Chapter III: Part 3

It brought the worst storm we have had this Winter. This season will pass on into history as about the roughest we have had in 20 years. There came a whirl of snow which filled the air and sifted in through every crack and hole. We let the storm alone, and got away from it. Merrill sorted out seed corn at the barn. Philip had some inside painting to do, the women folks kept at their household work, and the children got out into the storm. They came in now and then to stand by the fire—with faces the color of their hair. As for me, I cannot say that I hurt myself with hard labor. We piled the logs in the open fireplace and started a roaring fire. With a pile of books on one side and a pen and paper at the other, my big chair gave a very good foundation for a Lincoln celebration. I presume we all have our personal habits of reading. Some people read only one kind of books, and stick to the one in hand until it is finished. My plan is different. Right now I am reading Dante, “Rural Credits,” “Manufacture of Chemical Manure,” Whittier’s Poems and Lowell’s essay on Abraham Lincoln. A poor jumble of stuff for a human head you will say, but I turn from one to another, so that instead of a mixed-up jumble I try to have these different thoughts in layers through the mind. In this way one may get a blend which is better than a hash. It may seem absurd to think of putting poetry into rural credits or fertilizers, but unless you can do something of the sort you can never get very far with them.

That was the great secret of Lincoln’s power. As judged by knowledge or training or what we call “education,” there were many abler men in the country at his time, but Lincoln knew how to appeal to the imagination of the plain, common people. Read his speeches and papers and see how he framed a fact with a mental picture which the common people could understand. There were some wonderful pictures at the World’s Fair in Chicago. Some were called masterpieces of fabulous value. People stood before them and went on with something of awe in their heart—not quite grasping the artist’s meaning. One less pretentious picture was named “The Breaking of Home Ties,” and day by day a great throng stood before it, silent and wet-eyed. It was a very simple home scene, picturing a boy leaving his country home. Men studied it, walked away and then turned and slowly came back that they might see it once more. As long as they live people will remember that picture, because the poetry of it appealed to them as the higher art could not do. I think Lincoln held the imagination of the plain people much as that picture did. He was one who had suffered and had been brought up with plain and simple family habits which were fixed.

The children have come running in to warm their hands. They are lined up in front of the big fire, rosy-faced and covered with snow. They stand looking at me as I write. Dinner is nearly ready, and there is no question about their readiness for it. Here comes Mother to look out at the storm, and she forgets to remember that this group of snowbirds by my fire have forgotten to stamp the snow off their feet. There will be a puddle of water when they move off—but it will soon dry up. As I watch them all it seems a good time to pick up Lowell’s essay on Lincoln:

“_He is so eminently our representative man, that, when he speaks, it seems as if the people were listening to their own thinking aloud.... He has always addressed the intelligence of men. Never their prejudices, their passion or their ignorance._”

Now I think that intelligence and power to speak as people think can only come out of good family relations. Do I mean to say that the family group is superior to the college, the school or the other great institutions for training human thought? I do, wherever the family group is bound together as it should be by love, good will, ambition and something of sacrifice!

This nation and every other is ruled by the family spirit. All public government is based on self-government, and the family is the training school for all. What could the college or the school do with a great crowd or mob of students who have never known the restraints of good family life? Ask any teacher to tell you the difference between children reared in a clean, careful family and those reared where the family relations are much like a cross-cut saw. Line up the adults you know, make a fair estimate of their character and see whether you can select those who in their childhood had a fair chance in family life. There are, of course, exceptions to all rules, but generally the boy or girl will carry through life the habits and the human policies which are given him in the family. As a rule these will be carried into the new family which the boy or girl may start, and thus be handed on like those qualities which are transmitted through blood lines. No use talking—the family unit is the most important element in human society. A nation’s fame rests upon the nation’s family.

I think a man may fairly be judged by the way he treats his parents, his children and his wife. I do not care how he gets out and shows himself off as a great man and a good citizen. He might get an overwhelming vote for Congress or Governor, but God will judge him more by the votes of father, mother, son, daughter, wife! To me there can be nothing more beautiful than the best relation between a man of middle years and his aged parents. Perhaps the latter are feeble and not well-to-do. When they can sit in their son’s home happy and comfortable, knowing that the entire family has been taught to put them first of all in family regard, you have struck about the finest test of a man’s character that good citizenship can offer. When the children chase their father about and, out of their own thought, run to anticipate his wants, you can make up your mind that in that family are being trained men and women who can go out and absorb education and financial power which will be used for the true benefit of humanity. Most of us can never hope to be great men or to handle large public affairs, but we can make our family a training school for good citizenship. I have no thought that in this group of bright-eyed youngsters lined up by my fire we are to have any great statesmen or authors or merchant princes or big folk generally. On the whole I hope not, as it would seem to me that the great man has a rather lonely life. I do expect, however, that these children will always remember Hope Farm, and that in future years when the world may turn a very cold side to them they will remember this stormy day and will feel the warmth of this kindly fire.

I have wandered away from what I wanted to say about Lincoln and his power over the people. It was this family feeling which made him strong, and if you want your boy or girl to be really worth while you must give them and their mother the best family surroundings you can possibly secure. The man who taps the spring or the well and sends the water running through his house does far more for his country than he who runs for Congress and taps the public pocket-book.

But here comes Mother again, with “Come now, dinner’s ready. Don’t let it get cold!” Get cold? The children are already at the table! I wish you could come right along with me. I would put two sausage cakes on your plate and fill it up with mealy potatoes and yellow turnips. Then you would have rice in another dish. There is a dish of thick, brown gravy and nothing would suit me better than to have you call for an egg—fried or boiled. The Reds are laying well now. There are two kinds of bread and plenty of butter, and we will take a family vote as to whether we shall take peaches, strawberries, Kieffer pears, cherries or raspberries off the pantry shelves. I vote for Crosby peaches, but you will have a free choice and all you can eat. Surely the table makes a very strong family tie. Come on!

UNCLE ED’S PHILOSOPHY

Uncle Ed had his home in Florida, but spent the Summer working at Hope Farm. At the time I speak of we were hoeing corn at the top of our hill. We had just planted the apple orchard, and we both realized the long and weary years of toilsome waiting before there could be any fruit. It was a hot day, and at the end of the row we stopped to rest under the big cherry tree where the stone wall is broad and thick. It was a clear day, and far off across the rolling country to the East we could see the sparkle of the sun on some gilded-top building in New York. It gave one a curious feeling to stand in that shady retreat on $50 land in a lonely neighborhood, practically untouched by modern development, and glance across to the millions and the might crowded at the mouth of the Hudson. Most of us feel a sort of pride on viewing the evidence of wealth and power, even though we have no share in it, or even when we know it means blood money taken from our own lives. I felt something of this as I pointed it out to Uncle Ed, and told him how probably the overflow of that great city would some day make an acre of our orchard worth more than a farm in Florida.

This did not seem to impress him greatly. He ran his eye over the glowing prospect and then slowly filled his pipe for a smoke. I am no friend of tobacco, but I confess that sometimes I enjoy seeing a man like Uncle Ed slowly fill his pipe. I feel that some sort of homely philosophy is sure to be smoked out.

“The trouble with you folks up in this country,” said Uncle Ed, “is that you work too hard. You get so that there is nothing in you but work and save. And for what? How many of you ever get the benefit of your own work? Down where I live we don’t exist for the mere sake of working. I have known the time when I got up determined to do a good day’s work cultivating. I got the horse all harnessed, only to find that my neighbor on the south had borrowed the cultivator, and I couldn’t do that. Then I thought I’d hoe, but the boys lost the hoe in the brush and couldn’t find it. Then there was the woodpile to be cut up, but my neighbor on the north had borrowed the ax.

“Now up in this country if fate challenged a man like that he would start picking up stones and making a stone wall. Here is one now that we are resting against. I’ll bet some old owner of this farm piled up this heap of stones because he was determined that the boys never should play or go fishing. It is now the most useless thing you have on your farm. If, instead of picking up stones and building this useless wall, that old-timer had quit when fate gave him the sign, taken a day off and let the boys go fishing or play ball, this farm would be worth far more than it is today. Down in my country when the cultivator and the hoe and the ax all get away from us we accept it as a voice from some higher authority, and we _drop everything and go fishing_. After that I notice things straighten out and work goes right. You fellows work too hard, and don’t know it. But this won’t buy the woman a dress—we must hoe this corn out.”

The rows ran to the south, and as we hoed on I could see, far away, that bright sparkle on the gilding of the big city. And I answered with the old familiar argument:

“You have just told in a few words why there are more savings of the poor and middle-class people in that big city yonder than there are in the entire State of Florida.” That was 16 years ago and the statement was probably true at the time. Florida has gained since then.

“Up in this country we believe that the Lord gives every man of decent mind and reasonable body a chance to provide for himself and family before he is 45. If he doesn’t do it by that time, he isn’t likely to do it at all. We think that there are three ways of getting money. You can earn it through labor, steal it, or have it given to you. For most of us there is only one way—that is to dig it out by the hardest work, and then practice self-denial in order to hold it. Up in this country the men who quit and go fishing when conditions turn against them, spend their declining years without any bait. That money off there where you see that sparkle was produced by men who did not go fishing when conditions turned against them.”

As I look back upon it now that seems pretty cheap talk, but it was the way we looked at it in those days.

“I know,” said Uncle Ed, “but how much better off are they when you sum it all up? I claim that the man who goes fishing gets something that the man who built that stone wall never knew. Who piled up all that money in the big city? Some of mine is there. The interest I have paid on my mortgage has come into one of these big buildings for investment. The profit on many a box of oranges I shipped before the freeze never got away from New York. It stuck there and you can’t get it out. And that’s just what I mean. You fellows work your fingers stiff and make a little money, and then you put it into some bank or big company or into stocks or bonds. In the end it all gets away from you and runs down hill to that big city. The hired man took $25 to the county fair. Ten dollars of it went for beer and rum. The local saloonkeeper passed the $10 on to the wholesaler, he to the brewer and he sent part of it to Germany and the rest to Wall Street. The other $15 mostly went in chance games or petty gambling. He lost $5 betting that he could find the little red ball under the hat. The man who won his $5 lost it that night playing poker. The gambler who won it lost it a few nights later in a gambling house. The gambling house man bought bogus oil and mining stocks and lost it that way. The oil stock man had sense enough to salt it down in respectable securities, and there it is now under that bright sparkle in the big city. You and the rest of you do pretty much the same. This man who built your stone wall did it. The money he made was not invested here. If it had been you never could have bought this farm. It is off there under that bright sparkle—and the boys and girls run after it. _You fellows work too hard!_”

I undertook to come back with that text about the man who provideth not for his family—but I never was good at remembering texts. That is probably because I do not study them as I ought to. But at any rate I undertook to argue that it is a man’s first duty to provide for his family and also for his own “rainy day.” “_The night cometh, when no man can work._”

“Down where I live,” said Uncle Ed, “we don’t have such rainy days as you do up here. Life is simple and straight and old people are cared for. We want them to live with us—we are not waiting for them to pass off and leave their money. Off in that big city where your money is turning over and over, thousands of human lives get under it and are crushed out of all shape. Down there under that sparkle only the poor know what neighbors are. Many a man lives his life in some tenement or apartment house never knowing or caring what goes on in the room on the other side of the wall. There may be joy or sorrow, death or life, virtue or crime. He doesn’t know and he doesn’t care, because this never-ending grind of work has changed sympathy into selfishness. And in the end that is what all those dollars which you folks dump into the big city come to. If the habit is so strong that you’ve got to work and try to catch up with the man who has a little more than you have, why not invest your money at home and in the farm? Those fellows off under that sparkle will come chasing after your money if you invest it here, and you would be boss instead of servant! _Am I right?_”

That was 16 years ago, and many things have happened since then. Uncle Ed has passed away—after many troubles and misfortunes. The world has been shaken up by the war and by great discoveries, so that we hardly know it. Yet there is a brighter sparkle than ever on the gilded roofs of the big city—greater wealth and more blinding poverty crouching beneath it. The hill where we hoed corn is now covered with big apple trees. Where then Bob and Jerry toiled slowly along with half a ton of fruit the truck now flashes down the hard, smooth road with two tons. But sitting on the old stone wall of a Sunday afternoon in late August I look across the valley and wonder how much there really is in Uncle Ed’s philosophy after all. What do _you_ think?

A GOD-FORSAKEN PLACE

James and William Hardy were twins—born and bred on a New Hampshire farm. The family dated far back to pioneer times, when John Hardy and Henry Graham, with their young wives, went into the wilderness as the advance guard of civilization. It came to be a common understanding that a Hardy should always marry a Graham, and through four generations at least this family law had been observed until there had been developed one of those fine, purebred New England families which represent just about the highest type of the American. As the father of these twins married a Graham girl you had a right to expect them to be as much alike as two peas in the family pod—both in appearance and in character. Here you surely might expect one of those cases where the twins are always being mixed up, when not even their mother could be sure which was Jim and which was Bill. In truth, however, the boys were distinctly different from the day they were born—different in size, in appearance and in character.

These twins innocently brought to the surface a sad spot of family history which both the Grahams and the Hardys hoped had been buried too far down ever to show itself. Far back in the French and Indian war a band of raiders from Canada burst out of the forest and carried off a dozen prisoners. Among them was the pride of the Graham family—a beautiful girl of 16. The settlers, hiding in their blockhouse, could only look on and see their relatives start on the long march to Canada. The next year some of these prisoners were ransomed, and came back to say that the girl had married a young Frenchman. She was happy, and sent word to her parents that she preferred to stay with her husband. Years went by, until one night there came to Henry Graham’s house a Canadian ranger and a young girl. It was their granddaughter and her father. The mother had died and had begged her husband to take her daughter back to the old folks as her offering of love. The father delivered his message, bade his daughter farewell and silently vanished into the forest. They never saw him again, but they realized that he had given full measure of devotion to his dead wife. The girl grew up to be a beautiful creature much like her mother, only darker, and at times there was a bright glitter in her eyes. She married a Hardy and settled down as a farmer’s wife. She was dutiful and kind, but sometimes her husband would see her standing at the door—looking off into the Northern forests with a look which made him shake his head. Years went by, and this spot on the family history had been forgotten until these twins uncovered it! Their mother knew in her heart that the spirit of the restless Frenchman was watching her from the cradle through the black shiny eyes of her strange baby. James, the light-haired, steady, purebred infant, slept calmly or acted just as a good Hardy should, but the wild spirit of the forest had jumped three generations right into the cradle, where this black-haired little changeling stared at her!

There never were two children more unlike than these twins. Jim was solid, sound, a little slow, but absolutely trustworthy—“a born Hardy” as they said. Bill was bright, quick, restless, full of plans and visions. He did not like to work, and had no respect for the family skeleton. This was a mortgage, which for many years had sunk its claws into the rocky little farm. The truth was that this farm never should have been cleared and settled. It was rocky and sandy; farther out of date than the old mill rotting unused by the old mill pond. The mortgage hung like a wolf at the back door, demanding its due, which came out of the little farm like blood money. Jim Hardy, like his father and grandfather, grew up to regard that mortgage as a fixed and sacred institution. It was a family heirloom or tradition—something like the old musket which an older Hardy carried at Bunker Hill, or like grandmother’s old spinning-wheel. As for the poor, rocky farm, Jim and his father would stay and grind themselves away in a hopeless struggle just because the Hardys who went before them had done so. It was different with Bill. He had no use for the mortgage or for the rocky pastures, for the dash of French blood had put rubber, or yeast, into the covering of the stern New England thought. His father never could understand him and one day, when Bill was 17, the blood of the “changeling” burst into open mutiny. The father knew of only one way to act. He ordered the boy around behind the barn and took the horsewhip to him. As a Hardy, Bill was expected to stand and take his punishment without a murmur. As the descendant of a wild forest ranger he could only resent the blows. What he did was to catch his father’s arms and hold them like a vice. Neither spoke a word. They just looked at each other. The older man struggled, but he was powerless—he knew that his son was the master. He dropped the whip from his hand and bowed his head. The boy released him, broke the whip in two, and threw it away. The father walked to the house, a dazed and broken man. Bill watched him and then walked out to the back lot where Jim, the steady and faithful, was building a fence.

“Good-bye, Jim,” he said. “I’m off. It had to come. I’m different, and yet the same, as you will see. You stay here and look after father and mother. I will help some day.” It was the Hardy in both the boys which made it impossible for them to come any closer in feeling. Bill walked on over the pasture hill; at the top he paused to wave his hand. Then he was gone.

Bill was clean and sound at heart, and the French blood had given him a quick active brain. Instead of striking for the wilderness he headed for New York and he prospered. The old French ancestor drove him on with tireless energy, and the long line of clean farm breeding kept him true to his purpose to go back some day and show the old folks that he was still a Hardy. Years passed, until one day there came to Bill an uncontrollable longing to go home. Just a few brief, unresponsive letters had passed between him and Jim, but the time came when Bill longed with a great longing to see the old farm once more. And so, the next day, a well-dressed, prosperous man walked into the old yard and looked about him. There was Jim, the same old Jim, walking in from the barn with the night’s milk. Father was cutting wood at the wood pile and mother stood at the kitchen door—just the same home picture which Bill knew so well. Bill did great things during his short stay. He paid that mortgage, ordered a new barn built and left capital for Jim to improve the farm. He did everything that a Hardy ought to do—and more—and yet he could not satisfy himself. It all seemed so small and narrow. He had hoped to find great music in the wind among the pines, but it filled him with a great loneliness, which he could not overcome. He had hoped to find peace and rest, but these were for the untried farm boy—not for the restless and worried business man. It broke out of him at night on the second day, when he and Jim were on the pasture hill looking for the sheep. The loneliness of the early Fall day fairly entered his heart.

“_Jim_,” he said, “_old fellow, I don’t see how you live in such a God-forsaken place_!”

“Why, Bill,” said Jim, “New York must be like Paradise to beat the old homestead.”

“Better a week on Broadway than a lifetime on these lonely hills.”

“I’d like to try it and see!” said Jim.

So Jim Hardy, the plain farmer, went to New York to visit Brother Bill. He had everything he could call for. Bill lived in a beautiful apartment, and he gave Jim a white card to see and do what he wanted. Bill was too busy to go around much, but Jim made his way. For a couple of days it was fine—then somehow Jim, just like Bill at the old farm, began to grow lonesome and oppressed. Right through the wall of Bill’s apartment house was a family with one child. The janitor told him the child was sick, so Jim knocked at the door to sympathize with the neighbors. They froze him with a few words and got rid of him. He saw a man on the street and stopped to converse with him. “Get out!” said the stranger. “You can’t bunco me.” Day after day Jim Hardy, the farmer, saw the fierce, selfish struggle for life in the big city. The great buildings, the theaters, Broadway at night—they were all splendid, but behind and under them lay the meanness, the selfish spirit, the lack of neighborly feeling, which galled the farmer to the heart. On the third night Bill took his brother to a great reception. Just as they walked into the brilliant room Jim glanced from the window and saw a policeman throw a weak and sickly man out of a public room where he was trying to get warm.

“What did I tell you, Jim?” said Bill. “Isn’t this worth a year on your old hills?” And Jim could only think of one thing to say:

“_Bill, old fellow, I don’t see how you can live in such a God-forsaken place!_”

What do you make of it? One brother thinks God has forsaken the country, while the other says He has forsaken the city! To me they prove that God is everywhere. Some may not find Him, since they look for Him only in things which are agreeable to them, and those are rarely the places in which to look. I think, too, that, like Jim and Bill, all children come into the world with natural tendencies and inclinations which, if worthy, should be encouraged rather than repressed. Both Jim and Bill are needed in American life.

LOUISE

“_How is Louise now?_”

“_She seems a little better!_”

That message came over the ’phone on Friday evening, just as the members of the Hope Farm family were separating for the night. Early in the year we had a letter from a woman in the West who came back to the paper after 15 years’ absence. As a girl she lived in New York State. Father took the paper and she remembered the talks about the Bud, Scion and Graft. “What has become of those children?” she asked. “Since I left home I have lost track of them. Now that I have a home and children of my own I would like to know what they came to.”

These were the names given to the four children of our first brood. We had one little girl of our own whom I called the Bud. Her mother did not want her brought up alone, so we took in a small boy—a little fellow of an uncertain age. We did not adopt him, but he was treated just like our own child, and “grew up” in our home. I called him the Seedling! A noted botanist argued with me to prove that these names should have been transposed—but I let them go, for we tried to graft good things upon the Seedling. Then came two other little ones—Mother’s niece and nephew, needing home and protection. We took them in, and I called them Graft and Scion. These names may not have betrayed any great knowledge of botany, but they seemed to fit the children, although as the little ones grew up we were glad to let those names drop.

This quartette of little ones grew and thrived. It was at times rather hard sledding for the Hope Farmers in those early years, but youth greases the runners with hope, and kids never know the true taste of tough mutton. They grew on through sickness, the wilfulness of childhood, powers of heredity and all the things which confront common children. For they always seemed to me just kids of very common clay, though Mother would at times come back from places where other children “behaved” and say: “You must understand that we have some very superior youngsters!” Of course I realized that the “Bud” would most likely be pretty much what her parents were, and it was a long-time hope that she would throw out our many undesirable qualities and concentrate upon the few good ones. Now comes our friend asking what has become of them—and I will try to answer for all! The Bud is a senior at one of the great Women’s Colleges; the Graft is with an engineering party running a new railroad through the Arizona wilderness; the Seedling is a captain in the Salvation Army—the Scion! ah! That is why I am writing this!

Louise grew up a small, rather delicate young woman, ambitious, clear-brained and with a quick, active mind. There came a time when greater family responsibilities came upon us all. Her father died, and her mother became hopelessly ill, and four younger brothers and sisters came to us to form what we call our second brood. Even as a young girl Louise began to realize the stern responsibilities of life for those little ones. When she finished high school her ambition to be of service to this family group became fixed. She wanted to become self-supporting and to have a hand in helping with these younger children. Teaching is the great resource of educated women who are naturally fitted for the work, and Louise saw in the schoolroom her best chance for useful service. I think this was one of the rare cases where women are willing to work and prepare themselves for true unselfish service. Louise was timid and naturally nervous—not strong or with great dominating power. I do not think any of us understood how much it really meant to her to face direct responsibility and force her way through.

Mother and I have always felt that if any of our children show real, self-sacrificing desire for an education we will practise any form of needed self-denial that the child may be college-trained. For an education worked out in that way will become a glory and an honor to all who have to do with it. So we felt it no burden, but rather a privilege, to send Louise to the Normal School. How well and faithfully she worked no one can ever realize. I often think that most reputations for bravery in this world are not fairly earned. Some strong, well-bred, naturally optimistic character, with health and heritage from a long line of dominating ancestors pushes and smashes his way through obstacles and acquires a great reputation for courage. I think such are far less deserving than women like Louise, small and delicate and nervous, who conquer natural timidity and force themselves to endure the battle. It is even harder to win confidence in yourself—to conquer the inside forces—than to fight the outside ones.

Louise did this. She did it well, without boasting or great complaint and without flinching. At times she was depressed, for the task seemed too much for her, but she rose above it and won. She won honors at her school, and long before she expected it, on her own little, honest record in the schoolroom, she was employed to teach at a good salary. It was to be only four miles from home—amid the best surroundings—and there was no happier woman on earth than was Louise when she wrote us the first news about it. It came just before Christmas. There are many women who could not see any cause for Christmas joy in the thought of long years of monotonous and wearying service, but Louise saw in this something of the joy of achievement, for through honest, trained labor, the outcome of her own patience and determination, she was to become self-supporting and a genuine help to the children. I presume no one but a conscientious and ambitious woman can realize what that means. I know women who would look upon such power of self-support simply as selfish freedom. Louise saw in it the power of greater service. We have tried our best to train our children for that view of a life work.

You may therefore imagine that the holidays at Hope Farm seemed like holy days indeed. They were all there except the Seedling and the Graft, and _they_ sent messages which left no regret, no sadness to creep in out of the past. Somehow I hope all you older people may know before you pass on something of what Mother and I did about our two broods as the old year passed on.

Yet there it comes again—the old question. I came home a little later than usual on Friday night. The night was wet and foggy, and Mother met me at the train. One of the little boys who usually comes for me had gone to meet Louise. Her first week of school was over, and she was coming home—a teacher! As we drove into the yard the family ran out to meet us—“Something has happened—they want you on the ’phone at once!” Ah! but these country tragedies may flash upon us without warning. Halfway home Louise had been stricken desperately ill, and she now lay at the parsonage—three miles away—helpless. Just as quickly as fingers could put the harness on our fastest horse, Mother and “Cherry-top” were driving off into the fog and rain. We waited until they reached the parsonage and then we kept the ’phone busy. The poor girl, riding home after her first fine week in the schoolroom, had been stricken with an internal hemorrhage—and it was doubtful if she could rally! At nine o’clock came the message: “She seems to be better.” The little boys were coming home—and they soon appeared, white and troubled. Mother was to stay all night and she sent a hopeful message about coming in the morning with Louise. We went to bed to get strength and nerve for any emergency. In the early morning Mother walked into my room and turned up the light. We looked at each other for a moment. Then there were six words:

“_How is Louise?_”

“_She is gone!_”

We said nothing more, but we were both thinking the same thing!

“_The first break in our big family has come. How is Louise now?_”

There was no way of saving her. Human skill and human love had failed. She was dead!

* * * * *

It was a beautiful service. There were only our own family and perhaps a dozen friends. We all wanted it so. We do not like the wild grief and public curiosity so often displayed at large funerals. There was just a great bank of flowers, a white casket and a simple service over this brave and loyal girl. I do not say “poor” girl, nor do I dwell upon the sadness of it. I thought that all out as Mother and I sat at the head of the casket. She died gloriously—like a soldier at his duty. She died when life was young. She had just won her little battle in the great world of affairs. She died in the joy of victory and in the faith that all things are possible. The wine of life was full. She never knew the sting of defeat, the shame and meanness of false friendships and ambitions, which has come to those of us who linger on the way. And so at the end of it all I ask the old question once more:

“How is Louise now?”

“She is better! Thank God! She is better!”

CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY

It is well enough to keep the Christmas tree standing until Spring cleaning at least. There may be those who open the closet door once a year and let the Christmas spirit out—somewhat like the family skeleton, to food and water—and then lock it up again. That does not suit me, for I would like to keep the door open so that Christmas may be with us every day in the year. The celebration just closed is about the best our family and community ever had, and it will do us permanent good.

On Wednesday evening the children had their celebration at the church. It was a cold clear night, with good sleighing, so we hitched the two big grays to the bob sled and filled the box with straw, and the children cuddled down into this nest and pulled blankets over them. The Hope Farm man drove, with Mother on the seat beside him to direct the job and tell him when and where to turn out. Tom and Broker seemed to feel that they were, in their way, playing the part of reindeer, for they trotted off in great shape—a little clumsy on their feet, perhaps, but with strength enough to pull down a house. Broker is inclined to be lazy, and Tom did most of the pulling unless we stirred his partner up with the stick. Through the clear starlight we went crunching and jingling on over the hills and through the narrow level valleys, for our country has a badly wrinkled face.

Part of the way lies through the woods, and then a stretch along the banks of a little river. There was just enough wind to make a little humming in the trees. Now and then a rabbit jumped out of the shadow and went hopping off across the snow. There was no danger—it was Christmas, and we do not carry firearms. I think I can tell you much about a person’s character and circumstances if you will tell me what comes into mind on a lonely road, when the wind is playing its wild tunes among the trees.

“Over the chimney the night wind sang,
Chanting a melody no one knew.”

To some this melody brings sad memories or fear of trouble, but the happy group in our big sled heard nothing of these in the sound. As Tom and Broker pulled their load on beneath the trees I think each one of us heard in the wind’s singing something of the song which the angels sang when the shepherds listened long years ago. This may be but a fancy of mine, yet I think our little group came nearer to understanding what Christmas means—on that lonely road—than we had before.

You know how pleasant it is to come trotting along a country road on a cold starry night and see the lights of the church burst into view far ahead. Our church is an old stone structure, full of years and honorable history. It was here, at least part of it, during the Revolution, and at one time Hessian prisoners were confined in it. There were no prisoners except those of hope inside the church that night. The boys and I made Tom and Broker comfortable and then we went inside to find a big Christmas tree and a crowd of happy children. Surely Christmas is children’s day, and they owned the church that night. Mother marshaled her big primary class for one chorus, and it seemed as if the entire end of the church was made of children. A couple of our Cherry-tops lent a little color to it. The Hope Farm man was escorted up to a front seat, where he was expected to look the part of prominent citizen. They ran him into the programme too for a Christmas story, so he got up and told the company about “Pete Shivershee’s Miracle”—a little Christmas memory of life in a lumber camp many years ago. Finally the simple presents were distributed, the sleepy little ones aroused, good wishes spoken and we all piled in once more for the home trip. Broker takes life as it comes, but Tom was chilly and disposed to be a trifle gay over the prospect of barn and cornstalks once more. He proceeded to pull the entire load, Broker trotting on with dangling traces! It was a sleepy and happy crowd that finally turned off the road into Hope Farm. “_We had a big time!_”

In two of the villages near us the people organized community Christmas trees. These trees were placed in the public square or some prominent spot, the electric wires were connected, and colored bulbs hung all over to take the place of candles. These were lighted on Christmas Eve and kept going all through the holiday week. It was a great success, for it brought people together, made a better community spirit, and helped us all. In addition to this community tree arrangements were made to have singers go about the town singing the old Christmas carols. This revival of the old English custom was a beautiful thing and a great success.

Shortly after three on Christmas morning our folks were awakened by music. I think the Cherry-tops thought it was Santa Claus, as it probably was. Out in front of our house a motor car carrying six young men had turned in from the road. There in the frosty morning they were singing:

“O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye! O come ye
To Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.”

They were beautiful singers and our folks will never forget that Christmas morning.

“Silent night! Holy night,
All is calm. All is light.
’Round young Virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.”

Finally the car started off, moving slowly down the road with the music creeping back to us through the clear air:

“Hark, the Herald angels sing.”

Our folks heard them at the next neighbor’s, far down the road. I have no doubt many a weary and troubled soul waking in the night at the sound went back to happier dreams of a better tomorrow. It was a beautiful thing to do, and never before did Christmas morning come to us so happily as this year.

I thought of these things all day, and the conviction has grown upon me that what we people who live in the country need more than anything else is something of this spirit which binds people together and holds them. We need it in our work, our play and in our battles. It is another name for patriotism, which means the unselfish love of country. The Duke of Wellington said the battle of Waterloo was won on the playgrounds of England, where boys were trained in manly sports. He told only half of it, for the spirit which turned that play into war came from the singers who in English villages sang Christmas carols or English folk songs. In like manner the wonderful national spirit which the German nation has shown has been developed largely through the singing societies which have expressed German feeling in song. In 1792 a band of Frenchmen marched from the south of France to Paris dragging cannon through a cloud of dust and singing the Marseillaise hymn, and even to this day the loyal spirit of France traces down from those dusty singers. Do I mean to say that farmers can come together and sing their troubles away? No, for some of the troubles have grown so strong and penetrated so deep that they must be pulled out by the roots. What I do say is that before we can hope to remove these troubles and make our conditions what they should be we must feel toward our friends and neighbors the sentiments which are expressed in these beautiful old songs. The time has gone by when we can hope to obtain what we should have from society as individuals playing a cold, selfish game of personal interest. We have tried that for many years and steadily lost out on it. The only hope for us now is in a true community spirit of loyalty and sacrifice, instead of the effort to get all we can for ourselves. That is why I say that there should be something of Christmas in every day of the year, and why I give these holiday memories.

“THE FINEST LESSON”

It is the privilege of youth and old age to make comparisons. One has little or nothing of experience to use as a yardstick—the other has everything life can offer him. One compares with imagination, the other with fact, and youth, having a wider pasture for thought, usually finds pleasanter places for feeding. My children have spent nearly every Christmas thus far before this open fire, while I have ranged far and wide, from Florida to the Great Lakes, and from Cape Cod to Colorado. As we sit in silence before our fire the boys can imagine themselves in some hunter’s camp, or with the soldiers in France, while the girls can drop themselves down from the wings of fancy in Cuba or Brazil. I might try that, but stern fact drags me down to other days, and old-time companions come creeping out of the past to say “Merry Christmas” and stand here, a little sorrowful that they cannot give the children something of their story. So I must be their spokesman, it seems, and the children give me a chance when after dreaming a while they come and ask me to tell about the real Christmas. “What was the finest Christmas lesson you ever had?” They do not put it in quite these words, but that is the sense of it. So there comes to me a great desire to live up to the highest test of story-telling—that is, so to interest your audience that they will forget to eat their apples.

The room seems full of the shadowy forms of men and women who have stepped out of the past to bring back a Christmas memory. Which of these old life teachers ever gave me the best lesson? They were all good—even that big fellow who tried to kick me out of a lumber camp—and failed—or that slimy little fraud who beat me out of a week’s wages! I think, however, that those two women over by the window lead all the rest. One is an old woman—evidently a cripple; the other younger—you cannot see her face in the dim light, but she stands by the older woman’s chair. Yes, they represent the best Christmas lesson I have had. So come up to the fire, forget the wind roaring outside, and listen to it. I was a hired man that Winter in a Western State. Some of the farmers who read this will remember me—not for any great skill I showed at farm work, but because I spent my spare time (that meant nights) going around “speaking pieces.” I am greatly afraid that as an agriculturist I did better work at keeping air hot than I ever did at heating plowshares through labor.

You see, it was this way. I was a freshman at an agricultural college, at a time when these institutions were struggling hard to live. The average freshman thinks he is the salt of the earth, forgetting that he is salt which has not gained its savor through losing its freshness. A man gets very little salt in his character until he goes out and assaults the world! At any rate, I had no money salted down and no fresh supplies coming in. I had to get out during the Winter and earn the price of another term at college. I tried canvassing for a book. We will draw the curtain down over that act. Some men tell me of making small fortunes as book agents. From my experience I judge these men to be supermen or superior prevaricators, to put it mildly. I worked the job for all I was worth in spite of all obstacles, such as the wrath of farmers who had been cheated through signing papers, the laughter of pretty girls and the teeth of dogs, and sold four books in two weeks! At last I struck a farmer who offered me a job digging a ditch. I made him a present of my “sample copy” and went to work.

A dollar makes an interrogation point with a barb on it. About all a farm produced in Winter, those days, was enough to eat and drink and something to sell for the taxes. The farmer I worked for had a red colt that was to settle with the tax man, but just before the taxes were due the colt ran away and broke his neck. I cannot say that my labor was worth much, but education is not one of the few things which come to us without money or price. Then I suddenly made the discovery that I was “a talented young elocutionist.” At least that is what the local paper stated, and do we not know that all we see in print must be true? I suppose I could tell you of one Christmas long ago that I spent as “supe” in a big theater and what befell us behind the scenes. At any rate, I could “speak pieces,” and I had a long string of them in mind. So what was a rather poor mimic in a city became a “talented elocutionist” far back over muddy roads. You want to remember that this was a long time before the bicycle had grown away from the clumsy “velocipede.” There were few, if any “good roads.” No one dreamed of gasoline engines or automobiles. During an open Winter the mud was 10 to 20 inches deep, and every mile of travel was to be multiplied by the number of inches of mud. Amid such surroundings it is not so hard to be known as a “talented elocutionist” when your voice is strong, your tongue limber, your memory good, and you have had a chance to see and hear some of the great actors from behind the scenes.