Dwellers in Arcady: The Story of an Abandoned Farm

Valley Forge! Heavens! We were within twenty miles of Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill. At the pace we had been going it did not seem reasonable. This must be enchantment, sure enough.

"Look here," I said, "you don't mean that this is Valley Forge where Washington was quartered."

"Don't know anything about that," he said, still grunting over the crooked limb, "but I've been quartered here for more 'n sixty years, an' it's always been the same Valley Forge in my time."

"Is – is this Connecticut?"

"That's what it is."

I breathed easier. If he had said Pennsylvania it would have meant that we were a hundred and fifty miles from home.

"Do you know of any place called the Glen?"

"Of course; right up ahead a few miles. Where'd you folks come from, anyway? You don't appear to know much about locations."

I side-stepped, thanking him profusely. We were all right, then, but it seemed a narrow escape.

At last we entered the Glen and recognized certain landmarks. It was a somber place now – its aspect weirdly changed since the first days of our coming. Then it had been a riot of summer-time, the cliffs a mat and tangle of green that had shut us in. On this dull December evening, with its vines and shrubs and gaunt trees bare, its pointed cedars and hemlocks the only green, its dark water swirling under overhanging rocks, it had become an entrance to Valhalla, the dim abode of the gods.

How friendly Westbury's lights looked when we crossed the bridge by the mill and turned into the drive, and what gracious comfort there was in his bright fire and warm, waiting supper. We did not go up the hill that night. Good Old Beek found rest and food and society in Westbury's big red barn.

IV

The difficulty was to get busy

I have referred more than once, I am sure, to my study behind the chimney, a tiny place of about seven by nine feet, once, no doubt, the "parlor bedroom." I selected it chiefly because of its size. I said one could condense his thoughts so much better in a limited area. I shelved one side and end of it to the ceiling, put dull-green paper on the walls, padded its billowy floor with excelsior, put down dull-green denim as a rug basis, and painted the woodwork to match. Then I set my work-table in the center, where I could reach almost anything without getting up; and certainly with its capable fireplace it was as cozy and inviting a work-room as one would find in a week's travel.

The difficulty was to get busy at the condensing process. Work was pressing. Not exactly the work, either, but the need of it. No, I mean the necessity of it. It was the need of funds that was pressing – that is what I have been trying to convey. With all the buying and improving, and the loads of new indispensables that Westbury was constantly bringing from the nearest town of size, the exchequer was running low. I am not really so lazy, once I get started, but I have a constitutional hesitancy in the matter of getting started. My will and enthusiasm are both in good supply, but my ability to sit down and really begin is elusive.

It was especially so that winter; there were so many excuses for not getting started. Mornings I would rise firm in the resolve that the day and hour were at hand. After breakfast I would determinedly start for the room behind the chimney. Unfortunately I had to pass through our "best room" to get there. There was certain to be a picture or something a little out of place in that room. Whatever it was, it must be attended to. It would annoy me to leave a thing like that unremedied. One's mind must be quite untrammeled to condense. Sometimes I had to rearrange several of the pictures, and straighten the books, and pull the rugs around a little, before I felt ready for the condensing process. But then I would be certain to notice something out in the yard that was not in place. We took a pride in our yard. Once outside, one thing generally led to another, and in the course of time I would be pawing over stuff in the barn. Then it was about luncheon-time – it would hardly be worth starting the condensing business till afterward.

Perhaps I would actually get into the room behind the chimney after luncheon, but one could not begin work until the fire was replenished and a supply of wood brought. Then while one was at it one might as well get in a supply of fuel for the other fires, so as to have a clear afternoon for a good substantial beginning.

Oh, well, you see where all those paltry subterfuges ended. It was the easiest thing in the world to remember something I wanted to tell Westbury – something important – and our telephone lines were not yet connected. It would be about five when I got back, and of course one could not start a piece of work late in the day when one was all worn out. To-morrow, bright and early, would be the time.

Then, just as likely as not, to-morrow would be one of those bad-luck days. In a diary which I kept at the time I find a record of a day of that sort.

Began this morning by breaking a lamp chimney before I was dressed. I continued by stepping on Pussum's tail on the way down-stairs in the dark, which caused me to slide and scrape the rest of the way. Elizabeth came to the head of the stairs with a fresh lamp and the remark that she thought I had given up using such language. In applying the liniment I upset the greasy stuff on the living-room rug and it required an hour's brisk rubbing to get it out. Not being satisfied with this, I turned over a bottle of ink when I sat down after breakfast to dash off an important note before mail-time. Nobody could think consecutively after a series like that, so I went out for some fresh air and decided to clean up a rough corner by the brook. I scratched my nose, strained my wrist, and mashed my finger with a stone. Only a 100-per-cent. Christian could remain calm on such a day. To-morrow I shall go warily and softly, and really begin work.

I did, in fact, against all intention and good judgment, begin one evening just about bedtime, and worked until quite late. It was not a bad beginning, either, as such things go – at least, I have tried harder and made worse ones. After that the condensing process went better. I could any time find excuses for not working, but I did not hunt for them so anxiously. I was pretty fairly under way by Christmas, and the room behind the chimney had all at once become the most alluring place in the world.

CHAPTER SIX

I

The magic of the starlit tree

We have always had a tree for Christmas. Long ago, far back in our early flat-dwelling days, we had our first one, and I remember we shopped for it Christmas Eve among the bright little Harlem groceries where they had them ranged outside, picking very carefully for one symmetrical in shape and small of size and price, to fit our tiny flat and, oh yes, indeed, our casual income. I remember, too, that when it was finally bought I put it on my shoulder with a proud feeling, and we drifted farther, picking up the trimmings – the tinsel and gay ornaments, the small gifts for the one very small person who had so recently come to live with us, discussing each purchase with due deliberation, going home at last with rather more than we could afford, I fear, for I recall further that we did not have enough left next morning to buy butter for breakfast. How young we were then, and how poor, and how happy! and Christmas morning, with its twinkling mystery, was the most precious thing of the whole year.

It still remained so. Time could not dim the magic of the starlit tree. Another little person had come, and another. A larger tree and more decorations were needed, and the presents grew in number and variety, but the old charm of secret preparation, and morning gifts, and the lights that first twinkled around a manger, did not fade.

We did not buy a tree at Brook Ridge. There was no need. Across the road, partway up the slope, was a collection of green and shapely little cedars – a regular Santa Claus grove – and on the afternoon before Christmas, a gray, still afternoon, heavy with mystic portent, Elizabeth and I took a small ax and climbed up there, and picked and selected, just as we had done in those earlier years, and came home with our tree, stealthily carrying it in the back way, to the wood-house, and fitting it to the small green stand that we had used and preserved from year to year. The little girl for whom we had bought the first tree was the Pride, now aged twelve, and no longer without knowledge of the Christmas saint, but the romance of not knowing, of still believing in it all, was too precious to be put away yet, and she was off to bed with the others to bring more quickly the joyous morning. Alone, as heretofore, Elizabeth and I tied and marked the tissue packages, and in some of the books wrote rhymes, such as only Santa Claus can think of when he has finished his remote year of toil and has started out with his loaded sleigh to strew happiness around the world.

I suppose there is no more delightful employment than to watch the thing that will give a splendid joy to one's children grow and glisten under one's hands – to view it at different angles during the process; to note how it begins to look "Christmasy," to add a touch here, a brightness there, to see it at last radiant and complete, ready for the morning illumination. On the topmost branch each year there was always the same little hanging ornament, a swinging tinseled cherub that we had bought for the very first little tree and the very first little girl, in the days when we had been so young, so poor, and so happy.

It was midnight when the last touch was given and the cherub was swinging at the top, and it was only a wink or two afterward, it seemed, that there were callings back and forth from small beds and a general demand for investigation. A hurried semi-dressing, a fire blazing up the chimney, a door thrown open upon a sparkling, spangled tree. Eager exclamations, moments of awed silence, after which the thrilling distribution of gifts. Human life holds few things better or happier than such a Christmas morning. Whatever else the Christ-child brought to the world, that alone would make his coming a boon to mankind.

On our wall hung a quaint framed print of the first Christmas family, and under it some verses by the now all-but-forgotten poet, Edwin Waugh. In those days it was our custom, when the distribution was over and the morning light filled the room, to gather in front of the picture and sing the verses to a simple tune of our own. It was a poor little ceremony, but, remembering it now, I am glad that we thought it worth while. The verses are certainly so, and I want to preserve them here – they are so little known.

CHRISTMAS CAROL

By Edwin Waugh

Long time ago in Palestine,
Upon a wintry morn,
All in a lowly cattle-shed
The Prince of Peace was born.

The clouds fled from the gloomy sky,
The winds in silence lay,
And the stars shone bright with strange delight
To welcome in that day.

His parents they were simple folk
And simple lives they led,
And in the ways of righteousness
This little child was bred.

In gentle thought and gentle deed
His early days went by,
And the light His youthful steps did lead
Came down from heaven on high.

He was the friend of all the poor
That wander here below;
It was His only joy on earth
To ease them of their woe.

In pain He trod His holy path,
By sorrow sorely tried;
It was for all mankind He lived,
And for mankind He died.

Like Him let us be just and pure,
Like Him be true alway,
That we may find the peace of mind
That never fades away.