Chapter IV: Part 4

I made what they called “a big hit” at night, with audiences all the way from four or five up to 200. When life was dull and blue a neighbor would come with his family to our farmhouse and I would sit by the kitchen fire and entertain them. Once a farmer had a little trouble with his mother-in-law, who seemed to hold the mortgage. On his invitation I dropped in one night and a few of my “funny pieces” made this good lady laugh so that she forgave her son-in-law. Then I was called into the chamber of a very sick man to recite several “religious pieces.” I shall not soon forget that scene. The poor sick man lying there with eyes closed, the entire family and some of the neighbors grouped around like a company of mourners, and the “talented elocutionist” standing by the head of the bed in the gray light of the dying day. Yes, sir, the man recovered! They have a famous saying here in New York. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken!” I found it so that Winter, and as life was young and full ambition had not been severely wounded, I did not weaken.

But all this, of course, was mere practice for larger occasions. Whenever I could work up a crowd I would go about to schoolhouses and churches, entertain as best I could and then “pass the hat”! What evenings they were! They were usually in old-fashioned schoolhouses with the big iron stove in the center of the room. Such houses were rarely used at night, and there would be no light except as some of the audience brought lamps or candles. The room was usually crowded and the stove red-hot. In most cases the meeting would be opened with prayer and some local politician might make a speech. Then the “talented elocutionist” would stand up near the stove. He never was an “impressive figure” at his best. In those old days the best he could afford was a pair of thick cowhide boots, a second-hand coat which came from a long, thin man, and trousers evidently made originally for a fat man. Still, the light was dim and the speaker remembered hearing James E. Murdock say that if you could only put yourself into the _spirit_ of your talk the audience would follow you there and forget how you looked. I had seen a great actor play the part of Fagin in “Oliver Twist,” and at these entertainments I tried giving an imitation of him, until a big husky farmer tried to whip me. I had a job to explain to my friends that he was trying to punch Fagin—not me. The audiences knew no middle ground. They wanted some burlesque or some tragedy of their own lives which would tear at their heartstrings. Now and then as I recited in those hot, dim schoolhouses the keen humor of the thing would come to me, or like a flash the poverty and pathos of my own struggle would sweep over me with overwhelming force. Then I could feel that audience moving with me and for a brief moment I got out of the ditch of life and knew the supreme joy of the complete mastery of one who can separate the human imagination from the flesh and compel it to walk with him where he wills.

These moments were all too brief. Back we came finally to the dim, stifling room, and the rather ignoble and commonplace job of trying to measure the value of a thrill by a voluntary contribution. I have had many a high hope and many a dream of a new suit of clothes blackballed on “passing the hat.” At first, when a man got up and said: “Gents, this show is worth a dollar, and I will pass the hat,” I took him at his word and expected a hat full of bills. Yet even when I shook out the lining I could find nothing larger than a dime. During that Winter I made a fine collection of buttons. It may be that most men want to keep the left hand from knowing what the right hand is up to, but evidently you must have one hand or the other under public observation if you expect much out of the owner. I have learned to have no quarrel with human nature, and I imagine after all that the hire fitted the value of the laborer’s efforts fairly well.

Christmas came to us in that valley with the same beautiful message which was carried to all. It was a cold Christmas, and as we went about our chores before day and at night the stars were brilliant. The crinkle of the ice and snow and the hum of the wind over the fences and through the trees came to me like the murmur of a faraway song. It touched us all. We saw each other in something of a new light of glory. The woman of the house, I think, regarded me as a sort of awkward hired man. Now she seemed to see a boy, far from home, struggling with rather feeble hands against the flood which swept him away from the ambition to earn an education. I am sure that it came to her that the Christmas spirit must be capitalized to help me on my way. So she organized a big gathering for Christmas Eve at which I was to “speak” and accept a donation. It was to be over in the next district, and that good woman took the sleigh and drove all over that county drumming up an “audience.” I am sure that there never was a “star” before or since who had such an advance or advertising agent as I did on that occasion. She was a good trainer, too. The day before Christmas I husked corn in the cold barn, and this delicate woman ran through the snow with two hot biscuits and a piece of meat. There I worked through the day husking corn with my hands while I “rehearsed” a few new ones with my brain and sent my heart way back to New England, where I knew the folks were thinking of me.

In these times there would have been a fleet of automobiles moored near the farmhouse, but in those days no engine had yet coughed out the gasoline in its throat. We came in sleighs and big farm “pungs.” Standing by the barn in the clear moonlight you could see the lanterns gleaming along the road, and hear the tinkle of the sleighbells and the songs which the young people were singing. Far down the road came a big farm sled loaded with young people who were singing “Seeing Nellie Home.” Sweet and clear came their fresh young voices through the crisp, frosty air:—

“Her little hand was resting
On my arm as light as foam
When from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party,
I was seeing Nellie home.

“I was seeing Nellie. I was seeing Nellie.
I was seeing Nellie home,
’Twas from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party,
I was seeing Nellie home.”

The old farmer on the front seat sat nodding his head to the music, and his wife beside him took her hand out of the muff and slid it under his arm. These were the fine old days of simple pleasures, when the country entertained itself and was satisfied. The other night my young folks took me off to a moving picture theater where we saw a great actress portraying human emotion in a way to make you shudder. My mind went back to my own feeble efforts as a star performer, and I was forced to admit that the usual Sunday school entertainment could have but a small chance in competition with this powerful exhibition. The thing to do is to carry this strong attraction to the country and not force our young people to travel to the city after it.

Each sleigh brought not only its load of human freight, but a big basket of food, for there was to be a feast of the body with food as well as of the spirit with oratory. As the guest of honor I rode over with one of the school trustees, and he proved a good local historian.

“This farm we visit tonight is owned by the Widder Fairchild. A nice woman, but homely enough to stop a clock. Her father left her the farm, and she got to be quite an old maid. We all thought she had settled down for such when she up and married the hired man, a nice man, but no farmer, and no property except a cough and an old aunt mighty nigh bed-ridden. Then the husband died and left the old lady on her hands. She might have sent the old thing to the poorhouse—ain’t no kin of hers—but just because her husband promised to keep her, Mrs. Fairchild has kept the old lady on. There the two women live on one of the best farms in the county.”

“It’s the best because the Lord has blessed it.” That came from the wife on the back seat. She had tried to get in a word before.

“No, no! Farms are made good by hard work and judgment. The minister went and talked to her about it, but all he got out of her was ‘And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest I will go.’”

“But, Henry, ain’t you ’shamed to call her homely?”

“No, because it’s the truth. It wouldn’t be about you, now, but I told the minister that once. He has to be diplomatic and he hemmed and hawed and finally said, ‘She has a strong face.’ He’s right! Mighty strong!”

If you ever acted in the capacity of _donatee_ at such a party you know the feeling. The big house was filled. Out in the kitchen the women sorted out the food and arranged it for supper. In the front room, beside a little table, sat “the hired man’s old aunt,” a beautiful old lady with white hair and a sweet, patient face. On the table stood a few house plants in pots. One geranium had opened a flower.

“The only one in the neighborhood for Christmas,” said the old lady. “You don’t know how proud I am of it. It has been such a joy to me to see it slowly grow, and, oh, think of what it means to have it come at Christmas!”

But the donatee has little time for small talk. He always earns his donation, and whatever happened to it later, I earned it that night. They finally stopped me for supper. The minister alluded to it as “the bounteous repast which we are now asked to enjoy.” My friend the trustee stood by the door and shouted:

“Hoe in—help yourself!”

It was getting on toward Christmas Day when I stood up in the corner to end the entertainment. I had intended to end with Irwin Russell’s “Christmas Night in the Quarters,” with negro dialect, but as I was about to start my eye fell upon a group by that little table. The “old aunt” sat looking at me, and by her side stood the “homely” woman, her hand resting upon the older woman’s shoulder. I wonder if you have ever had a vision come to you at Christmas—or any other time! A great, mysterious, beautiful vision, in which you look forward into the years and are given to see some great thing which is hidden from most men until too late. It came to me as I watched those women that the finest test of character, the noblest part of the Christmas spirit, was not the glory of caring for helpless childhood, but the higher sacrifice of love and duty for the aged.

And so, almost before I knew it, I found myself reciting Will Carleton’s poem, “Over the Hill to the Poorhouse!” What a sentiment to bring into a happy Christmas party—by the donatee at that—one who had been hired “to make them laugh”!

I knew it all, yet my mind jumped across the long miles and I thought of my own mother growing old and waiting in silence that I might have opportunity!

“Over the hill to the poorhouse
I’m trudging my weary way.
I a woman of sixty,
Only a trifle gray,
I who am smart and chipper.
For all the years I’ve told,
As many another woman
Only one-half as old.

“Over the hill to the poorhouse!
I can’t quite make it clear;
Over the hill to the poorhouse,
It seems so horrid queer!
Many’s the journey I’ve taken,
Traveling to and fro,
But over the hill to the poorhouse
I never once thought I’d go!”

It was a great 10 minutes. It is worth a good many years to have 600 ticks of the clock pass by like that. Could all of us have lived, for 10 years with that 10-minute feeling—what a neighborhood that would have been. I was looking at those two women by the table. I saw their hands come together. It is true that the trustee had not done great injustice to her appearance, but as she stood there by “the hired man’s old aunt” there came upon her face a beauty such as God alone can bring upon the face of those who are beloved by Him. A light from within illuminated her life story, and I could read it on her face. A love that endures after death—until life! And when I stopped I was _done_. The power had all gone from me. Not so with my manager, the trustee. He could sense a psychological moment even if he could not spell it, and he got his hat into action before the rich spirit of that crowd could get to the poorhouse. I saw him coming with the hat full—there were surely several bills there. Say, did you ever spend money before you got your fingers on it? I never have since that night. I know better. As I saw that money I figured on several Christmas presents, a new coat and at least one term at college. The trustee cleared his throat for a few remarks and I stood there pleasantly expectant, anticipating a few compliments—and the money.

“Now, friends, we thank you one and all for your generous gift, and we thank our talented young friend here for the great assistance he has given us. He will rejoice when he learns the full amount, for, my dear friends, _this money belongs to the Sunday school_!”

And he proceeded forthwith to gather up the money and stuff it into his pockets, leaving me with my mouth half open, and my hand half extended.

What could you do? There was a roar of protest from several farmers who demanded their money back, though they never got it. Happily the humor of it struck me. The first thing that came into my mind was an old song I had often heard:

“_Thou art so near and yet so far!_”

There is nothing like being a good sport, and so I bowed and smiled and took my medicine, although I am sure the party would have ended in a fight if I had said the word. But the “old aunt” looked at me for a moment and then cut off that geranium bloom, tied two leaves on it and handed it to me without a word. And the woman with the shining face took my hand in both hers and said: “Do not get discouraged. I know you will win out.”

I rode home with a farmer who, with his two big sons, roared profanely at what they called the “injustice of that miser.” They vowed to get up another donation, which they did later. They offered to go and “lick the trustee” and take the money from him. I think they were a little disappointed when I told them that he needed it more than I did.

“Why, from the way you talk, anybody’d think you had fallen heir to a big thing!”

I had. That little flower in my pocket carried a Christmas spirit and a Christmas lesson that the whole world could not buy. The thing paying the largest dividend, the finest companion that ever walked with one along the roadway of life—unselfish love, and sacrifice.

“COLUMBUS DAY”

I would like to know where you are tonight, and what you have been doing all through this “Liberty Day.” With us the day has been cloudy and wet, and just as the sun went down Nature took the liberty of sending a cold, penetrating rain. So here I am before my big fire with a copy of Washington Irving’s “Life of Christopher Columbus.” That seems the proper way to end Columbus Day, for in trying to tell the children about him I found that I did not really know much more than they do about the great discoverer. So here I am back some 400 years in history wondering if any of these pompous and bigoted ways of seeking for new worlds or new methods can be applied to modern life in New Jersey.

My back aches, for I have been digging potatoes all day—and I thought I had graduated from that job some years ago. Perhaps you will say that we should have been out selling Liberty bonds or parading. Personally, I am a poor salesman, and we all subscribed for our bonds some days ago. There are eight bondholders in this family. The influenza has left us without labor except for the children while the school is closed. There are still over 100 barrels of apples to pick, potatoes to dig, plowing and seeding to be done, and a dozen other jobs all pressing. So I decided to celebrate Liberty Day by digging those Bible School potatoes. We planted a patch of potatoes between rows of young peach trees and promised the crop to the Bible Teachers’ Training School. Last year we tried this, and I put in a few of the latest scientific touches which the experts told us about. The plant lice came in a swarm and ruined the patch. We had a few potatoes about the size of marbles. This year we avoided scientific advice, and just planted potatoes in the old-fashioned way. They were not cultivated in the best possible manner, but they made a good crop. So when Liberty Day dawned with a thick, gray mist over the land I decided to get those potatoes out instead of going on the march or singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” From what I read of Columbus I imagine he would have chosen the parade and left the digging to others. The world has taken on new ideas about labor since then.

So, after breakfast, Cherry-top and I took our forks and started digging. The soil was damp and the air full of mist and meanness which made me sneeze and cough as we worked on. Happily, out on our hills we are not fined $20 for sneezing outside of a handkerchief, as is the case in New York. If anyone has discovered any poetry or philosophy in the job of digging potatoes he may have the floor. I call it about the most menial job on the farm, and therefore fine discipline for “Liberty Day.” While we were working Philip and the larger boy went by with the team to seed rye. They have thrashed out enough grain by hand, and this is not only ideal weather, but about the last limit for seeding. The land was plowed some two weeks ago, a big crop of ragweed and grass being turned under. If we only had the labor this ground would have been disked twice and then harrowed. As it is, we can only work it once with the spring-tooth. Then Philip goes ahead seeding in the rye by hand, while the boy follows with the Acme harrow to cover the grain. It is rough seeding and would not answer for wheat, but rye is tough and enduring, and it will imitate Columbus and discover a new world in that decaying mass of ragweed. So I watch the seed sowers travel slowly along the hillside as I dig, and wonder what was doing on this farm 427 years ago, and what will be doing here 100 years hence! Such reflections were the most cheerful mental accompaniment I could find for digging potatoes. They are impractical, while digging is the most practical thing on earth!

As we dug on a man and woman came up the lane. They came after apples, having engaged them before. The boy went down to attend to them, while I kept on digging. Then the boy came back with two more apple customers. The trouble with us is that we have more customers than apples this year, but these were old patrons, and they were served. The boy finally came back with $41.80 as a result of his trading, and we went at our job with new vigor. As we dug along we noticed a curious thing about those potatoes. Here and there was a vine large and strong, and still perfectly green. The great majority of the hills were dead, but those green ones were as vigorous as they were in June. The variety was Green Mountain, and we soon found that on the average these big green vines were producing twice as much as the dead hills. Some of these living vines carried three or four big potatoes. Others had a dozen, with seven or eight of market size, while others had about 16 tubers, mostly small. Just why these vines should act in this way I do not know. There are so many possible reasons that I should have to guess at it, as Columbus did when, as his ship sailed on and on into the west, the compass began to vary. The boy and I decided that here was where we might discover a good strain of Green Mountain on Columbus Day. So we have selected 15 of the best hills. They will be planted, hill by hill, next year and still further selection made. We discarded the hills with only a few big potatoes and also those with many small ones, and selected those with a good number of medium-sized tubers. It may come to nothing, but we will try it. Experience and careful figures show that an ordinary crop of potatoes in this country does not pay. The same is true of a flock of ordinary poultry, or a drove of scrub pigs. There is no profit except in well-bred, selected stock. That’s what we think we have in pigs and poultry—perhaps we may get something of the same thing in potatoes.

But there is one sure thing about digging potatoes—you work up a great appetite. At noon there came a most welcome parade up the lane. It was not a woman suffrage procession, but Mother, Aunt Eleanor, Rose and the little girls bringing the picnic dinner in baskets and pails. The boy had built a fire up above the Spring and piled stones up around it. By the time I had washed my hands and face in the brook Mother had a frying pan over this fire with slices of bacon sizzling and giving up their fat. When this bacon was brown the slices were taken out and the fat kept on bubbling and dancing. Then Aunt Eleanor cut up slices of Baldwin apples and dropped them into this fat. They tell me Ben Davis is best for this fried-apple performance, but I found no fault with Baldwin as it jumped out of that fat. The chemist will no doubt explain how the bacon fat combined with the acid of the apple, etc., etc., etc. Let him talk; it does him good—but have another fried apple! Men may come and men may go, but they will seldom find more appetizing food or a more perfect balanced ration than the Hope Farmers discovered around that fire. There were bread and butter, fried bacon, fried apple, pot cheese and several of our choice Red hen’s eggs boiled hard and chopped fine with a little onion. Of course, eggs are worth good and great money just now, but nothing is too good for an occasion like this. And so, on that cheerless day, sitting around our fire, we all concluded that Columbus did a great thing when he discovered America.

But our job was not to be ended by eating fried apples and bacon, pleasant as that occupation is, and when I put out my hand I was obliged to admit that the first faint evidence of rain was beginning. The larger boy went back to his rye seeding, and very soon Tom and Broker could be seen on the lower farm pounding back and forth over the field like gray giants hauling up the guns. All hands went to picking up potatoes. Mother picked two bushels and then had to go back to her housework. Little Rose claimed that she picked up 20 potatoes. Her chief job was to hold on to her throat and ask if it was not time to eat one more of those sweet throat tablets I had in my pocket. The rain slowly developed from mist to good-sized drops. I know what it means to get wet, and in any other cause I would have left the job, but we were there to finish those potatoes, and we stayed by it until they were all picked up. The last barrel or two came up out of the mud, and our hands and feet were surely plastered with common clay—but we finished our job. Then came the boys with Broker and the fruit wagon to carry the crop to the barn. One of these boys had on a rubber coat—the other a sack over his shoulders. They went on up the hill to get a load of apples and on their way back brought down the Bible potatoes, where they will dry out and be ready for delivery. When we got to the barn there was another party after apples.

We finished it all at last, dried off before the fire and found ourselves none the worse for the day. In the present condition of my back I would not from choice go to a dance tonight, but that will limber out in time. The fire roars away, the rain taps at the window, and we are safe and warm. We have had our supper, and I suppose I could tell where Aunt Eleanor has hidden a pan of those famous ginger cookies. I will make it a one to five chance that I can also find a pan of baked apples. I think I will not reveal the secret publicly at this time. The Food Administrator might accuse her of using too much ginger or sweetening! School has been closed on account of the influenza, but the children are still working their “examples,” and I give them a few original sums to work out. Little Rose listens to all this, and finally proposes this one of her own:

“If a woman paid three cents at a hospital for a baby, how much would a horse cost?”

Personally, I will give that up, and go back to the “Life of Columbus.” The most interesting thing to me is the account of the council of wise men to whom Columbus tried to explain his theories. They told him that since the old philosophers and wise men had not discovered any new world, it was great presumption for an ordinary man to claim that there remained any great discovery for him to make. Seems to me I have heard that same argument ever since I was able to read and understand. Perhaps it is well that all who come, like Columbus, with a theory and vision of new worlds must fight and endure and suffer before the slow and prejudiced public will give them a chance. But here comes a message for me to come upstairs and see a strange thing. Little Rose cannot have her own way, and she has gone into a passion altogether too big for her little frame. She will not even let me come near her, and back I come a little sadly to my book and my fire. They are not quite so satisfying as before. But who comes here? It is Mother carrying a very pink and repentant morsel of humanity—little Rose. She hunts up my electric hearing device and with the ear piece at my ear I hear a trembly little voice saying:

“_I’s awful sorry!_”

And that is a fine ending for Liberty Day. Perhaps, like Columbus on that fateful night at the end of his voyage, this little one sees the first faint light of a new world! Who knows?

THE COMMENCEMENT

You could hardly have crowded another human into the great hall. From the gowned and decorated dignitaries on the stage to the great orchestra in the upper gallery every square foot of floor space was packed, as the president of the great woman’s college arose to open the commencement exercises. This followed one of the most impressive scenes I have ever witnessed. The great audience had been waiting long beyond the appointed time for starting, when suddenly the orchestra started a slow and stately march and we all rose. A dignified woman in cap and gown, with soft gray hair, marched slowly up the aisle, and following her came long lines of “sweet girl graduates,” as Tennyson puts it. The woman walked to the steps which led to the stage, and standing there reviewed the long lines of girls as they filed silently in and occupied the seats reserved for them. In their black gowns and white bands they seemed, as they were, a trained and steadfast army. As they seated themselves and rose again it seemed like the swelling of a great ocean tide. And following them came men and women who had gained distinction in education or public life. They, too, were in cap and gown, with bands of red, purple, white, green or brown, to designate their college or their studies. The bright sunshine flooded in at the open windows. Outside, the beautiful green college campus stretched away in gently rolling mounds and little valleys. I noticed a robin perched on a tree with his head on one side, calmly viewing the great professor who with the bright red band across his breast was delivering the address. Very likely this wise bird was saying, “You should not be too proud of that dash of red on your gown. There are others! Your red badge is man made. It will not appear on your children, and it may even be taken from you. The red on my breast is a finger-print of Nature, and cannot be removed.”

I know that there are those who would call this impressive service mere pomp and vain parade, yet, to the plain man and woman sitting in the front row of the balcony, it all seemed a noble part of a great proceeding, and a great pride for them. Just where the balcony curved around like a horseshoe this gray-haired couple sat—just like hundreds of other men and women who, in other places, with strange thought in mind, were watching their boys and girls pass out of training into the race of life. The Hope Farm man is supposed to be a farmer, and “as the husband so the wife is.” He worked out as hired man for some years and otherwise qualified for the position, while Mother probably never saw a working farm before she was married. But at any rate there they were—like the hundreds of other plain men and women, while down below them the best work of their lives was coming to fruition. For the daughter was part of that army in cap and gown and was about to receive her certificate of education!

To me one of the most interesting characters in the universe is “the hen with one chicken”! These women with one child of their own! Having added just one volume to the book of life it is their duty and privilege to regard it as a masterpiece. When you come to think of it, what a day, what a moment, that must have been for a woman like Mother. Here was her only child, a girl who, from the cradle, had never given her a moment’s uneasiness or a single lapse of confidence, now standing up big and straight and fine to take her college degree. It had been the dream of Mother’s girlhood to go through this same great college, but that had been denied her. Yet the years had swung around in their relentless march and here was her daughter, big, trained, fine and unspoiled, making noble use of the opportunity which failed to knock at her mother’s door! Many of you women who read this will know that there can be no prouder moment in a woman’s life. Is it any wonder that there was a very suspicious moisture on Mother’s glasses as the minister read the 25th chapter of St. Matthew?

“_And I was afraid and went and hid thy talent in the earth._”

Would you not, as she did, have sung with all your power when that great audience rose like a mighty wave to sing “The Star Spangled Banner”? The members of the orchestra stood up to play the tune. As you know, a group of musicians will usually show a large proportion of European faces, but all these markings of foreign blood faded away as they played, and there came upon each countenance the light of what we call _Americanism_.

But what about “father” at such a time and place? Where does _he_ come in? At a woman’s college he stays out—he is a mere incident, and properly so. If he is wise he will accept the situation. For this big girl marching in line has his shoulders and head; she walks as he does, and people are kind enough to remark, “How much your daughter looks like you!” Now this is no fly in the ointment of Mother’s pride and joy, unless you refer to it too much. Far better take a back seat and let the good lady take full pride in her daughter. I confess that when those 200 girls sat together at the front of the room, all in cap and gown, and most of them with their hair arranged alike, I could not be sure of my own girl until her name was called! My mind was back in the years busy with many memories. More than a full generation ago at an agricultural college I walked up to receive my “certificate.” I remember that I had on some clothes which had been discarded by two other men. I played the part of tailor to clean and press them into service. There were no be-gowned and decorated dignitaries on the platform—just a few farmers, several of them right out of the harvest field. I remember how two of these tired men fell asleep through our class “orations.” I had in my pocket just enough money to get me to a farm where I had agreed to cut corn. And this proud and happy lady beside me! At just about the same time she was graduating from a normal college at the South. She was then a mere slip of a pretty girl, not out of her ’teens, with a plain white dress and a bright ribbon, and no “graduation present” but the bare price of a ticket home. And within a few weeks she was off, giving the acid test to her certificate of education by teaching school in Texas! What a world it all is anyway! The years had ironed out the rather poor scientific farmer and the smart girl teacher into the parents of this young woman who, as we fondly hope, has adopted the good qualities of both sides of the house and cast out the poor ones. A great world, certainly a good world, and probably a wise one!

The orator of the day made an impressive speech. He made a powerful comparison between Crœsus, the rich Persian king, and Leonidas, the Greek hero. Then he compared the life of the Emperor Tiberius with that of Jesus. It was a powerful plea for a life of service—for making full use of training and culture. I saw my old friend the robin on his perch outside regarding the orator critically. I take him to be one of these exponents of a “practical” education. Very likely he was saying:

“Very fine! Very fine! ‘Words, my lord, words.’ But if I had a daughter I would want more of housekeeping and practical homemaking in her education. With all your culture and literature you cannot build a house as my daughter can. You cannot tell when it is time to go South, as we can, nor can you defend yourself against enemies as we are able to do. All very fine, no doubt, for human beings, but if birds were educated with any such ideas the race would be extinct in three generations. Reading, writing and housekeeping are the only things that women need to know.”

I have heard human robins talk in just exactly that way, and for many years the world listened to them and believed what they said. Their talk was about like the song of the robin, only not 10 per cent as musical. They were opposed to the “educated” woman, and most of all to the woman’s college. There are still some of these pessimists left. I thought of one in particular as one by one those girls stood up to receive their diplomas—and the robin flew away in disgust. Woman can never again be set aside as a slave or underling or inferior partner of man. She has a right to the best there is in life. Some of those who read this will say, “What will become of farming if our country women get the idea that they are entitled to education and culture, as others are?” Farming will be better off than ever before, because when our women get this idea firmly in mind we shall all proceed to demand the things which will enable us to give opportunity to every country girl.

Of all the wonderful changes in the past 25 years, few have been so remarkable as the growth of opportunity for women. The full ballot is now to be given them, and the war opened many a door of industry. Those doors cannot be shut. They have lost their hinges. A new element is coming into business and political life. I do not think we need new development of science or mechanical skill half as much as we need vision, poetry and the finer imagination. It must be said that while man alone has done wonders in developing material power he has failed to combine it with spiritual power. That is what we need today more than anything else, and I think the finely educated women are to bring it. I was thinking about this all through that great day. Suppose my daughter and the 200 other graduates had all been trained as lawyers, doctors, business women, etc.; would they really benefit the world more than they will now do with broad, strong culture and with minds stored with the best that literature can give them? I doubt it. No matter what they may do hereafter, their lives and their influence will be strong for this sort of training. I can hardly think of any better missionary to go into a country neighborhood to live than one of these hopeful, trained and useful young women. Mother selected the college for her daughter before that young person was out of her cradle. I thought some more practical training would be better, but I never had a chance to argue. I now conclude that Mother was right. She knew what she was doing, and evidently sized up the spirit of her own flesh and blood. If you ask me what I think is the finest thing about a college education I can quickly tell you. It is having a son or daughter go through a great college with credit and come out wholly unspoiled by the process. It seems to me that most people use the college as a trading place in life. They bring away from it knowledge and culture, but they leave behind too much of youth, too much of the plain home life, too much of the simple, homely, kindly things which the world needs and longs for. So that we may all pardon Mother her pride and satisfaction as she looks down upon this big girl in cap and gown and knows that her daughter has mastered the course at a great college and still remains _her daughter_, with a sane and fine understanding of her relations to the home and to society.

Ideals are what count. One of the most beautiful ceremonies of this commencement was the placing of the laurel chain. The senior class, dressed in white, marched to the grave where lies the founder of the college, carrying a great chain or wreath of laurel. While the students sang, these seniors draped the laurel around the little fence which enclosed the grave. It was as if the youngest daughter of the college had come to pay reverence to the founder. A beautiful ceremony, and after it was over I went back and copied the inscription on one side of the little monument. I have seen nothing finer as a message to educated youth.

“_There is nothing in the universe that I fear but that I shall not know all my duty or shall fail to do it._”

“ORGANIZATION”

The other day a city man came to the farm after apples. He loaded up his car and, rendered good-natured by eating three mellow Baldwins, he proceeded to tell us where farmers were behind the times. It is a pleasure for many city men to do this and the average farmer good-naturedly listens, always glad to have his customers enjoy themselves. This man said he wondered why farmers have never organized properly so as to defend and control their business. It is quite easy for a man of large affairs to see what could be done if all the farmers could get together in a great business organization.

“The trouble with you folks is that you don’t know how to do team work,” said my city friend. “Suppose there are twelve million farmers in the country. Suppose they all joined and organized and pledged by all they hold sacred to each put up $5.00 every month as a working fund. Suppose they hired the greatest organizing brain in the country and instructed its owner and carrier to go to it. It would simply mean world control by the most patient and deserving class on earth. Why don’t you do it?”

That’s the way your city business man talks, and he cannot understand why our farmers do not promptly carry out the plan. Of course that word “suppose” takes the bottom out of most facts, but it is hard for the business man to realize why farmers have not been able to do full team work. This man said that large business enterprises in the city were controlled by boards of directors. There might be men on the board who personally hated each other with all the intensity of business hatred. Yet when it came to a matter of business policy for the company they all got together and put the proposition through. He said it was different with a farmer, who if he had trouble with his neighbor over a line fence would not under any circumstances vote for him even if he stood for a sound business proposition.

That is the way many of these city men feel. It is largely a matter of ignorance through not understanding country conditions. Those of us who spend our lives among the hills can readily understand why it is hard for a farmer to surrender a large share of his individuality and put it into the contribution box of society. Many of us, I fear, would dodge or cheat the contribution box in church unless we felt we were under the watchful eye of our wives. Possibly we shall contribute more freely to society now that our wives and daughters have the privilege of voting. When a man has lived his life among brick and stone with ancestors who have been constantly warned to “keep off the grass” he comes to be incapable of understanding what is probably the greatest problem of American society. That is the effort to keep our country people contented and feeling that they are getting a fair share of life, so that they will continue cheerfully to feed and clothe the world. You cannot convince a man unless you can understand his language or read his thought. One of the worst misfortunes of the present day is the fact that city and country have grown apart, so that they have no common language.

Those of us who live close to Nature realize that in order to know the truth we must find

“Tongues in trees, Books in running Brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”

The trouble with the city man is that he has been denied the blessed privilege of studying that way. Therefore, if you would make him know why in the past it has been so difficult for farmers to organize thoroughly you must go to the primary motives of life and not to the high school.

When our first brood of children were small, I thought it well to give them an early lesson in organization. There were four children, and as Spring came upon us there was a great desire to start a garden. So we proceeded in the most orderly manner to organize the Hope Farm Garden Association. We had a constitution and full set of rules and by-laws. These stated the full duties of all the officers, but somehow we forgot to provide for the plain laborers. The largest boy was President and the smaller boy was Vice-President. My little girl was Secretary, and the other girl Treasurer. It was an ideal arrangement, for each one held an important office, and all were directors. I had a piece of land plowed and harrowed. I bought seeds and tools and the Association voted to start the garden at once. They started under directions of the President and I went up the hill to work in the orchard. It proved to be a case where the controlling director should have remained on the job. Halfway up the hill I glanced back and saw the Hope Farm Garden Association headed for the rocks. The President and Vice-President were fighting and the Treasurer and Secretary were crying. No one was working except the black hen, and she was industriously eating up the seeds.

I came back to save the Association if possible and the Secretary ran to meet me with the minutes of the meeting on her cheeks. Her hands had been in the soil and she had succeeded in transferring a portion of it to her face. Through this deposit the tears had forced their way in a track as crooked as the course of the Delaware River, in its effort to carve the outline of a human face on the western coast of New Jersey. The poor little Secretary came up the lane with the old industrial cry which has come down to us out of the ages, tearing apart the efforts of men to combine and improve their condition.

“_Oh! Father, don’t the President have to work?_”

The minutes of the meeting clearly revealed the trouble. It seemed that the President of the Association made the broad claim that his duty consisted simply in being President. There was nothing in the constitution about his working. Of course, a dignified President could not perform manual labor. The Secretary followed with the claim that her duty was to write in a book; how could she do that if she worked? Then came the Treasurer proving by the by-laws that her duty was to hold the money; if she tried to work at the same time she might lose the cash. So naturally she could not work. Thus it happened that there was no laborer left except the Vice-President. He had resigned and the President was trying to accept his resignation in italics.

These were the same children who had settled a debate on the previous Sunday afternoon. The question was whether they would rather have the minister read his sermon or talk off-hand. The vote was 3 to 1 in favor of having him read it. The prevailing argument was that when the minister read his sermon he knew when he got through. The one negative vote was passed on the hope that when he talked off-hand he might be a little off-head, forget one or two pages and thus get through sooner. You may learn from that one reason why it has been so hard in the past for certain farmers to organize.

And one reason why there has grown up an industrial advantage in the town and city may perhaps be learned from another sermon in stones. Some years ago we had two boys on the farm. Largely in order to keep them busy their mother made a bargain with them to wash windows. They were to be paid so much for each window properly cleaned. Of course their mother supposed that the work would be done in the good old-fashioned way of scrubbing the glass by hand with a wet cloth. The object was more to keep them busy than to have any skilled work performed. One boy was a patient plodding character who did not object seriously to hand labor. He took a cloth and a pail of hot water and slowly and carefully rubbed off the glass in the old-fashioned way. The other boy never did like to work and after some thought he went to the neighbor’s and borrowed a small hand-pump with a hose and fine nozzle. He filled this with hot water with the soap dissolved in it and sprayed his windows with the hot mixture. He got them just as clean as the other boy did, but he did three windows while his companion was doing one. Then there arose an argument as to whether this boy with the pump should be paid the same price per window as the other boy who did the work by hand. These boys both went to the Sunday school and the boy with the pump was able to refer to the parable of the man who hired the workmen at different hours during the day. When they came to settle up the men who had worked all day grumbled because they got no more than the men who had worked half a day. The answer of the boss applied to this window washing. “Did I not agree with thee for a penny?”

Now in a way the city man with his advantage in labor is not unlike the boy with the pump. The city workman has been able to take advantage of many industrial developments of much machinery which has not yet reached the country. Some day there will be an adjustment and then the countryman will have his inning.

Some years ago I spent the night with a farmer far back in a country neighborhood. After supper he described in great detail a plan he had evolved for organizing all American farmers in one great and powerful body. His plan was complete and he had worked out every detail except one which he did not seem to think essential. I looked out of the window through the dark night and saw a light far down the road. Some neighbor was at home. I thought it a good time for action.

“There,” I said, “is a chance to start this big scheme of yours. Down the road I see the light from your neighbor’s window. Put on your hat, take the hired man and your boys and we will go right down there and organize the first chapter of this organization. No time like the present.”

The farmer’s face clouded. “Why, I haven’t spoken, to that man for three years. He would not keep up the line fence and I had to go to law and make him do it.”

I looked out of the window once more and saw another light to the north of us dimly visible in the darkness. “Well, then let us go to this other neighbor. I saw several men there as I came by.”

“That man! I wouldn’t trust him with fifty cents, and he would be sure to elect himself Treasurer.”

“Well, far across the pasture I see still another light. Shall we go there?”

“No, that man doesn’t know enough to go in the house when it rains.”

The farmer’s wife looked up from her sewing as if to speak, but the man answered for her.