yard and +threatened our corn and squashes and my +poor, struggling flower-beds. Once it was a +break in the wire fence around Jonathan’s +muskmelon patch in the barn meadow. The +cows had just been turned in, and if it wasn’t +mended that evening it meant no melons +that season, also melon-tainted cream for days.</p> + +<p>Once or twice each year it was the drainpipe +from the sink. The drain, like the pump, +was an innovation. Our ancestors had always +carried out whatever they couldn’t use +or burn, and dumped it on the far edge of the +orchard. In a thinly settled community, +there is much to be said for this method: +you know just where you are. But we had the +drain, and occasionally we didn’t know just +where we were.</p> + +<p><q>Coffee grounds,</q> Jonathan would suggest, +with a touch of sternness.</p> + +<p><q>No,</q> I would reply firmly; <q>coffee +grounds are always burned.</q></p> +<pb n="072"/><anchor id="Pg072"/> + +<p><q>What then?</q></p> + +<p><q>Don’t know. I’ve poked and poked.</q></p> + +<p>A gleam in the corner of Jonathan’s eye—<q>What +with?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, everything.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I suppose so. For instance what?</q></p> + +<p><q>Why—hair-pin first, of course, and then +scissors, and then button-hook—you needn’t +smile. Button-hooks are wonderful for +cleaning out pipes. And then I took a pail-handle +and straightened it out—</q> Jonathan +was laughing by this time—<q>Well, I +have to use what I have, don’t I?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, of course. And after the pail-handle?</q></p> + +<p><q>After that—oh, yes. I tried your cleaning-rod.</q></p> + +<p><q>The devil you did!</q></p> + +<p><q>Not at all. It wasn’t hurt a bit. It just +wouldn’t go down, that’s all. So then I +thought I’d wait for you.</q></p> + +<p><q>And now what do you expect?</q></p> + +<p><q>I expect you to fix it.</q></p> + +<p>Of course, after that, there was nothing for +Jonathan to do but fix it. Usually it did not +take long. Sometimes it did. Once it took a +<pb n="073"/><anchor id="Pg073"/> +whole evening, and required the services of a +young tree, which Jonathan went out and cut +and trimmed and forced through a section of +the pipe which he had taken up and laid out +for the operation on the kitchen floor. It was +a warm evening, too, and friends had driven +over to visit us. We received them warmly in +the kitchen. We explained that we believed +in making them members of the family, and +that members of the family always helped in +whatever was being done. So they helped. +They took turns gripping the pipe while +Jonathan and I persuaded the young tree +through it. It required great strength and +some skill because it was necessary to make +the tree and the pipe perform spirally rotatory +movements each antagonistic and complementary +to the other. We were all rather +tired and very hot before anything began to +happen. Then it happened all at once: the +tree burst through—and not alone. A good +deal came with it. The kitchen floor was a +sight, and there was—undoubtedly there +was—a strong smell of coffee. Jonathan +smiled. Then he went down cellar and restored +the pipe to its position, while the rest +<pb n="074"/><anchor id="Pg074"/> +of us cleared up the kitchen,—it’s astonishing +what a little job like that can make a +kitchen look like,—and as our friends started +to go a voice from beneath us, like the ghost +in <q>Hamlet,</q> shouted, <q>Hold ’em! There’s +half a freezer of ice-cream down here we can +finish.</q> Sure enough there was! And then +he wouldn’t have to pack it down. We had +it up. We looted the pantry as only irresponsible +adults can loot, in their own pantry, +and the evening ended in luxurious ease. +Some time in the black of the night our +friends left, and I suppose the sound of their +carriage-wheels along the empty road set +many a neighbor wondering, through his +sleep, <q>Who’s sick now?</q> How could they +know it was only a plumbing party?</p> + +<p>As I look back on this evening it seems one +of the pleasantest of the year. It isn’t so +much what you do, of course, as the way you +feel about it, that makes the difference between +pleasant and unpleasant. Shall we say +of that evening that we meant to read aloud? +Or that we meant to have a quiet evening +with friends? Not at all. We say, with all the +conviction in the world, that we meant, on +<pb n="075"/><anchor id="Pg075"/> +that particular evening, to have a plumbing +party, with the drain as the +<hi rend="font-style: italic">pièce de résistance</hi>. +Toward this our lives had been yearning, +and lo! they had arrived!</p> + +<p>Some few things, however, are hard to +meet in that spirit. When the pigs broke out +of the pen, about nine o’clock, and Hiram +was away, and Mrs. Hiram needed our help +to get them in—there was no use in pretending +that we meant to do it. Moreover, the +labor of rounding up pigs is one of mingled +arduousness and delicacy. Pigs in clover +was once a popular game, but pigs in a dark +orchard is not a game at all, and it will, I am +firmly convinced, never be popular. It is, I +repeat, not a game, yet probably the only +way to keep one’s temper at all is to regard +it, for the time being, as a major sport, like +football and deep-sea fishing and mountain-climbing, +where you are expected to take +some risks and not think too much about results +as such. On this basis it has, perhaps, +its own rewards. But the attitude is difficult +to maintain, especially late at night.</p> + +<p>On that particular evening, as we returned, +breathless and worn, to the house, I could +<pb n="076"/><anchor id="Pg076"/> +not refrain from saying, with some edge, <q>I +never wanted to keep pigs anyway.</q></p> + +<p><q>Who says we’re keeping them?</q> remarked +Jonathan; and then we laughed and laughed.</p> + +<p><q>You needn’t think I’m laughing because +you said anything specially funny,</q> I said. +<q>It’s only because I’m tired enough to laugh +at anything.</q></p> + +<p>The pump, too, tried my philosophy now +and then. One evening when I had worn my +hands to the bone cutting out thick leather +washers for Jonathan to insert somewhere in +the circulatory system of that same monster, +I finally broke out, <q>Oh, dear! I hate the +pump! I wanted a moonlight walk!</q></p> + +<p><q>I’ll have the thing together now in a +jiffy,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Jiffy! There’s no use talking about jiffies +at half-past ten at night,</q> I snarled. I +was determined anyway to be as cross as I +liked. <q>Why can’t we find a really simple +way of living? This isn’t simple. It’s highly +complex and very difficult.</q></p> + +<p><q>You cut those washers very well,</q> suggested +Jonathan soothingly, but I was not +prepared to be soothed.</p> +<pb n="077"/><anchor id="Pg077"/> + +<p><q>It was hateful work, though. Now, look +what we’ve done this evening! We’ve shut +up a setting hen, and housed the little turkeys, +and driven that cow back into the road, +and mended a window-shade and the dog’s +chain, and now we’ve fixed the pump—and +it won’t stay fixed at that!</q></p> + +<p><q>Fair evening’s work,</q> murmured Jonathan +as he rapidly assembled the pump.</p> + +<p><q>Yes, as work. But all I mean is—it isn’t +<hi rend="font-style: italic">simple</hi>. +Farm life has a reputation for simplicity +that I begin to think is overdone. It +doesn’t seem to me that my evening has been +any more simple than if we had dressed for +dinner and gone to the opera or played bridge. +In fact, at this distance, that, compared with +this, has the simplicity of a—I don’t know +what!</q></p> + +<p><q>I like your climaxes,</q> said Jonathan, and +we both laughed. <q>There! I’m done. Now +suppose we go, in our simple way, and lock up +the barns and chicken-houses.</q></p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>And so the evenings came and went, each +offering a prospect of fair and quiet things—books +and firelight and moonlight and talk; +<pb n="078"/><anchor id="Pg078"/> +many in retrospect full of things quite different—drains +and latches and fledglings and +cows and pigs. Many, but not all. For the +evenings did now and then come when the +pump ceased from troubling and the <q>critters</q> +were at rest. Evenings when we sat +under the lamp and read, when we walked +and walked along moonlit roads or lay on the +slopes of moon-washed meadows. It was on +such an evening that we faced the vagaries of +farm life and searched for a philosophy to +cover them.</p> + +<p><q>I’m beginning to see that it will never be +any better,</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>Probably not,</q> said Jonathan, talking +around his pipe.</p> + +<p><q>You seem contented enough about it.</q></p> + +<p><q>I am.</q></p> + +<p><q>I don’t know that I’m contented, but +perhaps I’m resigned. I believe it’s necessary.</q></p> + +<p><q>Of course it’s necessary.</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan often has the air of having known +since infancy the great truths about life that +I have just discovered. I overlooked this, and +went on, <q>You see, we’re right down close to +<pb n="079"/><anchor id="Pg079"/> +the earth that is the ultimate basis of everything, +and all the caprices of things touch us +immediately and we have to make immediate +adjustments to them.</q></p> + +<p><q>And that knocks the bottom out of our +evenings.</q></p> + +<p><q>Now if we’re in the city, playing bridge, +somebody else is making those adjustments +for us. We’re like the princess with seventeen +mattresses between her and the pea.</q></p> + +<p><q>She felt it, though,</q> said Jonathan. <q>It +kept her awake.</q></p> + +<p><q>I know. She had a poor night. But even +she would hardly have maintained that she +felt it as she would have done if the mattresses +hadn’t been there.</q></p> + +<p><q>True,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Farm life is the pea without the mattresses—</q> +I went on.</p> + +<p><q>Sounds a little cheerless,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Well—of course, it isn’t really cheerless +at all. But neither is it easy. It’s full of remorseless +demands for immediate adjustment.</q></p> + +<p><q>That was the way the princess felt about +her pea.</q></p> +<pb n="080"/><anchor id="Pg080"/> + +<p><q>The princess was a snippy little thing. +But after all, probably her life was full of +adjustments of other sorts. She couldn’t call +her soul her own a minute, I suppose.</q></p> + +<p><q>Perhaps that was why she ran away,</q> +suggested Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Of course it was. She ran away to find the +simple life and didn’t find it.</q></p> + +<p><q>No. She found the pea—even with all +those mattresses.</q></p> + +<p><q>And we’ve run away, and found several +peas, and fewer mattresses,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Let’s not get confused—</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m not confused,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Well, I shall be in a minute if I don’t look +out. You can’t follow a parallel too far. +What I mean is, that if you run away from +one kind of complexity you run into another +kind.</q></p> + +<p><q>What are you going to do about it?</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m going to like it all,</q> I answered, <q>and +make believe I meant to do it.</q></p> + +<p>After that we were silent awhile. Then I +tried again. <q>You know your trick of waltzing +with a glass of water on your head?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes.</q></p> +<pb n="081"/><anchor id="Pg081"/> + +<p><q>Well, I wonder if we couldn’t do that +with our souls.</q></p> + +<p><q>That suggests to me a rather curious +picture,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Well—you know what I mean. When +you do that, your body takes up all the jolts +and jiggles before they get to the top of your +head, so the glass stays quiet.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, I don’t see why—only, of course, +our souls aren’t really anything like glasses +of water, and it would be perfectly detestable +to think of carrying them around carefully +like that.</q></p> + +<p><q>Perhaps you’d better back out of that +figure of speech,</q> suggested Jonathan. <q>Go +back to your princess. Say, <q>every man his +own mattress.</q></q></p> + +<p><q>No. Any figure is wrong. The trouble +with all of them is that as soon as you use +one it begins to get in your way, and say all +sorts of things for you that you never meant +at all. And then if you notice it, it bothers +you, and if you don’t notice it, you get drawn +into crooked thinking.</q></p> + +<p><q>And yet you can’t think without them.</q></p> +<pb n="082"/><anchor id="Pg082"/> + +<p><q>No, you can’t think without them.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—where are we, anyway?</q> he +asked placidly.</p> + +<p><q>I don’t know at all. Only I feel sure that +leading the simple life doesn’t depend on the +things you do it <hi rend="font-style: italic">with</hi>. +Feeding your own cows +and pigs and using pumps and candles brings +you no nearer to it than marketing by telephone +and using city water supply and electric +lighting. I don’t know what does bring +you nearer, but I’m sure it must be something +inside you.</q></p> + +<p><q>That sounds rather reasonable,</q> said +Jonathan; <q>almost scriptural—</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I know,</q> I said.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter04"> +<pb n="083"/><anchor id="Pg083"/> +<index index="toc" level1="IV. After Frost"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="IV. After Frost"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">IV</head> +<head type="sub">After Frost</head> + +<p>It is late afternoon in mid-September. I +stand in my garden sniffing the raw air, and +wondering, as always at this season, +<hi rend="font-style: italic">will</hi> +there be frost to-night or will there not? Of +course if I were a woodchuck or a muskrat, or +any other really intelligent creature, I should +know at once and act accordingly, but being +only a stupid human being, I am thrown +back on conjecture, assisted by the thermometer, +and an appeal to Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Too much wind for frost,</q> says he.</p> + +<p><q>Sure? I’d hate to lose my nasturtiums +quite so early.</q></p> + +<p><q>You won’t lose ’em. Look at the thermometer +if you don’t believe me. If it’s +above forty you’re safe.</q></p> + +<p>I look, and try to feel reassured. But I am +not quite easy in my mind until next morning +when, running out before breakfast, I make +the rounds and find everything untouched.</p> +<pb n="084"/><anchor id="Pg084"/> + +<p>But a few days later the alarm comes again. +There is no wind this time, and, what is +worse, an ominous silence falls at dusk over +the orchard and meadow. <q>Why is everything +so still?</q> I ask myself. <q>Oh, of course—the +katydids aren’t talking—and the +crickets, and all the other whirr-y things. +Ah! That means business! My poor garden!</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan!</q> I call, as I feel rather than +see his shape whirling noiselessly in at the +big gate after his ride up from the station. +<q>Help me cover my nasturtiums. There’ll +be frost to-night.</q></p> + +<p><q>Maybe,</q> says Jonathan’s voice.</p> + +<p><q>Not maybe at all—surely. Listen to the +katydids!</q></p> + +<p><q>You mean, listen to the absence of katydids.</q></p> + +<p><q>Very well. The point is, I want newspapers.</q></p> + +<p><q>No. The point is, I am to bring newspapers.</q></p> + +<p><q>Exactly.</q></p> + +<p><q>And tuck up your nasturtiums for the +night in your peculiarly ridiculous fashion—</q></p> +<pb n="085"/><anchor id="Pg085"/> + +<p><q>I know it looks ridiculous, but really it’s +sensible. There may be weeks of summer +after this.</q></p> + +<p>And so the nasturtiums are tucked up, +cozily hidden under the big layers of sheets, +whose corners we fasten down with stones. +To be sure, the garden <hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> rather a funny +sight, with these pale shapes sprawling over +its beds. But it pays. For in the morning, +though over in the vegetable garden the +squash leaves and lima beans are blackened +and limp, my nasturtiums are still pert and +crisp. I pull off the papers, wondering what +the passers-by have thought, and lo! my gay +garden, good for perhaps two weeks more!</p> + +<p>But a day arrives when even newspaper +coddling is of no avail. Sometimes it is in late +September, sometimes not until October, but +when it comes there is no resisting.</p> + +<p>The sun goes down, leaving a clear sky +paling to green at the horizon. A still cold +falls upon the world, and I feel that it is +the end. Shears in hand, I cut everything I +can—nasturtiums down to the ground,—leaves, +buds, and all,—feathery sprays of +cosmos, asters by the armful. Those last +<pb n="086"/><anchor id="Pg086"/> +bouquets that I bring into the house are always +the most beautiful, for I do not have to +save buds for later cutting. There will, alas, +be no later cutting.</p> + +<p>So I fill my bowls and vases, and next +morning I go out, well knowing what I shall +see. It is a beautiful sight, too, if one can +forget its meaning. The whole golden-green +world of autumn has been touched with silver. +In the low-lying swamp beyond the +orchard it is almost like a light snowfall. +The meadows rising beyond the barns are +silvered over wherever the long tree-shadows +still lie. And in my garden, too, where the +shadows linger, every leaf is frosted, but as +soon as the sun warms them through, leaf and +twig turn dark and droop to the ground. It is +the end.</p> + +<p>Except, indeed, for my brave marigolds +and calendulas and little button asters. It is +for this reason that I have given them space +all summer, nipping them back when they +tried to blossom early, for they seem a bit +crude compared with the other flowers. But +now that frost is here, my feelings warm to +them. I cannot criticize their color and texture, +<pb n="087"/><anchor id="Pg087"/> +so grateful am I to them for not giving +up. And when last night’s cuttings have +faded, I shall be very glad of a glowing mass +of marigold beside my fireplace, and of the +yellow stars of calendula, like embodied +sunshine, on my dining-table.</p> + +<p>Well, then, the frost has come! And after +the first pang of realization, I find that, curiously +enough, the worst is over. Since it has +come, let it come! And now—hurrah for the +garden house-cleaning! The garden is dead—the +garden of yesterday! Long live the +garden—the garden of to-morrow! For +suddenly my mind has leaped ahead to spring.</p> + +<p>I can hardly wait for breakfast to be over, +before I am out in working clothes, pulling +up things—not weeds now, but flowers, or +what were flowers. Nasturtiums, asters, cosmos, +snapdragon, stock, late-blooming cornflowers—up +they all come, all the annuals, +and the biennials that have had their season. +I fling them together in piles, and soon have +small haystacks all along my grass paths, and—there +I am! Down again to the good brown +earth!</p> + +<p>It is with positive satisfaction that I stand +<pb n="088"/><anchor id="Pg088"/> +and survey my beds, great bare patches of +earth, glorified here and there by low clumps +of calendula and great bushes of marigold. +Now, then! I can do anything! I can dig, +and fertilize, and transplant. Best of all, I +can plan and plan! The crisp wind stings my +cheeks, but as I work I feel the sun hot on the +back of my neck. I get the smell of the earth +as I turn it over, mingled with the pungent +tang of marigold blossoms, very pleasant out +of doors, though almost too strong for the +house except near a fireplace. I believe the +most characteristic fall odors are to me this +of marigold, mingled with the fragrance of +apples piled in the orchard, the good smell +of earth newly turned up, and the flavor of +burning leaves, borne now and then on the +wind, from the outdoor house-cleaning of the +world.</p> + +<p>There is perhaps no season of all the garden +year that brings more real delight to the +gardener, no time so stimulating to the imagination. +This year in the garden has been +good, but next year shall be better. All the +failures, or near-failures, shall of course be +turned into successes, and the successes shall +<pb n="089"/><anchor id="Pg089"/> +be bettered. Last year there were not quite +enough hollyhocks, but next year there shall +be such glories! There are seedlings that I +have been saving, over on the edge of the +phlox. I dash across to look them up—yes, +here they are, splendid little fellows, leaves +only a bit crumpled by the frost. I dig them +up carefully, keeping earth packed about +their roots, and one by one I convey them +across and set them out in a beautiful row +where I want them to grow next year. Their +place is beside the old stone-flagged path, and +I picture them rising tall against the side of +the woodshed, whose barrenness I have besides +more than half covered with honeysuckle.</p> + +<p>Then, there are my foxgloves. Some of +them I have already transplanted, but not +all. There is a little corner full of stocky +yearlings that I must change now. And that +same corner can be used for poppies. I have +kept seeds of this year’s poppies—funny +little brown pepper-shakers, with tiny holes +at the end through which I shake out the fine +seed dust. Doubtless they would attend to +all this without my help, but I like to be sure +<pb n="090"/><anchor id="Pg090"/> +that even my self-seeding annuals come up +where I most want them.</p> + +<p>Biennials, like the foxglove and canterbury +bells, are of course, the difficult children +of the garden, because you have to plan +not only for next year but for the year after. +Next year’s bloom is secured—unless they +winter-kill—in this year’s young plants, +growing since spring, or even since the fall +before. These I transplant for next summer’s +beauty. But for the year after I like to take +double precautions. Already I have tiny +seedlings, started since August, but besides +these I sow seed, too late to start before +spring. For a severe winter may do havoc, +and I shall then need the early start given by +fall sowing.</p> + +<p>As I work on, I discover all sorts of treasures—young +plants, seedlings from all the +big-folk of my garden. Young larkspurs +surround the bushy parent clumps, and +the ground near the forget-me-nots is fairly +carpeted with little new ones. I have found +that, though the old forget-me-nots will live +through, it pays to pull out the most ragged +of them and trust to the youngsters to fill +<pb n="091"/><anchor id="Pg091"/> +their places. These, and English daisies, I let +grow together about as they will. They are +pretty together, with their mingling of pink, +white, and blue, they never run out, and all I +need is to keep them from spreading too far, +or from crowding each other too much.</p> + +<p>When my back aches from this kind of +sorting and shifting, I straighten up and look +about me again. Ah! The phlox! Time now +to attend to that!</p> + +<p>My white phlox is really the most distinguished +thing in my garden. I have pink +and lavender, too, but any one can have pink +and lavender by ordering them from a florist. +They can have white, too, but not my +white. For mine never saw a florist; it is an +inheritance.</p> + +<p>Sixty or seventy years ago there was a +beautiful little garden north of the old house +tended and loved by a beautiful lady. The +lady died, and the garden did not long outlive +her. Its place was taken by a crab-apple +orchard, which flourished, bore blossom and +fruit, until in its turn it grew old, while the +garden had faded to a dim tradition. But one +day in August, a few years ago, I discovered +<pb n="092"/><anchor id="Pg092"/> +under the shade of an old crab tree, two slender +sprays of white phlox, trying to blossom. +In memory of that old garden and its lady, I +took them up and cherished them. And the +miracle of life was again made manifest. +For from those two little half-starved roots +has come the most splendid part of my garden. +All summer it makes a thick green wall +on the garden’s edge, beside the flagged path. +In the other beds it rises in luxuriant masses, +giving background and body with its wonderful +deep green foliage, which is greener +and thicker than any other phlox I know. +And when its season to bloom arrives—a +long month, from early August to mid-September—it +is a glory of whiteness, the tallest +sprays on a level with my eyes, the shortest +shoulder high, except when rain weighs down +the heavy heads and they lean across the +paths barring my passage with their fragrant +wetness.</p> + +<p>Here and there I have let the pink and +lavender phlox come in, for they begin to +bloom two weeks earlier, when the garden +needs color. But always my white must +dominate. And it does. Most wonderful of +<pb n="093"/><anchor id="Pg093"/> +all is it on moonlight nights of late August, +when it broods over the garden like a white +cloud, and the night moths come crowding +to its fragrant feast, with their intermittent +burring of furry wings.</p> + +<p>Ah, well! the phlox has passed now, and its +trim green leaves are brown and crackly. I +can do what I like with it after this. So when +my other transplanting grows tiresome, I fall +upon my phlox. Every year some of it needs +thinning, so quickly does it spread. I take the +spading-fork, and, with what seems like utter +ruthlessness, I pry out from the thickest centers +enough good roots to give the rest breathing +and growing space. Along the path edges +I always have to cut out encroaching roots +each year, or else soon there would be no +path. But all that I take out is precious, +either to give to friends for their gardens, or +to enlarge the edges of my own. For this +phlox needs almost no care, and will fight +grass and weeds for itself.</p> + +<p>There are phlox seedlings, too, all over the +garden, but I have no way of telling what color +they are, though usually I can detect the +white by its foliage. I take them up and set +<pb n="094"/><anchor id="Pg094"/> +them out near the main phlox masses, and +wait for the next season’s blossoming before I +give them their final place.</p> + +<p>This is the time of year, too, when I give +some attention to the rocks in my garden. +Of course, in order to have a garden at all, +it was necessary to take out enough rock +to build quite a respectable stone wall. But +that was not the end. There never will be an +end. A Connecticut garden grows rocks like +weeds, and one must expect to keep on taking +them out each fall. The rest of the year I try +to ignore them, but after frost I like to make +a fresh raid, and get rid of another wheelbarrow +load or so. And I always notice that +for one barrow load of stones that go out, it +takes at least two barrow loads of earth to +fill in. Thus an excellent circulation is maintained, +and the garden does not stagnate. +Moreover, I take great pleasure in showing +my friends—especially friends from the +more earthy sections of New York and farther +west—the piles of rock and the parts of +certain stone walls about the place that have +been literally made out of the cullings of my +garden. They never believe me.</p> +<pb n="095"/><anchor id="Pg095"/> + +<p>As I am thus occupied,—digging, planting, +thinning, sowing,—I find it one of the +happiest seasons of the year. It is partly the +stimulus of the autumn air, partly the pleasure +of getting at the ground. I think there +are some of us, city folk though we be, who +must have the giant Antæus for ancestor. We +still need to get in close touch with the earth +now and then. Children have a true instinct +with their love of barefoot play in the dirt, +and there are grown folks who still love it—but +we call it gardening. The sight and the +feel and the smell of my brown garden beds +gives me a pleasure that is very deep and +probably very primitive.</p> + +<p>But there is another source of pleasure in +my fall gardening—a pleasure not of the +senses but of the imagination.</p> + +<p>For as I do my work my fancy is active. +As I transplant my young hollyhocks, I see +them, not little round-leaved bunches in my +hand, but tall and stately, aflare with colors—yellows, +whites, pinks. As I dig about my +larkspur and stake out its seedlings, they +spire above me in heavenly blues. As I arrange +the clumps of coarse-leaved young +<pb n="096"/><anchor id="Pg096"/> +foxgloves, I seem to see their rich tower-like +clusters of old-pink bells bending always a +little towards the southeast, where most sun +comes from. As I thin my forget-me-not I +see it—in my mind’s eye—in a blue mist +of spring bloom. Thus, a garden rises in my +fancy, a garden where neither beetle, borer, +nor cutworm doth corrupt, and where the +mole doth not break in or steal, where gentle +rain and blessed sun come as they are needed, +where all the flowers bloom unceasingly in +colors of heavenly light—a garden such as +never yet existed nor ever shall, till the tales +of fairyland come true. I shall never see that +garden, yet every year it blooms for me +afresh—after frost.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter05"> +<pb n="097"/><anchor id="Pg097"/> +<index index="toc" level1="V. The Joys of Garden Stewardship"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="V. The Joys of Garden Stewardship"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">V</head> +<head type="sub">The Joys of Garden Stewardship</head> + +<p>I sometimes think I am coming to classify +my friends according to the way they act +when I talk about my garden. On this basis, +there are three sorts of people.</p> + +<p>First there are those who are obviously not +interested. Such as these feel no answering +thrill, even at the sight of a florist’s spring +catalogue. A weed inspires in them no desire +to pull it. They may, however, be really nice +people if they are still young; for, except by +special grace, no one under thirty need be +expected to care about gardens—it is a mature +taste. But in the mean time I turn our +talk in other channels.</p> + +<p>Then there are the people who, when I +approach the subject, brighten up, look intelligent, +even eager, but in a moment make +it clear that what they are eager for is a +chance to talk about their own gardens. +Mine is merely the stepping-stone, the bridge, +<pb n="098"/><anchor id="Pg098"/> +the handle. This is better than indifference, +yet it is sometimes trying. One of my dearest +friends thus tests my love now and then when +she walks in my garden.</p> + +<p><q>Aren’t those peonies lovely?</q> I suggest.</p> + +<p><q>Yes,</q> dreamily; <q>you know I can’t have +that shade in my garden because—</q> and she +trails off into a disquisition that I could, just +at that moment, do without.</p> + +<p><q>Look at the height of that larkspur!</q> I say.</p> + +<p><q>Yes—but, you know, it wouldn’t do for +me to have larkspur when I go away so early. +What I need is things for April and May.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, I am not trying to +<hi rend="font-style: italic">sell</hi> you any,</q> I +am sometimes goaded into protesting. <q>I +only wanted you to say they are pretty—pretty +right here in <hi rend="font-style: italic">my</hi> garden.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes—yes—of course they are pretty—they’re +lovely—you have a lovely garden, +you know.</q> She pulls herself up to give +this tribute, but soon her eyes get the faraway +look in them again, and she is murmuring, +<q>Oh, I must write Edward to see +about that hedge. Tell me, my dear, if you +had a brick wall, would you have vines on it +or wall-fruit?</q></p> +<pb n="099"/><anchor id="Pg099"/> + +<p>It is of no use. I cannot hold her long. I +sometimes think she was nicer when she had +no garden of her own. Perhaps she thinks I +was nicer when I had none.</p> + +<p>But there is another kind of garden manners—a +kind that subtly soothes, cheers, +perhaps inebriates. It is the manner of the +friend who may, indeed, have a garden, but +who looks at mine with the eye of adoption, +temporarily at least. She walks down its +paths, singling out this or that for notice. +She suggests, she even criticizes, tenderly, as +one who tells you an <q>even +<hi rend="font-style: italic">more</hi> becoming +way</q> to arrange your little daughter’s hair. +She offers you roots and seeds and seedlings +from her garden, and—last touch of flattery—she +begs seeds and seedlings from yours.</p> + +<p>For garden purposes, give me the manners +of this third class. And, indeed, not for +garden purposes alone. They are useful as +applied to many things—children, particularly, +and houses.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly the demand that I make +upon my friends is a form of vanity, yet I +cannot seem to feel ashamed of it. I admit at +once that not the least part of my pleasure in +<pb n="100"/><anchor id="Pg100"/> +my flowers is the attention they get from +others. Moreover, it is not only from friends +that I seek this, but from every passer-by +along my country road. There are gardens +and gardens. Some, set about with hedges +tall and thick, offer the delights of exclusiveness +and solitude. But exclusiveness and solitude +are easily had on a Connecticut farm, +and my garden will none of them; it flings +forth its appeal to every wayfarer. And I +like it. I like my garden to <q>get notice.</q> As +people drive by I hope they enjoy my phlox. +I furtively glance to see if they have an eye +for the foxglove. I wonder if the calendulas +are so tall that they hide the asters. And if, +as I bend over my weeding, an automobile +whirling past lets fly an appreciative phrase—<q>lovely +flowers—</q> <q>wonderful yellow +of—</q> <q>garden there,</q>—my ears are quick +to receive it and I forgive the eddies of gasolene +and dust that are also left by the vanishing +visitant.</p> + +<p>About few things can one be so brazen in +one’s enjoyment of recognition. One’s house, +one’s clothes, one’s work, one’s children, all +these demand a certain modesty of demeanor, +<pb n="101"/><anchor id="Pg101"/> +however the inner spirit may puff. +Not so one’s garden. I fancy this is because, +while I have a strong sense of ownership in it, +I also have a strong sense of stewardship. +As owner I must be modest, but as steward I +may admire as openly as I will. Did I make +my phlox? Did I fashion my asters? Am I the +artificer of my fringed larkspur? Nay, truly, +I am but their caretaker, and may glory in +them as well as another, only with the added +touch of joy that I, even I, have given them +their opportunity. Like Paul I plant, like +Apollos I water, but before the power that +giveth the increase I stand back and wonder.</p> + +<p>But it is not alone the results of my stewardship +that give me joy. Its very processes +are good. Delight in the earth is a primitive +instinct. Digging is naturally pleasant, hoeing +is pleasant, raking is pleasant, and then +there is the weeding. For I am not the only +one who sows seeds in my garden. One of my +friends remarked cheerfully that he had +planted twenty-seven different vegetables in +his garden, and the Lord had planted two +hundred and twenty-seven other kinds of +things.</p> +<pb n="102"/><anchor id="Pg102"/> + +<p>This is where the weeding comes in. Now a +good deal has been said about the labor of +weeding, but little about the gratifications of +weeding. I don’t mean weeding with a hoe. +I mean yanking up, with movements suited +to the occasion, each individual growing +thing that doesn’t belong. Surely I am not +the only one to have felt the pleasure of this. +They come up so nicely, and leave such soft +earth behind! And intellect is needed, too, +for each weed demands its own way of handling: +the adherent plantain needing a slow, +firm, drawing motion, but very satisfactory +when it comes; the evasive clover requiring +that all its sprawling runners shall be gathered +up in one gentle, tactful pull; the tender +shepherd’s purse coming easily on a straight +twitch; the tough ragweed that yields to almost +any kind of jerk. Even witch-grass, the +bane of the farmer, has its rewarding side, +when one really does get out its handful of +wicked-looking, crawly, white tubers.</p> + +<p>Weeding is most fun when the weeds are +not too small. Yes, from the aspect of a sport +there is something to be said for letting weeds +grow. Pulling out little tender ones is poor +<pb n="103"/><anchor id="Pg103"/> +work compared with the satisfaction of hauling +up a spreading treelet of ragweed or a +far-flaunting wild buckwheat. You seem to +get so much for your effort, and it stirs up +the ground so, and no other weeds have grown +under the shade of the big one, so its departure +leaves a good bit of empty brown +earth.</p> + +<p>Surely, weeding is good fun. If faults could +be yanked out of children in the same entertaining +way, the orphan asylums would soon +be emptied through the craze for adoption as +a major sport.</p> + +<p>One of the pleasantest mornings of my life +was spent weeding, in the rain, a long-neglected +corner of my garden, while a young +friend stood around the edges and explained +the current political situation to me, and +carted away armfuls of green stuff as I +handed them out to him. The rain drizzled, +and the air was fragrant with the smell of +wet earth and bruised stems. Ideally, of +course, weeds should never reach this state +of sportive rankness. But most of my friends +admit, under pressure, that there are corners +where such things do happen.</p> +<pb n="104"/><anchor id="Pg104"/> + +<p>Naturally, all this is assuming that one is +one’s own gardener. There may be pleasure +in having a garden kept up by a real gardener, +but that always seems to me a little +like having a doll and letting somebody else +dress and undress it. My garden must never +grow so big that I cannot take care of it—and +neglect it—myself.</p> + +<p>In saying this, however, I don’t count +rocks. When it comes to rocks, I call in Jonathan. +And it often comes to rocks.</p> + +<p>For mine is a Connecticut garden. Now +in the beginning Connecticut was composed +entirely of rocks. Then the little earth +gnomes, fearing that no one would ever come +there to give them sport, sprinkled a little +earth amongst the rocks, partly covered +some, wholly covered others, and then hid to +see what the gardeners would do about it. +And ever since the gardeners have been patiently, +or impatiently, tucking in their seeds +and plants in the thimblefuls of earth left by +the gnomes. They have been picking out the +rocks, or blowing them up, or burying them, +or working around them; and every winter +the little gnomes gather and push up a new +<pb n="105"/><anchor id="Pg105"/> +lot from the dark storehouses of the underworld. +In the spring the gardeners begin +again, and the little gnomes hold their sides +with still laughter to watch the work go on.</p> + +<p><q>Rocks?</q> my friends say. <q>Do you mind +the rocks? But they are a special beauty! +Why, I have a rock in my garden that I have +treated—</q></p> + +<p><q>Very well,</q> I interrupt rudely. +<q><hi rend="font-style: italic">A rock</hi> is +all very well. If I had <hi rend="font-style: italic">a +rock</hi> in my garden I +could treat it, too. But how about a garden +that is all rocks?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh—why—choose another spot.</q></p> + +<p>Whereupon I reply, <q>You don’t know +Connecticut.</q></p> + +<p>Ever since I began having a garden I have +had my troubles with the rocks, but the +worst time came when, in a mood of enthusiastic +and absolutely unintelligent optimism, +I decided to have a bit of smooth grass in the +middle of my garden. I wanted it very much. +The place was too restless; you couldn’t sit +down anywhere. I felt that I had to have a +clear green spot where I could take a chair +and a book. I selected the spot, marked it off +with string, and began to loosen up the earth +<pb n="106"/><anchor id="Pg106"/> +for a late summer planting of grass seed. +Calendulas and poppies and cornflowers had +bloomed there before, self-sown and able to +look out for themselves, so I had never investigated +the depths of the bed to see what +the little gnomes had prepared for me. Now +I found out. The spading-fork gave a familiar +dull clink as it struck rock. I felt about +for the edge; it was a big one. I got the crowbar +and dropped it, in testing prods; it was a +<hi rend="font-style: italic">very</hi> +big one, and only four inches below the +surface. Grass would never grow there in a +dry season. I moved to another part. Another +rock, big too! I prodded all over the +allotted space, and found six big fellows lurking +just below the top of the soil. Evidently +it was a case for calling in Jonathan.</p> + +<p>He came, grumbling a little, as a man +should, but very efficient, armed with two +crowbars and equipped with a natural genius +for manipulating rocks. He made a few +well-placed remarks about queer people who +choose to have grass where flowers would +grow, and flowers where grass would grow, +also about Connecticut being intended for a +quarry and not for a garden anyhow. But all +<pb n="107"/><anchor id="Pg107"/> +this was only the necessary accompaniment of +the crowbar-play. Soon, under the insistent +and canny urgency of the bars, a big rock +began to heave its shoulder into sight above +the soil. I hovered about, chucking in stones +and earth underneath, placing little rocks +under the bar for fulcrums, pulling them out +again when they were no longer needed, +standing guard over the flowers in the rest of +the garden, with repeated warnings. <q>Please, +Jonathan, don’t step back any farther; you’ll +trample the forget-me-nots!</q> +<q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Could</hi> you +manage to roll this fellow out along that +path and not across the mangled bodies of +the marigolds?</q> Jonathan grumbled a little +about being expected to pick a half-ton pebble +out of the garden with his fingers, or lead +it out with a string.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, well, of course, if you +<hi rend="font-style: italic">can’t</hi> do it I’ll +have to let the marigolds go this year. But +you do such wonderful things with a crowbar, +I thought you could probably just guide it a +little.</q> And Jonathan responds nobly to the +flattery of this remark, and does indeed guide +the huge thing, eases it along the narrow +path, grazes the marigolds but leaves them +<pb n="108"/><anchor id="Pg108"/> +unhurt, until at last, with a careful arrangement +of stone fulcrums and a skillful twist of +the bars, the great rock makes its last response +and lunges heavily past the last flower +bed on to the grass beyond.</p> + +<p>When the work was done, the edge of the +garden looked like Stonehenge, and the spot +where my grass was to be was nothing but +a yawning pit, crying to be filled. We surveyed +it with interest. <q>If we had a water-supply, +I wouldn’t make a grass-plot,</q> I +said; <q>I’d make a swimming-pool. It’s deep +enough.</q></p> + +<p><q>And sit in the middle with your book?</q> +asked Jonathan.</p> + +<p>But there was no water-supply, so we filled +it in with earth. Thirty wheelbarrow loads +went in where those rocks came out. And +the little gnomes perched on Stonehenge and +jeered the while. I photographed it, and the +rocks <q>took</q> well, but as regards the gnomes, +the film was underexposed.</p> + +<p>Thus the grass seed was planted. And we +reminded each other of the version of <q>America</q> +once given, with unconscious inspiration, +by a little friend of ours:—</p> +<pb n="109"/><anchor id="Pg109"/> + +<quote rend="display"> + <l><q rend="post: none">Land where our father died,</q></l> + <l><q rend="pre: none">Land where the pilgrims pried.</q></l> +</quote> + +<p>It seemed to us to suit the adventure.</p> + +<p>As I have said, I love to have my friends +love my garden. But there is one thing about +it that I find does not always appeal to them +pleasantly, and that is its color-schemes. +Yet this is not my doing. For in nothing do +I feel more keenly the fact of my mere stewardship +than in this matter of color-scheme.</p> + +<p>I set out with a very rigid one. I was +quite decided in my own mind that what +I wanted was white and salmon-pink and +lavender. Asters, phlox, sweet peas, hollyhocks, +all were to bend themselves to my +rules. At first affairs went very well. White +was easy. White phlox I had, and have—an +inheritance—which from a few roots is +spreading and spreading in waves of whiteness +that grow more luxuriant every year. +But I bought roots of salmon-pink and lavender, +and then my troubles commenced. +About the third season strange things began +to happen. The pink phlox had the strength +of ten. It spread amazingly; but it forgot all +about my rules. It degenerated, some of it—reverted +<pb n="110"/><anchor id="Pg110"/> +toward that magenta shade that +nature seems so naturally to adore in the +vegetable world. To my horror I found my +garden blossoming into magenta pink, blue +pink, crimson, cardinal—all the colors I had +determined not under any circumstances to +admit. On the other hand, the lavender +phlox, which I particularly wanted, was +most lovely, but frail. It refused to spread. +It effaced itself before the rampant pink and +its magenta-tainted brood. I vowed I would +pull out the magentas, but each year my +courage failed. They bloomed so bravely; I +would wait till they were through. But by +that time I was not quite sure which was +which; I might pull out the wrong ones. And +so I hesitated.</p> + +<p>Moreover, I discovered, lingering among +the flowers at dusk, that there were certain +colors, most unpleasant by daylight, which +at that time took on a new shade, and, for +perhaps half an hour before night fell, were +richly lovely. This is true of some of the +magentas, which at dusk turn suddenly to +royal purples and deep lavender-blues that +are wonderfully satisfying.</p> +<pb n="111"/><anchor id="Pg111"/> + +<p>For that half-hour of beauty I spare them. +While the sun shines I try to look the other +way, and at twilight I linger near them and +enjoy their strange, dim glories, born literally +of the magic hour. But I have trouble explaining +them, by daylight, to some of my +visitors who like color-schemes.</p> + +<p>Insubordination is contagious. And I +found after a while that my asters were not +running true; queer things were happening +among the sweet peas, and in the ranks of the +hollyhocks all was not as it should be. And +the last charge was made upon me by the +children’s gardens. Children know not color-schemes. +What they demand is flowers, flowers—flowers +to pick and pick, flowers to do +things with. Snapdragon, for instance, is a +jolly playmate, and little fingers love to +pinch its cheeks and see its jaws yawn wide. +But snapdragon tends dangerously toward +the magenta. Then there was the calendula—a +delight to the young, because it blooms +incessantly long past the early frosts, and has +brittle stems that yield themselves to the +clumsiest plucking by small hands. But calendula +ranges from a faded yellow, through +<pb n="112"/><anchor id="Pg112"/> +really pretty primrose shades, to a deep red-orange +touched with maroon.</p> + +<p>And, finally, there was the portulaca. +Children love it, perhaps, best of all. It offers +them fresh blossoms and new colors each +morning, and it is even more easy to pick +than the calendula. Who would deny them +portulaca? Yet if this be admitted, one may +as well give up the battle. For, as we all +know, there is absolutely no color, except +green, that portulaca does not perpetrate in +its blossoms. It knows no shame.</p> + +<p>In short, I am giving up. I am beginning +to say with conviction that color-schemes are +the mark of a narrow and rigid taste—that +they are born of convention and are meant +not for living things but for wall-papers and +portières and clothes. Moreover, I am really +growing callous—or is it, rather, broad? +Colors in my garden that would once have +made my teeth ache now leave them feeling +perfectly comfortable. I find myself looking +with unmoved flesh—no creeps nor withdrawals—upon +a bed of mixed magentas, +scarlets, rose-pinks, and yellow-pinks. I even +look with pleasure. I begin to think there +<pb n="113"/><anchor id="Pg113"/> +may be a point beyond which discord achieves +a higher harmony. At least, this sounds well. +But, again, I find it hard to explain to some +of my friends.</p> + +<p>Indoors, it is another story. When I bring +in the spoils of the garden I am again mistress +and bend all to my will. Here I’ll have +no tricks of color played on me. Sunshine and +sky, perhaps, work some spell, for as soon as I +get within four walls my prejudices return; +scarlets and crimsons and pinks have to live +in different rooms. I must have my color-schemes +again, and perhaps I am as narrow +as the worst. Except, indeed, for the children’s +bowls; here the pink and the magenta, +the lamb and the lion, may lie down together. +But it takes a little child to lead them.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>Out in my garden I feel myself less and +less owner, more and more merely steward. +I decree certain paths, and the phlox says, +<q>Paths? Did you say paths?</q> and obliterates +them in a season’s growth, so that children +walk by faith and not by sight. I decree +iris in one corner, and the primroses say, +<q>Iris? Not at all. This is our bed. Iris indeed!</q> +<pb n="114"/><anchor id="Pg114"/> +And I submit, and move the iris +elsewhere.</p> + +<p>And yet this slipping of responsibility is +pleasant, too. So long as my garden will let +me dig in it and weed it and pick it, so long as +it entertains my friends for me, so long as it +tosses up an occasional rock so that Jonathan +does not lose all interest in it, so long as it +plays prettily with the children and flings gay +greetings to every passer-by, I can find no +fault with it.</p> + +<p>The joys of stewardship are great and I +am well content.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter06"> +<pb n="115"/><anchor id="Pg115"/> +<index index="toc" level1="VI. Trout and Arbutus"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="VI. Trout and Arbutus"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">VI</head> +<head type="sub">Trout and Arbutus</head> + +<p>Every year, toward the end of March, I find +Jonathan poking about in my sewing-box. +And, unless I am very absent-minded, I know +what he is after.</p> + +<p><q>No use looking there,</q> I remark; <q>I keep +my silks put away.</q></p> + +<p><q>I want red, and as strong as there is.</q></p> + +<p><q>I know what you want. Here.</q> and I +hand him a spool of red buttonhole twist.</p> + +<p><q>Ah! Just right!</q> And for the rest of the +evening his fingers are busy.</p> + +<p>Over what? Mending our trout-rods, of +course. It is pretty work, calling for strength +and precision of grasp, and as he winds and +winds, adjusting all the little brass leading-rings, +or supplying new ones, and staying +points in the bamboo where he suspects weakness, +we talk over last year’s trout-pools, and +wonder what they will be like this year.</p> + +<p>But beyond wonder we do not get, often +for weeks after the trout season is, legislatively, +<pb n="116"/><anchor id="Pg116"/> +<q>open.</q> Jonathan is <q>busy.</q> I am +<q>busy.</q> We know that, if April passes, there +is still May and June, and so, if at the end of +April, or early May, we do at last pick up +our rods,—all new-bedight with red silk +windings, and shiny with fresh varnish,—it +is not alone the call of the trout that decides +us, but another call which is to me at least +more imperious, because, if we neglect it now, +there is no May and June in which to heed it. +It is the call of the arbutus.</p> + +<p>Any one with New England traditions +knows what this call is. Its appeal is to +something far deeper than the love of a pretty +flower. For it is the flower that, to our fathers +and our grandfathers, and to their fathers and +grandfathers, meant spring; and not spring in +its prettiness and ease, appealing to the idler +in us, nor spring in its melancholy, appealing +to—shall I say the poet in us? But spring +in its blessedness of opportunity, its joyously +triumphant life, appealing to the worker in +us. Here, of course, we touch hands with all +the races of the world for whom winter has +been the supreme menace, spring the supreme +and saving miracle. But each race has its own +<pb n="117"/><anchor id="Pg117"/> +symbols, and to the New Englander the symbol +is the arbutus.</p> + +<p>This may seem a bit of sentimentality. +And, indeed, we need not expect to find it +expressed by any New England farmer. New +England does not go out in gay companies to +bring back the first blossoms. But New +England does nothing in gay companies. It +has been taught to distrust ceremonies and +expression of any sort. It rejoices with reticence, +it appreciates with a reservation. And +yet I have seen a sprig of arbutus in rough +and clumsy buttonholes on weather-faded +lapels which, the rest of the twelve-month +through, know no other flower. And when, +in unfamiliar country, I have interrupted the +ploughing to ask for guidance, I usually get +it:—<q>Arbutus? Yaas. The’s a lot of it up +along that hillside and in the woods over beyond—’t +was out last week, some of it, I +happened to notice</q>—this in the apologetic +tone of one who admits a weakness—<q>guess +you’ll find all you want.</q> I venture to say +that of no other wild flower, except those +which work specific harm or good, could I get +such information.</p> +<pb n="118"/><anchor id="Pg118"/> + +<p>To many of us, city-bred, the tradition +comes through inheritance. It means, perhaps, +the shy, poetic side of our father’s boyhood, +only half acknowledged, after the New +England fashion, but none the less real and +none the less our possession. It means rare +days, when the city—whose chiefest signs +of spring were the flare of dandelions in yards +and parks and the chatter of English sparrows +on ivy-clad church walls—was left behind, +and we were <q>in the country.</q> It was a +country excitingly different from the country +of the summer vacation, a country not deeply +green, but warmly brown, and sweet with the +smell of moist, living earth. Green enough, +indeed, in the spring-fed meadows and folds of +the hills, where the early grass flashes into +vividest emerald, but in the woods the soft +mist-colored mazes of multitudinous twigs +still show through their veilings and dustings +of color—palest green of birches, gray-green +of poplar, yellow-green of willows, and +redder tones of the maples; and along the +fence-lines and roadsides—blessed, untidy +fence-lines and roadsides of New England—a +fine penciling of red stems—the cut-back +<pb n="119"/><anchor id="Pg119"/> +maple bushes and tangled vines alive to their +tips and just bursting into leaf. And everywhere +in the woods, on fence-lines and roadsides, +the white blossoms of the <q>shad-blow,</q> +daintiest of spring trees,—too slight for a +tree, indeed, though too tall for a bush and +looking less like a tree in blossom than like +floating blossoms caught for a moment among +the twigs. A moment only, for the first gust +loosens them again and carpets the woods +with their petals, but while they last their +whiteness shimmers everywhere.</p> + +<p>Such rare days were all blown through +with the wonderful wind of spring. Spring +wind is really different from any other. It is +not a finished thing, like the mellow winds of +summer and the cold blasts of winter. It is an +imperfect blend of shivering reminiscence and +eager promise. One moment it breathes sun +and stirring earth, the next it reminds us of +old snow in the hollows, and bleak northern +slopes.</p> + +<p>When, on these days, the wind blew to us, +almost before we saw it, the first greeting of +the arbutus, it always seemed that the day +had found its complete and satisfying expression. +<pb n="120"/><anchor id="Pg120"/> +Every one comes to realize, at +some time in his life, the power of suggestion +possessed by odors. Does not half the power +of the Church lie in its incense? An odor, just +because it is at once concrete and formless, +can carry an appeal overwhelmingly strong +and searching, superseding all other expression. +This is the appeal made to me by the +arbutus. It can never be quite precipitated +into words, but it holds in solution all the +things it has come to mean—dear human +tradition and beloved companionship, the +poetry of the land and the miracle of new +birth.</p> + +<p>In late March or early April I am likely to +see the first blossom on some friend’s table—I +try not to see it first in a florist’s display! +To my startled question she gives reassuring +answer, <q>Oh, no, not from around here. This +came from Virginia.</q></p> + +<p>Days pass, and, perhaps, the mail brings +some to me, this time from Pennsylvania or +New Jersey, and soon I can no longer ignore +the trays of tight, leafless bunches for sale on +street corners and behind plate-glass windows. +<q>From York State,</q> they tell me. I grow +restive.</p> +<pb n="121"/><anchor id="Pg121"/> + +<p><q>Jonathan,</q> I say, holding up a spray for +him to smell, <q>we’ve got to go. You can’t +resist that. We’ll take a day and go for it—and +trout, too.</q></p> + +<p>It is as well that arbutus comes in the trout +season, for to take a day off just to pick a +flower might seem a little absurd. But, +coupled with trout—all is well. Trout is +food. One must eat. The search for food +needs no defense, and yet, the curious fact is, +that if you go for trout and don’t get any, it +doesn’t make so much difference as you +might suppose, but if you go for arbutus and +don’t get any, it makes all the difference in +the world. And so Jonathan knows that in +choosing his brook for that particular day, +he must have regard primarily to the arbutus +it will give us and only secondarily to the +trout.</p> + +<p>Every one knows the kind of brook that is, +for every one knows the kind of country +arbutus loves—hilly country, with slopes +toward the north; bits of woodland, preferably +with pine in it, to give shade, but not too +deep shade; a scrub undergrowth of laurel +and huckleberry and bay; and always, somewhere +<pb n="122"/><anchor id="Pg122"/> +within sight or hearing, water. It is +curious how arbutus, which never grows in +wet places, yet seems to like the neighborhood +of water. It loves the slopes above a brook +or the shaggy hillsides overlooking a little +pond or river.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, there is such a brook, in just +such country, on our list. There are not so +many trout as in other brooks, but enough to +justify our rods; and not so much arbutus as +I could find elsewhere, but enough—oh, +enough!</p> + +<p>To this brook we go. We tie Kit at the +bridge, Jonathan slings on a fish-basket, to do +for both, and I take a box or two for the +flowers. But from this moment on our interests +are somewhat at variance. The fact is, +Jonathan cares a little more about the trout +than about the arbutus, while I care a little +more about the arbutus than about the +trout. His eye is keenly on the brook, mine +is, yearningly, on the ragged hillsides that roll +up above it.</p> + +<p>Jonathan feels this. <q>There isn’t any for +two fields yet—might as well stick to the +brook.</q></p> +<pb n="123"/><anchor id="Pg123"/> + +<p><q>I know. I thought perhaps I’d go on +down and let you fish this part. Then I’d +meet you beyond the second fence—</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, no, that won’t do at all. Why, there’s +a rock just below here—down by that wild +cherry—where I took out a beauty last +year, and left another. I want you to go +down and get him.</q></p> + +<p><q>You get him. I don’t mind.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, but I mind. Here, I’ve got it all +planned: there’s a bit of brush-fishing just +below—</q></p> + +<p><q>No brush-fishing for me, please!</q></p> + +<p><q>That’s what I’m saying, if you’ll only +give me time. I’ll take that—there are +always two or three in there—and when +you’ve finished here you can go around me +and fish the bend, under the hemlocks, and +then the first arbutus is just beside that, and +I’ll join you there.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well</q>—I assent grudgingly—<q>only, +really, I’d be just as happy if you’d fish the +whole thing and let me go right on down—</q></p> + +<p><q>No, you wouldn’t. Now, remember to +sneak before you get to that rock. Drop in +six feet above it and let the current do the +<pb n="124"/><anchor id="Pg124"/> +rest. They’re awfully shy. I expect you to +get at least one there, and two down at the +bend.</q> He trudges off to his brush-fishing +and leaves me bound in honor to extract a +trout from under that rock. I deposit my +boxes in the meadow above it, and <q>sneak</q> +down. The sneak of a trout fisherman is like +no other form of locomotion, and I am convinced +that the human frame was not evolved +with it in mind. But I resort to it in deference +to Jonathan’s prejudices—in deference, +also, to the fact that when I do not the trout +seldom bite. And Jonathan is so trustfully +counting on my getting that trout!</p> + +<p>I did get him. I dropped in my line, as per +directions, and let the current do the rest; +had the thrill of feeling the line suddenly +caught and drawn under the rock, held, then +wiggled slightly; I struck, felt the weight, +drew back steadily, and in a few moments +there was a flopping in the grass behind me.</p> + +<p>So that was off my mind.</p> + +<p>I strung him on a twig of wild cherry, +gathered up my boxes, and wandered along +the faint path, back of the patch of brush +where, I knew, Jonathan was cheerfully +<pb n="125"/><anchor id="Pg125"/> +threading his line through tangles of twig, +briar, and vine, compared with which the +needle’s eye is as a yawning barn door. +Jonathan’s attitude toward brush-fishing is +something which I respect without understanding. +Down one long field I went, where +the brook ran in shallow gayety, and there, +ahead, was the bend, a sudden curve of +water, deepening under the roots of an overhanging +hemlock. I climbed the stone wall +beside, glanced at the water—very trouty +water indeed—glanced at the hill-pasture +above—very arbutusy indeed—laid down +my rod and my trout and my box, and ran +up the low bank to a clump of bay and berry-bushes +that I thought I remembered.… +Yes! There it was! I had remembered! Ah! +The dear things!</p> + +<p>When you first find arbutus, there is only +one thing to do:—lie right down beside it. +Its fragrance as it grows is different from +what it is after it is picked, because with the +sweetness of the blossoms is mingled the good +smell of the earth and of the woody twigs and +of the dried grass and leaves. And there are +other rewards one gets by lying down. It is +<pb n="126"/><anchor id="Pg126"/> +all very well to talk proudly about man’s +walking with his head erect and his face to +the heavens, but if we keep that posture all +the time we miss a good deal. The attitude +of the toad and the lizard is not to be scorned, +though when the needs of locomotion convert +it into the fisherman’s <q>sneak,</q> it is, as I +have suggested, to be sparingly indulged in. +But if we could only nibble now and then +from <q>the other side</q> of Alice’s mushroom, +what a new outlook we should get on the +world that now lies about our feet! What +new aspects of its beauty would be revealed +to us: the forest grandeurs of the grass, the +architecture of its slim shafts with their pillared +aisles and pointed arches of interlocking +and upspringing curves, their ceiling traceries +of spraying tops against a far-away background +of sky!</p> + +<p>To know arbutus, you must stoop to its +level, and look across the fine, frosty fur of +its stiff little leaves, and feel the nestle of its +stems to the ground, the little up-fling of their +tips toward the sun, and the neat radiance +of its flower clusters, with their blessed +fragrance and their pure, babyish color.</p> +<pb n="127"/><anchor id="Pg127"/> + +<p>But after that? You want to pick it. Yes, +you really want to pick it!</p> + +<p>In this it is different from other flowers. +Most of them I am well content to leave +where they grow. In fact, the love of picking +things—flowers or anything else—is a +youthful taste: we lose it as we grow older; +we become more and more willing to appreciate +without acquiring, or rather, appreciation +becomes to us a finer and more spiritual +form of acquiring. Is it possible that, after all, +the old idea of heaven as a state of enraptured +contemplation is in harmony with the trend +of our development?</p> + +<p>But if there is arbutus in heaven, I shall +need to develop a good deal further not to +want to pick it. It suggests picking; it +almost invites it. There is something about +the way it nestles and hides, that makes you +want to see it better. Here is a spray of pure +white, living under a green tent of overlapping +leaves; one must raise it, and nip off just one +leaf, so that the blossoms can see out. There +is another, a pink cluster, showing faintly +through the dry, matted grass. You feel for +the stem, pull it gently, and, lo, it is many +<pb n="128"/><anchor id="Pg128"/> +stems, which have crept their way under the +tangle, and every one is tipped with a cluster +of stars or round little buds each on its long +stem, fairly begging to be picked. It gets +picked.</p> + +<p>Yet sometimes its very beauty has stayed +my hand. I shall never forget one clump I +found, growing out of a bank of deep green +moss, partly shaded by a great hemlock. The +soft pink blossoms—luxuriant leafy sprays of +them—were lying out on the moss in a pagan +carelessness of beauty, as though some +god had willed it there for his pleasure. I sat +beside it a long time, and in the end I left it +without picking it.</p> + +<p>On this particular day, Jonathan being +still lost in the brush patch, I had risen +from my visit with the first-discovered blossoms +and wandered on, from clump to clump, +wherever the glimpse of a leaf attracted me, +picking the choicest here and there and +dropping them into my box. After I do not +know how long, I was roused by Jonathan’s +whistle. I was some distance up the hillside +by this time, and he was beside the brook, at +the bend.</p> +<pb n="129"/><anchor id="Pg129"/> + +<p><q>What luck?</q> he called.</p> + +<p><q>Good luck! I’ve found lots. Come up!</q></p> + +<p>He took a few steps up toward me, so that +conversation could drop from shouting to +speaking levels. <q>How many did you get?</q> +he asked.</p> + +<p><q>How many?… Oh … why … Oh, I +got one up there where you showed me—under +the rock, you know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Good one?</q></p> + +<p><q>Eight inches. He’s down there by the +bars.</q></p> + +<p><q>Good! And what about the bend?</q></p> + +<p><q>The bend? Oh, I didn’t fish there—look +at these! Aren’t they beauties?</q> I +came down the hill to hold my open box up +to his face. But my casual word almost +effaced the scent of the flowers.</p> + +<p><q>Ah—yes—delicious—didn’t fish +there? Why not? Did they see you?</q></p> + +<p><q>Who? The trout? I don’t know. But I +saw this. And I just had to pick it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well! You’re a great fisherman! And with +that water right there beside you! Lord!</q></p> + +<p><q>With the arbutus right here beside me! +Lord!</q></p> +<pb n="130"/><anchor id="Pg130"/> + +<p><q>But the arbutus would wait.</q></p> + +<p><q>But the trout would wait. They’re waiting +for you now, don’t you hear them? Go +and fish there!</q></p> + +<p><q>No. That’s your pool.</q> Jonathan has a +way of bestowing a trout-pool on me as if it +were a bouquet. To refuse its opportunities +is almost like throwing his flowers back in his +face.</p> + +<p><q>Well—of course it’s a beautiful pool—</q></p> + +<p><q>Best on the brook,</q> murmured Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>But, truly, I’d enjoy it just as much to +have you fish it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Nobody can fish it now for a while. I +thought you’d be there, of course, and I came +stamping along down, close by the bank. +They wouldn’t bite now—not for half an +hour, anyway.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, then, that’s just right. We’ll go on +up the hillside for half an hour, and then come +back and fish it. Set your rod up against the +bayberry here, and come along—look there! +you’re almost stepping on some!</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan, gradually adjusting himself to +the turn of things, stood his rod up against +the bush with the meticulous care of the true +<pb n="131"/><anchor id="Pg131"/> +sportsman. <q>Where did you leave yours?</q> +he asked, with a suspiciousness born of a +deep knowledge of my character.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, down by the bars.</q></p> + +<p><q>Standing up or lying down?</q></p> + +<p><q>Lying down, I think. It’s all right.</q></p> + +<p><q>It’s not all right if it’s lying down. Anything +might trample on it.</q></p> + +<p><q>For instance, what?—birds or crickets?</q></p> + +<p><q>For instance, people or cows.</q> He strode +down the hill, and I saw him stoop. As he +returned I could read disapproval in his gait. +<q>Will you never learn how to treat a rod! +It was lying just beyond the bars. I must +have landed within two feet of it when I +jumped over.</q></p> + +<p><q>I’m sorry. I meant to go back. I know +perfectly how to treat a rod. My trouble +comes in knowing when to apply my knowledge.… +Well, let’s go up there. Near those +big hemlocks there’s some, I remember.</q> +And we wandered on, separating a little to +scan the ground more widely.</p> + +<p>Once having pried his mind away from the +trout, Jonathan was as keen for arbutus as I +could wish, and soon I heard an exclamation, +<pb n="132"/><anchor id="Pg132"/> +and saw him kneel. <q>Oh, come over!</q> he +called; <q>you really ought to see this growing!</q></p> + +<p><q>But there’s some I want, right here, +that’s lovely—</q></p> + +<p><q>Never mind. Come and see this—oh, +come!</q></p> + +<p>Of course I come, and of course I am glad I +came, and of course soon I am obliged to call +Jonathan to see some I have found—<q>Jonathan, +it is truly the loveliest +<hi rend="font-style: italic">yet!</hi> It’s the +way it grows—with the moss and all—please +come!</q> And of course he comes.</p> + +<p>We had been on the hillside a long half-hour, +much nearer an hour, when Jonathan +began to grow restive. <q>Don’t you think you +have enough?</q> he suggested several times. +Finally, he spoke plainly of the trout.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, yes, of course,</q> I said, <q>you go down +and I’ll follow just as soon as I’ve gone along +that upper path.</q></p> + +<p>Not at all. That was not what was wanted. +So I turned and we went down the hill, back +to the bend, whose seductions I had been so +puzzlingly able to resist. I am sure Jonathan +has never yet quite understood how I could +<pb n="133"/><anchor id="Pg133"/> +leave that bit of water at my left hand and +turn away to the right.</p> + +<p><q>Now—sneak!</q></p> + +<p>We sneaked, and I sank down just back of +the edge of the bank. Jonathan crouched +some feet behind, coaching me:—<q>Now—draw +out a little more line—not too much—there—and +have some slack in your hand. +Now, up-stream fifteen feet—allow for the +wind—wait till that gust passes—now! +Good! First-rate! Now let her drift—there—what +did I tell you? Give him line! <hi rend="font-style: italic">Give</hi> him +line! Now, feel of him—careful! You’ll +know when to strike … there!… Oh! too +bad!</q></p> + +<p>For as I struck, my line held fast.</p> + +<p><q>Snagged, by gummy! Can’t you pull +clear?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not without stirring up the whole pool. +You’ll have to do the fishing, after all.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh! <hi rend="font-style: italic">too</hi> +bad! That’s hard luck!</q></p> + +<p><q>Not a bit. I like to watch you do it.</q></p> + +<p>And so indeed I did. Once having realized +that I was temporarily laid by, Jonathan put +his whole mind on the pool, while I, being +honorably released from all responsibility, +<pb n="134"/><anchor id="Pg134"/> +except that of keeping my line taut, could +put my whole mind on his performance. +There is a little the same sort of pleasure in +watching the skillful handling of a rod that +there is in watching the bow-action of a +violinist. Both things demand the utmost +nicety of adjustment: body, arm, wrist, fingers +uniting in an interplay of efficiency exactly +adapted to the intricately shifting needs +of each moment.</p> + +<p>Thus I watched, through the typical stages +of the sport: the delicate flip of the bait into +the current at just the right spot; its swift +descent, imperceptibly guided by the rod’s +quivering tip; its slower drift toward deep +water; its sudden vanishing, and the whir of +the reel as the line goes out; then the pause, +the critical moments of <q>feeling for him</q>; at +last the strike … and then, a flopping in the +grass behind me, and Jonathan crawling +back to kill and unhook him.</p> + +<p><q>Don’t get up. There’s probably another +one,</q> he said; and soon, by the same reptilian +methods, was back for another try. There +was another one, and yet another, and then a +little fellow, barely hooked. <q>That’s all,</q> +<pb n="135"/><anchor id="Pg135"/> +said Jonathan, as he rose to put him back into +the pool, and we watched the pretty spotted +creature fling himself upstream with a wild +flourish of his gleaming body.</p> + +<p><q>Now I’ll get you clear,</q> said Jonathan, +wading out into the water, and, with sleeves +rolled high, feeling deep, deep down under +the opposite bank. <q>He had you all right—it’s +wound round a root and then jabbed +deep into it … hard luck! I wanted you to +get those fellows!</q> And to this day I am sure +he remembers those trout with a tinge of +regret.</p> + +<p>I had intended leaving him to fish the rest +of the brook, while I went back to that upper +path to look up two or three special arbutus +clumps that I knew, but seeing his depression +over the snag incident, I could not suggest +this. Instead I followed the stream with him, +accepting his urgent offer of all the best pools, +while he, taking what was left, drew out perfectly +good trout from the most unhopeful-looking +bits of water. And at the end, there +was time to return along the upper path and +visit my old friends, so both of us were satisfied.</p> +<pb n="136"/><anchor id="Pg136"/> + +<p>On such days, however, there is always one +person who is not satisfied, and that is, Kit +the horse. Kit has borne with our vagaries +for many years, but she has never come to +understand them. She never fails to greet +our return, as our voices come within the +range of her pricked-up ears, by a prolonged +and reproachful whinny, which says as plainly +as is necessary, <q>Back? Well—I should +<hi rend="font-style: italic">think</hi> it was time! +<hi rend="font-style: italic">I should think it was +TIME!</hi></q> Now and then we have thought it +would be pleasant to have a little motor-car +that could be tucked away at any roadside, +without reference to a good hitching-place, +but if we had it, I am sure we should miss that +ungracious welcoming whinny. We should +miss, too, the exasperated violence of Kit’s +pace on the first bit of the home road—a +violence expressing in the most ostentatious +manner her opinion of folks who keep a respectable +horse hitched by the roadside, far +from the delights of the dim, sweet stable +and the dusty, sneezy, munchy hay.</p> + +<p>But leaving out this little matter of Kit’s +preference, and also the other little matter of +the trout’s preference, I feel sure that an arbutus-trouting +<pb n="137"/><anchor id="Pg137"/> +is peculiarly satisfying. It meets +every human need—the need of food and +beauty, the need of feeling strong and skillful, +the need of becoming deeply aware of +nature as living and kind. Moreover, it is +very satisfying afterwards. As we sat that +evening, over a late supper, with a shallow +dish of arbutus beside us, I remarked, <q>The +advantage of getting arbutus is, that you +bring the whole day home with you and +have it at your elbow.</q></p> + +<p><q>The advantage of getting trout,</q> remarked +Jonathan dreamily, as if to himself, +<q>is, that you bring your whole day home +with you, and have it for breakfast.</q></p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter07"> +<pb n="138"/><anchor id="Pg138"/> +<index index="toc" level1="VII. Without the Time of Day"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="VII. Without the Time of Day"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">VII</head> +<head type="sub">Without the Time of Day</head> + +<p><q>Jonathan, did you ever live without a +clock,—whole days, I mean,—days and +days—</q></p> + +<p><q>When I was a boy—most of the time, I +suppose. But the family didn’t like it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Of course. But did you like it?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, I liked it all. I seem to remember +getting pretty hungry sometimes, but it’s all +rather good as I look back on it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Let’s do it!</q></p> + +<p><q>Now?</q></p> + +<p><q>No. Society is an enlarged family, and +wouldn’t like it. But this summer, when +we camp.</q></p> + +<p><q>How do you know we’re going to camp?</q></p> + +<p><q>The things we know best we don’t always +know how we know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, then,—<hi rend="font-style: italic">if</hi> +we camp—</q></p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">When</hi> +we camp—let’s live without a +watch.</q></p> + +<p><q>You’d need one to get there.</q></p> +<pb n="139"/><anchor id="Pg139"/> + +<p><q>Take one, and let it run down.</q></p> + +<p>As it turned out, my <q>when</q> was truer +than Jonathan’s <q>if.</q> We did camp. We +did, however, use watches to get there: when +we expressed our baggage, when we sent our +canoe, when we took the trolley car and the +train; and the watch was still going as our +laden craft nosed gently against the bank of +the river-island that was to be our home for +two weeks. It was late afternoon, and the +shadows of the steep woods on the western +bank had already turned the rocks in midstream +from silver to gray, and dimmed the +brightness of the swift water, almost to the +eastern shore.</p> + +<p><q>Will there be time to get settled before +dark?</q> I asked, as we stepped out into the +shallow water and drew up the canoe to unload.</p> + +<p><q>Shall I look at my watch to see?</q> asked +Jonathan, with a note of amiable derision in +his voice.</p> + +<p><q>Well, I <hi rend="font-style: italic">should</hi> +rather like to know what +time it is. We won’t begin till to-morrow.</q></p> + +<p><q>You mean, we won’t begin to stop watching. +All right. It’s just seventeen and a half +<pb n="140"/><anchor id="Pg140"/> +minutes after five. I’ll give you the seconds +if you like.</q></p> + +<p><q>Minutes will do nicely, thank you.</q></p> + +<p><q>Lots of time. You collect firewood while +I get the tent ready. Then it’ll need us both +to set it up.</q></p> + +<p>We worked busily, happily. Ah! The joyous +elation of the first night in camp! Is +there anything like it? With days and days +ahead, and not even one counted off the +shining number! All the good things of +childhood and maturity seem pressed into +one mood of flawless, abounding happiness.</p> + +<p>By dark the tent was up, the baggage +stowed, the canoe secured, the fire glowing +in a bed of embers, and we sat beside it, looking +out past the glooms of the hemlocks +across the moonlit river,—sat and ate city-cooked +chicken and sandwiches and drank +thermos-bottled tea.</p> + +<p><q>To-morrow we’ll cook,</q> I said. <q>To-night +it’s rather nice not to have to. Look at +the moonlight on that rock! How black it +makes the eddy below!</q></p> + +<p><q>Good bass under there,</q> said Jonathan. +<q>We’ll get some to-morrow.</q></p> +<pb n="141"/><anchor id="Pg141"/> + +<p><q>Maybe.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, of course, it’s always maybe, with +bass. Well—I’m done—and it’s quarter to +ten—late! Oh! Excuse me! Maybe you’d +rather I hadn’t told you. By the way, do I +wind my watch to-night or not?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not.</q></p> + +<p><q>Not it is, then. Sure you wouldn’t rather +have it wound, though? We can leave it +hanging in the tent. It won’t break loose and +bite you.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, it would. There would be a something—a +taint—</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, <hi rend="font-style: italic">all</hi> right!</q></p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>We slept with the murmur of the river +running through our dreams,—a murmur of +many voices: deep voices, high voices, grumbling +voices as the stones go grinding and rolling +along the ever-changing bottom,—and +only half roused when the dawn chorus of +the birds filled the air. That dawn chorus was +something we should have been loath to miss. +Through the first gray of the morning there +comes a stir in the woods, an expectant +tremor; a bird peeps softly and is still; then +<pb n="142"/><anchor id="Pg142"/> +another, and another, <q>softly conferring together.</q> +As the light grows warmer, comes a +clearer note from some leader, then a full, +complete song; another, and the woods are +awake, flinging out their wonderful song-greeting +to the morning. There is in it a prodigality +of swift-changing beauty like ocean +surf: a continuous and intricate interweaving +of rhythms, pulses and ebbings of clear tone, +beautiful phrases rising antiphonal, showerings +of bright notes, moments of subsidence, +almost of pause. As the light grows and +sharpens, the music reaches a crescendo of +exuberance, and at last dies down as real day +comes, bringing with it the day’s work. On +our island the leader of the chorus was almost +always a song sparrow, though once or +twice a wood thrush came over from the shore +woods and filled the hemlock shadows with +the limpid splendors of his song.</p> + +<p>Hearing the chorus through our dreams, +we slept again, and when I really waked the +sun was high, flecking the eastern V of our +tent with dazzling patches. I heard Jonathan +moving about outside, and the crackling of +a new-made fire. I went to the front of the +<pb n="143"/><anchor id="Pg143"/> +tent and looked out. Yes, there they were, +the fire and Jonathan, in a quiet space of +shade where the early coolness still hung. +Beyond them, half shut out from view by +the low-spreading hemlock boughs, was the +open river—such gayety of swift water! +Such dazzle of midsummer morning! I drew +back, eager to be out in it.</p> + +<p><q>Bacon and eggs, is it?</q> called Jonathan, +<q>or shall I run down and try for a bass?</q></p> + +<p><q>Don’t!</q> I called. I knew that if he once +got out after bass he was lost to me for the +day. And now we had cut loose from even +the mild tyranny of his watch. As I thought +of this I went over to the many-forked tree, +whose close-trimmed branches served our tent +as hat-rack, clothes-rack, everything-that-can-hang-or-perch-rack, +and opened Jonathan’s +watch.</p> + +<p><q>Well, what time is it?</q> Jonathan was +peering in between the tent-flaps.</p> + +<p><q>Twenty-two minutes before five.</q></p> + +<p><q>A.M., I judge. Sorry you didn’t let me +wind it?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not a bit. I was just curious to see when +it stopped, that was all.</q></p> +<pb n="144"/><anchor id="Pg144"/> + +<p><q>Well, now you know. Hereafter the official +time for the camp is +<reg orig="4.38"><anchor id='E1'/><ref target="e1">4:38</ref></reg>—<hi +rend="font-variant: small-caps">A.M.</hi> +or <hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">P.M.</hi>, +according to taste. Come along. The bacon’s +done, and I’m blest if I want to drop in the +eggs.</q></p> + +<p>Dropping an egg will never, I fear, be one +of Jonathan’s most finished performances. +He watched me do it with generous admiration. +<q>If you could just get over being +scared of them,</q> I suggested, as the last one +plumped into the pan and set up its gentle +sizzle.</p> + +<p><q>No use. I <hi rend="font-style: italic">am</hi> +scared of the things. I tap +and tap, and nothing happens, and then I +get mad and tap hard, and they’re all over +the place.</q></p> + +<p>By the time breakfast was over, even the +coolness under the hemlocks was beginning to +grow warm and aromatic. The birds in the +shore woods were quieter, though out at the +sunny end of our island, where the hemlocks +gave place to low scrub growth, the song +sparrow sang gayly now and then.</p> + +<p><q>Now,</q> said Jonathan, <q>what about fishing?</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—let’s fish!</q></p> +<pb n="145"/><anchor id="Pg145"/> + +<p><q>One up stream and one down, or keep together?</q></p> + +<p><q>Together,</q> I decided. <q>If we go two +ways there’s no telling when I’ll ever see +you again.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, there is: when I’m hungry.</q></p> + +<p><q>No; some time after you’ve noticed +you’re hungry.</q></p> + +<p><q>Now, if we had watches it would be so +much simpler: we could meet here at, say, +one o’clock.</q></p> + +<p><q>Simple, indeed! When did you ever look +at a watch when you were fishing, unless I +made you? No, my way is simple, but we +stay together.</q></p> + +<p>Of course, in river fishing, <q>together</q> means +simply not absolutely out of sight of each +other. Jonathan may be up to his arm-pits in +mid-current, or marooned on a rock above a +swirling eddy, while I am in a similar situation +beyond calling distance, but so long as a +bend in the river does not cut us off, we are +<q>together,</q> and very companionable togetherness +it is, too. When I see Jonathan wildly +waving to attract my attention, I know he +has either just caught a big bass or else just +<pb n="146"/><anchor id="Pg146"/> +lost one, and this gives me something to smile +over as I wonder which it is. After a time, if +I am catching shiners and no bass, and Jonathan +doesn’t seem to be moving, I infer that +his luck is better than mine, and drift along +toward him. Or it may be the other way +around, and he comes to look me up. Bass +are the most uncertain of fish, and no one +can predict when they will elect to bite, or +where. Sometimes they are in the still water, +deep or shallow according to their caprice; +sometimes they hang on the edges of the +rapids; sometimes they are in the dark, +smooth eddies below the great boulders; +sometimes in the clear depths around the +rocks near shore. Each day afresh,—indeed, +each morning and each afternoon,—the +fisherman must try, and try, and try, until +he discovers what their choice has been for +that special time. Yet no fisherman who has +once drawn out a good bass from a certain +bit of water can help feeling, next time, that +there is another waiting for him there. That +is one of the reasons why he is always hopeful, +and so always happy. The fish he has caught, +at this well-remembered spot and that, rise +<pb n="147"/><anchor id="Pg147"/> +up out of the past and flick their tails at him; +and all the stretches between—stretches of +water that have never for him held anything +but shiners, stretches of time diversified by +not even a nibble—sink into pleasant insignificance.</p> + +<p>We banked our fire, stowed everything in +the tent that a thunderstorm would hurt, +and splashed out into the river. There it lay +in all its bright, swift beauty, and we stood +a moment, looking, feeling the push of the +water about our knees and the warmth of the +sun on our shoulders.</p> + +<p><q>It makes a difference, sleeping out in it +all,</q> I said. <q>You feel as if it belonged to +you so much more. I quite own the river this +morning, don’t you?</q></p> + +<p><q>Quite. But not the bass in it. Bet you +don’t catch one!</q></p> + +<p><q>Bet I beat you!</q></p> + +<p><q>Bass, mind you. Sunfish don’t count. +You’re always catching sunfish.</q></p> + +<p><q>They count in the pan. But I’ll beat you +on bass. I know some places—</q></p> + +<p><q>Who doesn’t? All right, go ahead!</q></p> + +<p>We were off; Jonathan, as usual, wading +<pb n="148"/><anchor id="Pg148"/> +up to his chest or perched on a bit of boulder +above some dark, slick rapid; I preferring +water not more than waist-deep, and not too +far from shore to miss the responses of the +wood-folk to my passing: soft flurries of +wings; shy, half-suppressed peepings; quick +warning notes; light footfalls, hopping or +running or galloping; the snapping of twigs +and the crushing of leaves. Some sounds tell +me who the creature is,—the warning of the +blue jay, the whirr of the big ruffed grouse, +the thud of the bounding rabbit,—but many +others leave me guessing, which is almost +better. When a very big stick snaps, I always +feel sure a deer is stealing away, though Jonathan +assures me that a chewink can break +twigs and <q>kick up a row generally,</q> so that +you’d swear it was nothing smaller than a +wild bull.</p> + +<p>So we fished that day. When I caught a +bass, which was seldom, I whooped and +waved it at Jonathan, and when I caught a +shiner, which was rather often, I waved it +too, just to keep his mind occupied. Hours +passed, and we met at a bend in the river +where the deep water glides close to shore.</p> +<pb n="149"/><anchor id="Pg149"/> + +<p><q>Hungry?</q> I asked.</p> + +<p><q>Now you speak of it, yes.</q></p> + +<p><q>Shall we go back?</q></p> + +<p><q>How can I tell? Now, if we only had that +watch we’d know whether we ought to be +hungry or not.</q></p> + +<p><q>What does that matter, if we +<hi rend="font-style: italic">are</hi> hungry? +Besides, if you’d had a watch, you’d have +had to carry it in your teeth. You know perfectly +well you wouldn’t have brought it, +anyway.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—then, at least when we got back, +we should have known whether we ought to +have been hungry or not. Now we shall never +know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Never! Oh! Look there, Jonathan! +We’re going to catch it!</q> A sense of growing +shadow in the air had made me look up, and +there, back of the steep-rising woods, hung a +blue-black cloud, with ragged edges crawling +out into the brightness of the sky.</p> + +<p><q>Sure enough! The bass’ll bite now, if it +really comes. Wait till the first drops, and +see what you see.</q></p> + +<p>We had not long to wait. There came that +sudden expectancy in the air and the trees, +<pb n="150"/><anchor id="Pg150"/> +the strange pallor in the light, the chill sweep +of wind gusts with warm pauses between. +Then a few big drops splashed on the dusty, +sun-baked stones about us.</p> + +<p><q>Now! Wade right out there, to the edge +of that ledge—don’t slip over, it’s deep. +I’ll go down a little way.</q></p> + +<p>I waded out carefully, and cast, in the +smooth, dark water already beginning to be +rain-pocked. It was surprisingly shivery, that +storm wind! I glanced toward shore to look +for shelter—I remembered an overhanging +ledge of rock—then my line went taut! I +forgot about shelter, forgot about being +chilly; I knew it was a good bass.</p> + +<p>I got him in—too big to go through the +hole in my creel—cast for another—and +another—and yet another. The rain began +to fall in sheets, and the wind nearly blew me +over, but who could run away from such +fishing? The surface of the river, deep blue-gray, +seemed rising everywhere in little jets +to meet the rain. Rapids, eddies, still waters, +weedy edges, all looked alike; there were +neither waves nor swirls nor glassy slicks, +but all were roughly furry under the multitudinous +<pb n="151"/><anchor id="Pg151"/> +assaults of the fierce rain-drops. +The sky was mottled lead-color, the wind +blew less strongly, but cold—cold. And +under that water the bass were biting, my rod +was bending double, my reel softly screaming +as I gave line, and one after another I drew +the fish alongside and dipped them out with +my landing net.</p> + +<p>Then, as suddenly as they had begun, they +stopped biting. I waited long minutes; +nothing happened, and all at once I realized +that I was very wet and very cold. Wading +ashore, I saw Jonathan shivering along up +the narrow beach toward me, his shoulders +drawn in to half their natural spread, neck +tucked in between his collar-bones, knees +slightly bent.</p> + +<p><q>You can’t be cold?</q> I questioned as soon +as he was near enough to hear me through +the slash of the rain and wind.</p> + +<p><q>No, of course not; are you?</q></p> + +<p>We didn’t discuss it, but ran up the bank +to the rock-ledge and crouched under it, our +teeth literally chattering.</p> + +<p><q>Did you ever see such fishing?</q> I managed +to stammer.</p> +<pb n="152"/><anchor id="Pg152"/> + +<p><q>Great! But oh, <hi rend="font-style: italic">why</hi> +didn’t I bring the whiskey bottle?</q></p> + +<p><q>Let’s run for camp! We can’t be wetter.</q></p> + +<p>We crawled out into the rain again, and +first sprinted and then dog-trotted along the +river edge. No bird notes now in the woods +beside us, no whirring of wings; only the rain +sounds: soft swishings and drippings and +gusty showerings, very different from the +flat, flicking sounds when rain first starts in +dry woods.</p> + +<p>Camp looked a little cheerless, but a blazing +fire, started with dry stuff we had stowed +inside the tent, changed things, and dry +clothes changed them still more, and we sat +within the tent flaps and ate ginger-snaps in +great contentment of spirit while we waited +for the rain to stop.</p> + +<p>It did stop, and very soon the fish were +sizzling in the pan.</p> + +<p><q>Of course, if we had a watch, now—</q> +suggested Jonathan, as he carefully tucked +under the pan little sticks of just the right +length.</p> + +<p><q>What should we know more than we do +now—that we’re hungry?</q> I asked.</p> +<pb n="153"/><anchor id="Pg153"/> + +<p><q>Well, for one thing, we’d know what +time it is,</q> replied Jonathan tranquilly.</p> + +<p><q>And for another we’d know whether it’s +dinner or supper I’m cooking,</q> I supplemented. +<q>But does it matter? You won’t get +anything different, no matter which it is—just +fish is what you’ll get. And pretty soon +the sun will be out, and you can set up a +stick and watch the shadow and make a sundial +for yourself.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, I don’t really care which it is.</q></p> + +<p><q>Do you suppose I don’t know that! And +meanwhile, you might cut the bread and +make some toast,—there are some good +embers on your side under the pan,—and +I’ll get the butter, and there we’ll be.</q></p> + +<p>By the time the toast was made and the +fish curling brownly away from the pan, the +sun had indeed come out, at first pale and +watery, then clear, and still high enough in +the heavens to set the soaked earth steaming +fragrantly with its heat. Odors of hemlock +and wet earth mingled with odors of toast +and fried fish.</p> + +<p><q>Um-m! Smell it all!</q> I said. <q>What a lot +we should miss if we didn’t eat in the kitchen!</q></p> +<pb n="154"/><anchor id="Pg154"/> + +<p><q>Or cook in the dining-room—which?</q></p> + +<p><q>And hear that song sparrow! Doesn’t it +sound as if the rain had washed his song a +little cleaner and clearer?</q></p> + +<p>There followed the wonderful afterlight +that a short, drenching rain leaves behind it—a +hush of light, deeply pervasive and +friendly. The sunshine slanted across the +gleaming wet rocks in the river, lit up the +rain-darkened trunks of the hemlocks, glinted +on the low-hanging leaves, and flashed through +the dripping edges of sagging fern fronds. As +twilight came on, we canoed across to the side +of the river where the road lay—the other side +was steep and pathless woods—and walked +down to the nearest farmhouse to buy eggs for +the morning. Back again by the light of a +low-hung moon, and across the dim water to +our own island and the embers of our fire.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, Jonathan! We never asked them +what time it was!</q> I said. <q>I meant to—for +your sake—I thought you’d sleep better if +you knew.</q></p> + +<p><q>Too bad! Probably I should have. I +thought of it, of course, but was afraid that +if I asked it would spoil your day.</q></p> +<pb n="155"/><anchor id="Pg155"/> + +<p><q>It would take something pretty bad to +spoil a day like this one,</q> I said.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>Two days later the weather turned still and +warm, the bass refused to bite, and even the +sunfish lay, shy or wary or indifferent, in +their shallow, sunny pools, so we resolved to +walk down the river to the post-office, four +miles away, for possible mail. As we sat on +the steps of the little store, looking it over,—<q>Here’s +news,</q> said Jonathan; <q>Jack and +Molly say they’ll run up if we want them, +day after to-morrow—up on the morning +train, and back on the evening.</q></p> + +<p><q>Good! Tell them to come along.</q></p> + +<p><q>No—it’s to-morrow—letter’s been here +since yesterday. I’ll telegraph.</q></p> + +<p>As we tramped home we planned the day. +<q>We’ll meet them and all walk up together,</q> +said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>We’d better catch some bass and leave +them all hooked in a pool, ready for them to +pull out,</q> I added; <q>otherwise they may not +catch any. And maybe you’d better meet +them and I’ll have dinner ready when you +get back.</q></p> +<pb n="156"/><anchor id="Pg156"/> + +<p><q>Nonsense! You come, and we’ll all get +dinner when we get back. That’s what +they’re coming for—to see the whole thing.</q></p> + +<p><q>But if it’s late—they’ve got to get back +for that down train.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—time enough.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, Jonathan! What about catching that +train?</q></p> + +<p><q>They’ll have watches—watches that +go.</q></p> + +<p><q>But what about our meeting them? The +train arrives at +<reg orig="10.15"><anchor id="E2"/><ref target="e2">10:15</ref></reg>, +they said. What does +<reg orig="10.15"><anchor id="E3"/><ref target="e3">10:15</ref></reg> +look like in the sky, I wonder!</q></p> + +<p><q>Or rather, what does 8.45 look like? It +takes an hour and a half to get there, counting +crossing the river.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes—dear me! Well, Jonathan, we’ll +just have to get up early and go, and then +wait.</q></p> + +<p><q>Or else take our watch to the farmhouse +and set it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, I will not! I’d rather start at +daylight.</q></p> + +<p>Which was very nearly what we did. The +morning opened with a sun obscured, and I +felt sure it was stealing a march on us and +<pb n="157"/><anchor id="Pg157"/> +would suddenly burst out upon us from a +noonday sky. We breakfasted hastily, ferried +across to shore, and set a swinging pace down +the road. As we walked, the sun burned +through the mist, and our shadows came out, +dim, long things, striding with the exaggerated +gait that shadows have, over the grassy +banks to our right.</p> + +<p><q>I think,</q> said Jonathan, <q>it may be as +late as seven o’clock, but perhaps it’s only +six.</q></p> + +<p>When we reached the station, the official +clock registered 8.30. We strolled over to the +store-and-post-office and got more letters—one +from Molly and Jack saying thank you +they’d come. <q>They don’t entirely understand +our mail system up here,</q> said Jonathan. +We got some ginger-cookies and some +milk and had a second breakfast, and finally +wandered back to the station to wait for the +train. It came, bearing the expected two, +and much friendliness. <q>Get our letter? +There, Jack! He said you wouldn’t, but I +said you would. I made him send it … four +miles to walk? What fun!</q></p> + +<p>It was fun, indeed, and all went well until +<pb n="158"/><anchor id="Pg158"/> +after dinner, when Jack—saying, <q>Well, +maybe we’d better be starting back for that +train</q>—drew out his watch. He opened it, +muttered something, put it to his ear, then +began to wind it rapidly. He wound and +wound. We all laughed.</p> + +<p><q>Looks as if you hadn’t remembered to +wind it last night,</q> said Jonathan, glancing +at me.</p> + +<p><q>I haven’t done that in months, hang it! +Give me the time, will you, Jonathan?</q> said +Jack.</p> + +<p><q>Sorry!</q> Jonathan was smiling genially. +<q>Mine’s run down too. It stopped at +twenty-two minutes before +five—<hi rend="font-variant: small-caps">A. M.</hi>, I +think.</q></p> + +<p><q>What luck! And Molly didn’t bring +hers.</q></p> + +<p><q>You told me not to,</q> Molly flicked in.</p> + +<p><q>So here we are,</q> said Jonathan, <q>entirely +without the time of day.</q></p> + +<p><q>But plenty of real time all round us,</q> I +said. <q>Let’s use it, and start.</q> I avoided +Jonathan’s eye.</p> + +<p>We reached the station with an hour and +ten minutes to spare—bought more ginger-cookies +<pb n="159"/><anchor id="Pg159"/> +and more milk. As we sat eating +them in the midst of the preternatural calm +that marks a country railroad station outside +of train times, Molly remarked brightly,—</p> + +<p><q>Well, I don’t see but we got on just as +well without a watch, didn’t we, Jack? Why +do we need watches, anyway? Do +<hi rend="font-style: italic">you</hi> see?</q> +she turned to us. <q>Jack does everything by +his watch—eats and breathes and sleeps by +it—</q></p> + +<p>Jack returned, watch in hand—he had +been getting railroad time from the telegraph +operator. <q>Want to set yours while you +think of it?</q> he asked Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Sorry—thank you—didn’t bring it,</q> +said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>By George, man, what’ll you do?</q> Real +consternation sounded in Jack’s tones.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, we’ll get along somehow,</q> said Jonathan. +<q>You see, we don’t have many engagements, +except with the bass, and they +never meet theirs, anyhow.</q></p> + +<p>When the train had gone, I said, <q>Jonathan, +why didn’t you tell them it was my +whim?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, I just didn’t,</q> said Jonathan.</p> +<pb n="160"/><anchor id="Pg160"/> + +<p>As Jonathan had predicted, we did get +along somehow—got along rather well, on +the whole. There are, of course, some drawbacks +to an unwatched life. You never want +to start the next meal till you are hungry, +and after that it takes one or two or three +hours, as the case may be, to go back to +camp and get the meal ready, and by that +time you are almost hungrier than you like +being. But except for this, and the little +matter of meeting trains, it is rather pleasant +to break away from the habit of watching the +watch, and it was with real regret that, on the +last night of our camp, we took our watch +to the farmhouse to set it.</p> + +<p><q>Run down, did it? Guess you forgot to +wind it. Well—we do forget things sometimes, +all of us do,</q> the farmer’s wife said +comfortingly as she went to look at the clock. +<q>Twenty minutes to seven, our clock says. +It’s apt to be fast, so I guess you won’t miss +any trains. Father he says he’d rather have +a clock fast than slow any day, but it don’t +often get more than ten minutes wrong either +way.</q></p> + +<p>And to us, after our two weeks of camp, +<pb n="161"/><anchor id="Pg161"/> +ten minutes’ error in a clock seemed indeed +slight.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan,</q> I said, as we walked back +along the road, <q>I hate to go back to clock +time. I like real time better.</q></p> + +<p><q>You couldn’t do so many things in a +day,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>No—maybe not.</q></p> + +<p><q>But maybe that wouldn’t matter.</q></p> + +<p><q>Maybe it wouldn’t,</q> I said.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter08"> +<pb n="162"/><anchor id="Pg162"/> +<index index="toc" level1="VIII. The Ways of Griselda"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="VIII. The Ways of Griselda"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">VIII</head> +<head type="sub">The Ways of Griselda</head> + +<p><q>Of course you don’t know what her name +is,</q> I said, as we stood examining the sleek +little black mare Jonathan had just brought +up from the city.</p> + +<p><q>No. Forgot to ask. Don’t believe they’d +have known anyway—one of a hundred or +so.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, we’ll name her again. Dear me—she’s +rather plain! Probably she’s useful.</q></p> + +<p><q>Hope so,</q> said Jonathan. Then, stepping +back a little, in a slightly grieved tone, <q>But +I don’t call her plain. Wait till she’s groomed +up—</q></p> + +<p><q>It’s that droop of her neck—sort of patient—and +the way she drops one of her +hips—if they are hips.</q></p> + +<p><q>But we want a horse to be patient.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes. I don’t know that I care about having +her <hi rend="font-style: italic">look</hi> so terribly much so as this. I +think I’ll call her Griselda.</q></p> +<pb n="163"/><anchor id="Pg163"/> + +<p><q>Now, why Griselda?</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, don’t you know? She was that +patient creature, with the horrid husband +who had to keep trying to see just how patient +she was. It’s a hateful story—enough +to turn any one who brooded on it into a militant +suffragette.</q></p> + +<p><q>But you can’t call a horse Griselda—not +for common stable use, you know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Call her <q>Griz</q> for short. It does very +well.</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan jeered a little, but in the family +the name held. Our man Hiram said nothing, +but I think in private he called her +<q>Fan</q> or <q>Beauty</q> or <q>Lady,</q> or some +such regulation stable name.</p> + +<p>Called by any name, she pleased us, and +she <hi rend="font-style: italic">was</hi> patient. She trotted peacefully up +hill and down, she did her best at ploughing +and haymaking and all the odd jobs that the +farm supplied. She stood when we left her, +with that same demure, almost overdone +droop of the neck that I had first noticed. +When I met Jonathan at the station, she +stood with her nose against a snorting train, +looking as if nothing could rouse her.</p> +<pb n="164"/><anchor id="Pg164"/> + +<p><q>Good little horse you got there,</q> remarked +the station agent. <q>Where’d you +find her?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, I picked her out of a bunch down in +the city,</q> said Jonathan casually. <q>I didn’t +think I knew much about horses, but I guess +I was in luck this time.</q></p> + +<p><q>Guess you know more about horses than +you’re sayin’.</q> And Jonathan, thus pressed, +admitted with suitable reluctance that he +<hi rend="font-style: italic">had</hi> now and then been able to detect a good +horse by his own observation.</p> + +<p>On the way home he openly congratulated +himself on his find. <q>I really wasn’t +sure I knew how to pick out a horse,</q> he remarked, +in a glow of retrospective modesty, +<q>but I certainly got a treasure this time.</q></p> + +<p>Griz had been with us about two weeks, +and all went well. Then another horse was +needed for farm work, and one was sent up—one +Kit by name—a big, pleasant, rather +stupid brown mare.</p> + +<p><q>They do say two mares don’t git on so +well together as a mare ’n a horse,</q> remarked +Hiram.</p> + +<p><q>But these are both such quiet creatures,</q> +<pb n="165"/><anchor id="Pg165"/> +I protested, to which Hiram made no answer. +Hiram seldom made an answer unless +fairly cornered into it.</p> + +<p>For two or three days after the new arrival +nothing happened, so far as we knew, +except that Griz always laid her ears back, +and looked queer about her under lip, whenever +Kit was led in or out of the stall next +her, while Kit always huddled up close to +her manger whenever Griz was led past her +heels. Once or twice Griz slipped her halter +in the stall, and Hiram said there was a place +on Kit that looked as if she had been kicked, +but when we scrutinized Griz, neck a-droop +and eyes a-blink, we found it hard to think +ill of her. Besides, Jonathan was now fairly +committed to the opinion that he had <q>got +a treasure this time.</q> <q>Kit may have hurt +herself lying down,</q> he suggested, and again +Hiram made no answer.</p> + +<p>Then one night, sometime during the very +small, very dark, and very sleepy hours, we +were awakened by awful sounds. <q>What is +it? What <hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> it?</q> I gasped.</p> + +<p>Crash! Bang! Boom! The trampling of +hoofs!—heavy, hollow pounding!—the +<pb n="166"/><anchor id="Pg166"/> +tearing and splintering of wood!—all coming +from the barn, though loud enough, indeed, +to have come from the next room.</p> + +<p>Jonathan was up in an instant muttering, +<q>Where are my rubber boots?—and my +coat?</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan! <hi rend="font-style: italic">what</hi> +a combination!</q></p> + +<p>But he was gone, and I heard the snap of +the lantern and the slam of the back door +almost before the rocking-chair in the sitting-room +that he had hit—and talked to—had +stopped rocking. Then I heard him calling +outside Hiram’s window and then he ran +past our window, out to the barn. I wished +he had waited for Hiram, but I had an undercurrent +of pleasure in hearing him run. Jonathan’s +theory is that there is never any +hurry, and now and then I like to have this +notion jolted up a little.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the awful sounds had ceased. +There was the rumble of the stable door, a +pause, and Jonathan’s voice in conversational +tones. Next came the flashing of Hiram’s +lantern, and the <hi rend="font-style: italic">tromp, tromp, tromp</hi>, +in much quicker tempo than usual, of Hiram’s +heavy boots. Hiram’s theory was a +<pb n="167"/><anchor id="Pg167"/> +good deal like Jonathan’s, so this also gave +me pleasure. Finally, there came the flash +of another lantern, and I recognized the +quick, short step of Mrs. Hiram. I smiled to +myself, picturing the meeting between her and +Jonathan, for I knew just how Jonathan was +costumed. In two minutes I heard her steps +repassing, and in five minutes Jonathan returned. +He was chuckling quietly.</p> + +<p><q>I guess Griz got all she needed—didn’t +know either of ’em had so much spunk in ’em.</q></p> + +<p><q>What happened?</q></p> + +<p><q>Don’t know, exactly, but when I opened +that door, there was Griz, just inside, no halter +on, head down, meek as Moses, as far +away from Kit’s heels as she could get—she’s +got the mark of them on her leg and her flank.</q></p> + +<p><q>Is she hurt?—or Kit?</q></p> + +<p><q>No, not so far as we can see, not to +amount to anything—except maybe Griz’s +feelings.</q></p> + +<p><q>And what about Mrs. Hiram’s feelings?</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan laughed aloud. <q>I was inside +with Kit, and she called out to know if she +could help.</q></p> + +<p><q>And what did you say?</q></p> +<pb n="168"/><anchor id="Pg168"/> + +<p><q>I said, <q>Not on your life.</q></q></p> + +<p><q>So that was why she came back. Did you +really say,‘Not on your life,’ or did you only +imply it in your tone, while you actually said, +‘No, thank you very much’?</q></p> + +<p><q>I really said it. At least, I don’t remember +conversations the way you do, but I didn’t +feel a bit like thanking anybody, and I +don’t believe I did.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, I wish I’d heard you. One misses a +good deal—</q></p> + +<p><q>You can see the stable to-morrow. That’ll +keep. They must have had a time of it! +The walls are marked and splintered as high +as I can reach. And I don’t believe Kit’ll +cringe when Griz passes her any more.</q></p> + +<p><q>Of course you remember Hiram +<hi rend="font-style: italic">said</hi> two +mares didn’t usually get on very well, and +even when they’re chosen by a good judge of +horses—</q></p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>After that the two did get along peaceably +enough, and Jonathan assured me that all +horses had these little affairs. One day we +drove over to the main street of the village on +an errand.</p> +<pb n="169"/><anchor id="Pg169"/> + +<p><q>Will she stand?</q> I questioned.</p> + +<p><q>Better hitch her, perhaps,</q> said Jonathan, +getting out the rope. He snapped it +into her bit-ring, then threw the other end +around a post and started to make a half-hitch. +But as he drew up the rope it was suddenly +jerked out of his hand. He looked up +and saw Griselda’s patient head waving high +above him on the end of an erect and rebellious +neck, the hitch-rope waggling in loops +and spirals in the air, and the whole outfit +backing away from him with speed and decision. +He was so astonished that he did +nothing, and in a moment Griz had stopped +backing and stood still, her head sagging +gently, the rope dangling.</p> + +<p><q>Well—I’ll—be—</q> I didn’t try to +remember just what Jonathan said he would +be, because it doesn’t really matter. We +both stared at Griz as if we had never seen her +before. Griz looked at nothing in particular, +she blinked long lashes over drowsy, dark +eyes, and sagged one hip.</p> + +<p><q>She’s trying to make believe she didn’t +do it—but she did,</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>Something must have startled her,</q> said +<pb n="170"/><anchor id="Pg170"/> +Jonathan, peering up and down the deserted +street. Two roosters were crowing antiphonally +in near-by yards, and a dog was barking +somewhere far off.</p> + +<p><q>What?</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>You never can tell, with a horse.</q></p> + +<p><q>No, apparently not,</q> I said, smiling to +myself; and I added hastily, as I saw Jonathan +go forward to her head, +<q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Don’t</hi> try it +again, please! I’ll stay by her while you go +in. <hi rend="font-style: italic">Please!</hi></q> +For I had detected on Jonathan’s +face a look that I very well knew. It was the +same expression he had worn that Sunday he +led the calf to pasture. He made no answer, +but stood examining the hitch-rope.</p> + +<p><q>No use,</q> he said, quietly releasing it and +tossing its coil into the carriage, <q>It’s too +rotten. If it snapped, she’d be ruined.</q></p> + +<p>I breathed freer. I privately hoped that all +the hitch-ropes at the farm were rotten.</p> + +<p><q>Griz stands perfectly well without hitching,</q> +I said as we drove home, <q>Why do you +force an issue?</q></p> + +<p><q>I didn’t. She did. She’s beaten me. If +I don’t hitch her now, she’ll know she’s master.</q></p> +<pb n="171"/><anchor id="Pg171"/> + +<p><q>Oh, dear!</q> I sighed. <q>Let her +<hi rend="font-style: italic">be</hi> master! +Where’s the harm? It’s just your vanity.</q></p> + +<p><q>Perhaps so,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p>When he agrees with me like that I know +it’s hopeless.</p> + +<p>The next night he wheeled in at the big gate +bearing about his shoulders a coil of heavy +rope.</p> + +<p><q>It looks like a ship’s cable,</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>Yes,</q> he responded, leaning his bicycle +against his side, and swinging the coil over +his head. <q>I want it for mooring purposes. +Think it’ll moor Griz?</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan!</q> I exclaimed, <q>you won’t!</q></p> + +<p><q>Watch me,</q> said Jonathan, and he proceeded +to explain to me the working of the +tackle.</p> + +<p>One end had a ring in it, and as nearly as +I remember, the plan was to put the rope +around her body, under what would be her +arm-pits if she had arm-pits,—horses’ joints +are never called what one would expect, of +course,—run the end through the ring, then +forward between her legs and through the bit-ring.</p> +<pb n="172"/><anchor id="Pg172"/> + +<p><q>Then, when she sets back, it cuts her in +two,</q> he concluded cheerfully.</p> + +<p><q>But you don’t +<hi rend="font-style: italic">want</hi> her in two,</q> I protested.</p> + +<p><q>She won’t set back,</q> he responded; <q>at +least, not more than once. To-morrow’s Sunday; +I’ll have to hitch her at church.</q></p> + +<p>I hoped it would rain, so we needn’t go, +but we were having a drought and the morning +dawned cloudless. We reached the church +just on the last stroke of the bell. The women +were all within; the men and boys lounging +in the vestibule were turning reluctant feet +to follow them.</p> + +<p><q>You go right in,</q> said Jonathan, <q>I’ll be +in soon.</q></p> + +<p>I turned to protest, but he was already +driving round to the side, and a hush had +fallen over the congregation within that made +it embarrassing to call. Besides, one of the +deacons stood holding open the door for me.</p> + +<p>I slipped into a pew near the back, with +the apologetic feeling one often has in an old +country church—a feeling that one is making +the ghosts move along a little. They did +move, of course,—probably ghosts are always +<pb n="173"/><anchor id="Pg173"/> +polite when one really meets them,—and +I sat down. Indeed, I was thinking very +little of ghosts that day, or of the minister +either. My ears were cocked to catch and +interpret all the noises that came in through +the open windows on my left. My eyes wandered +in that direction, too, though the clear +panes revealed nothing more exciting than +flickering maple leaves and a sky filmed over +by veils of cloud.</p> + +<p>The moralists tell us that what we get out +of any experience depends upon what we +bring to it. What I brought to it that morning +was a mind agog, attuned to receive these +expected outside sounds. To all such sounds +the service within was merely a background—a +background which didn’t know its +place, since it kept pushing itself more or +less importunately into the foreground. I sat +there, of course, with perfect propriety of +demeanor, but my reactions were something +like this:—</p> + +<p><hi rend="font-style: italic">Hymn 912</hi> +… seven stanzas! horrors! oh! +<hi rend="font-style: italic">omit the 3d, 5th, and +6th</hi>—well, I should +hope so!… I can’t hear a thing while this +is going on!… He hasn’t come in yet! +<pb n="174"/><anchor id="Pg174"/> +<hi rend="font-style: italic">Scripture reading for +to-day</hi>—why can’t he +give us the passage and let us read it for ourselves?—well, +his voice is rather high and +uneven, I think I could make out Jonathan’s +through the loopholes in it.… There! What +was that, I wonder! Sounded like shouting,—oh, +why can’t he talk softly! <hi rend="font-style: italic">Let us unite +in prayer.</hi> Ah! now we’ll have a long, quiet +time, anyway!… if only he wouldn’t pray +quite so loud! Why pray aloud at all, anyway? +I like the Quaker way best: a good long +strip of silence, where your thoughts can +wash around in any fashion that—There! +No—yes—no—it’s just people going by +on the road.… Maybe he’s in the back of +the church now, waiting for the close of the +prayer. Seems as if I had to look.… Well, +he isn’t.… <hi rend="font-style: italic">For +thy name’s sake, amen.</hi></p> + +<p>And then the collection, with an organ +voluntary the while—now why an organ +voluntary? Why not leave people to their +thoughts some of the time?</p> + +<p>And at last, the sermon:—<hi rend="font-style: italic">The text to +which I wish to call your attention this morning</hi>—my +attention, forsooth! My attention +was otherwise occupied. Ah! A puff of +<pb n="175"/><anchor id="Pg175"/> +warm, sweet air from behind me, and the soft, +padding noise of the swinging doors, apprised +me of an incomer. A cautious tread in +the aisle—I moved along a little to make +room.</p> + +<p>In a city church probably I should have +thrown propriety to the winds and had the +gist of the story out of him at once, but in a +country church there are always such listening +spaces,—the very pew-backs and cushions +seem attentive, the hymnals creak in their +racks, and the little stools cry out nervously +when one barely touches them. It was too +much for me. I was coerced into an outer +semblance of decorum. However, I snatched +a hasty glance at Jonathan’s face. It was +quite red and hot-looking, but calm, very +calm, and I judged it to be the calm, not of +defeat nor yet of settled militancy, but of +triumph. I even thought I detected the +flicker of a grin,—the mere atmospheric +suggestion of a grin,—as if he felt the urgent +if furtive appeal in my glance. At any rate, +Jonathan was all right, that was clear. And +as to Griz—whether she was still one mare or +two half-mares—it didn’t so much matter. +<pb n="176"/><anchor id="Pg176"/> +And now for the sermon! I gathered myself +to attend.</p> + +<p>As we stood up for the last hymn, I whispered, +<q>How did it go?</q></p> + +<p><q>All right. She’s hitched,</q> was the answer.</p> + +<p>After church there was the usual stir of +sociability, and when I emerged into the glare +of the church steps, I saw Jonathan driving +slowly around from the rear. Griz walked +meekly, her head sagged, her eyes blinked.</p> + +<p><q>Good quiet little horse you’ve got there,</q> +said a deacon over my shoulder; <q>don’t get +restless standing, the way some horses do.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, she’s very quiet,</q> I said.</p> + +<p>I got in, and at last, as we drove off, the +flood-gates of my impatience broke:—</p> + +<p><q>Well?</q> I said,—<q>well?</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q><hi rend="font-style: italic">Well? +Tell</hi> me about it!</q></p> + +<p><q>I’ve told you. I hitched her.</q></p> + +<p><q>How did you hitch her?</q></p> + +<p><q>Just the way I said I would.</q></p> + +<p><q>Didn’t she mind?</q></p> + +<p><q>Don’t know.</q></p> + +<p><q>Did she make a fuss?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not much.</q></p> +<pb n="177"/><anchor id="Pg177"/> + +<p><q>What do you mean by much?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, she set back a little.</q></p> + +<p><q>Do any harm?</q></p> + +<p><q>No.</q></p> + +<p><q>Hurt herself?</q></p> + +<p><q>Guess not.</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, you drive me distracted—you +have no more sense for a story—</q></p> + +<p><q>But there was nothing in particular—</q></p> + +<p><q>Now, Jonathan, if there was nothing in +particular, <hi rend="font-style: italic">why</hi> +didn’t you get into church +till the sermon was begun, and why were you +so red and hot?</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan smiled indulgently. <q>Why, of +course, she didn’t care about being hitched. +I thought you knew that. But it was perfectly +easy.</q></p> + +<p>And that was about all I could extract by +the most artful questions. I took my revenge +by telling Jonathan the deacon’s compliment +to Griz. <q>He said she didn’t get restless +standing, the way so many horses did. I +thought of mentioning that you were a rather +good judge of horses, in an amateur way, but +then I thought it might seem like boasting, +so I didn’t.</q></p> +<pb n="178"/><anchor id="Pg178"/> + +<p>After that, of course, I didn’t really deserve +to hear the whole story, but the next +night I happened to be in the hammock while +Jonathan was talking to a neighbor at the +front gate, and he was relating the incident +with detail enough to have satisfied the most +hungry gossip. Only thus did I learn that +Bill Howard, who had wound the rope twice +round the post to give himself a little leeway, +was drawn right up to the post when she set +back; that they had been afraid the headstall +would tear off; that they had been rather +nervous about the post, and other such little +points, which I had not been clever enough +to elicit by my questions.</p> + +<p>Now, why? Probably a man likes to tell a +story when he likes to tell it. I find myself +wondering how much Odysseus told Penelope +about his adventures when she got him to +herself for a good talk. Is it significant that +his really long story was told to the King of +the Phæacians?</p> + +<p>As to Griz:—it would perhaps not be +worth while to recount her subsequent history. +It was a curious one, consisting of +long stretches of continuous and ostentatious +<pb n="179"/><anchor id="Pg179"/> +meekness, broken by sudden flare-ups which, +after their occurrence, always seemed incredible. +She never again <q>set back</q> when +Jonathan was the one to hitch her, but this +was a concession made to him personally, and +had no effect on her general habits. We +talked of changing her name, but could never +manage it. We thought of selling her, but +she was too valuable—most of the time. And +when we finally parted from her our relief +was deeply tinged with regret.</p> + +<p>I have sometimes wondered whether such +flare-ups were not the natural and necessary +means of recuperation from such depths of +meekness. I have even wondered whether +the original Griselda may not have—but +this is not a dissertation on early Italian +poetry, nor on the nature of women.</p> +</div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: always" id="chapter09"> +<pb n="180"/><anchor id="Pg180"/> +<index index="toc" level1="IX. A Rowboat Pilgrimage"/> +<index index="pdf" level1="IX. A Rowboat Pilgrimage"/> +<head rend="text-align: center">IX</head> +<head type="sub">A Rowboat Pilgrimage</head> + +<p>We were glad that the plan of the rowboat +cruise dawned upon us almost a year before +it came to pass. We were the gainers by just +that rich length of expectancy.</p> + +<p>For the joy that one gets from any cherished +plan is always threefold: there is the joy +of looking forward, the joy of the very doing, +and the joy of remembering. They are all +good, but only the last is eternal. The doing +is hedged between limits, and its pleasures +are often confused, overlaid with alien or accidental +impressions. The joy of the forward +look is pure and keen, but its bounds, too, +are set. It begins at the moment when the +first ray of the plan-idea dawns on one’s +mind, and it ends with the day of fulfillment. +If the dawn begins long before the day, so +much the better.</p> + +<p>It was early fall, and we had come in from +a day by the river, where we had tramped +<pb n="181"/><anchor id="Pg181"/> +miles up, to one of its infrequent bridges, and +miles down on the other bank. Now we sat +before the fire, talking it over.</p> + +<p><q>If we only had a boat!</q> I said.</p> + +<p><q>Boat! What do you want a boat for? +You wouldn’t want to sit in a boat all day.</q></p> + +<p><q>Who said I would? But I want to get +into it, and float off, and get out again somewhere +else. That’s my idea of a boat.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, of course, a boat would be handy—</q></p> + +<p><q>Handy! You talk as if it was a buttonhook!</q></p> + +<p><q>Well?</q></p> + +<p><q>Well—of course it +<hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> handy—as you +call it—but a boat means such a lot of +things—adventure, romance. When you’re +in a boat—a little boat—anything might +happen.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes,</q> said Jonathan, drawing the logs +together, <q>that’s just the way your family +feels about it when you’re young.</q></p> + +<p>Then we both laughed, and there was a +reminiscent pause.</p> + +<p><q>What became of your boat?</q> I asked +finally.</p> + +<p><q>Sold. You kept yours.</q></p> +<pb n="182"/><anchor id="Pg182"/> + +<p><q>Yes. It’s in the cellar, there at Nantucket. +I could have it sent on.</q></p> + +<p><q>Cost as much as to buy a new one.</q></p> + +<p><q>A new one wouldn’t be as good.</q> I +bristled a little. Any one who has owned a +boat is very sensitive about its virtues.</p> + +<p><q>How big?</q></p> + +<p><q>How should I know? A little boat—maybe +twelve feet.</q></p> + +<p><q>Two oars?</q></p> + +<p><q>Four.</q></p> + +<p><q>Round bottom?</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes. She’d ride anything.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well</q>—Jonathan suddenly +expanded—<q>here’s +an idea now! How would you like +to have it sent on to the mainland, and then +row it the rest of the way—along the Rhode +Island and Connecticut shores?</q></p> + +<p>I sat straight up. <q>Jonathan! Let’s do it +now!</q></p> + +<p>Jonathan chuckled. <q>My! What a hurry +she’s in!</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, let’s!</q></p> + +<p><q>We couldn’t. The boat will have to be +overhauled first.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, dear! I suppose so.</q></p> +<pb n="183"/><anchor id="Pg183"/> + +<p><q>We could do it next spring, and go up the +trout streams.</q></p> + +<p><q>Think of that!</q> I murmured.</p> + +<p><q>Or in September and get the shore hunting—the +salt marshes.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, which?—which?</q> Already I was +following our course along curving beaches +and amongst the yellow marshlands. But +Jonathan’s mind was working on more practical +details.</p> + +<p><q>Twelve feet, you said?</q></p> + +<p><q>About that.</q></p> + +<p><q>Pretty close stowing for our dunnage—still—let’s +see—two guns—</q></p> + +<p><q>Or the rods, if we went in the spring.</q></p> + +<p><q>And rubber coats, and blankets—</q></p> + +<p><q>Jonathan! Should we camp?</q></p> + +<p><q>Might have to.</q></p> + +<p><q>Let’s, anyway.</q></p> + +<p><q>How does that coast-line run? Where’s +a map?</q></p> + +<p>All we had were some railroad maps and an +old school geography—just enough to tantalize +us—but we fell upon them eagerly. +It is curious what a change comes over these +dumb bits of colored paper at such times. +<pb n="184"/><anchor id="Pg184"/> +Every curve of the shore, every bay and headland +came to life and spoke to us—called to +us.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>We decided on the September plan, and for +the next eleven months our casual talk was +starred with inapropos remarks like these:—</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, I know we shall forget a can-opener.</q></p> + +<p><q>Better write it down while you think of it. +And have you put down a hatchet?</q></p> + +<p><q>The camera! It isn’t on the list!</q></p> + +<p><q>Hang it! Those charts haven’t come yet!</q></p> + +<p><q>What can we take to look respectable in +when we go ashore?</q></p> + +<p>Meanwhile the little boat was stirred out +of its long sleep in the cellar, overhauled, and +painted, and shipped to a port up in Narragansett +Bay. And on the last day of August +we found ourselves walking down through +the little town. Following the instructions +of wondering small boys, we came to a gate +in a board fence, opened it and let ourselves +into a typical New England seaport scene—a +tiny garden, ablaze with sunshine and gorgeous +with the yellows and lavenders of fall +<pb n="185"/><anchor id="Pg185"/> +flowers, and a narrow brick path, under a +grape-vine arch, leading down to the sand +and the wharf and the sparkling blue waters +of the bay. As we passed down through the +garden, we saw a little boat, bottom up, dazzling +white in the sun.</p> + +<p><q>There it is!</q> I said, with a surge of reminiscent +affection.</p> + +<p><q>That little thing!</q> said Jonathan. <q>I +thought you said twelve feet.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, isn’t it? Anyway, +I said <hi rend="font-style: italic">about</hi>. +And it’s big enough.</q></p> + +<p>He was spanning its length with his hands.</p> + +<p><q>Eleven foot six. Oh, I suppose she’ll do. +My boat was fourteen.</q></p> + +<p><q>Now, don’t be so patronizing about your +boat. Wait till you see how mine behaves.</q></p> + +<p>He dropped the discussion and got her +launched. Is there anything prettier than a +pretty boat floating beside a dock!</p> + +<p>The next morning when we came down we +found her half full of water. <q>She’ll be all +right now she’s soaked up,</q> said Jonathan, +and we baled her dry and went off to get our +stuff.</p> + +<p>I delayed to buy provisions, and when I +<pb n="186"/><anchor id="Pg186"/> +came back I found Jonathan standing on the +float surrounded by plunder of all sorts. He +answered my hail rather solemnly.</p> + +<p><q>See here! When this stuff’s all stowed, +where are we going to sit? That’s what’s +worrying me.</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, won’t it go in?</q></p> + +<p><q>Go! It wouldn’t go in two boats.</q></p> + +<p>I came down the plank. <q>Well, let’s eliminate.</q></p> + +<p>We eliminated. We took out extra shoes +and coats and <q>town clothes,</q> we cut down +as far as we dared, and expressed a big +bundle home. The rest we got into two +sailor’s dunnage bags, one waterproof, the +other nearly so, and one big water-tight +metal box. Then there were the guns, and +the provisions, and the charts in a long tin +tube, and there was a lantern—a clumsy +thing, which we lashed to a seat. It was always +in the way and proved of very little use, +but we thought we ought to take it.</p> + +<p>While we worked, some loungers gathered +on the wharf above and watched us with that +tolerant curiosity that loungers know so well +how to assume. As we got in and took up our +<pb n="187"/><anchor id="Pg187"/> +oars, one of them called out, <q>Now, if you +only had a little motor there in the stern, +you’d be all right.</q></p> + +<p><q>Don’t want one,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>What? Why not?</q></p> + +<p><q>Go too fast.</q></p> + +<p><q>Eh? What say?</q></p> + +<p><q>Go—too—fast.</q></p> + +<p><q>He heard you,</q> I said, <q>but he can’t believe +you really said it.</q></p> + +<p>The oars fell into unison, there was the dip +of their blades, the grating chunk of the +rowlocks—<hi rend="font-style: italic">dip-ke-chunk, dip-ke-chunk</hi>. +As we fell into our stroke the little boat began to +respond, the water swished at her bows and +gurgled under her stern. The wharf fell away +behind us, the houses back of it came into +sight, then the wooded hills behind. The +whole town began to draw together, with its +church steeples as its centers.</p> + +<p><q>She does go!</q> remarked Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>I told you! Look at us now! Look at that +buoy!</q></p> + +<p><hi rend="font-style: italic">Dip-ke-chunk, dip-ke-chunk</hi>—the +red buoy swept by us and dropped into the blue background +of dancing waves.</p> +<pb n="188"/><anchor id="Pg188"/> + +<p><q>Are we really off? Is it really happening?</q> +I said joyously.</p> + +<p><q>Do you like it?</q> said Jonathan over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p><q>No. Do you?</q> To such unwisdom of +speech do people come when they are happy.</p> + +<p>But there were circumstances to steady +us.</p> + +<p><q>What I’m wondering,</q> said Jonathan, +<q>is, what’s going to happen next—when we +get out there.</q> He tilted his head toward the +open bay, broad and windy, ahead of us. +<q>There’s some pretty interesting water out +there beyond this lee.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, she’ll take it all right. It’s no worse +than Nantucket water. It couldn’t be. +You’ll see.</q></p> + +<p>We did see. In half an hour we were in the +middle of upper Narragansett Bay, trying to +make a diagonal across it to the southwest, +while the long rollers came in steadily from +the south, broken by a nasty chop of peaked, +whitecapped waves. We rowed carefully, our +heads over our right shoulders, watching +each wave as it came on, with broken comments:—</p> +<pb n="189"/><anchor id="Pg189"/> + +<p><q>That’s a good one coming—bring her +up now—there—all right, now let her off +again—hold her so—there’s another +coming—see?—that big one, the fifth, the +fourth, away—row, now—we beat it—there +it goes off astern—see it break! +Here’s another—look out for your oar—we +can’t afford to miss a stroke—oh, me! Did +that wet you too? My right shoulder is +soaked—my left isn’t—now it is!</q></p> + +<p>But half an hour of this sort of thing +brought about two results—confidence in +the little boat, which rode well in spite of +her load, and confidence in each other’s +rowing. We found that the four oars worked +together, our early training told, and we instinctively +did the same things in each of the +varied emergencies created by wind and +wave. There was no need for orders, and our +talk died down to an exclamation now and +then at some especially big wave, or a laugh +as one of us got a drenching from the white +top of a foaming crest.</p> + +<p>It was not an easy day, that first one.… +It seems, sometimes, as if there were little +imps of malignity that hovered over one +<pb n="190"/><anchor id="Pg190"/> +at the beginning of an undertaking—little +brownies, using all their charms to try to turn +one back, discouraged. If there be such, they +had a good time with us that long afternoon. +First they had said that we shouldn’t load +our boat. Then they sent us rough water. +Then they set the boat a-leak.</p> + +<p>For leak it did. The soaking over night +had done no good. It had, indeed, been +<q>thoroughly overhauled</q> and pronounced +seaworthy, but there was the water, too +much to be accounted for as spray, swashing +over the bottom boards, growing undeniably +and most uncomfortably deeper. The imps +made no offer to bale for us, so we had to do +it ourselves, losing the much-needed power +at the oars, while one of us set to work at the +dip-and-toss, dip-and-toss motion so familiar +to any one who has kept company with a +small boat.</p> + +<p><q>I wish my mother could see me now—</q> +hummed Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>I wouldn’t wish that.</q></p> + +<p><q>Why not?</q></p> + +<p><q>What would they all think of us if they +could see us this minute?</q></p> +<pb n="191"/><anchor id="Pg191"/> + +<p><q>Just what they have thought for a long +time.</q></p> + +<p>I laughed. <q>How true that is, teacher!</q> +I said.</p> + +<p>Finding us still cheerful, the imps tried +again.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan—do you know—I do believe—my +rowlock socket is working loose.</q></p> + +<p>He cast a quick look over his shoulder +without breaking stroke. Then he said a few +words, explicit and powerful, about the man +who had <q>overhauled</q> the boat. <q>He ought +to be put out in it, in a sea like this, and left +to row himself home.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, of course, but instead, here we are. +It won’t last half an hour longer.</q></p> + +<p>It did not last ten minutes. There it hung, +one screw pulled loose, the other barely +holding.</p> + +<p><q>Take my knife—you can get it out of +my hip pocket—and try to set up that screw +with the big blade.</q></p> + +<p>I did so, and pulled a few strokes. Then—<q>It’s +come out again. It’s no use.</q></p> + +<p><q>We make blamed poor headway with one +pair of oars,</q> said Jonathan.</p> +<pb n="192"/><anchor id="Pg192"/> + +<p>He meditated.</p> + +<p><q>Where are the screw-eyes?</q> he said after +a moment.</p> + +<p><q>Oh, good for you! They’re in the metal +box. I’ll get them.</q></p> + +<p>I drew in my useless oars, turned about +and cautiously wriggled up into the bow seat.</p> + +<p><q>Look out for yourself! Don’t bullfrog +out over the bow. I can’t hold her any +steadier than this.</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, I’m all right.</q></p> + +<p>With one hand I gripped the gunwale, with +the other I felt down into the box and finally +fished out the required treasures. I worked +my way back into my own seat and tried a +screw-eye in the empty, rusted-out hole.</p> + +<p>“Does it +bite?<add><anchor id="E4"/><ref target="e4">”</ref></add></p> + +<p><q>I don’t know about biting, but it’s going +in beautifully—now it goes hard.</q></p> + +<p><q>Perhaps I can give it a turn.</q></p> + +<p><q>Perhaps you can’t! Don’t you stop rowing. +If this boat wasn’t held steady, she’d—I +don’t know what she wouldn’t do.</q></p> + +<p><q>If you stick something through the eye +you can turn it.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes. I’ll find +something<corr sic=","><anchor id="E5"/><ref target="e5">.</ref></corr> +Here’s the can-opener. +<pb n="193"/><anchor id="Pg193"/> +Grand! There! It’s solid. Now I’ll +do the other one the same way. Hurrah for +the screw-eyes!</q></p> + +<p><q>You thought of bringing them,</q> said +Jonathan magnanimously.</p> + +<p><q>You thought of using them,</q> said I, not +to be outdone.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>And so again the imps were foiled. But +they hung over us, they slapped us with +spray, they tossed the whitecaps, jeering, at +our heads, over our shoulders, into our laps. +They put up the tides to tricks of eddies and +back-currents, so that they hindered instead +of helping, as by calculation they should +have done. They laid invisible hands on our +oars and dragged them down, or held them +up as the wave raced by, so that we missed +a stroke. Once, in the lee of an island, we +paused to rest and unroll our chart and get +our bearings, while the smooth rise and fall +of the ground swell was all there was to remind +us of the riot of water just outside. +Then we were off again, and the imps had +us. They were busy, those imps, all that long, +windy, wave-tossed, wonderful day.</p> +<pb n="194"/><anchor id="Pg194"/> + +<p>For it was wonderful, and the imps were +indeed frustrate, wholly frustrate. We pulled +toward the quiet harbor that evening with +aching muscles, hair and clothes matted with +salt water, but spirits undaunted. Hungry, +too, for we had not been able to do more than +munch a few ship’s biscuit while we rowed. +Wind, tide, waves, all against us, boat leaking, +oars disabled—and still—<q>Isn’t it +great!</q> we said, <q>great—great!</q></p> + +<p>Dusk was closing in and lights began to +blink along the western shore. We beached +on a sandy point and asked our way,—where +could we put up for the night? Children, +barelegged, waded out around the boat, +looking at us and our funny, laden craft, with +curious eyes. Yes, they said, there was an +inn, farther up the harbor, where we saw +those lights—ten minutes’ row, perhaps. +We pulled off again, stiffly.</p> + +<p><q>Tired?</q> said Jonathan. <q>I’ll take her +in.</q></p> + +<p><q>Indeed you won’t! Of course I’m tired, +but I’ve got to do something to keep warm. +And I want to get in. I want supper. They’ll +all be in bed if we don’t hurry.</q></p> +<pb n="195"/><anchor id="Pg195"/> + +<p>Our tired muscles lent themselves mechanically +to their work and the boat slid across +the quiet waters of the moonlit harbor. The +town lights grew bigger, wharves loomed +above us, and soon we were gliding along +under their shadow. The eddies from our +oars went <hi rend="font-style: italic">lap-lap-lapping</hi> +off among the great +dark spiles and stirred up the keen smell of +salt-soaked timbers and seaweed. Blindly +groping, we found a rickety ladder, tied our +boat and climbed stiffly up, and there we +were on our feet again, feeling rather queer +and stretchy after seven hours in our cramped +quarters.</p> + +<p>Half an hour later we were sitting in the +warm, clean kitchen of the old inn, and a +kindly but mystified hostess was mothering +us with eggs and ham and tea and pie and +doughnuts and other things that a New +England kitchen always contains. While we +ate she sat and rocked energetically, questioning +us with friendly curiosity and watching +us with keen though benevolent eyes.</p> + +<p><q>Rowed, did you? Jim!</q> calling back over +her shoulder through a half-open door, <q>did +you hear that? These folks have rowed all +<pb n="196"/><anchor id="Pg196"/> +the way across the bay this afternoon—yes—rowed. +What say? Yes, <hi rend="font-style: italic">she</hi> rowed, too. +They say they’re goin’ on to-morrow, round +Judith.</q></p> + +<p><q>Say, now,</q> she finally appealed to us in +frank perplexity, <q>what’re you doin’ it for?</q></p> + +<p><q>We like it,</q> said Jonathan peacefully.</p> + +<p><q>Like it, do you? Well, now, if that don’t +beat all! Say—you know? I wouldn’t do +that, what you’re doin’, not if you paid me. +Have another cup o’ tea, do.</q></p> + +<p>The next morning she bade us good-bye +with the air of entrusting us to that Providence +which is known to have a special care +for children and fools.</p> + +<p>In fact, through all the varying experiences +of our cruise, one thing never varied. That +was, the expression on the faces of the people +we met. Wind and water and coast and birds +all greeted us differently with each new day, +but no matter +<corr sic="now"><anchor id="E6"/><ref target="e6">how</ref></corr> +many new faces we met, +we found in them always the same look—a +look at once friendly and quizzical, the look +one casts upon nice children for whose antics +one is not responsible, the look one casts upon +very small dogs. Why? Is it so odd a thing +<pb n="197"/><anchor id="Pg197"/> +to like to row a little boat? If it had been a +yacht, now, or even a motor-boat, the expression +would have been different. Apparently +the oars were what did it.</p> + +<p>On that particular morning, word of our +doings must have got abroad, for as we +stepped out on the brick sidewalk of the +shady main street a little crowd was waiting +for us. It was a funny procession:—Jonathan +first, with the guns and the water-jug, +then a boy with a wheelbarrow, on which +were piled the two dunnage bags, the metal +box, the lantern, the axe, the chart tube, and +a few other things. An old man and some +boys followed curiously, then I came, with +two big baking-powder cans, very gorgeous +because the red paper was not yet off them, +full of provisions pressed on us by our friendly +hostess. Tagging behind me, came an old +woman, a big girl, and a half-dozen children. +It was the kind of escort that usually attends +the hand-organ and monkey on their infrequent +visits.</p> + +<p>We loaded up the boat and pulled off, a +little stiff but fairly fit after all. The group +waved us off and then stood obviously talking +<pb n="198"/><anchor id="Pg198"/> +us over. One of the men called after us, +with a sudden inspiration, <q>Pity ye’ hevn’t +got a <hi rend="font-style: italic">motor</hi> in there!</q></p> + +<p>Though we didn’t want to be a motor-boat, +we were not above receiving courtesies +from one, and when the Providence tacitly +invoked by our hostess sent one chugging +along up to us, with the proposal to take us +in tow, we accepted with great contentment. +The morning was not half over when we made +our next landing, and looked up the captain +who was to tow us <q>around Judith.</q></p> + +<p>For in the matter of Point Judith our +friends and advisers had been unanimously +firm. There should be a limit, they said, even +to the foolishness of a holiday plan. With a +light boat, we might have braved their disapproval, +but loaded as we were, we decided +to be prudent.</p> + +<p><q>I’d hate to lose the guns,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Yes, and the camera,</q> I added.</p> + +<p>So we accepted the offer of a good friend’s +knockabout, and sailed around the dreaded +Point with our little boat tailing behind at +the end of her rope. We saw no water that +we could not have met in her, but, as our +<pb n="199"/><anchor id="Pg199"/> +friends did not fail to point out, that proved +nothing whatever.</p> + +<p>At Stonington we were left once more to +our little boat and our four oars, and there we +pulled her up and caulked her.</p> + +<p>Strange, how we are always trying to avoid +mishaps, and yet when they come we are so +often glad of them! A leaky boat had not +been in our plans, but if we could change that +first wild row across the big bay, if we could +cut out that leakiness, that puddling bottom, +the difficult shifts of baling and rowing, would +we? We would not. Again, as we look back +over the days of our cruise, we could ill spare +those hours of labor on the hot stretch of +sunny beach between the wharves, where we +bent half-blinded over the dazzling white +boat, our spirits irritated, our fingers aching +as they worked at the +<hi rend="font-style: italic">push-push-push</hi> of the +cotton waste between the strakes. We said +hard words of the man who thought he had +put our boat in order for us, and yet—if we +could cut out those hours of grumbling toil, +would we? We would not. For one thing, we +should perhaps have missed the precious +word of advice given us by a man who sat and +<pb n="200"/><anchor id="Pg200"/> +watched us. He recommended us to put a +little motor in the stern. He pointed out to +us that rowing was pretty hard work. We +said we liked it. His face wore the expression +I have already described.</p> + +<p>We launched her again at dusk. Next +morning Jonathan was a moment ahead of +me on the wharf.</p> + +<p><q>Any water in her?</q> I called, following +hard.</p> + +<p><q>Dry as a bone,</q> he shouted back, exultant; +but as I came up he added, with his +usual conservatism, <q>of course we can’t tell +what she may do when she’s loaded.</q></p> + +<p>But our work held. For the rest of the trip +we had a dry boat, except for what came in +over the sides.</p> + +<p>Now that we were in the home State, we +got out our guns and hugged the shore closely, +on the lookout for plover. We drifted sometimes, +while we studied our maps for the location +of the salt marshes. If we were lucky, we +had broiled birds for luncheon or supper; if +we were not, we had tinned stuff, which is distinctly +inferior. When we spent the night at +an inn, we breakfasted there, but most of our +<pb n="201"/><anchor id="Pg201"/> +meals were eaten along the shore, or, best of +all, on some island.</p> + +<p><q>Can we find an island for lunch to-day, do +you suppose?</q> I usually asked, as we dipped +our oars in the morning.</p> + +<p><q>Do you have to have an island for lunch?</q></p> + +<p><q>I love an island!</q> choosing to ignore the +jest. <q>That’s one of the best things about a +boat—that it takes you to islands.</q></p> + +<p><q>Now, why an island?</q></p> + +<p><q>You know as well as I do. An island +means—oh, it means remoteness, it means +quiet—possession; while you’re on it, it’s +yours—you don’t have every passer-by +looking over your shoulder—you have a +little world all to yourself.</q></p> + +<p>I could feel Jonathan’s indulgent smile +through the back of his head as he rowed.</p> + +<p><q>Well, you know yourself,</q> I argued. +<q>Even a tiny bit of stone and earth, with +moss on it, and a flower, out in the middle of +a brook, looks different, somehow, from the +same things on the bank. It +<hi rend="font-style: italic">is</hi> different—it’s +an island.</q></p> + +<p>And so we sought islands—sometimes +little ones, all rocks, too little even to have +<pb n="202"/><anchor id="Pg202"/> +collected driftwood for a fire, too little to have +grown anything but wisps of beach-grass, +low enough to be covered, perhaps, by the +highest tides. Sometimes it was a larger +island, big enough to have bushes on it, and +beaches round its edges. One of these we +remember as best of all. It lay a mile off +shore, a long island, rocky at its ocean end +and at its land end running out to a long +slim line of curving beach. In the middle it +rose to a plateau, thick-set with grass and +goldenrod and bay bushes, from which +floated the gay, sweet voices of song sparrows. +Ah! There was an island for you! And +we made a fire of driftwood, and cooked our +luncheon, and lay back on the sand and +drowsed, while the sea-gulls, millions of them, +circled curiously over our heads, mewing and +screaming as they dived and swooped, and +behind us the notes of the song sparrows rose +sweet.</p> + +<p>If we had had water enough in our jug, we +should have camped there. We rowed away +at last, slowly, loving it, and in our thoughts +we still possess it. As it dropped astern I +pulled in my oars and stood up to take its +<pb n="203"/><anchor id="Pg203"/> +picture—no easy task, with the boat mounting +and plunging among the swells. But I +have my picture, its horizon line at a noticeable +slant, reminiscent of my unsteady balance. +It means little to other people, but to +us it means the sweetness of sunshine and +wind and water, the sweetness of grass and +bird-notes, all breathed over by the spirit of +solitude.</p> + +<p>Then it melted away—our island—into +the waste of waters, and we turned to look +toward the misty headlands beyond our bow. +Where the marshlands were, we followed +them closely, but where the shore was rocky, +or, worse still, built up with summer cottages, +we often made a straight course from +headland to headland, keeping well out, often +a mile or two, to avoid tide eddies. We liked +the feeling of being far out, the shore a dark +blue, the cottages little dots. But we liked it, +too, when the headland before us grew large, +its rocks and bushes stood out, and we could +see the white rip off its point—a rip to be +taken with some caution if we hoped to keep +our cargo dry. And then, the rip passed, if +the bay beyond curved in quiet and uninhabited, +<pb n="204"/><anchor id="Pg204"/> +how we loved to turn and pull along +close to shore, watching its beaches and sand-cliffs +draw smoothly away beside our stern, +or, best of all, pulling about and running in +till our bow grated and we jumped to the wet +beach and ran up the cliff to look about. Such +moments bring in a peculiar way the thrill of +discovery. It is one thing to go along a coast +by land, and learn its ways so. It is a good +thing. But it is quite another to fare over its +waters and turn in upon it from without, +surprising its secrets as from another world.</p> + +<p>But to do this, your boat must be a little +one. As soon as you have a real keel, the case +is altered. For a keel demands a special landing-place—a +wharf—and a wharf means +human habitation, and then—where is your +thrill of discovery? Ah, no!—a little boat! +And you can land anywhere, among rocks +or in sandy shallows; you can explore the tide +creeks and marshes and the little rivers; you +can beach wherever you like, wherever the +rippling waves themselves can go. A little +boat for romance!</p> + +<p>A little boat, but a long cruise, as long as +may be. To be sure, a boat and a bit of water +<pb n="205"/><anchor id="Pg205"/> +anywhere is good. Even an errand across the +pond and back may be a joy. But if you can, +now and then, free yourself from the there-and-back +habit, the reward is great. The joy +of pilgrimage—of going, not there and back, +but on, and on, and yet on—is a joy by itself. +The thought that each night brings +sleep in a new and unforeseen spot, with a new +journey on the morrow, gives special flavor +to the journeying.</p> + +<p>Not the least among the pleasures of the +cruise were the night-camps. When the shore +looked inviting, and harborage at an inn +seemed doubtful, we pulled our boat above +tide-water, turned her over and tilted her up +on her side for a wind-break, and there we +spent the night. The half-emptied dunnage +bags were our pillows, the sand was our bed. +Sand, to sleep on, is harder than one might +suppose, but it is better than earth in being +easily scooped out to suit one’s needs. Indeed, +even on a pneumatic mattress, I should hardly +have slept much that first night. It was a +new experience. The great world of waters +was so close that it seemed, all night long, +like a wonderful but ever importunate presence. +<pb n="206"/><anchor id="Pg206"/> +The wind blew that night, too, and +there was a low-scudding rack, and a half-smothered +moon. As we rolled ourselves +up in our blankets and rubber sheets and settled +down, I looked out over the restless +water.</p> + +<p><q>The bay seems very full to-night—brimming,</q> +I said.</p> + +<p><q>Not brimming over, though,</q> said Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>I should hope not! But it does seem to +me there are very few inches between it and +our feet.</q></p> + +<p><q>And the tide is still rising, of course,</q> +said Jonathan, by way of comfort.</p> + +<p><q>Jonathan, I know just where high-tide +mark is, and we’re fully twelve inches above +it.</q></p> + +<p>Silence.</p> + +<p><q>Aren’t we?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, was that a question?</q> murmured +Jonathan. <q>Why, yes, I think we are at least +that.</q></p> + +<p><q>Of course, there are extra high tides +sometimes.</q></p> + +<p>Silence.</p> +<pb n="207"/><anchor id="Pg207"/> + +<p><q>Jonathan, do you know when they come?</q></p> + +<p><q>Not exactly.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, I don’t care. I love it, anyway. +Only it seems so much bigger and colder at +night, the water does.</q></p> + +<p>At last I drowsed, waking now and then to +raise my head and just glance down at those +waves—they certainly sounded as if they +were lapping the sand close by my ear. No, +there they were, quite within bounds, fully +twenty feet away from my toes. Of course it +was all right. I slept again, and dreamed that +the tide rose and rose; the waves ran merrily +up the beach, ran up on both sides of us, +closed in behind us. We were lying on a little +sand island, and the waves nibbled at its +edges—nibbled and nibbled and nibbled—the +island was being nibbled up. This would +never do! We must move! And I woke. +<hi rend="font-style: italic">Ripple, ripple, swash!</hi> +<hi rend="font-style: italic">ripple, ripple, swash!</hi> +went the unconscious waves. As I raised my +head I saw the pale beach stretching off under +the moon-washed mists of middle night. Reassured, +I sank back, and when I waked again +the big sun was well above the rim of the +waters and all the little waves were dancing +<pb n="208"/><anchor id="Pg208"/> +and the wet curves of the beach were gleaming +in the new day.</p> + +<p>The water was not always restless at night. +The next time we camped we found a little +harbor within a harbor, a crescent curve of +fine white sand ending in a point of rock. In +one of its clefts we made our fire and broiled +our plover, ranging them on spits of bay so +that they hung over the two edges of rock +like people looking down into a miniature +Grand Cañon. There were nine of them, fat +and sputtering, and while they cooked, we +made toast and arranged the camp. Then +we had supper, and watched the red coals +smouldering and the white moonlight filling +the world with a radiance that put out the +stars and brought the blue back to the sky. +The little basin of the bay was quiet as a pool, +the air was full of stillness, with now and then +the hushed <hi rend="font-style: italic">flip-flip</hi> +of a tiny wave that had +somehow strayed in from the tumbling crowd +outside.</p> + +<p>We slept well, but once Jonathan waked +me. <q>Look!</q> he whispered, <q>White heron.</q></p> + +<p>I raised my head. There, quite near us in +the shallow water, stood a great pale bird, +<pb n="209"/><anchor id="Pg209"/> +motionless, on one long, slim leg, his oval +body, long neck, head and bill clearly outlined +against the bright water beyond. The +mirror of the water reflected perfectly the +soft outline, making a double creature, one +above and one below, with that slim stem of +leg between.</p> + +<p>I watched him until my neck grew tired. +He never moved. Out beyond him, more dim, +stood his mate, motionless too. Now and +then they called to each other, with queer, +harsh talk that made the stillness all the +stiller when it closed in again.</p> + +<p>When we awoke, they were gone, but we +found the heronry that morning on one of the +oak-covered knolls that rise like islands out of +the heart of the great salt marshes.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>All through the cruise, the big winds were +with us more than we had expected. They +gave us, for the most part, a right good time. +For even in the partly protected Sound it is +possible to stir up a sea rough enough to keep +one busy. Each wave, as it came galloping +up, was an antagonist to be dealt with. If +we met it successfully, it galloped on, and left +<pb n="210"/><anchor id="Pg210"/> +us none the worse for it. If we did not, it +meant, perhaps, that its foaming white mane +brushed our shoulders, or swept across our +laps, or, worse still, drowned our guns. Once, +indeed, we were threatened with something a +little more serious. We were running down out +of the Connecticut River, gliding smoothly +over sleek water. It was delicious rowing, and +the boat shot along swiftly. As we turned +westward, it grew rougher, but we were paying +no special heed to this when suddenly I +became conscious of something dark over my +right shoulder. I turned my head, and found +myself looking up into the evil heart of a dull +green breaker. I gasped, <q>Look out!</q> and +dug my oar. Jonathan glanced, pulled, there +was a moment of doubt, then the huge dark +bulk was shouldering heavily away, off our +starboard quarter. It was only the first of +its ugly company. Through sheer carelessness, +we had run, as it were, into an ambush—one +of the worst bits of water on the Sound, +where tide and river currents meet and +wrangle. All around us were rearing, white-maned +breakers, though the impression we +got was less of their white manes than of their +<pb n="211"/><anchor id="Pg211"/> +dark sides as they rose over us. Our problem +was to meet each one fairly, and yet snatch +every moment of respite to slant off toward +the harborage inside the breakwaters. It took +all our strength and all our skill, and all the +resources of the good little boat. But we +made it, after perhaps half an hour of stiff +work. Then we rested, breathed, and went +on. We did not talk much about it until we +made camp that night. Then, as we sat looking +out over the quiet water, I told Jonathan +about the shadow over my shoulder.</p> + +<p><q>It was like seeing a ghost,</q> +I said,—<q>no—more +like feeling the hand of an enemy +on your shoulder.</q></p> + +<p><q>The Black Douglas,</q> suggested Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>Yes. Talk about the scientific attitude—you’ve +just got to personify things when they +come at you like that. That wave had an expression—an +ugly one. I don’t wonder the +Northmen felt as they did about the sea and +the waves. They took it all personally—they +had to!</q></p> + +<p><q>Were you frightened?</q> asked Jonathan.</p> + +<p><q>No, of course not,</q> I said, almost too +promptly. Then I meditated—<q>I don’t +<pb n="212"/><anchor id="Pg212"/> +know what you’d call it—but I believe I +understand now what people mean when they +talk about their hearts going down into their +boots.</q></p> + +<p><q>Did yours?</q></p> + +<p><q>Why, not exactly—but—well—it certainly +did feel suddenly very thick and heavy—as +if it had dropped—perhaps an inch +or two.</q></p> + +<p><q>I believe,</q> said Jonathan gently, <q>you +might almost call that being frightened.</q></p> + +<p><q>Yes, perhaps you might. Tell me—were +you?</q></p> + +<p><q>I didn’t like it—yes, I was anxious—and +it made me tired to have been such a fool—the +whole thing was absolutely unnecessary, +if we’d looked up the charts carefully.</q></p> + +<p><q>Or asked a few questions. But you know +you hate to ask questions.</q></p> + +<p><q>You could have asked them.</q></p> + +<p><q>Well, anyway, aren’t you glad it happened?</q></p> + +<p><q>Oh, of course; it was an experience.</q></p> + +<p><q>Do you want to do it again?</q></p> + +<p><q>No</q>—he was emphatic—<q>not with +that load.</q></p> +<pb n="213"/><anchor id="Pg213"/> + +<p><q>Neither do I.</q></p> + +<p>If the winds sometimes wearied us a little, +they helped us, too. We can never forget the +evening we turned into the Thames River, +making for the shelter of a friend’s hospitable +roof. We had battled most of that day with +the diagonal onslaughts of a southeast gale, +bringing with it the full swing of the ocean +swell. It was easier than a southwester would +have been, but that was the best that could +be said for it.</p> + +<p>We passed the last buoy and turned our +bow north. And suddenly, the great waves +that had all day kept us on the defensive became +our strong helpers. They took us up and +swung us forward on our course with great +sweeping rushes of motion. The tide was +setting in, too, and with that and our oars +we were going almost as fast as the waves +themselves, so that when one picked us up, +it swung us a long way before it left us. We +learned to watch for each roller, wait till one +came up astern, then pull with all our might +so that we went swooping down its long slope, +its crest at first just behind our stern, but +drawing more and more under us, until it +<pb n="214"/><anchor id="Pg214"/> +passed beyond our bow and dropped us in the +trough to wait for the next giant. It was like +going in a swing, but with the downward rush +very long and swift, and the upward rise short +and slow. How long it took us to make the +two miles to our friend’s dock we shall never +know. Probably only a few minutes. But it +was not an experience in time. We had a +sense of being at one with the great primal +forces of wind and water, and at one with +them, not in their moments of poise, but in +their moments of resistless power.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb" rend="stars: 5"/> + +<p>After all, the only drawback to the cruise +was that it was over too soon. When, in the +quiet afternoon light of the last day, a familiar +headland floated into view, my first feeling +was one of joy; for beyond that headland, +what friendly faces waited for us—faces +turned even now, perhaps, toward the east for +a first glimpse of our little boat. But hard +after this, came a pang of regret—it was +over, our water-pilgrimage, and I wanted it +to go on.</p> + +<p>It was over. And yet, not really over after +all. I sometimes think that pleasures ought +<pb n="215"/><anchor id="Pg215"/> +to be valued according to whether they are +over when they <hi rend="font-style: italic">are</hi> +over, or not. <q>You cannot +eat your cake and have it too.</q> True, but +that is because it is cake. There are other +things which you can eat, and still have. And +our rowboat cruise is one of these. It is over, +and yet it is not over. It never will be. I can +shut my eyes—indeed, I do not need even +to shut them—and again I am under the +open sky, I am afloat in the sun and the wind, +with the waters all around me. I see again +the surf-edged curves of the beaches, the lines +of the sand-cliffs, the ragged horizon edge, +cut and jagged by the waves. I feel the boat, +I feel the oars, I am aware of the damp, pure +night air, and the sounds of the waves ceaselessly +breaking on the sand.</p> + +<p>It is not over. Its best things are still ours, +and those things which were hardly pleasures +then have become such now. As we remember +our aching muscles and blistered hands, we +smile. As we recall times of intense weariness, +of irritation, of anxiety, we find ourselves +lingering over them with enjoyment. For +memory does something wonderful with experience. +It is a poet, and life is its raw +<pb n="216"/><anchor id="Pg216"/> +material. I know that our cruise was made up +of minutes, of oar-strokes, so many that to +count them would be weariness unending. But +in my memory, these things are re-created. +I see a boundless stretch of windy or peaceful +waters. I see the endless line of misty coast. +I see lovely islands, sleeping alone, waiting +to be possessed by those who come. And I see +a little, little boat, faring along the coast-lands, +out to the islands, over the waters—going +on, and on, and on.</p> + +<milestone unit="tb"/> + +<p rend="text-align: center">THE END</p> + +<!-- <pb n="217"/><anchor id="Pg217"/> +Blank Page --> +</div> + +</body> + +<back> + <div rend="page-break-before: right; text-align: center" id="colophon"> + <index index="toc"/> + <index index="pdf"/> + <head rend="text-align: center">Colophon</head> + + <pb n="218"/><anchor id="Pg218"/> + <p rend="font-size: small">The Riverside Press</p> + + <p rend="font-size: x-small">CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS</p> + + <p rend="font-size: x-small">U . S . A</p> + </div> + + <div rend="page-break-before: right; text-align: center" id="appendix"> + <index index="toc"/> + <index index="pdf"/> + <head rend="text-align: center">Appendix A: Extra Front Pages</head> + <pb n="i"/><anchor id="Pgi"/> + + <p rend="font-size: small"> + By Elisabeth Woodbridge</p> + + <milestone unit="tb" rend="rule: 10%"/> + + <p rend="font-size: xx-small">MORE JONATHAN PAPERS.<lb/> + THE JONATHAN PAPERS.</p> + + <p rend="font-size: x-small">HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY<lb/> + <hi rend="font-size: xx-small; font-variant: small-caps"> + Boston And New York + </hi></p> + + <milestone unit="tb"/> + + <pb n="ii"/><anchor id="Pgii"/> + + <p>More Jonathan Papers</p> + + <!-- <pb n="iii"/><anchor id="Pgiii"/> + Blank Page --> + </div> + + <div rend="page-break-before: right"> + <index index="toc"/> + <index index="pdf"/> + <head rend="text-align: center">Errata</head> + + <list><anchor id='e1'/> + <item>Chapter VII</item> + <item>Changed camp is <hi rend="font-weight: bold"><ref + target="E1">4.38</ref></hi>—<hi rend="font-variant: + small-caps">A.M.</hi> to camp is <hi rend="font-weight: + bold">4:38</hi>—<hi rend="font-variant: + small-caps">A.M.</hi></item> + </list> + + <list><anchor id='e2'/> + <item>Chapter VII</item> + <item>Changed arrives at <hi rend="font-weight: bold"><ref + target="E2">10.15</ref></hi>, they to arrives at <hi + rend="font-weight: bold">10:15</hi>, they</item> + </list> + + <list><anchor id='e3'/> + <item>Chapter VII</item> + <item>Changed What does <hi rend="font-weight: bold"><ref + target="E3">10.15</ref></hi> look to What does <hi + rend="font-weight: bold">10:15</hi> look</item> + </list> + + <list><anchor id='e4'/> + <item>Chapter VIII</item> + <item>Changed “Does it bite?<ref target="E4"> </ref> to + “Does it bite?<hi rend="font-weight: bold">”</hi> + </item> + </list> + + <list><anchor id='e5'/> + <item>Chapter VIIII</item> + <item>Changed find something<hi rend="font-weight: + bold"><ref target="E5">,</ref></hi> Here’s to find + something<hi rend="font-weight: bold">.</hi> Here’s</item> + </list> + + <list><anchor id='e6'/> + <item>Chapter VIIII</item> + <item>Changed no matter <hi rend="font-weight: bold"><ref + target="E6">now</ref></hi> many to no matter <hi rend="font-weight: + bold">how</hi> many</item> + </list> + </div> + +<div rend="page-break-before: right"> +<divGen type="pgfooter" /> +</div> + +</back> + +</text> + +</TEI.2> + +<!-- +A WORD FROM PROJECT GUTENBERG + + +This file should be named 20141-tei.txt or 20141-tei.zip. + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + + + http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/1/4/20141/ + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one — the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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