Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm

Sometimes in the early morning I went trout-fishing. There is more fascination and less waste tissue in that. I would creep down while the house was still and get my rod and basket, and take a sheltered lane that was like a green tunnel through the woods, where the birds were just tuning up for a concert, then out across the "bean-lot," to strike the brook at about the head of navigation – for trout.

They were plenty enough and just of the right size – that is to say, eight to eleven inches long – and easy enough to get if one was very careful. You could not cast for them; the brook was too small and brushy for that. You had to use a very short line, and wind it around the end of the rod, and work it through the branches, and then carefully, very carefully, unwind and let the hook drop lightly on the water. Then as likely as not there would be a swift, tingling tug, and, if you were lucky, an instant later you would have a beautiful red-speckled fellow landed among the grass and field flowers, his gay colors glancing in the sun.

The open places also required maneuvering. One does not walk up to the bank and fish for wild trout – not in a stream that is as clear as glass and where every fish in it can see the slightest movement on the bank. To fish such a place is to lie flat on the stomach and work forward inch by inch through the grass, Indian fashion, until the water is in reach. Even then you must not look, but feel, unwinding the line slowly, slowly, until the fly or worm taps the water. Then if you have done it well and the trout is there, and it is June, there will be results – sharp, quick, sudden results that insure the best breakfast in the world – hot fried trout, fresh from a New England brook.

The Joy went with me on some of these excursions. She liked to have me call her early and go tiptoing and whispering about our preparations and to wade off through the dewy grass in her rubber boots, leaving the rest of the house asleep. She generally carried the basket, and was deeply interested in my maneuvers when the cry of the "teacher" – bird and the call of the wood-thrush did not distract her attention. I can still see the grass up to her fat little waist, her comical blue apron, her dimpled round face and the sunlight on her hair. She had a deep pity for the trout, but her sporting instinct was deeper still. Sometimes when there was a slip, and a big shining fellow would go bouncing and splashing back into the brook, she would jump up and down and demand, excitedly:

"Why didn't you catch that one, Daddy? Why didn't you catch him? That was a big, big, big one?" And she walked very proudly when we had six or more to carry back for breakfast.

Strawberries and trout – how is that for a breakfast combination in June? Trout just from the water and strawberries fresh from the garden. We had planted a good patch of strawberries the August of our arrival and they had done wonderfully well for the first year. Often by the time we had come from fishing Elizabeth had been out and filled a bowl, and sometimes even made a short-cake, for we were old-fashioned enough to love short-cake – old-fashioned short-cake made with biscuit dough (not the sweet-cake kind) for breakfast. And breakfast with trout and short-cake – short-cake with cream, mind you! – in New England in June, when the windows open on the grass and the wood-thrushes are calling, is just about as near paradise as you can get in this old world.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I

Fate produced a man who had chickens to sell

With June the Pride and the Hope came home from school. The brook, the barn, Old Beek, and Mis' Cow all had their uses then – also a tent in the yard, a swing, hammock and whatnot. When God made the country He made it especially for children. Burning suns, a weedy garden and potato blight may dismay the old, but such things do not fret the young mind. As long as the brook is cool and the fields are sweet and there is fresh milk and succotash on the table, happy childhood is indifferent to care.

We were given to picnics. Often we packed some food things into a basket and went into the woods and spread them in a shady place. Lena, the Finn, sometimes accompanied these excursions and went quite mad with the delight of them, racing about and digging up flowers and shrubs to plant in the door-yard, fairly whooping it up in joyful Finnish and such English words as she had acquired. I believe the aspect of our woods reminded her of Finland.

Lena was a good soul, that is certain, and measurably instructive. We learned from her how priceless is the gift of good nature, which was the chief thing that kept her with us; also, to eat a number of dishes quite new to us, and that an apple-tree – or perhaps it was an apple, baked or in dumpling – was, in her speech, an "ominy poo." She was not strong on desserts, but she could always fall back on the ominy poo – meaning in a general way the big sweet-apple tree that grew by the barn and was loaded to the breaking-point with delicious fruit. Any baked apple is good, but a big, cold, baked sweet-apple – "punkin sweets," Westbury called them – with cold cream, plenty of it, and a sprinkle of sugar, is about the most blithesome thing in the world. Hurrah for the ominy poo! whether it be the tree, or the fruit, baked or in dumplings. When the strawberry passed and was not, the ominy poo reigned gloriously. I don't know what Lena called certain other dishes that from time to time she tried to substitute – some other kind of poo, maybe – I know we gradually persuaded her away from them into a better way of life.

Sometimes we joined our picnics with the Westburys' – loaded our baskets into a little hand-express wagon, or into the surrey behind Lord Beaconsfield – and these were quite elaborate affairs that required a good deal of preparation and meant a general holiday. More than once we spread long tables on the green of Westbury's shaded lawn that sloped down to the river and the mill, and was a picture-place, if ever there was one. Other days we went over the hills for huckleberries – and came home with pails of the best fruit that grows for pies, bar none. Happy days – days of peace – a true golden age, as it seems now. Will the world, I wonder, ever be so happy and golden again?

We had no intention of embarking in chickens when we settled in Brook Ridge. Neither of us had any love for chickens on foot, and we had no illusions about the fortunes that, according to certain books, could be made from a setting of eggs and a tin hen – an incubator, I mean. Also, our experiment with pigs had cooled us in the matter of live stock for profit.

Still, we did love chickens in their proper place – that is to say, with dumplings or dressing and some of the nice jellies and things which Elizabeth had made during those autumn months of our arrival. It seemed extravagant to have them often; chickens had become chickens since our long-ago early acquaintance with them, when "two bits" had been a fancy price for broilers and old hens. Elizabeth finally conceded that perhaps a few chickens – a very few, kept in a neat inclosure away from the garden – might be desirable. It would be so handy to have one when we wanted it. She even hinted that the sound of a satisfied and reflective hen singing about the barn would add a rural note to our pastoral harmony. Then, of course, there would be the eggs.

Fate produced a man, just at that moment, who had chickens to sell. He had been called away, and would let his flock go cheap – he had about a dozen, he thought, assorted as to age and condition. We could have them for fifty cents each. It seemed an opportunity. William Deegan was instructed to prepare the neat inclosure, which he did with enthusiasm, William being enamoured of anything that was alive.

The man who had been called away had made a poor count of his flock. He arrived with nearly twice as many as he said, but we were in the mood by that time, and took over the bunch. They were not a very inspiring lot. They were of no special breed, but just chickens – a long-legged, roostery set, with a mixture of frazzled hens of years and experience. We said, however, that food and care would improve them. Remember what it had done for Mis' Cow.

"Ye'll be after eatin' thim roosters, prisently," William commented, as we looked at them through the inclosing wire, "before they be gettin' much older. Ye'll be wantin' eggs from the hins."

William's remark seemed wise. We were wanting the eggs, all right, and those ten or twelve speedy-looking roosters ought to go to the platter without much delay. We would feed liberally and begin on the best ones, forthwith.

Still, we did not have chicken that day, nor the next. There is nothing so perverse as the human appetite. Those were not really bad chickens, and in a few days they were much better. If any one of those middle-aged roosters had been brought to us by the butcher we would have paid the usual dollar for it, and, baked and browned and served with fixings, it would have gone well enough, even though a trifle muscular and somewhat resilient.

But somehow this was a different proposition. I don't believe I can explain just why. There was something about the aggregation as a whole that was discouraging. I suspect William's remark that they must be eaten "prisently" had something to do with it. Eating those chickens was not to be an entertainment, a pastime, but a job – a job that increased, for the "old hins" did not lay, or very sparingly – an egg a day being about the average. William brought it in solemnly. We had got to devour that entire flock of chickens, and the thought became daily less attractive. Even our tribe of precious ones, who had always been chicken-hungry before, suddenly became indifferent to the idea of chicken fried, baked, or in fricassee. I said, at last, we would have to have a series of picnics. Anything would taste good at a picnic.

I don't remember how many we used up in that way, but I know the business of getting rid of those chickens seemed interminable. We tried working them off on William and Lena, but even they balked before the end was reached. I have heard it stated that no one can eat thirty quails in thirty days. I don't know about that, but I know that when we tried to put over a dozen chickens on Lena and William in six weeks it was a failure. At last we were reduced to one old hen, who by general consent was made immune. Also free. The garden was too far advanced for her to damage it. The door of the neat wire inclosure was left open for her to go and come at will. There was danger of foxes at night, but we did not shut it. The foxes, however, did not come. Even foxes have to draw the line somewhere. That venerable old lady wandered about the place, pecking and contentedly singing, and in that part we really became fond of her. I think she died at last of old age.

II

I planted some canterbury-bells

I believe our agriculture may be said to have been successful. William was a faithful gardener. His corn, beans, pease, and potatoes were abundant, and all the other good things, whether to eat boiled, raw, or roasted. Our table was almost embarrassed by these riches, which perhaps helped us to weaken on the chicken idea.

I think our favorite staple was corn – green sweet corn, carried directly from the patch to the pot, and from the pot to the table. If you have not eaten it under these conditions you have never really known what green corn should be like. The flavor of corn begins to go the moment it is pulled from the stalk, also the moment it leaves the pot. Cooked instanter, buttered, with salt and pepper, eaten the moment it does not blister your mouth, it is the pride of the garden. Cooked the next day and eaten when it has become cool and flabby, it becomes a reproach. It is different with beans. Beans keep, and, hot or cold or warmed over, they are never to be despised. The heaping platters of corn and the bowls of beans that our family could destroy after a morning of hearty exercise were rather staggering. Then presently the cantaloups came – fragrant, juicy ones, and all the salads, and – oh, well, never mind the list – I have heard of living like a lord, but I can't imagine any lord ever living as near to the sap and savor of life's luxuries as we did.

I must not overlook our rye. By June it was a cloth of gold, and of such elevation that I could barely see over it. There is something stately and wonderful about standing rye, when one is close enough to see the individual stalks. They are so tall and slim that you cannot understand why the lightest wind does not lay them flat. Yet all day long they sway and ripple and billow in the summer wind, and unless the heavy, driving storm comes the ranks remain unbroken to the last and face the sickle in golden dress parade.

Westbury came with a force of men one blazing morning, and the sound of the cutting-machine was a music that carried me back to days when I had followed the reaper in the Mississippi Valley, from the first ray of sunrise to the last ray of sunset, eaten five times a day, drunk water out of a jug under the shock, and once picked up a bundle with a snake in it and jumped fourteen feet, more or less, straight up in the air. It was not that I was afraid, you understand, but just surprised. Snakes nearly always surprise me. I remember once when I was a little boy, on the way to visit a friend about my size, I took a short cut across a little clearing, and was hopping and singing along when I hopped onto something firm that moved twistingly under my bare foot. I did not jump or run that time; I merely opened out my wings and flew. Corn-rows, brush-piles, fences, were as nothing. I sailed over them like a gnat till I reached the big main road. I was not interested in short cuts, after that, and I didn't cross that field again for years. I was not afraid, but I did not wish to be surprised again. I recall another time —

But this is not a snake story. I told Westbury that I could bind as well as ever, and would give them an exhibition of a few rounds. But it was impressively hot and at about the third bundle I remembered an important memorandum I wanted to make, and excused myself. It was quite pleasant in my study, and I kept on making memorandums until by and by Westbury sent the Hope to tell me that they'd like me to come out and give the rest of the exhibition. It was not very considerate of Westbury when I was busy that way, and I ignored his suggestion.

We did not go in for selling seed rye, as I had once contemplated, but I think we might have done so if there had been a demand. Westbury and the men put it into the barn, and later flailed it out on the barn floor, after the manner of Abraham and Boaz and Bildad the Shuhite, beating the flails in time and singing a song that Bildad himself composed. Who would have a dusty, roaring thrashing-machine when one can listen to the beating flails and be back with Boaz and Bildad in the days when the world was new?

Just a word more of our vegetable experiments. For one thing, our asparagus-bed thrived. Those hot mornings I put in paid the biggest return of any early-morning investment I ever made. Each year it came better and better – in May and June we could not keep up with it and shared it with our neighbors. The farm-dweller who does not plant an asparagus-bed as quickly as he can get the ground ready, and the plants for it, makes a grave mistake.

Perhaps I ought to record here that our sweet-potatoes were a success. We were told that they would not grow in New England, but they grew for us and were sweet and plentiful.

The waning of the year in a garden is almost the best of it, I think. Spring with its thrill of promise, summer with its fulfilment – meager or abundant, according to the season – are over. Then comes September and October, the season of cool, even brisk, mornings and mellow afternoons. It is remnant-day in the garden, the time to take a basket and go bargain-hunting on the "as is" counter. Where the carrots have been gathered there are always a few to be found, if one looks carefully, and in the melon-patch there is sure to be one or two that still hold the bouquet of summer, with something added that has come with the first spicy mornings of fall. Also, if one is lucky, he will find along the yellowing rows a few ears of corn, tender enough and sweet enough for the table, with not quite the flavor of July, perhaps, but with something that appeals as much to the imagination, that belongs with the spectral sunlight, the fading stalks and vines, and carries the memory back to that first day of April planting. To bring in a basket, however scanty, of those odds and ends and range them side by side on the kitchen table affords a gratification that is not entirely material, I believe, for there is a sort of pensive sadness in it that I have been told is related to poetry.

I have said little of our flowers, but they were a large part – sometimes I think the largest part – of our happiness. Going back through the summers now, I cannot quite separate those of that first year from those of the summers that followed. It does not matter; sooner or later we had all the old-fashioned things: hollyhocks in clusters and corners, and on the high ground in a long row against the sky; poppies and bleeding-heart, columbine and foxglove, bunches of crimson bee-balm and rows of tall delphinium in marvelous shades of blue. And we had banks of calliopsis and sunflowers – the small sunflowers of Kansas, that bloom a hundred or more to a stalk – and tall phlox whose fragrance carries one back to some far, forgotten childhood. Then there were the roses – the tea-roses that one must be careful of in winter and the hardy climbers – the Dorothy Perkins and ramblers clambering over the walls. As I look back now through the summers I seem to see a tangle of color stretching across the years. It is our garden – our flowers – always a riot of disorder, always a care and a trial, always beloved and glorious.

One year I planted some canterbury-bells – the blue and the white. They are biennials, and bloom the second year. The blue ones came wonderfully, but the white ones apparently failed. I did not plant them again, for I went in mainly for perennials that, once established, come year after year. I tried myosotis, too, but that also disappeared after the second year. Our garden, such as it was, was a hardy garden, where only the fittest survived.

There was an accompaniment to our garden. It was the brook. Nearly always, as I dug and planted, I could hear its voice. Sometimes it rose strong and insistent – in spring, when rains were plenty; sometimes in August when the sky for weeks had been hard and dry, it sank to a low murmur, but it was seldom silent. All the year through its voice was a lilting undertone, and the seasons ran away to the thread of its silver song.

After all, a garden in any season is whatever it seems to its owner. To one who plans and plants it, tends and loves it, any garden is a world in little, a small realm of sentient personalities, of quaint and lovely associations, of anxious strivings and concerns, of battles, of triumphs, and of defeats. To one who makes a garden under compulsion it is merely an inclosure of dirt and persistent weeds, a place of sun and sweat and some more or less perverse and reluctant vegetables that would be much more pleasantly obtained from the market-wagon. There is no personality in it to him, nor any poetry. I know this, because I was once that kind of a gardener myself. It was when I was a boy and had to hoe one every Saturday forenoon, when there were a number of other things I wanted to do. It was almost impossible to study lovingly the miracle of the garden when duty was calling me to play short-stop on the baseball nine that I knew was assembling on the common, with some irresponsible one-gallus substitute in my place. Yet even in those days I loved the fall garden. The hoeing was all done then, the weeds were no longer my enemies. One could dig around among them and find a belated melon, and in the mellow sunlight, between faded corn-rows, scoop out its golden or ruby heart and reflect on many things.

III

And how the family did grow up!

As I look back now, that first year on our abandoned farm seems a good deal like the years that followed it; but it could not have been so, for when I consider to-day's aspect and circumstance I realize that each of our twelve years of ownership furnished events that were to us unusual, some of them, at the time, even startling.

We must have enjoyed a kind of prosperity, I suppose, for we seem always to have been planning or doing something to enlarge the house or improve its surroundings, and quite a good deal of money can be spent in that way. I think it was about the second year that for the sake of light and air we let out three dormer windows on the long roof, and I remember that in order not to make a mistake in their architecture we drove thirty miles one morning to see a house like ours which had owned its windows from the beginning. We loved our old house, you see, and did not wish to do it an injury. I think it was about the same time that we pulled off the plaster from the living-room ceiling and left the exposed beams – old hewn timbers which we tinted down with a dull stain. William Deegan and I stained those beams together, and our friendship ripened during that employment. William had been with us about a year at this period – not steadily, because now and then would come a day when with sadness and averted eyes he would say, "I think I'll be goin' now, for a little while," after which the effacement of William for perhaps a week, followed by his return some morning, pale, delapidated, as on the morning of his first arrival.

In the beginning I had argued, even remonstrated, but without effect. William only said, humbly: "It comes over me to be goin', and I have to do it. I'll be dacent ag'in, whin I get back."

During one such period of absence there came a telephone call from the sheriff of the nearest town of size.

"Do you know a man named William Deegan?"

"We do."

"He is in the calaboose here. His fine and costs amount to five dollars. Do you want to redeem him?"

"We do."

Clearly William's vacation had been unusual, even for him. We sent up the money and William was home that night, more crushed, more pale, more dilapidated than ever. He had worn a new suit away. He returned with a mere rag. We thought this might cure him, but nothing could do that. We could redeem William, but he could not redeem himself. These occasional lapses were the only drawback of that faithful, industrious soul, and we let them go. We had been unable to forgive them in the light-headed, literary Gibbs.

But William here is a digression; I was speaking of our improvements. We decided one year that we must have more flowers – a real garden. We made it on the side of the house where before had been open field – walled in a space where there was an apple-tree, a place large enough to assemble all the things we loved most and that grew with an economy of care. In a little while it was a glorious tangle that we admired exceedingly, and that our artist friends tried to paint.

Another year we converted my study behind the chimney into a pantry, opened it into the kitchen, made the "best room" into a dining-room, and left the long living-room with the big fireplace for library use only. That was a radical change and I had to build me a study over on a cedar slope – a good deal of a house, in fact, where I could gather my traps about me, for with the years my work had somehow invited a paraphernalia of shelves and files, and a variety of other furniture that required room. It was better for a growing-up family, too. With me out of the house, they had more freedom to grow up in, which, after all, was their human right, and the growing-up machinery could revolve as noisily as it pleased without furnishing a procrastinating author an added excuse for not working. No author with a growing-up family should work in his own home. He is impossible enough under even the best conditions.