"I have bought a farm."
The wife looked incredulous. The past four years Alfred had optioned as many different farms, always dissuaded by the wife to give them up. In fact, the wife did not show the husband"s enthusiasm as to the bucolic life.
"I"ve bought a farm: Bienville, a part of the old Goodrich tract ceded to that family by the government for services in the Revolutionary War, opposite "high banks" on the Olentangy River, where the ruins of the old fort are. It is a place of historic interest. The river, the best ba.s.s stream in Ohio, skirts the east side of the farm. There"s a lovely brook running through the farm, and the largest virgin forest in the county.
Why, the timber in that woods will sell for more than I paid for the whole farm. But I will not cut a single tree down, only an occasional sh.e.l.l-bark hickory tree to smoke our meat. Uncle Jake always smoked his meat with hickory wood and he cured the finest meat in Fayette County, generally a little too salty; we must look out for that."
"The bottom land is a farm in itself. There are two orchards, an old one and a young one. The old one is about run out and I"ll cut it down when the young one comes in. The wood will be fine to burn. Dry apple wood makes the hottest fire."
"Dried apples? What are you talking about--burning dried apples?"
But Alfred was not to be interrupted. "The hill land is not so good but I"ll bring that up. I"ve bought a book on Liming Land. I won"t have a great deal of stock to begin with. It"s my intention to begin with a few of each species and breed up, that"s the way Doctor Hartman does.
"The hill land is not productive now and the bottom land will have to supply the farm until we get the hills tillable. There"s only one thing that troubles me. The bottoms overflow every time the river rises. As you know, the Olentangy rises every time it rains."
"Well, for Heaven"s sake, you haven"t bought a farm like that, have you?
Now, Al, you are just like your father. Your mother often told me he could make money but always had a plan to spend it and his investments always proved failures. Why don"t you let this farm business go? You"ve got enough on your hands without a farm."
Alfred never noticed the interruption.
"Chickens are very profitable. Poultry raising is one of the most profitable things about a farm, and the average farmer does not give his chickens any attention. I expect you to look after the chicken end of the farm. All the profits will be yours."
Even this liberal offer did not interest the wife greatly.
"The first thing I am going to do is to build a d.y.k.e or levee along the river bank to protect the bottoms from overflows. This must be done this winter. Mr. Monsarrat is at work on one on his place. He went to the expense of hiring regular d.y.k.e-builders, civil engineers and all that sort of thing. I"ll just hire farmers and their teams. I"ve got onto a man that built all the d.y.k.es down toward Chillicothe. He knows just how to construct them. I"ll hire him to superintend the work. Of course, I"ll be on the ground all the time to look after the details."
"When will you have time to attend to matters of that kind? Now, Al, you"re just hatching up a lot of trouble for us. Why don"t you rest? You have been working all these years to lay by a few dollars and now you are contriving to spend them. We know nothing of farming. We will be worried to death."
"Now don"t get excited, Tillie. Hold your horses. I"ve thought the whole matter out. Now listen to me. You can"t farm in winter, can you?" and Alfred waited for his wife to answer. The wife deigned no reply; she either considered the question too deep or too silly. Alfred answered his own question: "No, you can"t farm in winter. This is November. I"ve fixed it that by the time we are ready to farm we will be all prepared.
I"ve subscribed for three farm journals, a poultry paper and a dairying book. The farm journals are published in New York, Los Angeles and Denver. This will educate us up to farming methods in all sections. What they don"t know in one section, we will learn from another. You leave it all to me. Country life will make another woman out of you and Pearl will like it. It will be good for you all. It"s the dream of my life realized and I do hope you will enter into my plans and be the help you have always been. I"m going to have a horse and phaeton for your exclusive use. I don"t want you to do anything. Just sort of look over things. You need not read the farm journals unless you are interested.
You read up on poultry and the dairy. They go together. All I"ll ask you to do is to look after those two things, the poultry and the dairy. I"ll take care of the farming."
Bob Brown, (no relation to Bill Brown), editor of the _Louisville Times_, one of Alfred"s warmest friends, published a feature article, a brief history of Alfred"s career, touching on his newspaper experiences, however, omitting the cow-doctor experience. The article concluded with a lengthy write-up of Alfred as a farmer. The paper was carried in triumph and read to Mrs. Field and Pearl. Bob predicted the success for Alfred in farming that he had attained in minstrelsy. Several ill.u.s.trations in Bob"s write-up exhibited Alfred in farmer"s garb, feeding cattle, sheep and hogs out of his hand.
The wife observed: "Why, you haven"t got sheep, hogs or cows as yet; have you imposed upon Mr. Brown?"
"No, certainly not. Bob is an up-to-date newspaper man. Newspapers that wait to print things as they are, get left. Newspapers that print things as they are to be, are the live, up-to-date, always read journals. Bob knows I"ll have things just as he represents them."
Bob Brown"s write-up was greatly appreciated by Alfred even after Emmett Logan informed him that Bob had written him confidentially that he, Alfred, had turned farmer, but he did not know what for, as he felt certain Alfred could not plant his feet in the road and raise dust; in fact, he did not think Alfred could raise a parasol.
Alfred was advised that a club, of which he was an honorary member, would entertain him--that it would be a farmer"s night. Alfred well knew there would be great fun at the expense of the farmer. He would be the b.u.t.t of all the jokes the busy brains of a dozen or more keen wits could devise. Therefore, he studied for days that he might in a humorous way parry the jibes. Nothing humorous in connection with the farm could be evolved from his brain. He was too ambitious, too enthusiastic a farmer to ridicule any phase of his newly adopted calling.
Therefore, when the chairman concluded his introduction in these words: "And now, gentlemen, we have a farmer as our guest here tonight. It has been the plaint of the farmer from time out of mind that he had not representation; that he had not voice in affairs that had to do with his vocation. The newly made clod-hopper is respectfully informed that he can air his grievances to the fullest extent and that, unlike others, we will not pa.s.s resolutions of acquiescence in his views and then repudiate them. We will file them in our archives as a memento of the fact that another good man has gone wrong. Alfred, it is the fear of all your friends in this club that the minstrel show will not make enough money to run the farm."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Alfred as a Farmer]
Alfred replied to the introduction:
"Gentlemen, the introduction honors me; to be a farmer has been the dream of my life. Beginning life on a farm, I ask no more pleasant ending than to live the last days of my earthly time on a farm.
"The facetious remarks of the toastmaster do not explain my reasons for engaging in farming. It is true, financial consideration did not govern me in this matter, although I do hope to make the farm self-supporting.
If I do not, I shall not feel that I have made a bad investment.
"In seeking the quietude of the farm, I was actuated by that yearning that comes to all men who have led a busy life--to turn back the years and try to live the days of patches, freckles, stone bruises and laughter; to live those days again when there was only one care in the world, not to be late for meals.
"I want to go way back yonder in my life to a house half hidden from view by the locusts and maples, where the bees hummed and swarmed. I want a scent of the honeysuckle as the maples and locusts budded forth in what seemed to me the morning of the world--springtime. I want to follow the path down by the big spring, through the hazel bushes, where the cotton tail jumped up just ahead of you and the redbird sang his sweetest song. I can follow the path in my mind as the hunting dog follows the scent, down to the old rock hole where the clear, cool waters of the creek formed an eddy, in which the chub and yellow perch lurked and jumped at the bait as they never did anywhere else.
"I want to feel that ecstacy that only comes to a boy when the bottle cork you used for a bobber goes under water, when something is pulling on the line like a scared mule, bending double the pole cut in the thicket on your way to the creek. I want to throw the pole away, roll up the tangled line, hide it away in the corn crib, and sneak back to the house the opposite direction from the creek, that the folks wouldn"t suspect I had been fishing on Sunday.
"I want to go back yonder in my life where the hills meet the sky in a purple haze, where you feel yourself growing with the trees, where the smell of new earth calls you to the woods, where the dogwood is budding and the may-apple peeps up through last year"s leaves at the new leaves budding out on the grand old maples above.
"I want to go so far back from the worries of city life that the crowing of the c.o.c.k and the cackle of the hen will tell me it is morning, instead of the clanging of bells and blowing of whistles. I want to go back yonder where the setting sun, instead of the city lights, will tell me it is night. I want to hear the cricket and whip-poor-will as we heard them in the evenings long ago, as we listened with bated breath to the jack o"-lantern legends that stirred our childish fancy until the croaking of the frogs sent us to bed to dream of uncanny things.
"I want to live in the happiness of an autumn when the frost was on the pumpkin and the fodder in the shock; when the hickory nuts falling on the ground called the squirrels; when the stars gleamed bright enough to afford you light to bring a "possum out of a tree with the old flintlock musket--how you cherished that gun. And when the snow hid the roads and paths like the white coverlet on the big bed in the spare room and the big backlog crackled and burned on the hearth, and the red apples glistened in the firelight, and the popcorn imitation of a snowstorm was more realistic than any artificial one that you have since witnessed.
"How you shivered as you undressed in the room above going to bed, but how soundly you slept after you got warm. I want to go back to one of those hallowed Sunday mornings in summer when the hush of heaven seemed to fall on earth; when the quiet that spread over hill and vale seemed to announce the Spirit of G.o.d in some unusual sense; when the peace of heaven seemed so near you felt its happiness.
"While living the old days over--the days way back yonder--I want to live in the love of my friends of today. Whilst I cherish only a memory of the friends of the old days, I hold, after my family, the love and esteem of my friends of today above all things in this life.
"Gentlemen, come down to the farm. Visit with me and endeavor to live the life of a boy again, if only for a day."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bill Brown as a Farmer]
Alfred"s response was not what the a.s.semblage expected. Congratulations were showered upon him. The speech was reproduced in newspapers all over the country. Printed copies of it were circulated. The sentiment expressed therein seemed to have struck a responsive chord in the hearts of all men who love to live close to Nature. It does not seem possible that any one would have the hardihood to endeavor to controvert the sentiments set forth in Alfred"s tribute to the "Back to the Farm" life, yet there appeared in all the papers that had given publicity to Alfred"s speech, a diatribe from Bill Brown, headed "The Truth," as follows:
PITTSBURGH, PA.
I have read with much interest Al. G. Field"s address on "The Farm." If you will pardon my profanity for a minute, I will say "d.a.m.n the Farm."
Our paths through the woods on the farm must have been different. Al. pursued the cotton tail through the level and green gra.s.sy meadows, getting pleasure in pursuit, and which left no traces of his going; I pursued the ever ready pole cat through hollows, over logs and stone piles, which left nothing but bruises, but I found more pleasure in pursuit than possession.
Al. had patches, freckles and laughter; I had rags, bruises and tears. Al. took the path down to the spring through the hazel bushes; I took the stony road to a mudhole through thorns and blackberry bushes.
Al. caught nice yellow perch with a cork bobber; I caught suckers with a paper bobber, for there were no corks used on our farm. Al. fished on Sunday; I went to church at 10 o"clock, Sunday School at 11, church again at 1:30, and perchance prayer meeting in the evening.
Al. smelled the new earth from a two seated surrey or horseback; I smelled the new earth from the back of the harrow or plow.
Al. watched the dogwoods bud, and breathed their fragrance as they budded; I felt the dogwood switches drop on my poor back and bare limbs.
Al. had to be told when it was dark and when it was morning. I knew when I was told to quit work that it was dark and bed-time, and knew that it was daylight when I was yanked out of bed to walk two miles before breakfast to bring in a lot of cows.
Al. had a nice "coverlit" over his bed, and turned into a nice feather bed and rested in peace. I rolled myself up in a worn-out horse blanket, and turned into a tick filled with straw, shivering until I got to sleep and kept on shivering. Oh yes, I cherish the days on the farm and will never forget them.
But a more pleasant recollection to me is the day that I left the cackling of the hens, the braying of the donkey, the bellowing of the cows, and the old plow standing in the furrow, where I hope it still stands.
The new stack of hay might have brought fragrance to Al"s sensitive nostrils, but to me it seemed as well suited as a reservoir for perfume as for a monument in a cemetery.
I want to live in the love and esteem of my friends of today; I cherish the memory of the old friends, and I value their love and esteem, but the memory of the old straw pile back of the barn still clings to me closer than all these, and e"er I get ready to go back to the darned old farm, I will make myself a pair of wooden bills and perch myself on the stake and rider fence, prepared to take my turn with the hennery.
"Visit me," he says, "and endeavor to live the life of a boy over again on the farm." Not for Bill, and I can but repeat what I said in my profane way, again and again.