Chapter V: Preface (4)

I had just begun to grease my farm wagon and was experiencing some difficulty in lifting and steadying the heavy rear axle while I took off the wheel. I kept busily at work, pretending (such is the perversity of the human mind) that I did not see Mr. Starkweather. He stood for a moment watching me; then he said:

"Good morning, sir."

I looked up and said: "Oh, good morning!"

"Nice little farm you have here."

"It's enough for me," I replied. I did not especially like the "little." One is human.

Then I had an absurd inspiration: he stood there so trim and jaunty and prosperous. So rich! I had a good look at him. He was dressed in a woolen jacket coat, knee-trousers and leggings; on his head he wore a jaunty, cocky little Scotch cap; a man, I should judge, about fifty years old, well-fed and hearty in appearance, with grayish hair and a good-humored eye. I acted on my inspiration:

"You've arrived," I said, "at the psychological moment."

"How's that?"

"Take hold here and help me lift this axle and steady it. I'm having a hard time of it."

The look of astonishment in his countenance was beautiful to see.

For a moment failure stared me in the face. His expression said with emphasis: "Perhaps you don't know who I am." But I looked at him with the greatest good feeling and my expression said, or I meant it to say: "To be sure I don't: and what difference does it make, anyway!"

"You take hold here," I said, without waiting for him to catch his breath, "and I'll get hold here. Together we can easily get the wheel off."

Without a word he set his cane against the barn and bent his back; up came the axle and I propped it with a board.

"Now," I said, "you hang on there and steady it while I get the wheel off"--though, indeed, it didn't really need much steadying.

As I straightened up, whom should I see but Harriet standing stock still in the pathway half way down to the barn, transfixed with horror. She had recognized John Starkweather and had heard at least part of what I said to him, and the vision of that important man bending his back to help lift the axle of my old wagon was too terrible! She caught my eye and pointed and mouthed. When I smiled and nodded, John Starkweather straightened up and looked around.

"Don't, on your life," I warned, "let go of that axle."

He held on and Harriet turned and retreated ingloriously. John Starkweather's face was a study!

"Did you ever grease a wagon?" I asked him genially.

"Never," he said.

"There's more of an art in it than you think," I said, and, as I worked, I talked to him of the lore of axle-grease and showed him exactly how to put it on--neither too much nor too little, and so that it would distribute itself evenly when the wheel was replaced.

"There's a right way of doing everything," I observed.

"That's so," said John Starkweather, "if I could only get workmen that believed it."

By that time I could see that he was beginning to be interested. I put back the wheel, gave it a light turn and screwed on the nut. He helped me with the other end of the axle with all good humor.

"Perhaps," I said, as engagingly as I knew how, "you'd like to try the art yourself? You take the grease this time and I'll steady the wagon."

"All right," he said, laughing, "I'm in for anything."

He took the grease box and the paddle--less gingerly than I thought he would.

"Is that right?" he demanded, and so he put on the grease. And oh, it was good to see Harriet in the doorway!

"Steady there," I said, "not so much at the end; now put the box down on the reach."

And so together we greased the wagon, talking all the time in the friendliest way. I actually believe that he was having a pretty good time. At least it had the virtue of unexpectedness. He wasn't bored!

When he had finished, we both straightened our backs and looked at each other. There was a twinkle in his eye; then we both laughed. "He's all right," I said to myself. I held up my hands, then he held up his; it was hardly necessary to prove that wagon-greasing was not a delicate operation.

"It's a good, wholesome sign," I said, "but it'll come off. Do you happen to remember a story of Tolstoi's called, 'Ivan the Fool?'"

("What is a farmer doing quoting Tolstoi!" remarked his countenance--though he said not a word.)

"In the kingdom of Ivan, you remember," I said, "it was the rule that whoever had hard places on his hands came to table, but whoever had not must eat what the others left."

Thus I led him up the back steps and poured him a basin of hot water--which I brought myself from the kitchen, Harriet having marvelously and completely disappeared. We both washed our hands, talking with great good humor.

When we had finished I said: "Sit down, friend, if you've time, and let's talk."

So he sat down on one of the logs of my woodpile: a solid sort of man, rather warm after his recent activities. He looked me over with some interest and, I thought, friendliness.

"Why does a man like you," he asked finally, "waste himself on a little farm back here in the country?"

For a single instant I came nearer to being angry than I have been for a long time. _Waste_ myself! So we are judged without knowledge. I had a sudden impulse to demolish him (if I could) with the nearest sarcasms I could lay hand to. He was so sure of himself! "Oh, well," I thought, with vainglorious superiority, "he doesn't know." So I said:

"What would you have me be--a millionaire?"

He smiled, but with a sort of sincerity.

"You might be," he said; "who can tell!"

I laughed outright; the humor of it struck me as delicious. Here I had been, ever since I first heard of John Starkweather, rather gloating over him as a poor suffering millionaire (of course millionaires _are_ unhappy), and there he sat, ruddy of face and hearty of body, pitying _me_ for a poor unfortunate farmer back here in the country! Curious, this human nature of ours, isn't it? But how infinitely beguiling!

So I sat down beside Mr. Starkweather on the log and crossed my legs. I felt as though I had set foot in a new country.

"Would you really advise me," I asked, "to start in to be a millionaire?"

He chuckled: "Well, that's one way of putting it. Hitch your wagon to a star; but begin by making a few dollars more a year than you spend. When I began--"

He stopped short with an amused smile, remembering that I did not know who he was.

"Of course," I said, "I understand that."

"A man must begin small"--he was on pleasant ground--"and anywhere he likes, a few dollars here, a few there. He must work hard, he must save, he must be both bold and cautious. I know a man who began when he was about your age with total assets of ten dollars and a good digestion. He's now considered a fairly wealthy man. He has a home in the city, a place in the country, and he goes to Europe when he likes. He has so arranged his affairs that young men do most of the work and he draws the dividends--and all in a little more than twenty years. I made every single cent--but, as I said, it's a penny business to start with. The point is, I like to see young men ambitious."

"Ambitious," I asked, "for what?"

"Why, to rise in the world; to get ahead."

"I know you'll pardon me," I said, "for appearing to cross-examine you, but I'm tremendously interested in these things. What do you mean by rising? And who am I to get ahead of?"

He looked at me in astonishment, and with evident impatience at my consummate stupidity.

"I am serious," I said. "I really want to make the best I can of my life. It's the only one I've got."

"See here," he said, "let us say you clear up five hundred a year from this farm--"

"You exaggerate--" I interrupted.

"Do I?" he laughed; "that makes my case all the better. Now, isn't it possible to rise from that? Couldn't you make a thousand or five thousand or even fifty thousand a year?"

It seems an unanswerable argument: fifty thousand dollars!

"I suppose I might," I said, "but do you think I'd be any better off or happier with fifty thousand a year than I am now? You see, I like all these surroundings better than any other place I ever knew. That old green hill over there with the oak on it is an intimate friend of mine. I have a good corn-field in which every year I work miracles. I've a cow and a horse and a few pigs. I have a comfortable home. My appetite is perfect, and I have plenty of food to gratify it. I sleep every night like a boy, for I haven't a trouble in this world to disturb me. I enjoy the mornings here in the country; and the evenings are pleasant. Some of my neighbors have come to be my good friends. I like them and I am pretty sure they like me. Inside the house there I have the best books ever written and I have time in the evenings to read them--I mean _really_ read them. Now the question is, would I be any better off, or any happier, if I had fifty thousand a year?"

John Starkweather laughed.

"Well, sir," he said, "I see I've made the acquaintance of a philosopher."

"Let us say," I continued, "that you are willing to invest twenty years of your life in a million dollars." ("Merely an illustration," said John Starkweather.) "You have it where you can put it in the bank and take it out again, or you can give it form in houses, yachts, and other things. Now twenty years of my life--to me--is worth more than a million dollars. I simply can't afford to sell it for that. I prefer to invest it, as somebody or other has said, unearned in life. I've always had a liking for intangible properties."

"See here," said John Starkweather, "you are taking a narrow view of life. You are making your own pleasure the only standard. Shouldn't a man make the most of the talents given him? Hasn't he a duty to society?"

"Now you are shifting your ground," I said, "from the question of personal satisfaction to that of duty. That concerns me, too. Let me ask you: Isn't it important to society that this piece of earth be plowed and cultivated?"

"Yes, but--"

"Isn't it honest and useful work?"

"Of course."

"Isn't it important that it shall not only be done, but well done?"

"Certainly."

"It takes all there is in a good man," I said, "to be a good farmer."

"But the point is," he argued, "might not the same faculties applied to other things yield better and bigger results?"

"That is a problem, of course," I said. "I tried money-making once--in a city--and I was unsuccessful and unhappy; here I am both successful and happy. I suppose I was one of the young men who did the work while some millionaire drew the dividends." (I was cutting close, and I didn't venture to look at him.) "No doubt he had his houses and yachts and went to Europe when he liked. I know I lived upstairs--back--where there wasn't a tree to be seen, or a spear of green grass, or a hill, or a brook; only smoke and chimneys and littered roofs. Lord be thanked for my escape! Sometimes I think that Success has formed a silent conspiracy against Youth. Success holds up a single glittering apple and bids Youth strip and run for it; and Youth runs and Success still holds the apple."

John Starkweather said nothing.

"Yes," I said, "there are duties. We realize, we farmers, that we must produce more than we ourselves can eat or wear or burn. We realize that we are the foundation; we connect human life with the earth. We dig and plant and produce, and, having eaten at the first table ourselves, we pass what is left to the bakers and millionaires. Did you ever think, stranger, that most of the wars of the world have been fought for the control of this farmer's second table? Have you thought that the surplus of wheat and corn and cotton is what the railroads are struggling to carry? Upon our surplus run all the factories and mills; a little of it gathered in cash makes a millionaire. But we farmers, we sit back comfortably after dinner, and joke with our wives and play with our babies, and let the rest of you fight for the crumbs that fall from our abundant tables. If once we really cared and got up and shook ourselves, and said to the maid: 'Here, child, don't waste the crusts; gather 'em up and tomorrow we'll have a cottage pudding,' where in the world would all the millionaires be?"

Oh, I tell you, I waxed eloquent. I couldn't let John Starkweather, or any other man, get away with the conviction that a millionaire is better than a farmer. "Moreover," I said, "think of the position of the millionaire. He spends his time playing not with life, but with the symbols of life, whether cash or houses. Any day the symbols may change; a little war may happen along, there may be a defective flue or a western breeze, or even a panic because the farmers aren't scattering as many crumbs as usual (they call it crop failure, but I've noticed that the farmers still continue to have plenty to eat) and then what happens to your millionaire? Not knowing how to produce anything himself, he would starve to death if there were not always, somewhere, a farmer to take him up to the table."

"You're making a strong case," laughed John Starkweather.

"Strong!" I said. "It is simply wonderful what a leverage upon society a few acres of land, a cow, a pig or two, and a span of horses gives a man. I'm ridiculously independent. I'd be the hardest sort of a man to dislodge or crush. I tell you, my friend, a farmer is like an oak, his roots strike deep in the soil, he draws a sufficiency of food from the earth itself, he breathes the free air around him, his thirst is quenched by heaven itself--and there's no tax on sunshine."

I paused for very lack of breath. John Starkweather was laughing.

"When you commiserate me, therefore" ("I'm sure I shall never do it again," said John Starkweather), "when you commiserate me, therefore, and advise me to rise, you must give me really good reasons for changing my occupation and becoming a millionaire. You must prove to me that I can be more independent, more honest, more useful as a millionaire, and that I shall have better and truer friends!"

John Starkweather looked around at me (I knew I had been absurdly eager and I was rather ashamed of myself) and put his hand on my knee (he has a wonderfully fine eye!).

"I don't believe," he said, "you'd have any truer friends."

"Anyway," I said repentantly, "I'll admit that millionaires have their place--at present I wouldn't do entirely away with them, though I do think they'd enjoy farming better. And if I were to select a millionaire for all the best things I know, I should certainly choose you, Mr. Starkweather."

He jumped up.

"You know who I am?" he asked.

I nodded.

"And you knew all the time?"

I nodded.

"Well, you're a good one!"

We both laughed and fell to talking with the greatest friendliness. I led him down my garden to show him my prize pie-plant, of which I am enormously proud, and I pulled for him some of the finest stalks I could find.

"Take it home," I said, "it makes the best pies of any pie-plant in this country."

He took it under his arm.

"I want you to come over and see me the first chance you get," he said. "I'm going to prove to you by physical demonstration that it's better sport to be a millionaire than a farmer--not that I am a millionaire; I'm only accepting the reputation you give me."

So I walked with him down to the lane.

"Let me know when you grease up again," he said, "and I'll come over."

So we shook hands; and he set off sturdily down the road with the pie-plant leaves waving cheerfully over his shoulder.

ZONA GALE.

Among the various types of literature, the short story has
become very popular in recent years. Numerous writers are
fond of the principles involved in its construction, and are
developing this form beyond many others. The short story is
not new, for it has been developed in many lands throughout
the past centuries. However, there has been a marked revival
in its production recently and Wisconsin writers have been
interested in developing this type. Among these we have
already noticed Hamlin Garland. There will be several others
mentioned in these selections, among whom the subject of this
sketch is one of the most notable.

Zona Gale, who has made her imaginative "Friendship Village"
one of the real places in Wisconsin life, was born at
Portage, Wisconsin, August 26, 1874. This city continues to
be her home; and the study of its home life, its school life,
its social, industrial, and religious life has afforded her
the basis for generalizing upon what is true of the life of
our time. Her characters are not necessarily Portage people,
for they are Wisconsin people and people of other states as
well. However, Portage and its life has furnished her many
interesting starting points for her comments upon life in
general. She has attempted to repay her community for this
material furnished her by becoming an integral part of its
community life. In its civic improvements, in its home life,
in its schools and in its churches, she has had her work and
has aspired to do her best towards making her home city
beautiful and wholesome.

Zona Gale remembers much of the play life and the school life
in her home town during the eighties and early nineties of
the last century. She has recently set forth her idealized
remembrance of these early experiences in her book entitled
"When I Was a Little Girl." One of these is chosen as an
illustration of her work.

Besides the school training afforded her by Portage, Zona
Gale attended Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, and
later she entered the University of Wisconsin, from which
institution she received the Bachelor of Literature degree in
1895, and four years later the Master's degree.

After graduation Miss Gale was employed for a time on staffs
of Milwaukee and New York papers. Since 1904 she has devoted
herself to writing for magazines. She spends some time in New
York and the East, but most of her work is done at her
beautiful home, which overlooks the Wisconsin river at
Portage.

Miss Gale writes an occasional poem for some magazine. We
give "The Holy Place," published in the Bookman some years
ago, as an illustration of her poetry. However, it is not as
a poet, but rather as a short story writer that we are
remembering Zona Gale.

Miss Gale's stories have appeared in the Atlantic,
Appleton's, the Cosmopolitan, Everybody's, the Outlook, the
Bookman, and other magazines. Her first arrangement of
stories in book form, "Romance Island," appeared in 1906. A
year later she published "The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre."
The two characters mentioned are an old couple of seventy or
more, who, under the protecting care of an old servant,
Nichola, live a sort of child life. Their pranks, if such
they may be called, are the kindly deeds of making others
happy. The stories purport to be told by Etarre, who would
have us believe that there is quite as much romance in the
lives of two old people busily engaged in breaking the rules
of the crabbed old nurse as there is in the lives of much
younger people. They are constantly on the alert for the
romance in the lives of those about them, and it would seem
that no love match in their neighborhood could be a success
without their assistance. The spirit that pervades the book
is that of thoughtful helpfulness.

We are sure to lay aside these stories with the wish that the
kindly spirit and the rich enjoyment of Pelleas and Etarre
might be true for all old people. We wish every aged couple
might stand at the window at Christmas time and send such
telegrams of bequest as these which they send to the world:

"And from my spirit to yours I bequeath the hard-won
knowledge that you must be true from the beginning. But if by
any chance you have not been so, then you must be true from
the moment you know."

To this sentiment of Pelleas shall Etarre reply: "From my
spirit to your spirit, I bequeath some understanding of the
preciousness of love, and the need to keep it true."

Stories must happen somewhere, and the capital of Zona Gale's
character world is "Friendship Village." Here occur the loves
of her youthful romances, the gossips of the older worldly
wise. Here her clubs originate and accomplish their tasks. In
this village occur the struggles for social and industrial
reform in which Zona Gale is so much interested, and here,
too, takes place all that great conflict for civic
righteousness which brings "Friendship Village" slowly nearer
the goal of perfection as she understands it. "Friendship
Village" is probably located nowhere, but still Miss Gale has
been so successful in writing about it that we are most sure
it is our town, and some one has suggested that another good
name for this place would be "Our Home Town."

Two of Miss Gale's books derive their titles from this
village of hers. They are "Friendship Village" and
"Friendship Village Love Stories." A short description of her
"Friendship Village" will follow later. Another book based
upon the village life deals with the lesson of Christmas
time. It shows how the older people who have come to feel
that they could not afford the expense of Christmas are
brought to realize the real significance of Christmas giving.

Another series of stories is linked into book form through
the narrator, Calliope Marsh. It is entitled "Mothers to
Men," and is an account of life at "Friendship Village."

Miss Gale writes beautiful stories of how to make the better
community; but what is more, she does with her own hands many
things which bring about the realization of her plans.
Women's club of her own city and of many other cities enjoy
her aid in their plans for better conditions. Civic
federations of statewide influence have her help as member
and officer. Further, her own county fair has enjoyed her
presence and her efforts to advance civic improvement through
her friendly counsel to those who pause to talk with her.

Her writing is here illustrated in part from her recent book,
"When I Was a Little Girl." Two of the little girls of the
neighborhood had been shut up in their rooms one fine summer
day as punishment for the infraction of some home regulation,
whereupon a discussion among the free playmates arose as to
the reason for punishment. As the discussion waxed
perplexing, the little girls happened upon Grandmother Beers,
who took up the discussion and enlightened the children. What
she had heard of their conversation caused her to break in
with the statement, "Wicked? I didn't know you knew such a
word." The following discussion then takes place:

WHY?

From "WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL." Copyright, 1913, by the
Macmillan Co.

"It's a word you learn at Sunday School," I explained importantly.

"Come over here and tell me about it," she invited, and led the way to the Eating Apple tree. And she sat down in the swing! Of course, whatever difference of condition exists between your grandmother and yourself vanishes when she sits down casually in your swing.

Well, Grandmother Beers was one who knew how to play with us, and I was always half expecting her to propose a new game. But that day, as she sat in the swing, her eyes were not twinkling at the corners.

"What does it mean?" she asked us. "What does wicked mean?"

"It's what you aren't to be."

I took the brunt of the reply, because I was the relative of the questioner.

"Why not?" asked grandmother.

"Why not?" Oh, we all knew that. We responded instantly, and out came the results of the training of all the families.

"Because your Mother and your Father say you can't," said Betty Rodman.

"Because it makes your mother feel bad," said Calista.

"Because God don't want us to," said I.

"Delie says," Betty added, "it's because, if you are, when you grow up people won't think anything of you."

Grandmother Beers held her sweet-peas to her face.

"If," she said, after a moment, "you wanted to do something wicked more than you ever wanted to do anything in the world--as much as you'd want a drink tomorrow if you hadn't had one to-day--and if nobody ever knew--would any of those reasons keep you from doing it?"

We consulted one another's look, and shifted. We knew how thirsty that would be. Already we were thirsty, in thinking about it.

"If I were in your place," grandmother said, "I'm not sure those reasons would keep me. I rather think they wouldn't--always."

We stared at her. It was true that they didn't always keep us. Were not two of us "in our rooms" even now?

Grandmother leaned forward--I know how the shadows of the apple leaves fell on her black lace cap and how the pink sweet-peas were reflected in her delicate face.

"Suppose," she said, "that instead of any of those reasons somebody gave you this reason: That the earth is a great flower--a flower that has never really blossomed yet. And that, when it blossoms, life is going to be more beautiful than we have ever dreamed, or than fairy stories have ever pretended. And suppose our doing one way, and not another, makes the flower come a little nearer to blossom. But our doing the other way puts back the time when it can blossom. Then which would you want to do?"

"Oh, make it grow, make it grow," we all cried; and I felt a secret relief: Grandmother was playing a game with us, after all.

"And suppose that everything made a difference to it," she went on, "every little thing--from telling a lie, on down to going to get a drink for somebody and drinking first yourself out in the kitchen. Suppose that everything made a difference, from hurting somebody on purpose, down to making up the bed and pulling the bedspread tight so that the wrinkles in the blanket won't show."

At this we looked at one another in some consternation. How did grandmother know?

"Until after awhile," she said, "you should find out that everything--loving, going to school, playing, working, bathing, sleeping, were all just to make this flower grow. Wouldn't it be fun to help?"

"Yes. Oh, yes." We were all agreed about that. It would be great fun to help.

"Well, then suppose," said grandmother, "that as you helped, you found out something else: that in each of you, say, where your heart is, or where your breath is, there was a flower trying to blossom through! And that only as you help the earth flower to blossom could your flower blossom. And that your doing one way would make your flower droop its head and grow dark and shrivel up. But your doing the other way would make it grow, and turn beautiful colors--so that, bye and bye, every one of your bodies would be just a sheath for this flower. Which way then would you rather do?"

"Oh, make it grow, make it grow," we said again.

And Mary Elizabeth added longingly: "Wouldn't it be fun if it was true?"

"It is true," said Grandmother Beers.

She sat there, softly smiling over her pink sweet-peas. We looked at her silently. Then I remembered that her face had always seemed to me to be somehow light within. May be it was her flower showing through!

"Grandmother!" I cried, "is it true--is it true?"

"It is true," she repeated. "And whether the earth flower and other people's flowers and your flower are to bloom or not is what living is about. And everything makes a difference. Isn't that a good reason for not being wicked?"

We all looked up in her face, something in us leaping and answering to what she said. And I know that we understood.

"Oh," Mary Elizabeth whispered presently to Betty, "hurry home and tell Margaret Amelia. It'll make it so much easier when she comes out to her supper."

That night, on the porch, alone with Mother and Father, I inquired into something that still was not clear.

"But how can you tell which things are wicked? And which ones are wrong and which things are right?"

Father put out his hand and touched my hand. He was looking at me with a look that I knew--and his smile for me is like no other smile that I have ever known.

"Something will tell you," he said, "always."

"Always?" I doubted.

"Always," he said. "There will be other voices. But if you listen, something will tell you always. And it is all you need."

I looked at Mother. And by her nod and her quiet look I perceived that all this had been known about for a long time.

"That is why Grandma Bard is coming to live with us," she said, "not just because we wanted her, but because--that said so."

In us all a flower--and something saying something! And the earth flower trying to blossom ... I looked down the street: at Mr. Branchett walking in his garden, at the light shining from windows, at the folk sauntering on the sidewalk, and toward town where the band was playing. We all knew about this together then. This was why everything was! And there were years and years to make it come through.

What if I, alone among them all, had never found out.

THE HOLY PLACE

At silver of gray lines; at look of lace
About a woman's throat; at little feet,
Curled close in hand that clings; at stir of sweet
Old gardens; at the flow and dip and grace
Of sweeping fabric; at the phantom race of shadow ripples in
the tides of wheat,
Where great, still spirits murmur as they meet--
Souls see Their God as in a holy place.
What of the wrinkled face, the poor, coarse hands,
Dead leaves and ruined walls in fields that stand,
Rattling sharp husks? Of little feet that stray
From clinging hands, and never find the way?
He knows no holy place for whom the clod
Stands not an altar to the living God.

FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE

Published by Permission of The Macmillan Co., New York.

We are one long street, rambling from sun to sun, inheriting traits of the parent country road which we unite. And we are cross streets, members of the same family, properly imitative, proving our ancestorship in a primeval genius for trees, or bursting out in inexplicable weaknesses of Court-House, Engine-House, Town Hall, and Telephone Office. Ultimately our stock dwindled out in a slaughter-house and a few detached houses of milk men. The cemetery is delicately put behind them, under a hill. There is nothing mediaeval in all this, one would say. But then see how we wear our rue:

When one of us telephones, she will scrupulously ask for the number, for it says so at the top of every page. "Give me 1-1," she will put it, with an impersonality as fine as if she were calling for four figures. And central will answer:

"Well, I just saw Mis' Holcomb go 'crost the street. I'll call you, if you want, when she comes back."

Or, "I don't think you better ring the Helman's just now. They were awake 'most all night with one o' Mis' Helman's attacks."

Or, "Doctor June's invited to Mis' Syke's for tea. Shall I give him to you there?"

The telephone is modern enough. But in our use of it, is there not a flavor as of an Elder Time, to be caught by Them of Many Years from Now? And already we may catch this flavor, as our Britain great-great-lady grandmothers, and more, may have been conscious of the old fashion of sitting in bowers. If only they were conscious like that! To be sure of it would be to touch their hands in the margin of the ballad books.

Or we telephone to the Livery Barn and Boarding Stable for the little blacks, celebrated for their self-control in encounters with the Proudfits' motor car. The stable-boy answers that the little blacks are at "the funeral." And after he has gone off to ask his employer, who in his unofficial moments is our neighbor, our church choir bass, our landlord even, comes and tells us that, after all, we may have the little blacks, and he himself brings them round at once--the same little blacks that we meant all along. And when, quite naturally, we wonder at the boy's version, we learn: "Oh, why, the blacks was standin' just acrost the street, waitin' at the church door, hitched to the hearse. I took 'em out an' put in the bays. I says to myself: 'The corpse won't care.'" Some way the Proudfits' car and the stable telephone must themselves have slipped from modernity to old fashioned before that incident shall quite come into its own.

So it is with certain of our domestic ways. For example, Mis' Postmaster Sykes--in Friendship Village every woman assumes for given name the employment of her husband--has some fine modern china and much solid silver in extremely good taste, so much, indeed, that she is wont to confess to having cleaned forty, or sixty, or seventy-five pieces--"seventy-five pieces of solid silver have I cleaned this morning. You can say what you want to, nice things are a rill care." Yet, surely this is the proper conjunction, Mis' Sykes is currently reported to rise in the night preceding the day of her house cleaning, and to take her carpets out in the back yard, and there softly to sweep and sweep them so that, at their official cleaning next day, the neighbors may witness how little dirt is whipped out on the line. Ought she not to have old-fashioned silver and egg-shell china and drop-leaf mahogany to fit the practice instead of dazzling and wild-rose patterns in "solid and art curtains, and mission chairs and a white-enameled refrigerator, and a gas range?"

We have the latest funeral equipment--black broadcloth-covered supports, a coffin carriage for up-and-down the aisles, natural palms to order, and the pulleys to "Let them down slow"; and yet our individual funeral capacity has been such that we can tell what every woman who has died in Friendship for years has "done without": Mis' Grocer Stew, her of all folks, has done without new-style flat-irons; Mis' Worth had used the bread pan to wash dishes in; Mis' Jeweler Sprague--the first Mis' Sprague--had had only six bread and butter knives, her, that could get wholesale, too ... and we have little maid-servants who answer our bells in caps and trays, so to say; but this savour of jestership is authentic, for any one of them is likely to do as of late did Mis' Holcomb--that was Mame Bliss's maid--answer at dinner-with-guests, that there were no more mashed potatoes, "or else, there won't be any left to warm up for your breakfast."... And though we have our daily newspaper, receiving Associated Press service, yet, as Mis' Amandy Toplady observed, it is "only very lately that they have mentioned in the Daily the birth of a child, or any thing that had anything of a tang to it."

We put new wine in old bottles, but also we use new bottles to hold our old wine. For, consider the name of our main street: is this Main or Clark or Cook or Grand Street, according to the register of the main streets of town? Instead, for its half-mile of village life, the Plank Road, macadamized and arc-lighted, is called Daphne Street. Daphne Street! I love to wonder why. Did our dear Doctor June's father name it when he set the five hundred elms and oaks which glorify us? Or did Daphne herself take this way on the day of her flight, so that when they came to draught the town, they recognized that it was Daphne Street, and so were spared the trouble of naming it? Or did the Future anonymously toss us back the suggestion, thinking of some day of her own when she might remember us and say, "Daphne Street!" Already some of us smile with a secret nod at something when we direct a stranger, "You will find the Telegraph and Cable Office two blocks down, on Daphne Street." "The Commercial Travelers' House, the Abigail Arnold Home Bakery, the Post Office and Armory are in the same block on Daphne Street." Or, "The Electric Light Office is at the corner of Dunn and Daphne." It is not wonderful that Daphne herself, at seeing these things, did not stay, but lifted her laurels somewhat nearer Tempe--although there are those of us who like to fancy that she is here all the time in our Daphne-Street magic: the fire bell, the tulip beds, and the twilight bonfires. For how else, in all reason, has the name persisted?

Of late a new doctor has appeared--one may say, has abounded: a surgeon who, such is his zeal, will almost perform an operation over the telephone and, we have come somewhat cynically to believe, would prefer doing so to not operating at all.

* * * * *

Thus the New shoulders the Old, and our transition is still swift enough to be a spectacle, as was its earlier phase which gave our Middle West to cabins and plough horses, with a tendency away from wigwams and bob-whites. And in this local warfare between Old and New a chief figure is Calliope Marsh. She is a little rosy, wrinkled creature officially--though no other than officially--pertaining to sixty years; mender of lace, seller of extracts, and music teacher, but of the three she thinks of the last as her true vocation.

* * * * *

With us all the friendship idea prevails: we accept what Progress sends, but we regard it in our own fashion. Our improvements, like our entertainments, our funerals, our holidays, and our very loves, are but Friendship-Village exponents of the modern spirit. Perhaps, in a tenderer significance than she meant, Calliope characterized us when she said:

"This town is more like a back door than a front--or, givin' it full credit, anyhow--it's no more'n a side door, with no vines."

EBEN EUGENE REXFORD.

The subject of this sketch has lived in Wisconsin since the
seventh year of his life. He was born at Johnsburgh, New
York, on September 16, 1848. With his parents he removed to
Wisconsin, where he came to love the products of the soil and
the processes by which they might be made more and more
beautiful. Not merely plant growth has been of interest to
him; the development of Wisconsin institutions also,
especially its schools, has been of the most vital concern to
him. Few men have been more deeply interested in the schools
of any community than has Mr. Rexford in the schools of his
village, and few have more effectively encouraged the
teaching of agricultural facts in the schools than he.

Mr. Rexford's life has been spent quite largely at his
country home near Shiocton, where he has found much of the
material for the line of writing in which he has been
especially interested. The country home has furnished him
with opportunities for pleasurable development of which few
have even dreamed. His career is worth studying, if for no
other reason than to disprove the thought that rural life is
a life of toil and hardship devoid of the privilege of
acquiring that finer sense for the beautiful. Mr. Rexford's
life has been rich in the companionship of people and of
animals and plants. This last has given that training which
makes him an authority along the line of floriculture.

Mr. Rexford received his training beyond the rural schools at
Lawrence College, Appleton, where he pursued the college
course until his senior year. When he had gone thus far in
his course, the care of his home demanded his attention; and,
characteristic of the man, he sacrificed his own personal
interests for the greater good he might do. The city of
Appleton and its institutions, especially its college and its
churches, still possess strong bonds of interest for him. The
college, in turn, is justly proud of his attainments and
conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Literature in
1908.

After his school career, Mr. Rexford took up his work at his
country home near Shiocton, where he has been actively
associated with all phases of the development of community
life. Good roads found a strong advocate in him; the
introduction and development of farm machinery and farm
improvements have found him a leader. For school programs and
for church exercises he has contributed much in providing
music, or in directing the musical part of the program.

Early in life Mr. Rexford conceived the notion of sharing his
best thoughts with his fellows through expressing them for
publication, and it is said that he has been a contributor to
the press since the age of fourteen. He has written
extensively for a large number of magazines. The Ladies' Home
Journal and Outing have published more of his articles,
perhaps, than any other magazines. These magazine
contributions comprise poems and articles upon gardening,
flower culture, and the making of the country home. While the
articles show extensive scientific knowledge, they are so
written as to be easily comprehended by the ordinary reader.

The various articles have been collected into book form and
the following discussions upon the garden and its plants were
listed in the 1912 catalogs: Flowers, How to Grow Them; Four
Seasons in the Garden; Home Floriculture; Home Garden; Indoor
Gardening. These discussions are made up largely of Mr.
Rexford's own experience in doing the things he writes about.
From among the flowers in his living room or the plants in
his garden you can easily imagine him in his quiet,
neighborly way telling you the things that will aid you in
successfully raising flowers or vegetables. We are closely
drawn to him, for there is no show about what he does, but
that simple kindliness of one who desires to help.

While extracts from books of the type above listed would not
generally form good selections for reading, yet so different
is the style of composition of Mr. Rexford that we feel that
a few illustrations here will be of great interest as showing
the qualities above mentioned. The first two selections are
taken from his "Home Floriculture," a book published by the
Orange Judd Company, and will illustrate Mr. Rexford's
intense interest in his plants as well as his simple style in
telling us the things of help to us.

WATERING PLANTS

Printed by permission of Orange, Judd Co.

Some persons water their plants every day, without regard to the season, and give about the same quantity one day that they do another. The natural result is that in winter their plants are weak and spindling, with yellow leaves, and few, if any, flowers. The owner will tell you that she "don't see what ails her plants." She is sure she gives them all the water they need, and she "never forgets to do this." If she were to forget to do this occasionally it would be a great deal better for the plants. In summer the evaporation of moisture from the soil is rapid, because of warmth and wind, but in winter this goes on slowly, and the amount of water given should be regulated by the ability of the soil to dispose of it. Where too much is given, as has been said in the chapter on planting, the soil is reduced to a condition of muddiness, unless good drainage has been provided, and those who give too much water generally neglect this item.

Another woman will give water in little driblets, "whenever she happens to think of it." The result is that her plants are chronic sufferers from the lack of moisture at the roots. The wonder is that they contrive to exist. Turn them out of their pots and you will generally find that the upper portion of the soil is moist, and in this what few roots there are have spread themselves, while below it, the soil is almost as dry as dust, and no root could live there. Plants grown under these conditions are almost always dwarf and sickly specimens, with but few leaves and most of these yellow ones. You will find that plants grown under either condition are much more subject to attacks of insects than healthy plants are.

There is only one rule to be governed in watering plants that I have a knowledge of and that is this: Never apply water to any plant until the surface of the soil looks dry. When you do give water, give enough of it to thoroughly saturate the soil. If some runs through at the bottom of the pot, you can be sure that the whole ball of earth is moist.

I follow this rule with good results. Of course, like all other rules, it has exceptions. For instance, a calla, being a sort of aquatic plant, requires very much more water than a geranium. A cactus, being a native of hot, dry climates, requires but very little. The florist who is interested in his plants will study their habits, in order to understand the requirements of each, and will soon be able to treat them intelligently. He will soon be able to tell at a glance when a plant requires more water. He will know what kinds to give a good deal to, and what kinds to water sparingly. Until he has acquired this ability it is well for him to adhere to the rule given above, for if he follows it, he cannot go very far wrong in either direction. Let the water used be of about the same temperature as that of the room in which the plants are. I am often asked which is best, hard or soft water. I have tried both and see little difference.

Many persons fail to attain success with plants in baskets and window boxes. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the failure is due to lack of water. A basket is exposed to dry air on all sides, and is suspended near the ceiling, as a general thing, where the air is much warmer than below; consequently the evaporation takes place more rapidly than from the pot on the window sill. Because it is somewhat difficult to get at, water is not given as often as required, and then generally in smaller quantities than is needed. The first thing you know, your plants are turning yellow, and dropping their leaves, and soon they are in such a condition that you throw them away in disgust, and conclude that you haven't "the knack" of growing good basket plants. All the trouble comes from an insufficient water supply.

There are two methods by which you may make it easier to attend to the needs of the plants. One is, to have the baskets suspended by long cords running over pulleys, by which you can lower them into a tub of water, where they can be left until they are thoroughly soaked through. The other is this: Take a tin can and punch a hole through the bottom of it. Let this hole be large enough to allow the water to escape, drop by drop. Set this on top of your basket and arrange the foliage to cover it.

If the hole is not so large as it ought to be, the soil will not be kept moist all through. In this case, make it larger. A little observation will enable you to regulate matters in such a manner as to secure just the flow of water needed. By the "tin-can method" of watering basket plants, the trouble of watering in the ordinary way will be done away with, and the results will be extremely satisfactory.

Plants can be grown nearly as well in the window box as in the open ground if enough water is given to keep the soil moist, all through, at all times. The "little-and-often" plan, spoken of in this chapter, will lead to dismal failure in the care of window boxes. Apply at least a pailful of water every day, in warm weather. If this is done, there need be no failure. If those who have failed heretofore will bear this in mind, and follow the advice given, they may have window boxes that will make their windows beautiful during the entire summer, with very little trouble.

TEA ROSES FOR BEDS

No part of my garden affords me more pleasure than my bed of Tea Roses. I cut dozens of flowers from it nearly every day from June to the coming of cold weather, for buttonhole and corsage bouquets, and for use on the table, and in the parlor. One fine rose and a bit of foliage is a bouquet in itself. If I could have but one bed of flowers, it should be a bed of Tea Roses--and yet, I should want a bed of Pansies to supplement the Roses; therefore, a bed of each would be a necessity.

If you want to give a friend a buttonhole nosegay that shall be "just as pretty as it can be," you must have a bed of these Roses to draw from. A half-blown flower of Meteor, with its velvety, crimson petals, and a bud of Perle des Jardins, just showing its golden heart, with a leaf or two of green to set off the flowers--what a lovely harmony of rich color! Or, if your taste inclines you to more delicate colors, take a bud of Luciole, and a Catherine Mermet when its petals are just falling apart. Nothing can be lovelier, you think, till you have put half open Perle des Jardins with a dark purple or azure-blue Pansy. When you have done that, you are charmed with the manner in which the two colors harmonize and intensify each other, and you are sure there was never anything finer for a flower-lover to feast his eyes on. Put a tawny Safrano or Sunset bud with a purple Pansy and see what a royal combination of colors you have in the simple arrangement. Be sure to have a bed of Tea Roses, and make combinations to suit yourself.

In order to make a success of your bed of Tea Roses--though perhaps I ought to say ever-bloomers, for probably your selection will include other varieties than the Tea--you must have a rich soil for them to grow in. When a branch has borne flowers, it must be cut back to some strong bud. This bud will, if your soil is rich enough to encourage vigorous growth, soon become a branch, and produce flowers. It is by constant cutting back that you secure new growth, if the soil is in a condition to help it along, and only by securing this steady production and development of new branches can you expect many flowers. All depends on that. If proper treatment is given, you need not be without flowers, unless you cut them all, from June to October.

If I were to name all the desirable varieties, I might fill several pages with the list. Look over the catalogs of the florists and you will see that the variety is almost endless. If you do not care to invest money enough to secure the newer varieties, tell the dealer to whom you give your patronage what you want the plants for, and he will make a selection which will include some of the best kinds, and which will be sure to give you as good satisfaction as you would get from a selection of your own. Better, in most instances, for you make your selection from the description in the catalog, while he would select from his knowledge of the merits of the flower.