Chapter IV: Part 4

I took them up and fondled them—I wanted to kiss them, they were so quiet now and warm, still splendid in death.

Mr. Stone had killed his brace also, but being more experienced, had shot them farther off.

“You killed yours too close,” he said, as I stood fondling the limp and beautiful birds. “You should have waited up to fifty yards or seventy.”

“Yes,” I said, “you see it is my quail hunting instinct. I had my first lesson in shooting quail in the pine woods of Alabama, and let me tell you, I laughed, it may be wrong, but it’s dead easy killing those big, beautiful hens. Honestly, except for their lightning flight I thought I was shooting at Tennessee guineas.”

Mr. Stone laughed: “You wait and see,” he said.

“Why, if you want to know what real shooting is,” I went on, “you just get up a covey of piny wood quail, where every mother’s chick of them is taught from his pipping moment to place a pine tree between him and a load of shot, and do it in the first twenty feet. You have got to shoot quick.”

We had walked away across the stubble to where they had gone down, scattered. Suddenly—

“There they are,” said my companion. As we came on the bitch frozen again.

“Now, you first,” said Mr. Stone, kindly, “it’s a single bird.”

Up went the bird with his thunder of wings. I don’t know how it happened—I can’t see how it happened to this day. I think I was thinking of Alabama quail or Tennessee “patterges,” as Old Wash calls them, but when I fired and the great game cock went on about his business, I got busy seeing what ailed my gun, and wondering why we always fall down about the time we think we are mounted on as many legs as a centipede. Mr. Stone was too polite to refer to my previous remarks, and I watched the big fellow sail away with more respect for the sport.

A little further on the Llewellyn again stood, and this time it was my companion’s first shot. And here is where I did a shameless thing—but I couldn’t help it, to save my life.

Up went the bird, and I saw the old hunter throw up his gun. I listened for the report, but on sailed the bird, fairly eating space—on—on—fifty—sixty—seventy yards.

My fingers itched, my arms jerked upward, my gun jumped to my shoulder. “Great heavens,” I thought, “the bird is gone! His gun won’t fire”—

The report of my gun and the collapse of the bird came just a second before his.

He looked around astonished. “Pray forgive me,” I said. “I have acted the hog, but I was sure something was the matter with your gun.”

He laughed: “I was just waiting for it to get a little farther away.”

After that I shot them farther off, and by noon we had eleven beauties, filling up the front of our surrey, upon which my eye feasted in delight.

We decided we had enough, and towards evening we drove across the cooling, sweet grasses to a group of pretty little lakes or ponds in the hollow depression of the land. These we found literally covered with Spoonbills, Teal, Mallard and Red-heads, and then we had sport royal and of another kind. They were wary, though, very; and we had to crawl on our stomach for a quarter of a mile to get to them, Mr. Stone on the far side, to fire first and send them over me. And when his gun sounded once, twice, here they came toward me, I lying flat in the grass. I picked two big ones leading the flock, knowing if I didn’t get the kings I’d get the knights and pawns behind them. I didn’t get the king, but down tumbled a Red-head, a Mallard—one—two—three—four! Good heaven! Did I kill all of them? I saw smoke drifting across my left. Mr. Stone had turned his old Winchester repeater on them, also, and so I gave him credit for everything but the redhead, for I shot at him. This was our sport—from one lake to another, until we had shot enough, and the ride home across the starlit prairies and under the cool, bracing air of that boundless, glorious country.

Can you not see how two days of that kind of sport is worth all drunken yacht trips, and all the heart-breaking, dust-killing automobile rides in the world? You feel it bodily and spiritually for years, and remember it with pleasure all your life.

So here’s to the grand Dakotas and their hospitable people and their splendid birds!

* * * * *

The Philosopher reasons and says it cannot be done. The Doer tries and does.

Modern Cotton Culture

By E. I. WOODFIN, OF ALABAMA

There is no subject which is of more vital interest to the South and to the whole world than successful cotton culture. In spite of the repeated claims to the contrary, in which every now and then it is predicted that certain areas in Africa, India, China and South America will be devoted to cotton, the fact remains that that strip of country lying on the map of the Southern part of the United States is the finest cotton belt in the world, and so far absolutely the only large body of land that has ever produced year in and out any very great amount of the fleece. That it will continue to be the world’s field for cotton for centuries remains clearly proven, not only because of its adaptability but because upon it live an intelligent and industrious branch of the great white race, to guide and direct and work and this race of people have the best labor in the world to assist—the negro.

In the early days this great cotton plantation, as the South might almost be called, suffered greatly from careless and improvident cultivation in which the rich soil lost much that might have been kept in it. The great thing now is to reclaim and build up and at the same time produce cotton for the steadily increasing demand, which is more as each year goes by. With these preliminary remarks, and the further one that I cannot better illustrate my subject than to quote my own personal experience and with apology for the personal tenor of this paper, I shall give to others the benefits of my limited success.

However, in every profession of life, each aspirant strives for golden results, and as I feel that my harvests for the past few years have increased several fold, perhaps the practical farmer may benefit some one.

In 1895 I purchased my farm containing about 200 acres. At that time the natural resources of the soil were almost completely exhausted, the produce from one acre being about one-third of a bale when planted to cotton. I realized there was no money from so small a yield as that so determined first to try to restore the impoverished soil—the soil which for fifty years had been planted in cotton. The clean culture that cotton requires had exhausted the humus from the soil, and it’s almost impossible to make any money on cotton grown on such soil. I decided that rotation of crops was the best and cheapest way of restoring this soil. I divided my land into four fields, fencing each field with wire. No. 1 I used for a permanent pasture. No. 2 I planted in cotton. No. 3 half in corn, the other half in oats, followed by peas. No. 4 I used as a temporary pasture, thereby giving the soil a much needed rest. Don’t be afraid to do this; the cattle and hogs sold from it will pay you some rent, and in the improvement of your land lies the increase of your bank account. Having started this rotation, I have kept it up, letting cotton follow corn and oats, corn and oats follow temporary pasture, and pasture following cotton. Could you see the result you would say with me that rotation is the keynote to successful cotton culture. Occasionally a farmer will have the seasons very favorable and make a good crop on land deficient in humus, but what we are striving for is to make a paying crop every year. This restoration of humus is a wonderful safeguard against excessive wet or dry weather. Stable manure supplies this much-wanted humus, but our supply is very limited; from the number of stock required to work this amount of land we get only enough to cover three or four acres. But we farmers have to acquire patience, anyway. Take your field that has been planted in corn, oats and peas, as soon as the stock has finished up what the mower left (we save all the pea vines we can for feed). Now, turn under all stubble with a two-horse plow. If this is well done, it will decompose before planting time, if you finished with the plowing early enough, thereby adding much humus to the soil, as well as nitrogen stored there by the pea crop. The custom is to break this land flat, but I prefer to lay mine off in beds from the first. My land is now bedded, and it is about time to commence planting. My fertilizer distributor is started about two days ahead of my cotton planter. The fertilizer is put in drill not over three or four inches deep, and is to be followed by a harrow. Now, get the best cotton seed. I use what I consider the best. I won’t tell you of its many good qualities for fear you will think this an advertisement. After the cotton has come up to a good stand, start the plows to barring it off. As soon as you have finished barring put on little sweeps and run close to the plants. This leaves them on a very narrow ridge and a good hand will chop from one to one-half acres more per day than he would on a bar. Push the chopping, and follow immediately, if possible, with plows, dirting the cotton up with sweeps. In ten days’ time, or less, if it rains, go over again with hoes, taking out every other hill and putting it to a stand. These two workings with the hoe will cost very little more than to have put it to a stand at first and the cotton will be in much better shape. Strive to plow over every ten days until you see the first open boll. Guard against plowing too wet. After rains wait until the soil crumbles. In cultivating I use a double foot with two 14-inch sweeps, going twice to the row, until the first of July. After that I use a 28 or 30-inch wing sweep. I generally go over my crop with the hoes twice after it is put to a stand. In dry seasons once is generally sufficient. By all means keep ahead of the grass. It will injure your cotton and cost you more in the end to clean it out. You see my advice is to rotate. Come, walk over my fields with me and see my cotton, in places growing more than a bale per acre, where a few years ago the yield was about one-fourth of a bale, and you will say with me, “Help nature, give her back her natural elements, and she will return you a harvest of gold.”

Poetry, True and False

By JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE

There have been many definitions of poetry ranging all the way from the well-known Englishman’s definition, “A criticism of human life,” to that given by one of the most original of all poets, Poe, “the rhythmical creation of beauty.” That was merely as these two men saw it, or had the poetic principle developed in them—the first, practically; the second in all the rythmical beauty and sensuousness and indefinable mistiness of the immortal “Raven.”

It is quite plain that no definition can be given of poetry that would apply to all poetry or even to the poetic principle. No more than can be given a definition of love, or the sweet character of the Christ, or of God, or of eternity. Each true poem, like the keys of a piano, may awake a different chord, and every one perfect. To attempt to define the poetic principle would be like attempting to sound the depths of our immortal souls, the very spirit of eternal life, a depth as varied as humanity—in some, as deep as the valleys in the ocean’s bed, in other “ending in shallows and in miseries.” I believe it was Mendelssohn who said there were two things mortal man should not attempt to define—“God Almighty and Thorough-Base-and-Harmony.”

Poetry is the music of the intellect and, therefore, like the musical principle, is indefinable. But what are some of its attributes?

First of all, real poetry is true, and absolutely a part of our souls, our experience, ourselves, our most positive beliefs. At first it may not be readily understood by us—a fact in itself which should warn us not to be too hasty in condemning it, because that very fact may show it has touched on a higher, not a lower plane than the plane we are on, and that we must climb to it, not drag it down to us. Such is the poetry of Keats, Tennyson, Shelley and Browning. And you who say you cannot read poetry, and who have had your taste destroyed for true poetry by newspaper jingle, which lies at one extreme, and magazine poetry, which lies at the other, and both of which are more often false than true, let me ask you before you give up, to read some of the real poetry from each of the authors above before saying again that you cannot love poetry. Read Keats’ “The Eve of St. Agnes,” Tennyson’s “The Princess,” Shelley’s “To a Skylark,” and Longfellow’s “Evangeline.” In these, as in all true poetry, though all of it may not be fully grasped at first, there is an indefinable something that touches us and makes us wish to read it again and again until, having tuned our own souls to the key of its beauty we stand elevated, instructed, sweetened, strengthened, blessed!

The true poem, like the true poet, has a mission to perform and should go right to the heart of it—no beating around the bush, no mental pyrotechnics, no flowery words to sweeten and weaken it, no “churning about to get up a foam,” no intellectual mistiness, but the simple laying of the hands on the eyes of the blind! For every poet is also a preacher, and the greatest of all preachers. And if it fails to perform its mission, if it does not sound its chord, and that clearly, but a mere jingling of pretty bells, it is no more a poem than a dancing harem girl, with silver bells, bracelets and anklets on her, is a woman. Every poem that has ever lived lived because it filled a mission; and all those that have died, died because they had none to fill. “The Psalm of Life,” “Highland Mary,” “Evelyn Hope,” “Thanatopsis”—these and hundreds of others, short as they are, came with a mission and, finding it, performed it, and each of the above, with the lesson it teaches, is a statue in the temple of fame and will stand there for all times as clearly and distinctly as Washington, Bruce, Nelson or Jackson.

Let us not judge poetry, then, by the two false extremes in which we meet it most often—newspapers and magazines—and the two which have caused so many to form unfavorable opinions of poetry. Forgetting that rhyme is not poetry, and that a poem is the product of life, the newspaper poet tries to jingle one out every day. He might as well try to live his year in a day! Clipped by some thoughtless editor, who uses his shears as recklessly as he does his spleen, and who clips as he writes—to fill space—the newspaper poet mistakes even this for ephemeral fame and like a howling dervish continues to dance around the circle to the monotonous music of his tom-tom; while the magazine fellow, after months of laborious travail, brings forth an intellectual mouse. Posterity will indict the first of these for false pretenses, and hang the other for downright murder. But like the thief and the murderer of old, the punishment of one will not bring back the good opinion of poetry to those from whom he has filched it, nor will the lynching of the other give back to the world the life of Art after the murderer has taken it.

Imagine Robert Burns, having made a reputation with his “Highland Mary,” and filled with the newspaper’s idea of his art, grinding out another poem every few days to the Scotch lassie his genius immortalized. Posterity would hate him. Think of Shelley, for ten dollars a week, “trying his hand again on the ‘Skylark.’” And yet this is what many so-called modern newspaper poets try to do.

The truth is, the true poet, like the mocking bird, never sings twice on the same note, but in that song he exhausts his soul. It is only the jaybird who sings the same thing every day and imagines it is a new song.

I do not mean by the above criticism that real genius may not now and then appear in newspapers. In fact, more of it—much more—appears there than in magazines, being often the bursting of a wild rose in the meadow into full bloom and giving its perfume to the world without pay and without knowledge of its own sweetness. But as the wild rose cannot bloom every day in the year, so have I never yet seen two newspaper gems in one year by the same poet. And those that appear, written quickly, and apparently thoughtlessly, yet are they the product of years of sweet growth of unconscious development, of work, imperceptibly wrought out, but, like the coral castle beneath the sea, as perfect and as beautiful.

But as between the newspaper and the magazine poet, give me the former—for now and then he writes a poem, but the magazine poet—seldom! The first-named is often a true poet, and my only objection to him is that he lowers the standard of his art, he desecrates his high calling by a too often, too feeble, and a too familiar attempt; but the magazine poems, after years of reading them, I am constrained to believe that, with few exceptions, they are utterly devoid of even the poetic principle. Their authors not only would not know a poem if they met one in the road, but they could not read one if an angel of light would write it with a diamond-pointed star on the windows of heaven!

Poetry need not rhyme, it need not be written in verse, even; and the simple test of it all is, does it awaken some chord in you that uplifts?

With Old Wash.

THE EXAMINATION.

“Boss,” said Old Wash the other night, “I have got ter hol’ a zamination over in my deestrick for skule teecher, an’ I wisht you’d write out de questions for me.”

I knew that the old man was the moving spirit in educational and religious matters in his end of the county and that he holds an examination now and then among the colored applicants, and none of them may teach or preach unless the old man passes on their papers.

After much work I wrote a list of questions suitable, as I thought, for such an occasion and read them to the examiner.

“Deys all right, boss, ’cept one thing. Jes write de answers dar, too. It’s a po’ teecher dat ain’t got his ansers as well as his questuns. An’ I’d lak for you ter go along, too, jes ter see me squelch dem smart Ike niggers dat think dey kno’s it all.”

On the day appointed there were three applicants. One was a pompous looking darky with a knack of saying things grandly and using big words. I named him Pompey. Number two was a sanctimonious looking fellow who knew it all. He was a newly fledged preacher. Number three was a knowing-looking, sly soon, with less book sense, but more mother wit than the others. He looked like a slick one.

Nothing pleased the old man more than to show off his own learning and he quickly caught on to Pompey’s gait—going him, in fact, one better. Slowly and with great dignity he pulled out his roll of manuscript, adjusted his big, iron-rimmed spectacles, and squelched them all in the beginning with the flow of language:

“Now, I’m gwine ax you all a few supernumerous questions, calk’lated to disembody de fundermentalerties of yore onderstandin’ an’ de posserbilerties of yore interlects for impartin’ informashun. An’ I want you all to chirp right out as peart as jay-birds on a Friday.”

There is a negro superstition to the effect that all jay-birds go to a place unmentionable on Friday and carry sand to his Satanic majesty. I wondered If it was a hint of what the old man had coming for them.

Adjusting his glasses again, the old man said to the preacher:

“Whut is jog’erfy?”

The answer came back glibly and without a flaw:

“Jog’erfy is de science of de earth an’ de art of navergashun.”

This was said in such a matter of fact, positive tone that I almost caught my breath. But I soon learned that all their answers, right or wrong, came with the same assurance and without a quiver. The old man squinted one eye and said:

“Den I s’pose you’d say a coon-dog was de science ob coon-killin’ an’ de art ob barkin’. I turns you down on dat. Nex’!”

“Jog’erfy,” said Pompey, “Jog’erfy! Brer Washington, ain’t dat got sumpin’ to do sorter lak a narrer neck jinin’ two dem-johns of lan’, sorter lak an’ so forth or sumpin lak it?”

“Wal, it may smell ob de jug a leetle,” said the old man, “but it don’t gine de demi-john to de extent ob pullin’ out de cork. Nex’.”

“Jog’erfy,” said the Slick One, “is de art ob joggin’ and de science ob gwine round circles.”

This set the old man to thinking. He scratched his head and inspected the candidate closely. “Ain’t you de nigger dat use ter swipe old Hal P’inter when he went to de races?”

“Yassir.”

“Wal, dat ain’t zactly right, but it’s got mo’ sense in it dan anything dat’s been sed, an’ I’ll give you ten, as you seem to have sum hoss sense in yore make-up.”

Fortunately I was where I could lean back behind the blackboard and save the dignity of the examination. For all this had been said with a dignity and earnestness that was appalling, and not the slightest trace of humor appeared in their voices.

“How am Tennessee bounded?” he asked Pompey.

“She’s bounded by straight lines makin’ a parallellogram inclinin’ in a right angle,” said Pompey, knowingly.

The old man scratched his jaw and passed it to the Preacher. The answer came back glibly:

“Tennessee am bounded on de north by Kaintucky an’ de rory-bory Alice, on de east by de Great Smoky mountains, on the west by Mt. Pelee an’ on de south—”

The old man brought his fist down indignantly. “Ef we’re bounded on all dem sides by de things you say dar ain’t but one thing dat can nachully bind us on de south an’ dat am hell! You may know a whole lot about dat place but you don’t kno’ a little bit about jog’erfy. Lemme see whut you all kno’ ’bout hist’ry.”

He slowly studied out the next question:

“Relate de causes leadin’ to de Riverlushunary war.”

“De circumnavigatin’ cause ob de Riverlushunary war,” said Pompey glibly, “was de extenshun ob de Equater too far into de Gulf stream, endangerin’ de tail ob de British Umpire.”

The old man sadly shook his head and passed it to the Swipe.

“I can’t jes zactly spress it kordin’ to book larnin’,” said the Swipe, “but it was sorter lak dis: We drawed de pole an’ axed for a squar race, but England fouled us on de fus’ turn an’ got us in a pocket on’ de half. We run into her, cut her down an’ won as we pleased.”

“Go head,” said the old man proudly. “Hal P’inter sho’ done lamed you sumpin’.”

This put the Swipe at the head. He scratched his chin, made eyes at the others and licked out his tongue.

“Who was Maj. Andre?” slowly spelled out the old man.

The Preacher thought he was one of the Disciples and Pompey, after much thought, said he was the man who went over Niagara in a barrel. The Swipe wasn’t sure, but after a while his face lit up with a broad smile and he said:

“Unc. Wash, wan’t he a British ringer dat got unkivered an’ ruled off at de West P’int meetin’? ’Twas a close heat an’ he lost by a neck.”

“De very man,” said the old man enthusiastically. “I tell you, sonny, if you keep up dis clip, you’ll break in all de colts in dis deestrick.” The Swipe smiled and sat up higher in the sulky. The old man studied his manuscript carefully and propounded:

“Describe de battle ob Shiloh.”

“Dat’s easy,” said the Preacher smiling. “It was a hard-fit fight in which Shiloh got killed.”

“Oh, he did,” said the old man, wrathfully. “I guess de nex’ thing you’ll be tryin’ to teach de ole man dat at de battle ob de Nelson, de Nile fell offen his hoss. Nex’, whut you say?”

“Dat ar battle wus a dead heat ’twixt Gen. Grant an’ Johnsing, wan’t it, Unc. Wash?”

“Sonny,” said the old man proudly, “I’m beginnin’ to think I orter resign an’ let you ax dese questions. I didn’t kno’ dar was so much hoss sense in hist’ry.”

“What am de princerpal organ ob circulation?” spelled out the old man.

Pompey thought a long time and thought it was the liver. The Preacher threw up his hand and a knowing smile went over his face.

“What am it, den?” asked the teacher.

“De hat,” shouted the candidate.

“Es dat’s de fust time you’ve come nigh it I’ll give you ten on dat,” said the old man, “but I think de P’inter boy can do better yet.”

“De princerpal organ ob circulashun,” said the Swipe, “am de little silver cartwheel dat is stamped wid de eagle.”

“Sunny,” said the old man, “you have sho’ been in de hoss bisness for some good. Now you Preacher man, whut was de greatest trade of England?”

“De trade-wind,” came back promptly.

“Trade yore grandmammy’s black cat,” said the old man, wrathfully. “What wind got to do wid dis deestrick skule? You ’pear to be mighty windy yo’se’f. Nex’.”

“Wan’t dat de Pennsylvania whisky resurrecshun’?” timidly asked Pompey.

The old man glared at him. The Swipe held up his hand, and when the old man nodded, he said:

“De princerpal trade, Unc. Wash? ’Pears to me it was when ole Richard tried to trade his kingdom for a good hoss.”

“Wal,” said the old man, “tain’t down zactly dat way in my book, but I’m gwine give you de certificate, fur it ’pears lak you de only nigger on dat bench dat’s got enny hoss sense an’ dat’s de main thing in skule teachin.”

TROTWOOD.

“And Who Is My Neighbor?” Luke 10:29

By REV. T. A. WHARTON, D.D., First Presbyterian Church, Columbia, Tenn.

He was a Pharisee. He was also a scribe—a lawyer. And he stood up to tempt the Master. He would show this throng gathered about the Lord that their alleged prophet was only a cheap schemer—a designing Galilean playing upon their ignorance and credulity.

“Rabbi (patronizingly), what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” Let us reason together and come to first principles: What do you make of the primal law? Just the old question of the Pharisee—the classic question of the legalist in every age of the world. There is a double blunder in this age-worn question. They belong to that class of blunders which have just enough truth in their midst to give them a species of eternal life, and self perpetuative power.

The first blunder is an assumption—that in doing alone depends an entrance into the kingdom of heaven. What shall I do—what shall I do? Never what shall I be? It is so much easier to do than to be—that it is not a thing for wonder that our poor warped human nature should prefer to beat out a path of merit and morals to the kingdom rather than submit the will. “Do this and live” is its password and shibboleth—never the “live and do this” of the Master.

“Ye must be born again” is something alike repulsive to the pride of reason and the pride of life. And yet there is nothing more certain than this—no one of us shall ever see the kingdom of God without such a radical birth change in our heart of hearts as shall give all our doing a new meaning and color. Is it not a strange blunder for man to make when it appears in the very question itself? We cannot do things to inherit—we must be sons to inherit.

The second blunder is an assumption also. It appears in the tone of the questioner. The tone implies, Rabbi, am I not doing enough already? Am I not doing all that is necessary. I give alms of all that I possess. I fast twice in the week. My life is clean in the sight of the law—“Thank God, I am not as other men are”—as that disciple of yours there, for instance. What further shall I do or can I do to inherit eternal life? What lack I yet or the existing church of God? In so far as you are teaching anything new it must be false, and anything old is it not unnecessary? Why then all this stir you are making throughout the land?

The Master’s reply is very simple. He takes this self-sufficient sinner on his own ground: “How readest thou the law?” Since this is your trust and hope, what do you make of it? The lawyer replies glibly enough: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thy self.” The Saviour replies: “Thou hast answered right; do this and thou shalt live.” But there is such an emphasis upon the “do” this that a dead silence falls. The lawyer grows uncomfortable, and begins to hedge. Had he this “done?” But it is evident that the less said upon the first table of the law the better. There is more hope of the second. So says the record: “And willing to justify himself, he asks,” “And who is my neighbor?” Do you not see that this is a broken sentence? It is preceded by a bit of very hurried thinking. I have been good to my family—to those about me—my next of kin—my set. It all depends upon this “who is my neighbor.” “And who is my neighbor?”

The answer is only a parable, but a parable whose meaning when once caught and practiced shall change our world beyond the recognition of even the angels of heaven. It will make this poor, weary, burdened earth to blossom as the rose; shall make all our desert like the garden of the Lord. It shall become the universal solvent for all problems arising from man’s relation to man. It will stop every war before noon to-morrow.

Then shall the lion of capital and the lamb of labor lie down together, and neither shall be afraid, neither shall there be any more strikes, nor walking delegates; no more epidemics of hate; no more vipers to hiss their slander or trail their slime. “Then shall every battle flag be furled in the parliament of nations, the federation of the world.”

Wherever there lies the wounded and helpless by the wayside of life, wheresoe’er in the world there shall spring to the rescue some strong son of God armed to the teeth with wine and oil for the wound and the sword of the Lord and of Gideon for the assassin, our right worshipful dollar shall change its meaning and its face—its eagle shall have the olive branch in its mouth. It shall become a health certificate for the sick, a help certificate for the needy, even though they be not our next of kin.

This parable has wrapt up in it the one remedy for the race with which to work out its salvation from man’s inhumanity to man.

Oh, this is a dream, the over statement of an enthusiast’s heated fancy. If it be so, then farewell to our hope of civilization. Its permanence will depend upon its obedience to this, its supreme law. It is no dream. Everywhere before your very eyes is it unfolding—unfolding an asylum for the helpless, hospitals for the sick, charitable institutions of every type are reaching out their arms all over the world for earth’s stricken ones—its motherless and helpless. You pessimists do not believe in humanity, nor do I, but I believe in humanity’s Christ, and I know He is breathing into His own utterance the law that is to redeem the whole earth. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

And who is my neighbor? We have been saying all the time with this narrow Jewish lawyer, He is my fellow-Jew; he is akin to me—a man of my nation, and my neighborliness, diminishing with the square of the distance, vanishing altogether when he is out of sight.

Well, I tell you, this is not the Master’s, although very similar. His definition has just two definite terms, and two only—a certain man, and, to die unless someone helps him. A nameless man of a nameless land, and wholly desperate. All else is indefinite—a certain man. Was he a Jew? No answer. Was he stranger from the Perean hills beyond Jordan? No answer. Was he a merchantman from the isles of the sea returning with his Damascus purchases via Jerusalem and Joppa? No answer. Was he a good man? No answer. A man of means, or poor, with a dependent family? No answer. Was it not wrong of him to venture through so dangerous a region, and alone? No answer. Was it not foolhardy of him not to yield his goods and without a struggle? No answer.

All that enters into the Saviour’s definition is the fact that he was a man, a helpless, wounded man, and to die unless someone comes to him and ministers to his desperate need.

“Once in the flight of ages past,
There lived a man—and who was he?
Mortal howe’er thy lot be cast,
That man resembles thee.

The bounding pulse, the languid limb,
The changing spirit’s rise and fall,
We know that these were felt by him,
For these are felt by all.

He suffered, but his pangs are o’er,
Enjoyed, but his delights are fled;
Had friends, but his friends are now no more,
And foes—his foes are dead.

He saw whate’er thou hast seen,
Encountered all that troubles thee;
He was whatever thou hast been,
He is what thou shalt be.

The annals of the human race;
Their ruins since the world began,
Of him afford no other trace than
This—there lived a man.”

Now, here is the definition and the picture of our neighbor, a picture whose lights and shadows shall never vary while the world shall last. This is the man whom Jehovah solemnly committed to his people in every age of His church. O land of Pharisees, O scribe and lawyer, ever since the days of Abel this man has been your charge and ward. How sayest thou, I have loved my neighbor as myself? How sayest thou, I have kept the commandment of God, when thou has walled thyself off in national barriers and hath built walls of caste and prejudice between thyself and him? How sayest thou, I have loved my neighbor as myself, when thou hast stopped thine ears and shut thine eyes and stalked on by all those who are lying by the wayside of the Kingdom, dying through all these years of your history and theirs?

This is our neighbor, where are his? We have found him, where shall he find his neighbor? The story of the Good Samaritan is the eternal answer.

* * * * *

Who always would but nothing finds to try,
Unstable shall he live, unhonored die.

* * * * *

Prejudice is the ball and chain of Achievement.

TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY
Devoted to Farm, Horse and Home.
TROTWOOD PUBLISHING CO., Nashville, Tenn. Office 161 Fourth Ave. North.

JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE, Editor-in-Chief.

E. E. SWEETLAND Business Manager.

GEO. E. McKENNON President.
JOHN W. FRY Vice-President.
EUGENE ANDERSON Treas.
WOOTEN MOORE Sec’y.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION: One Year, $1 00; Single Copy, 10 cents.
Advertising Rates on application.

NASHVILLE, TENN., NOVEMBER, 1905.

With Trotwood

THE YELLOW EDITOR.

(After Rudyard Kipling, for Trotwood’s Monthly.)

(A yellow editor has complained to the governor of Minnesota that the warden of the Stillwater penitentiary has refused to allow one of his convicts to subscribe for a certain saffron journal.—News Item.)

Now Tomlinson once robbed a man in Berkeley Square,
And a copper caught him in the act and nabbed him then and there.
The copper grabbed him by the neck and hurried him away.
In a blue patrol that was right outside, he rode through shadows gray
To a gloomy place in the darksome town where the blatant noises cease,
And they came to a gate within a wall where the jailer has the keys.
“Stand up, stand up, now Tomlinson, and answer loud and high.
Your name and age, and all of that and ye need not ask me why.”
The morning dawned and before the judge to trial came Tomlinson,
He sentenced him to the gloomy “Pen,” and a year he got—just one,
And the judge’s voice resounding loud to him seemed like a knell
Or ever they took the man away to lock him in his cell.
Then Tomlinson looked up and down and sought for things to read:
“A yellow journal is my meat, yea, that is what I need,
And I will crawl upon my knees and ask the jailer man
If he will only bring to me a sheet of the hue of tan.”
But the jailer held his hands aloft and swore by heaven high
That no such evil thing should come that penitentiary nigh;
“For by my troth,” the jailer cried, “ye are a devilish mess,
But ye dare not steep your guilty soul in the filth of the saffron
press.”
Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in the penitentiary there,
And a spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair—
The spirit gripped him by the hair and sun by sun they fell
Till they came to the belt of wicked stars that rim the mouth of hell.
The devil sat behind the bars where the desperate legions drew,
And spied the hasting Tomlinson and gladly let him through:
“Sit down, sit down, upon the slag and yammer loud and high,
And tell me what you did, my man, or ever ye came to die.”
“I spent my time on earth, my lord, in reading the yellow press.”
Thus Tomlinson let out his voice and shouted in distress.
Then the devil gripped him by the hair, and redder grew his face:
“If that be true, ye dare not spend one minute in this place;
Wot ye the price of good pit coal that I must pay?” asked he,
“That ye rank yourself so fit for hell and ask no leave of me?
Go back to earth with lip unsealed—go back with an open eye,
And carry my word to the sons of men, or ever ye come to die,
That the readers of the yellow press on earth may bide and dwell.
But we do not want them down below to corrupt the hordes of hell.”

—Will Reed Dunroy.

* * * * *

Here is a letter from a young man in Wisconsin, one whom I have never met except in that way in which kindred spirits so often meet—by mail. Stricken ere his manhood had scarcely begun, blind, he has never given up, and is making a living and doing good to all around him—one of the best and most useful citizens of his town.

Trotwood believes in this whole country, North and South. He does not believe that either section has all the good or all the bad, but that in both there is far more good than evil and that the only reason why people do not like each other is because they do not know each other. Transportation, the cable, the telegraph, wireless telegraphy and the telephone have changed the face of the world and corralled mankind with wires of steel. Japan is nearer Washington to-day than Boston was fifty years ago. You have more neighbors in Europe than your grandfather had in the county adjoining him. I am publishing this letter hoping my blind friend may find the kind surgeon, and also to show the spirit of our reunited country for which my pen has always and will ever work to cement:

Merrill, Wis., June 30, 1905.

Dear Trotwood: Rather tardy in thanking you for taking the
trouble of sending me “Songs and Stories of Tennessee,” but my
wife and daughter have been away on a visit and though it’s
vacation, this is the first opportunity I’ve had to press my
sister into service. We all enjoyed the stories very much, and
are looking forward eagerly to the time when your new book will
be out.

I’ve been wanting to tell you of my father’s experience during
the Civil War, to see what you think of it, and to see if you
have any idea who the surgeon could have been and to show you
another family in the North with the kindliest of feelings for
the people of the South.

July 1, ’63, at about 2 o’clock p.m., a Confederate bullet laid
my father low at the Battle of Gettysburg. The ball passed
through and killed the man directly in front of him, entering
father below the heart, the wound being very similar to that
of President Garfield. He still carries the lead. He lay the
afternoon until along in the evening the Union line having
retreated, and firing ceased. About this time Gen. Lee and his
staff came on the field. The general, seeing father was alive,
asked what troops he had fought and how boys happened to get
commissions in the Northern Army. Father answered, “They fought
and earned them.” As the party passed on, the surgeon returned,
eased father’s position, gave him a drink of liquor and said he
would see him later. He came again at about nine o’clock that
night, twice the next day and late the afternoon of July 2 he
had two Confederate soldiers prepare a litter and carry father
to a farm house where, being the most dangerously wounded, he
was given the only mattress in the house. Father calls him his
“Good Samaritan.” During his time on the field his hat cord was
stolen and he gave all the money he had, twenty dollars, ten
each to two Union soldiers to get him off the field or get him
something to drink. They never returned. During the night a
Confederate soldier gave him a drink of milk for which he had
spent his last cent. This is in brief, but explicit enough to
show that though father was struck down by a Confederate bullet
he nevertheless owes his life to men of that army. When the
Confederate line retreated, father was taken to the hospital
in the city and was never able to learn the name of his “Good
Samaritan.” How his wound did not heal for two years, how Dr.
Bliss treated him and how an abscess formed in his back which
also took a long time to heal is probably but a repetition of
many such incidents of which you’ve already heard.

For fear you’ll grow weary, I’ll desist.

Yours very truly,

H. R. BRUCE.

* * * * *

It is time that the flamboyant and flowery, the unreal, was cut out of our oratory and literature. Kill it. Talk straight, think straight, live straight. The flamboyant, the flowery is the product of slavery, of idleness, of high living and no thinking. It is a relic of the past, of feudalism, a mixture of chivalry and unclear thinking. The great poet, the great writer, the great orator is he who talks the greatest good sense. Anything else is the badge of mediocrity. The tendency of everything these strenuous days, from literature to life insurance, is expressed in the phrase: “Get there.” How amusing the efforts of a Tennessee statesman in a recent great occasion, majestically sweeping the heavens with his hands and solemnly proclaiming that “Tennessee had set more stars in the galaxy of glory than all the other States.” Bosh! Tennessee has as many fools to the acre as any other State, and what she should do just now is to set more hens and fewer stars!

* * * * *

People who live with nature soon learn a great deal. The best way to study nature is to get in harmony with the laws of nature. The best advice ever given on longevity was from the cheerful old gentleman who said: “To live long, live naturally, eat what you want and walk on the sunny side of the street.” Children think that some great man made up the horrid rules of grammar, and then all the world learned them and went to talking. They do not know that the world talked first and the rules of grammar were deduced from the talking. From the facts of life we draw our rules.

And Nature is the Great Fact.

I was thinking of one of her facts the other day—she has so many thousands—but I noticed it is a fact that the man who works the soil is a natural-born optimist. Let the farmer fail year after year and he still plants, hoping. Let the merchant fail one year and he is badly shaken—one more—another, maybe—and he is done. That is the Fact. Now for the rule: God intended man to love, to cultivate, to cling to the soil. In other words, is not farming man’s natural vocation, since neither drought nor flood nor failure can shut out from his heart that instinct of hoping which has come down to him through centuries of farming fathers?

* * * * *

We—and that means England and America—have used the Jap to fight our battles for us. The issue has been the stopping of the tide of Moscovites across Asia, the killing of their influence in the East, the grasping from covetous hands the yellow empire, richer than mints of yellow gold to the nation that shall supply their wants. That means the open door until Japan decides to close it for the world and that the Muscovite must forever be bound between the Baltic and the North Sea and the ice zone of the Pacific, all of which was necessary. Arrogant and ignorant Russia needed this chastisement. But is it not time to stop? We are chuckling now, but the greatest problem lies before us. Sixteenth century Russia has met twentieth century Japan, and walked from the woods of barbarity into the daylight of a Mauser-swept, mine-entangled, smokeless-plowed field of death. The harvest has been as certain as when the Gauls came out of the woods to meet the steel-sheathed legions of Caesar.

History does not stop at one page. One was made at Port Arthur and the Straits of Japan, now—

“Let China alone,” said Napoleon, “she is a sleeping giant.” The fight has been for China, and the wily Jap, playing on the unfailing cupidity and conquering, grabbing instinct of the Anglo-Saxon, has won. Hereafter China belongs to Japan. Give her just a century to vitalize the nation which, if the world were stood in a line, would count every fourth fighter as hers, and the white race will face the problem of its existence. At Portsmouth recently, when the Sabbath came, the Russian went to church. The Jap only laughed, and voted to work on. Shintoism knows no Sunday, no soul, no to-morrow, no eternity. Shintoism is blind chance pitched against the barb-wire of blind unbelief.

It is time to see clearly—to turn. We have conquered our own kin with a soulless, smiling, ghost-born being who is far-sighted and will yet make our children wonder why we gave him a Mauser for posterity. As for us, we will always be for the white man and the Christian.

* * * * *

Trotwood’s Monthly has installed a new feature in magazine management. We call him Jonah. He is a bright boy who does things around the editorial room. They are not always done right, but when he finishes with them we are willing to aver that they are always done. One of his duties is to read all of the poetry submitted—and it is coming in with a rush—condemn the bad and pass the good up to Trotwood for final judgment. Here are his comments on an execrable batch of it sent in under the title of “Piping Lays” by a good, sweet, but sadly misguided being, whose name begins with Tillie:

Hear we hav a poet boald.
Naught I’m frank to sa is worce,
Than the “Flowery” tales she’s told,
In her akrobatic verce.

Tillie fane would pipe a lay
That would markit fur a song,
But her Piping duz not pa,
Why? Bekaus her meter’s rong.

Tillie mite reverse the phraze
’Til her muse is neerer ripe,
And insted of piping lays
Tri her hand at laying pipe.

JONAH.

But Jonah is equally as hard on Trotwood, as the following unique note came to me in a batch of proof:

dear mister trotwood:—

I think your writing is plain, but the printer, says it is a
cross between a chinese laundry ticket and the Lord’s prayer
ritten in arabic. They sent one sheet back to-day and i red it
and it reeds like this—“The Hal family is a very slow bunch,
and unless they cross the blood with a Texas Mustang pretty
soon, they will only be fit for water wagons and apple carts,
and anny boddy would go to sleep waiting for them to go around
a half mile track.”

I draped it on the floor, and when I picked it up it was
different, and red like this—(I had it up-side-down):

Life’s ills, could man by knowing,
Be spared from undergoing,
There would be sense in knowing;
But since with all our knowing,
This coal dust keeps on blowing,
Well—what’s the use in knowing?

Mr. Sweetland the business manager said I was a fool, but when
he tried to reed it, he could not tell whuther it was a horse
story or poem or something about Uncle Wash. He said it was one
of the three, and said you wrote like a lobster. it is plain
enough to me, but i wish you would write and tell me just what
it is, and I will tell the printer for he is too fresh anyhow.
Hear is whut I mad of it last:

When you give a sweet maid kisses
She hands you back a sigh—
When you give a printer copy
He hands you back a pi—
And he made it in the gloaming
With his stomach full of rye!

noto bene:—Pleas com up and let us no which one goes. And pleas
pardon a suggestion but I saw to-day a thing that wurred me
verry grately. it was that the buggs insex and varments eats
up Three Billion Dollars worth of the farmers truck and stuff
every year. Don’t you think we ought to let them no about it.

JONAH.

The following compliment from an old friend, Judge John L. Miller, of Corsicana, Texas, is highly appreciated. When we say “old” friend it carries a double meaning, for in addition to having been our friend for many years, this grand old gentleman has nearly reached his ninetieth milestone, and is still enjoying good health. He writes:

When I learned that TROTWOOD was to edit TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY
I folded my arms and shouted for joy, I knew the author of
“Ole Mistis” and “Miss Kitty’s Funeral,” two of the brightest
literary gems of modern times, could and would give us a
monthly that would be read and appreciated by all reading
people in both North and South. This is the character of
reading matter the whole country needs, and judging from the
first number of TROTWOOD’S MONTHLY I think we will get it. The
visitor from Tennessee is gladly welcomed, bringing as it does
into our home good cheer and sunshine—short gems of poetry,
making “Tears from eyelids start,” then smiles and ringing
laughter.